favor of her sons Selim and Bayezid against
their elder half brother Mustapha. In 1553,
as Mustapha’s own power and influence at
the sultan’s court reached a dangerous
point, Suleiman had him executed. In 1558
Roxelana died, an event followed by a war
between her sons Selim and Bayezid. The
conflict ended in the defeat and the be-
trayal of Bayezid by the shah of Persia,
who turned him over to Suleiman for ex-
ecution in exchange for a large payment of
gold. While on campaign in Hungary, Sule-
iman laid siege to the Szigetva, where he
died. His son Selim II inherited the Otto-
man Empire at the greatest extent of its
history.
SEEALSO: Ottoman Empire
Sweden ............................................
A kingdom of northern Europe that
reached the height of its power during the
late Renaissance. Sweden was the home-
land of Scandinavian pagans who held to
their traditional gods until the tenth cen-
tury and were among the last in Europe to
be converted to Christianity. A series of
clans fought for control of this part of
Scandinavia, where kings were elected by
councils of nobles rather than inheriting
their titles. A new era began when Queen
Margaret I of Denmark established the
Kalmar Union in 1397, uniting the states
of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under
an elected Danish monarch. The Kalmar
Union was intended to balance the rising
power of the Hanseatic League, a union of
cities in Germany and other points in
northern Europe. But the kings and nobil-
ity of Sweden and Denmark were un-
friendly allies and frequently clashed over
their respective territory and trade. In the
meantime, Sweden developed its own par-
liament, the Riksdag, comprised of four
estates of clergy, nobility, burghers, and
farmers. This body frequently contended
with the Danish monarchs; the conflict be-
tween Danish royalty and Swedish nobility
reached a bloody climax in 1520, when
King Christian II ordered the execution of
hundreds of Swedish nobles in Stockholm.
Forging an alliance with the Hanseatic
League, Gustav Vasa broke with Denmark
and established Sweden as an independent
state. Elected king in 1523, Gustav Vasa
defied the Catholic Church, establishing
Protestantism as the national church. He
made himself the head of the church as
well as the state and required all Swedish
citizens to attend Sunday church services,
which became a useful platform for rally-
ing support. Vasa reformed the tax code
and confiscated church lands to shore up
the Swedish treasury.
The Bible was first translated into
Swedish in 1541, an event that spread lit-
eracy throughout the kingdom and gave
impetus to the development of a national
literature. A nationalist movement known
as Gothicism arose during this time, when
Swedish writers harkened back to the wars
and accomplishments of the Gothic tribes.
King Gustavus Adolphus, who ruled
Sweden from 1611 until 1632, founded a
Swedish empire in northern Europe and
fought for the Protestant princes in Ger-
many during the Thirty Years’ War against
Sweden’s main economic rival, the Holy
Roman Emperor. Gustavus Adolphus won
an important victory at the Battle of
Breitenfelt in 1631, but in the next year he
was killed at the Battle of Lutzen. In the
meantime, his armies were sweeping
through central and eastern Europe, and
by the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the
war Sweden took possession of much of
the Baltic Sea coastlands. This hotly con-
tested area was vital to trade betweenSweden