hop was remanded to his
prison to await the further disposition of his case. Never was greater
injustice done a worthy man. There was not a scintilla of evidence
against him. He was a generous, kindly, single-minded prelate, and the
only reason for this cruelty was that he had no sympathy with the
methods of the king. After some months in prison he was released upon
the pretext of an embassy to Poland. Nobody could be ignorant what this
pretext meant. He was to be an exile from his native land. He sailed
from Sweden in the autumn of 1526, never to return. By such ignoble
practices the monarch cleared his path.[151]

After the banishment of Archbishop Magni, Gustavus gave free rein to
his ambition. The principal object of his greed was still the
monasteries and convents. The practice of quartering his soldiers in
them was by this time accepted as a necessary evil. But in August, 1526,
he raised a new pretension. The provost of the Abo Chapter having died,
its members had chosen another in his stead, and had begun to distribute
his property in accordance with a will that he had left, when a letter
came from Sweden ordering them to stop. After expressing surprise that
they should have chosen a provost without consulting him, Gustavus
added: "We learn that your last provost left a large amount of property
by his testament to those persons to whom he wished to have it go. It is
clear, however, that it would do more good if given to the public, since
the kingdom is in a state of distress brought on by the long-protracted
war against King Christiern. We therefore command you, after
distributing the legacies given to his family and friends as well as the
poor, to hand the balance over to us to pay the nation's debt." Against
this high-handed measure there was no redress. It was but part of a
policy by this time well established in the monarch's mind. Some six
months later, the burgomaster and Council of Arboga wrote Gustavus that
affairs in their monastery were managed in a very slipshod way; that
when a brother died, the prior took possession of his estate, and the
monastery itself got nothing for it. To prevent this state of things,
Gustavus sent an officer to take up quarters in the monastery and send
him a list of all the property he could find. "You will discover also,"
he declared, "some chests belonging to foreign monks. Take a look at
them, and see what they contain." This letter, it should be remembered,
was not intend