pope had practically been without authority in
Sweden. Gustavus had selected as his bishops men whose actions he was
able to control, and the pope had deprived himself of even the
semblance of authority by refusing to confirm them. However, the nominal
supremacy of Rome was not yet shaken off; and until it was so, there was
constant danger that her actual supremacy would revive. The monarch's
chief anxiety concerned Archbishop Magni. That prelate owed his
appointment mainly to the pliability of his temper, and to the
assumption on the monarch's part that he would prove a ready tool. In
this assumption Gustavus had soon discovered he was wrong. Magni, though
of pliant temper, was a thorough Papist, and, as time went on, displayed
a growing tendency to oppose the king. In consequence he gradually fell
from favor, till he became an object of open distrust. The earliest
evidence of this feeling appeared in 1525, when Magni, as one of the
envoys sent to Lubeck, was warned to take no action without the
acquiescence of the other envoys. This mandate was issued from a fear
lest Magni should encourage Lubeck to raise her voice against the spread
of Lutheranism in the Swedish kingdom. How far this fear was justified,
it is difficult to say. As Lubeck had not yet embraced the Reformation,
she doubtless sympathized in some degree with Magni, but there is not
the slightest evidence that Magni was unfaithful to the king. In
February, of the following year, when Magni was starting for the
Norwegian frontier to administer the rite of confirmation, he wrote the
archbishop of Trondhem that he would like to meet him and discuss the
dangerous condition of the Church. Gustavus, hearing of the contents of
this letter, was aroused again. The archbishop of Trondhem had given
offence by harboring Swedish refugees, and Magni's simple letter caused
the monarch to believe that the two archbishops were, as he expressed
it, "in secret negotiation." Some two months later, Gustavus being in
the archbishop's palace, a stately feast was given in his honor. This
only added to the feud. The monarch was incensed to find that Magni was
capable of such display. Hot words ensued between them, and finally the
archbishop was arrested and conveyed to Stockholm. There he was charged
with conspiracy against the king. Certain letters that had passed
between him and the Roman Catholics of Germany were produced; and though
they showed no evidence of fraud, the archbis