d
certain rents belonging to the crown which must be yielded up without
delay. Brask appears to have been a special object of the monarch's
greed. On one occasion Gustavus seized some tithes belonging to that
prelate, and then had face enough to write him that he had done so, his
only excuse being that the army was in need of food. This high-handed
mode of dealing with the Church is in marked contrast to the monarch's
complaisance when dealing with the people. Before the common people
Gustavus grovelled in the dust. Every day nearly he despatched some
document granting new privileges to this town or to that; and when the
people of Kalmar refused to contribute on the ground that their trade
had been ruined by foreign merchants, Gustavus sent back answer that he
would remedy this wrong. The notion getting abroad in Brask's diocese
that new taxes were being levied, Gustavus insisted that the bishop
should counteract this view, thus practically forcing him to make the
contribution from his private means.[97]

In spite of every effort to appease the people, discontent was fast
spreading through the land. To attribute this entirely to the actions of
Gustavus is unfair. His expedition against Gotland, it is true, had
proved a failure, and had cost his country dear. The monarch should have
seen that, in the impoverished state of his finances, the duty of
destroying Norby belonged to Denmark or Lubeck. But, granted that the
expedition was ill-judged, its failure certainly did not justify revolt.
The truth is, the Swedish people were so used to insurrection that the
slightest disappointment sufficed to set the whole country by the ears,
and no sooner was the expedition brought to its humiliating end than the
people began to look about for pretexts for revolt. One of the first
cries raised against Gustavus was that he had transgressed the law by
admitting foreign citizens into the Cabinet of Sweden. To this charge
the monarch was unable to make a rational reply. At the very outset of
his reign, he had displayed his first infatuation for foreign men by
raising Mehlen to the highest honors of the state. Later another
adventurer, one Count Johan von Hoya, had appeared upon the scene. The
king had forthwith showered royal favors upon his head. Scarcely two
months after landing Hoya had betrothed himself to the king's sister,
and had been received by the infatuated monarch into the Swedish
Cabinet. Such a course appeared to the people