abinet members then in Stockholm, and the
other from the burgomaster and Council,--granting the castle to
Christiern during his life, and at his death to his son Hans, or, if he
should die before the king, then to the king's wife Elizabeth, to
revert, after the death of all three, to the Cabinet of Sweden.
Christiern then appointed his officers throughout the country, after
which he sailed away for Denmark.[49]

Not long, however, was Sweden freed from his contaminating presence.
Within a month he had returned, breathing out threatenings and slaughter
against the nation that he had vanquished. A general diet had been
summoned to meet at Stockholm on the first day of November. As this diet
was to be immediately followed by the coronation of the king, special
efforts had been made to secure a large attendance of the Danish party.
The venerable Ulfsson, now tottering to the grave, had recently written
to Christiern that he would be present at the triumphal entry into
Stockholm, "even if," as he says, "I have to crawl upon my knees;" and
he was present at the diet. When the appointed day arrived, the
delegates were summoned to a hill outside the town, and were shut in on
every side by the pikes and rapiers of the royal soldiers. The
proceedings were cut and dried throughout. A pompous oration was
delivered by one of the king's satellites, declaring the grounds on
which his master claimed the throne of Sweden, at the close of which the
people were asked whether they would have him for their king, and with
their tyrants' weapons brandished before their eyes they answered yes.
With this elaborate farce the ceremony ended and the people scattered,
being first ordered to return on the following Sunday and share in the
coronation festivities of the king whom they had thus elected against
their will. The ostentatious mummery of these mock ceremonies would
cause a smile but for the frightful tragedy with which they were to
close. None but the blindest partisans could have felt anything else
than aversion for this monster on whose head they were to place the
crown. Even his own friends hated him, and despised the very ground on
which he trod. But it was the age of heaven-born rulers; so the masses
bent their knee and sang their paeans to the demon whom fate had made
their king.[50]

It was on the 4th of November--a dreary Sunday--that the tragedy began.
On that day, with a great flourish of trumpets and display of power, the
monar