urely that most of them
were already dead from his cruel treatment. Finally this brute was
deposed by his own subjects, and a new king chosen. This king made some
faint attempts to recover Sweden, but he had small chance against such a
man as Vasa.

The hero and his army entered Stockholm in triumph; and such of the old
nobles as were left, gathered in a council and offered him the crown
which he had wrested from Denmark. He refused it, saying he had labored
for his country, not himself, and bade the nobles choose from among
themselves some older man. But the whole country cried out that they
would submit to no man but him; he had freed them, he should rule them.
So there was, what seldom has been in history, a free choice of a king
by a united people; and Gustavus, son of Eric, became Gustavus I., King
of Sweden. Five years before he had been carried off a helpless, almost
friendless prisoner, by a mighty king. Now they had, by sheer force of
character, changed places; the king was in a dungeon, Gustavus on a
throne.

Though the remainder of our hero's life was less adventurous, it was no
less noble. He made, as all had foreseen, a great king, showing himself
as wise and high-minded as he had already proven brave and patient. He
found Sweden a petty province, he left it a mighty kingdom; he found it
a wilderness, poor, thinly peopled, and semi-barbarous, he left it
prosperous, populous, and civilized. He himself was the head and centre
of all this, performing an amount of work which seems almost impossible
for one man. His letters, some of which remain, are clear, minute in
detail, and exact. He knew just how he wanted things done, and he had
them done his way. His own life might be summed up in his advice to his
two sons, given when, only a few months before his death, he resigned a
crown grown too heavy for his failing strength. "Think carefully,
execute promptly, _never give up_, never delay. Resolves not carried out
are like clouds without rain in times of drought."

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

By SAMUEL L. KNAPP

(1542-1587)

[Illustration: Mary, Queen of Scots.]

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was the third child of James V. and his
wife, Mary of Guise. That lady had borne him previously, two sons, both
of whom died in infancy. Mary was born on December 7, 1542, in the
palace of Linlithgow. She was only seven days old when she lost her
father, who, at the time of her birth, lay sick at the palace of
Fal