How Sir Tord Fought For Charles Of Sweden


In the year 1450 and the succeeding period there was great disorder in

the Scandinavian kingdoms. The Calmar Union was no longer satisfactory to

the people of Sweden, who were bitterly opposed to being ruled by a

Danish king. There were wars and intrigues and plots and plans, with

plenty of murder and outrage, as there is sure to be in such troublous

times. There was king after king, none of them pleasing to the people.

King Erik behaved so badly that neither Sweden nor Denmark would have

anything to do with him, and he became a pirate, living by plunder. Then

Duke Christopher of Bavaria was elected king of Scandinavia, but he also

acted in a way that made every one glad when he died. In those days there

was a great nobleman in Sweden, named Karl Knutsson, who had a hand in

everything that was going on. One thing especially made him very popular

at that time, when a new king was to be elected. The spring had been very

dry and there was danger of a complete failure of the crops, but on the

day when Karl landed in Stockholm, May 23, 1450, there came plentiful

rains and the people rejoiced, fancying that in some way he had brought

about the change of weather. So, when the lords assembled to elect a new

king, Karl received sixty-two out of seventy votes, while the people

shouted that they would have no other king. He was then crowned king as

Charles VIII. There had been only one Charles before him, but somehow the

mistake was made of calling him Charles VIII., and in later years came

Charles IX., X., etc., the mistake never being rectified.



All this is in introduction to a tale we have to tell, that of a bold

champion of King Charles. For the new king had many troubles to contend

with. The king of Denmark in especial gave him much trouble, and the

southern province of West Gothland was in danger of seceding from his

rule. In this dilemma he chose his cousin, Sir Tord Bonde, a young but

daring and experienced warrior, as the captain of his forces in that

province. He could not have made a better choice, and the stirring career

of Sir Tord was so full of strange and exciting events that we must

devote this tale to his exploits.



Loedoese, a stronghold of Gothland, was still held by the Danes, and Sir

Tord's first adventure had to do with this place. On a dark, rainy, and

stormy night he led a party of shivering horsemen towards the town,

galloping onward at headlong speed over the muddy road and reaching the

place before day-dawn. Utterly unexpectant of such a coming, the Danes

were taken by surprise and all made prisoners, Sir Tord's men feeding

luxuriously on the enemy's meat and wine as some recompense for their wet

night's journey.



Master of the place without a blow, Sir Tord found there a bag of

letters, containing some that had to do with plots against the king.

These letters he sent to King Charles, but they put him upon a new

adventure of his own. One of the traitors was Ture Bjelke, master of

Axewalla Castle, and Sir Tord, fancying that the traitor would be as

welcome a present to the king as his letters, set out for the castle with

thirty men.



On arriving there Ture, not dreaming that his treason had been

discovered, admitted his visitor without hesitation. The troopers were

also permitted to enter, Sir Tord having told them to come in groups of

five or six only, so as not to excite suspicion by their numbers.



That night, while they sat at table, and just as the cabbage was being

carried in, Sir Tord sprang up and seized Ture firmly by the collar,

calling out that he arrested him as a traitor to the king. The knight's

men sprang up to defend him, but Sir Tord's men attacked them with sword

and fist, the matter ending in the men as well as their master being

taken prisoners, and the castle falling into Sir Tord's hands.



On receiving the letters, Charles laid them before the senate at

Stockholm, but the traitors were men of such power and note, and there

was so much envy and jealousy of Charles among the lords, that he dared

not attempt to punish the plotters as they deserved, but was obliged to

pardon them. As for Ture and his men, they managed to escape from the

place where they had been left for safe keeping, and made their way to

Denmark.





Meanwhile Sir Tord Bonde was kept busy, for King Christian of Denmark

several times invaded the land. On each occasion he was met by the

valiant defender of West Gothland and driven out with loss. On his final

retreat he built a fortress in Smaland, which he called Danaborg, or

Danes' castle, leaving in it a Danish garrison; but it was quickly

attacked by Sir Tord with his men-at-arms and a force of armed peasantry

and the castle taken by storm, the Danes suffering so severe a defeat

that the place was afterwards known as Danasorg, or Danes' sorrow.



Sir Tord, to complete his chain of defences, had built several fortresses

in Norway, then claimed by King Christian as part of his dominions. He

had with him in this work about four hundred men, so small a force that

Kolbjoern Gast, one of Christian's generals, proceeded against him with an

army three thousand strong, proposing to drive the daring invader out of

the kingdom.



Weak as he felt himself, Sir Tord determined to try conclusions with the

Danes and Norsemen, proposing to use strategy to atone for his weakness.

One hundred of his men were placed in ambush in a clump of woodland, and

with the remaining three hundred the Swedish leader marched boldly on the

enemy, who were entrenched behind a line of wagons. Finding that he could

not break through their defences, Sir Tord and his men turned in a

pretended flight and were hotly pursued by the enemy, who abandoned their

lines to follow the flying Swedes. Suddenly Sir Tord turned and led his

men in a fierce attack upon the disordered pursuers, falling upon them

with such bold fury that he had two horses killed under him. At the same

time the hundred men broke from their ambush, sounding their war-horns

loudly, and fell on the flank of the foe, though they were so badly armed

that they had no iron points on their lances.



Confused and frightened by the double attack and the blare of the

trumpets, the Norsemen broke and fled, crying out that "all the might of

Sweden was in arms against them"; but they were pursued so closely that

the leader and all his men were taken by the brave four hundred.



Thus the bold and skilful Sir Tord defended the king's cause in those

quarters, winning victories by stratagem where force was lacking and

keeping off the attacks of the Danes by his watchfulness, bravery, and

sound judgment; until men came to say, that his brave cousin was the

king's chief support and that his secret enemies dared not undertake

anything against him while he had so skilful and courageous a defender.



There are two ways of disposing of a troublesome foe, one by fair and

open warfare, one by treachery. As Sir Tord could not be got rid of in

the former manner, his enemies tried the latter. Joesse Bosson, one of his

officers, though born a Dane, had proved so faithful and won his

confidence to such an extent that the valiant Swede trusted him

completely, and made him governor of the fortress of Karlborg. He did

not dream that he was nourishing a traitor and one capable of the basest

deeds.



During the warfare in Norway Sir Tord reached Karlborg one afternoon,

proposing to spend the night there. He was received with much show of joy

by Joesse, who begged him to take the repose he needed, promising to keep

strict watch in the fortress during his stay there. Without a thought of

danger Sir Tord went to the chamber provided for him. Joesse said the same

to the followers of his guest, and as they were weary they were glad to

go to their beds.



Having thus disposed of his visitors, Joesse got his boats ready, loaded

them with his most-prized effects, and then turned the key on the

followers of his trusting guest, hid their swords, and even cut their

bowstrings, so much was he afraid of the heroic soldier who had been his

best friend.



Then, axe in hand, he entered the room of Sir Tord. The sleeper, awakened

by his entrance, raised himself a little in the bed and asked what he

wanted. For answer the murderous wretch brought down his axe with so

heavy a blow that the head of Sir Tord was cleft in twain to the

shoulders. Then, taking to his boats, the assassin made his escape to the

Danes, by whom his bloody act was probably instigated.



With the death by treason and murder of the brave Sir Tord, the chief

bulkwark of the realm of King Charles, this tale should end, but the

later career of Charles VIII. is so curious a one that it will be of

interest to make some brief mention of it.



Never has king had a more diversified career. With the death of his brave

defender, enemies on all sides rose against him, his great wealth and

proud ostentation having displeased nobles and people alike. Chief among

his enemies was the archbishop of Upsala, who nailed a letter to the door

of the cathedral in which he renounced all loyalty and obedience to King

Charles, took off his episcopal robes before the shrine of St. Erik, and

vowed that he would not wear that dress again until law and right were

brought back to the land. It was a semi-civilized age and land in which

churchmen did not hesitate to appeal to the sword, and the archbishop

clad himself in armor, and with helmet on head and sword by side, set out

on a crusade of his own against the man he deemed an unworthy and

oppressive king.



He found many to sustain him, and Charles, taken utterly by surprise,

barely escaped to Stockholm, wounded, on a miserable old horse, and with

a single servant. Besieged there and unable to defend the town, he hid

part of his treasures, put the rest on board a vessel, and while going on

board himself was accosted by one of the archbishop's friends, who asked

him:



"Have you forgotten anything?"



"Nothing except to hang you and your comrades," was the bitter reply of

the fugitive king.



King Christian of Denmark was called in by the archbishop to take the

vacant throne, Charles was pronounced a traitor by his enemies, and for

some years Christian ruled over Sweden. Then his avarice and the heavy

taxes he laid on the people aroused such dissatisfaction that an

insurrection broke out, Christian's army was thoroughly defeated, and he

was forced to take ship for Denmark, while Charles was recalled to the

throne and landed in Stockholm in 1464, a second time king of Sweden.



This reign was not a long one. Christian, who had imprisoned the

archbishop because he opposed the heavy taxation of the peasants, now

sought his aid again and sent him with an army to Sweden. As a result

Charles found himself once more shut up in Stockholm and was again forced

by his enemies to resign the crown, being given instead of his kingdom

the government of Raseborg Castle in Finland. And instead of having

treasures to take with him, as before, he was now so poor that he could

not pay a debt of fifty marks he owed in Stockholm. He expressed his

state of poverty in the following verse:



"While I was Lord of Fogelwich,

I was a mighty man and rich;

But since I'm King of Swedish ground

A poorer man was never found."



But his career was not yet ended. He was again to sit on the throne.

Friends arose in his favor, the people again grew dissatisfied with

Danish rule, and the archbishop, his greatest enemy, died. Charles was

recalled and returned from Finland, a third time standing on Swedish

ground as king.



He had still a hard fight before him. A Swedish nobleman, Erik Wase,

sought to win the throne for himself, and Christian of Denmark sent a new

army to Sweden; but by the aid of a brave young knight, Sten Sture, Nils

Sture, his cousin, and some other valiant friends, all his enemies were

overcome and thus, after years of struggle and a remarkably diversified

career, he was at length firmly seated on the throne.



But the unfortunate monarch was not long to enjoy the quiet which he had

so hardly won. He fell seriously ill in May, 1470, and feeling that death

was near, he sent for Sten Sture and made him administrator of the

kingdom, with control of the castle of Stockholm. But he earnestly warned

him never to seek for the royal power, saying:



"That ambition has ruined my happiness and cost me my life."



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