14
VASA:
The Swedish Connection (1587-1668)
Sweden, which faced the Polish-Lithuanian Republic across the Baltic Sea,
resembled its southern neighbour in several important ways. It was a dual state
whose two main elements, Sweden and Finland, had been joined first in a
personal and then in a constitutional union. Its society was dominated by a pow-
erful class of noble families strongly based both economically and politically
on their extensive estates. Its monarchy was relatively weak, and had been
subjected during the Middle Ages to a variety of dynastic alliances and consti-
tutional experiments. The Union of Kalmar with Denmark and Norway had
been terminated in 1523,when Gustav Eriksson I of the House of Vasa estab-
lished a purely Swedish monarchy. Thereafter the constitutional position was
unstable, with the noble Diet holding very strong sanctions of election and
consent over the growth of royal power. Protestantism made rapid progress,
especially among the nobility, and a national church was established, as in
England, by royal initiative. In the 1570s the Roman Church was working for a
revival. The Jesuits held high hopes, as in Poland-Lithuania, for turning the
flank of Protestantism in the north. In 1580, when Possevini was appointed
Legate to Poland and Muscovy, he had just returned from three years at the head
of the Missio Suetica in Stockholm.
At the same time, there were serious grounds for potential conflict. The rela-
tionship between Poland and Sweden was sufficiently close to provoke compe-
tition and rivalry. The structure of power in the Baltic was changing rapidly.
Sweden was entering an era of dynamic expansion. She was destined to raise one
of the great armies of history, and already possessed a fleet of one hundred
battleships. In due course, she was to aspire to the Dominium Maris Balticae -
a policy for turning the sea into a Swedish lake. Poland-Lithuania, in contrast,
adopted an essentially passive posture, being thoroughly preoccupied with
existing possessions. The Republic held the richest Baltic port, Danzig, and a
long stretch of the southern shore which would have to serve as the base for any
Swedish involvement in continental affairs. The strategic implications were
obvious. In the Duchy of Prussia, the Protestant Hohenzollerns could exploit
their key location for leverage against Polish suzerainty. In Livonia, the polygo-
nal war which pitted the numerous local factions against their patrons -
Denmark, Poland, Muscovy, and Sweden — inevitably led to armed clashes, in