Thinking outside the Baltic

Swedish ambitions in at the height of the Great Power Era

Master’s thesis, 45 credits Author: Elias Norgren Supervisor: Henrik Ågren Seminar chair: Peter Ericsson Date of defence: 31/5 2021 Semester: Spring 2021

HISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN

Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the seldom researched Swedish geopolitical interests in Norway in the frst half of the , with the brief 1658 conquest of Trondheim as its central event of inquiry. Through the study of privy council protocols and Axel ’s correspondence, the study builds a case for the confuence of security, commerce, and the concepts of nations as the infuencing factors that shaped Swedish imperial foreign policy in the decades leading up to the dramatic war of 1658, yielding a theoretical construction of the ’s Baltic doctrine, or the Oxenstierna doctrine, as an explanatory model for ’s early modern expansion patterns. Subsequently through understanding of the Empire’s expansionist rationale leading up to 1658, the conquest of the Norwegian province of Trondheim is put in a new light as having been an interruptive and complicated re-imagining of what the should be.

Keywords: Swedish Empire, -Norway, , Axel Oxenstierna, state formation, geopolitics, commerce, early modern nationalism.

Acknowledgements Much gratitude is owed to Erik Opsahl from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim for his knowledgeable feedback in the initial stages of this work, and for his invaluable recommendations of Norwegian research on the topic, without which this project would likely never have taken of. A thanks is also owed to Georg Stenborg at the Department of Linguistics and Philology at University for his aid in translating particularly difcult sentences. Contents

List of maps 1 List of abbreviations 1

Introduction 2 Prologue: Historical background 2 The understudied Swedish 17th-century outlook on Norway 4 Theory 8 Rike as a practical political unit 8 The conglomerate state 14 Early modern nationalism 15 Geopolitics and concepts of nations hand in hand 18 Sources and method 19 Disposition 23

Norway and the Swedish Empire 24 The far north before and after the Treaty of Knäred 24 The Russian trade 26 Swedish as a Baltic zone 27 The Torstenson War 29 The peaceful war 30 Ambiguous Bohuslän 31 The ephemeral North Sea orientation 33 The wars of X Gustav 36 Post-Oxenstierna policy 36 Norway as a planned second kingdom of Charles 40 Trondheim as a Swedish province 42 The council questions the king 44 Post-Charles policy 46

Conclusion 49 The coincidence of commercial opportunity, geography, and rike 49 Northwestward reorientation and reversal 51 What the fate of Bohuslän can tell 54 Epilogue 55

Sources and literature 56 Printed sources 56 Bibliography 56 List of maps Map 1 3 Map 2 25 Map 3 32 Map 4 43

List of abbreviations AOSB Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar SR Svenska riksdagsakter SRAR Svenska ridderskaps och adels riksdagsprotokoll SRP Svenska riksrådets protokoll

1 Introduction

The development of the physical extent of a state is arguably one of the important aspects of its history, and the history of the society which it enveloped. The shifting of territory from the grasps of one political sphere to another can be of enormous signifcance to the future prospects of all involved parties, both the population, and the states themselves. Even if the territorial shift is a temporary disturbance to the balance of power, resembling a mere fash in the long run as it is rapidly undone by outside intervention, as European history so often goes, the importance of a redrawn map in its time must not be underestimated in our time. This is an investigation into the 17th-century Swedish ambitions of expansion into Norway, centered around the peculiar conquest of the county of Trondheim in 1658.

Prologue: Historical background From its revival as a sovereign state under the leadership of Gustav in 1523 all the way up to the end of the so-called Great Power Era (stormaktstiden) in 1721, Sweden was a country beset by a will to expand in all directions. The frst land gains to this ambition were obtained in 1561, when the Estonian city of Reval (the modern city of Tallinn), and in time, the entirety of Estonia, sought Swedish protection during the disintegration of the crusader states in the eastern Baltic. A near-constant warring with its neighbours in the rival dual Denmark-Norway, -, and resulted after some setbacks in a wave of military conquests in western Russia, with and Ingria adding to the young empire in 1617. Successes on the battlefeld against Poland expanded the eastern Baltic domains further south to encompass , which was shortly followed by a number of highly successful campaigns in the Holy against its Catholic emperor in the . Although Sweden would come to lose its king Gustav II Adolf early on, Sweden had established itself frmly in , and stood to gain this province along with a number of scattered additional minor territories in at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War in the in 1648. Beginning in 1643, Sweden came to a decisive head with Denmark-Norway in the so-called Torstenson War (the Hannibal War in Norwegian), in which it conquered Jämtland, Härjedalen, , and the islands of and Ösel (west of Estonia), for the frst time greatly expanding its territory in . A second war with Denmark broke out in 1657, while the army of King Charles X Gustav was belligerent in Poland. In a rapid response, King Charles quickly marched to overrun the Danish mainland, and crossed the winter-frozen sounds protecting the islands of Fyn

2 and in early 1658. Besieging the Danish capital, a resounding peace treaty was soon composed together with English and French mediators, wherein Sweden stood to gain Bohuslän, Skåneland (containing the two provinces and ), the wealthy eastern half of Denmark. The island of in the south Baltic was also procured, and this is also where the Norwegian county of Trondheim enters the picture.

Map 1. The Swedish Empire in 1658. Territories have their year of conquest in parenthesis. Trondheim and Bornholm would be lost by 1660.

A number of complicating factors surrounding the radical peace treaty soon had King Charles commit another attack on Denmark later the same year. Swedish eforts to capture were halted by Danish-allied Dutch feets, and French and English objections to the continued expansion of Sweden prevented any further conquests. An Imperial-Brandenburgian-Polish army pressured Sweden in Germany and the occupied parts of Denmark. At the fnal peace negotiations in 1660, the defeated Swedish Empire was forced to return the island of Bornholm to Denmark,

3 and the conquest of Trondheim was likewise reversed, removed from the image of the Swedish Empire as suddenly as it was added to it. Swedish control of the remainder of the former Danish provinces was however confrmed, setting Sweden on a path to peace and recovery from several decades of exhausting wars.1

The understudied Swedish 17th-century outlook on Norway There is a rich scholarly tradition of research into the Swedish Empire, which has been variously defned using many diferent theoretical parameters. Some research has emphasised the Empire as a maintained efort to defend Sweden from aggressive neighbours, by having an upper hand on them in their own territory and in efect bringing the war to their soil and keeping it out of Sweden.2 Other research has instead stressed the Swedish Empire as a construction founded in the opportunity to take advantage of the increasingly important Baltic trade, rather than necessary actions of realpolitik.3 English historian Michael Roberts, who presented the aforementioned respective positions as the ‘old’ and the ‘new school’, furthermore even speculated that the Swedish Empire had dimensions of a “deep national psychological need [...] for self-assertion”, and may have been the result of a structural exploitation by a small noble class.4 The explanations for the why of the Swedish Empire are many, and there are likewise a plethora of accounts of its what. Most centrally, it was structurally a conglomerate state,5 and economically and militarily a strictly Baltic state.6 While it is true that Swedish rule historiographically left its by far biggest mark on Estonia, , and Germany, it had an oft-forgotten impact on regions outside of these, which has to a large degree been neglected by modern scholars. It is seldom refected upon that Sweden with the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 expanded not only to the more integral province of Scania, but also gained the province of Trondheim in central Norway. This coastal fell region containing the seat of an archdiocese and with its heart at the largest fjord in Norway, while only being held for less than two years and permanently ceded back to Denmark-Norway in 1660, is

1 This general overview is based on Michael Roberts’ lecture The Swedish Imperial Experience, 1560-1718 (1979), and is complemented by information from Jerker Rosén’s contributions to Den svenska historien (1967). 2 Roberts, 1979, pp. 12–18. My own bachelor’s thesis Jus Belli: Frameworks for the Swedish occupation of Pomerania 1630–1648 (Norgren, 2018, unpublished) arrived at the conclusion that most positions in Germany that Sweden was conceded at the end of the Thirty Years’ War were demanded with security motivations, and that the same concerns motivated the initial interest in Pomerania. 3 Roberts, 1979, pp. 26–28. 4 Roberts, 1979, pp. 21–23. The ‘conglomerate state’ is a concept that will be introduced and discussed further on. 5 Among others, Torbjörn Eng’s Det svenska väldet (2001) has early modern Sweden being a conglomerate state (or ‘conglomerate empire’, as its author prefers) as its fundamental presupposition. 6 Nils-Erik Villstrand’s (ed.) Kustbygd och centralmakt 1560-1721 (1987) refects the Baltic perspective from the point of view of , for which the maritime relationship with defned Swedish rule. 4 signifcant because of the previously outlined descriptions of what the Swedish empire to its core was. Mainly, Trondheim constituted a gateway into the Atlantic, which calls the narrative of the Baltic empire into question. The geopolitical context of Swedish interests in the Baltic Sea is fairly straight-forward and easy to understand, especially considering the possession of what is today Finland long before any expansion further east or south was realised. The Atlantic and North Sea regions are however not accommodated by any for Sweden natural geography, which is why Swedish motivations for expansion in this direction must be examined. The permanence of territorial acquisitions naturally attracts the attention of historians, and the 1645 Swedish conquest of Jämtland and Härjedalen is one that has been dedicated particular attention. Swedish historian Tord Theland writes in his 2020 dissertation Mildhet och saktmod (“Gentleness and meekness”) that the two neighbouring provinces in north-central Scandinavia (from here on referred to only as Jämtland for convenience, except where distinction is necessary) had enjoyed signifcant autonomy from the Norwegian authorities it formally stood under, owing to its relatively meagre economy and remoteness. When Jämtland increasingly became a contested region in the conficts between Sweden and Denmark-Norway in the , the Danish-Norwegian state tried to strengthen its ties to the province, partly as a result of repeated Swedish occupations that made the loyalty of the inhabitants ambiguous, and partly as a result of the general growth experienced by many early modern states in the period. The relationship between Jämtland and the Danish-Norwegian state remained tenuous however, and the semblance of sovereignty was easily transferred to Sweden in 1645, which inherited most of the present administrative structures. Theland argues that the transition of power between the states in 1645 was easy due to the autonomous nature of the province, which had signifcant economic ties to both Norway and Sweden since previously, and had even been practically annexed by Sweden during the Northern Seven Years’ War (1563–1570), when it was appointed a formal civil and judicial administration. That Jämtland (though not Härjedalen, it must be pointed out) had belonged to the ecclesiastical authority of Uppsala diocese was both a Swedish claim to sovereignty and advantage to integration, which prompted the severing of those ties by Denmark-Norway in 1570.7 Theland writes that it is likely that with all of these factors in mind, Jämtland had a uniquely underdeveloped relation to the state compared to other Norwegian territories, never being seen as a

7 Theland, 2020, pp. 243–244. 5 given Norwegian province.8 Such a proposition narrows down the ambitions of further Swedish expansion into Norway that would not have been facilitated by circumstances such as weakness of the state or clashing authorities, and frames the Swedish relationship to Norway during the period by the fnal outcome of the borders between them. Other researchers have pointed out the lacking attention from historians to the Swedish-conquered Norwegian provinces, and that these provinces as a result have their history prior to and after conquest divided between two diferent national historiographies. Journalist Bertil Holmström writes in an investigation into what he deems is the forgotten history of how 1645-annexed Bohuslän fared during the resurgent hostilities of 1658–60, that when it comes to the territorial changes of the Roskilde treaty in 1658, Scania and its immediate neighbours Blekinge and Halland (collectively historically referred to as Skåneland) have enjoyed by far the most focus from academics in Sweden.9 The border skirmish in Bohuslän has by Norwegian historians been designated Bielkefejden (The Bielke Feud) after the local Norwegian commander Jørgen Bielke, but has not earned any such recognition from , something Holmström partly attributes to the distance from peripheral Bohuslän to .10 On the issue of sources on the topic, Holmström had to rely on parochial archives and even public memories and stories maintained by Bohuslän locals.11 A seminar held at Bohuslän’s provincial museum in came to the same conclusion, that the history of the region has been neglected by the Swedish, and lamented that no attempts have been made to “integrate” the province’s pre-1658 history with its current Swedish identity.12 The issues exemplifed in Bohuslän are considerably worse in the case of Trondheim, afected not only by distance, but also by the brevity of Swedish control, as well as presumably also its mismatched position in the otherwise mostly Baltic-oriented empire. The lack of Swedish permanence on the Atlantic side of the is nonetheless understandable. In the anthology Kustbygd och centralmakt 1560–1721 (“Coast and central power”) Fennoswedish historian Nils Erik Villstrand writes that the Baltic Sea was entirely central to the Swedish state, both before, during, and after its imperial phase. He thus emphasises the importance of a theoretical approach to the central contra the peripheral in the Swedish empire, where the former constituted the Baltic-adjacent regions, and the latter constituted regions with no direct connection

8 Theland, 2020, p. 244. 9 Holmström, 2008, p. 156. 10 Holmström, 2008, pp. 7, 161. 11 Holmström, 2008, pp. 9–10. 12 Carlsson (ed.), 2013, p. 7–8. 6 to this sea.13 This Baltic-centric perspective was also refected in the cultural diferences in Finland between accessible coastal regions and inland peripheries, as described by contemporary travellers. Prior to the arrival of the railroad, the sea and its extensions into systems of lakes and rivers constituted the backbone of the communicative system in Sweden, using which the Swedish central state “penetrated and integrated” its provinces, Villstrand summarizes.14 This theoretical perspective yields an understanding of the maritime-dominated geography of the Swedish empire, and why its expansion outside the general Baltic area was either very short-lived, or never materialised. In spite of this, in an unpublished master’s thesis, «Sveriges Trondheim», Norwegian historian Petter Kristian Vikestad fnds that Swedish integration eforts undertaken during its short control of Trondheim refected an expectation of permanence. Jämtland was supposed to be separated from the county of Västernorrland which it was put under following its conquest in 1645, and be reunited with the county of Trondheim, the county it belonged to while under Danish-Norwegian rule. There was also a joint governorship created for both of the provinces, conferred unto the appointed Swedish representative Claus Stiernskiöld. Most present clergy, notably even the archbishop in Trondheim, were ofered to remain (although the archbishop declined) when other administrative and civil personnel was vacated, which Vikestad attributes to the expectation that they could be succeeded by Swedish-educated clergy upon their death or resignation, which also implies long-term foresight.15 The general characteristics of the half year of Swedish rule in Trondheim was resource extraction, and not integration, however, Vikestad writes. The improvised military conscription that took place in the county immediately upon its transfer to Sweden should not be seen as an act of integration, but was rather an arbitrary coercive exercise to support a dire war efort. The Swedish administration made evaluations of geography and tax records in Trondheim to maximise value extraction, which is more than can be said about the interest shown in Jämtland upon its transfer, and shows how Trondheim’s purpose to the Swedish state in 1658 was to contribute to solving current military and economic challenges elsewhere. Vikestad summarises by writing that to the Swedes, it was more important that the costs to conquer, fortify, and administrate Trondheim did not exceed what could be gained from it.16 Vikestad’s master’s thesis, which despite its unpublished status stands as one of few undertakings of research into Swedish activities in Trondheim, does well in answering pressing administrative

13 Villstrand, 1987, pp. 9–10. 14 Villstrand, 1987, p. 17. 15 Vikestad, 2017, pp. 29, 45–46, 77–78. 16 Vikestad, 2017, pp. 77, 79 –81. 7 questions that come to mind with regard to the county’s short-lived experience as a Swedish province. But its analysis of the economic motivations for Swedish expansion in this direction is limited by the localised scope of ‘extraction’, the long-term signifcance of which is furthermore inhibited by the brevity of the period. An overarching discussion of geopolitics and the larger context is lacking, which seems to suggest that Trondheim was not really more extraordinary of a Swedish desire than Jämtland or Bohuslän. On the contrary, Trondheim represents a signifcant break with the previous frames of Swedish expansion, which has only been ignored due to its failure. There are motivations and long-term ambitions in the events of 1658 that are yet to have been done justice. Thus, the questions this study aims to answer are the following: - What geopolitical aims did Sweden have with the conquest of Trondheim? - How did the Swedish conquest of Trondheim relate geopolitically to previous Swedish expansion into Norway?

Theory Geopolitically, the early modern period was characterised by large European states consolidating their territories and centralising their governance. The political and social frameworks of these processes as they pertain to Scandinavia will here be discussed. The political leadership’s understanding of geopolitics and the society they exercised military power over was informed by a number of norms, most importantly regarding the relationship between culture and politics, and between the individual territorial unit and the ruling body in the capital. The construction of the Swedish Empire was dictated by these norms, which infuenced its varying approaches to neighbouring states, including Norway.

Rike as a practical political unit Early modern geopolitics especially as it pertains to Sweden, Denmark, and Norway is best understood through analysis of the contemporary ‘national’ sociopolitical structures that characterised Scandinavia. It is not only a matter of a dynamic between two states, Sweden and Denmark-Norway, it is also a dynamic between three riken. Torbjörn Eng’s analysis of the Swedish state on its historical course from a great power-conglomerate state to a unitary single-nation state Det svenska väldet (“The Swedish Empire”) not only informs what is already known about Swedish-Norwegian relations during the early modern period, but also grants an overview of the structures that both enabled and inhibited

8 geopolitical action. Eng writes that the political and territorial defnition of the Swedish empire is quite ambiguous, and that the scholarly consensus on how to relate the diferent provinces to each other is still divided.17 The general term riket (which can be approximately albeit inadequately translated as “the realm”) has in common use often been synonymous with the more specifc väldet (“the empire”), but has also been used to describe only the “core” part of it.18 Eng’s problematisation of the term is useful because it enables the rike (plural: riken) to become a useful analytical tool. Eng speculates that the modern territorial extent of Sweden, including the integrated former Norwegian and Danish provinces, was not up for dissection by 19th-century historians because they saw it as more important to stress these regions as “naturally Swedish”, than to examine their historical relationships to the central state any further. This outlook, spawned from the national singularity of the Swedish state following the loss of Finland in 1809 and Pomerania in 1815, allowed for the equivalating of the terms rike, nation, and state, Eng argues, which has led to the semantic problems of the early modern Swedish state in subsequent research.19 While it predictably is no explicit attempt to escape the problem of the meaning of the rike, in a perspective presented in an 1896 study of Swedish constitutional history by Emil Hildebrand, at least the German territories are acknowledged as having belonged to the German rike, as opposed to the Swedish one. In Hildebrand’s discussion of the empire aside from Germany however, the rike is not referred to once. Regardless, there is a defnition of the Swedish Empire that places special signifcance on “Sweden proper”, inside which’s “natural borders” Skåneland, Jämtland, and Gotland are said to belong. This view of Sweden as both an intrinsic “proper” and as a natural geographical entity is informed by the constitutional status of the territories, as Hildebrand pays special attention to the right to parliamentary representation for local estates. He points out that parliamentary access was granted within a few years of conquest for all of Skåneland, Jämtland, and Gotland, separating them from the Baltic provinces, which he describes as biländer, an explicitly inferior status.20 While there is no outspoken direct relation between this internal political stratifcation and the rike as a term, the foundational concept of the ‘core’ of the Swedish Empire is easily identifable. Concurring with the signifcance of political representation, Jerker Rosén argued in 1946 that integration of the Baltic provinces was dependent on the compliance of local , which was a

17 Eng, 2001, pp. 24–25. 18 Eng, 2001, p. 25. 19 Eng, 2001, p. 30. 20 Hildebrand, 1896, pp. 205–209. 9 major hurdle in Livonia and Estonia, but not in Skåneland, Jämtland or Gotland. He ascribes this to the relative compatibility between Danish laws and privileges on the one hand and Swedish on the other, as well as the lack of nobility in some of the conquered provinces, notably Jämtland. The issue of “introducing uniformity” (as Rosén calls it) in laws and representation is therefore interpreted as a confict of estate and State interests, rather than the specifc design of an imperial ideology that sought either to tie certain provinces closer to the State or to keep them at a distance.21 The concept of the Swedish ‘core’ is in this case the territory where Sweden met little resistance in introducing uniformity, with the resultant parliamentary representation as its most defning character, a strictly defned political construction. This is echoed also as recently as in Theland’s dissertation on Jämtland, where the rike is used to contrast against the välde, but is defned along several aspects of integration, as opposed to only parliamentary representation. The considerations Theland makes in this respect, beyond the issue of representation, include the retention of local laws and privileges, the appointment of local state representatives, and modifcations to religious and economic life.22 According to Theland’s theoretical framework, Skåneland and Bohuslän did not properly belong to the rike because these provinces did not see enough changes in the aforementioned felds after being transferred to Sweden in 1658. While they for example were allowed to send their estate representatives to parliament, they mostly retained their local laws, and their ecclesiastical order was left intact by Sweden (with the exception that the archdiocese of was demoted to a regular diocese). In Theland’s view this made the position in the empire of these now integral parts of Sweden comparable to the far-eastern territories in Ingria and Kexholm. That local laws and privileges were eventually curtailed in Skåneland and Bohuslän during Charles XI’s absolutist reign is instead attributed to centralisation eforts that are to be viewed as part of a more generally applicable state-building process, rather than conscious eforts to integrate the provinces to the rike, Theland argues.23 Eng questions the often maintained categorical rigidity of the rike (or any equivalent identifcation of the ‘core’) however, pointing to the feeting meaning of the rike as a political concept in 17th-century source material. The 1634 regeringsform, a constitution that did away with much of Sweden’s medieval state organisation, despite its magnitude as an expression of efectivised early modern statecraft, contains ambiguities as to what exactly the rike is constituted of. While it does refer to the rike as those territories whose estates enjoyed parliamentary representation, in line

21 Rosén, 1946, pp. 248–249. 22 Theland, 2020, p. 79. 23 Theland, 2020, pp. 79, 241–242, 245–246. 10 with some of the above described defnitions, it strays from this stringency by also using the term to describe the constituencies of the courts of appeals, which covered not only Sweden-Finland, but also Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia. This is one instance where the rike, rather than being a status exclusive to the original lands of pre-imperial Sweden, “coincided better[,] if not wholly, with the Swedish Empire’s actual spatial extent”, Eng writes.24 By this logic, in the entire empire, only the Swedish provinces in Germany would be considered outside of the rike. Conversely, Swedish historian Jonas Nordin points out an example where territories, despite falling under Sweden’s courts of appeal, are referred to explicitly as utrikes (“foreign”, or more literally “outside of the rike”) by a contemporary commentator, in the context limiting the defnition to Sweden and Finland proper.25 There are reasons to treat the rike not just as a collection of well-integrated territories, but as a popularly imagined understanding of a people united in destiny, beyond the comprehension of concrete politics. Eng illustrates it with examples from other European countries; he identifes Norway inside the Denmark-Norway union as indeed having constituted a rike on its own, but it was not a functional state on its own. The state in the Denmark-Norway union was concentrated in Denmark, but that did not mean that Norway was not abstractly or ceremonially diferentiated as its own rike apart from Denmark. In a reversed example, the , particularly after the Peace of Westphalia, was instead a rike that consisted of several functional states.26 If the usage of the rike term by contemporary sources such as the 1634 regeringsform (and by many historians prior to the middle of the 20th century, such as Hildebrand) bear this out, it justifes asking the question whether the marriage between the abstract rike and the concrete, observable political circumstances is legitimate. The rike, or perhaps more broadly, the nation, was perhaps not always congruent with the state. Eng fnds support in the concept of the rike as a recognised entity independent of political reality in Susan Reynolds, who posits that the medieval Western European concept of a kingdom, or in a Northern European context, a rike, was at its core a cultural construction that was often maintained outside of the nominal realms of political reality. Any given territory efectively ruled by a king was not the foundational premise for a kingdom, but a kingdom in the medieval sense of the word “comprised and corresponded to a ‘people’[,] which was assumed to be a natural, inherited community of tradition, custom, law, and descent.”27 Although the traditional kingdoms of

24 Eng, 2001, p. 297. 25 Nordin, 2000, pp. 43–44. Governor Hans Wachtmeister is quoted as in 1680 having said “de uthrijkes provincierne” in a parliamentary discussion about the role of the aforementioned territories in the defence of the empire. 26 Eng, 2001, pp. 61–62. 27 Reynolds, 1997, p. 250. 11 medieval were informed by ideas of common identity rooted in the aforementioned factors, Reynolds opts not to describe them as ‘national’ states, avoiding the implication that they have a direct teleological relation to the modern nations that are more identifed with the 19th century. She proposes instead that they be referred to as ‘regnal’ states, to emphasise the relationship between the kingdom and its gens, a common term in medieval literature that approximately means ‘people’ and is to be understood in a cultural and political sense. That the gens was defned on a number of disparate characteristics such as the law they lived under, the customs they practised, and what their descent was, was due to these ideas being such a “commonplace” in medieval that they did not warrant refection or inquiry during the period, Reynolds writes, furthermore stating that this distinguishes medieval ‘regnal’ identity from modern nationalism, and makes direct comparisons anachronistic.28 Identifying the Swedish gens of the 17th century is reasonably done through assuming its intimate connection to the rike, which may complicate matters considering the often fexible and imprecise nature of the term. The “static” defnition of the rike as strictly the parts of the Swedish Empire with representation in the estates parliament makes arriving at a conclusion fairly easy; the gens was those who sent representatives to the parliamentary sessions. Jonas Nordin concurs, writing that the key to Swedish citizenship during the Great Power Era was being aforded the right to representation. Political participation was by no means a closed rank either, as Nordin writes that Charles XI expressed concern in 1673 that there were foreigners, implied to be Swedes in name only, who had gotten themselves positions in city councils thanks to their fnancial means, thereby securing estate representation while still holding foreign interests.29 This shows that the approximate understanding of what the Swedish gens was might not necessarily have aligned with the process in which inhabitants of the rike participated in political and economic life. Other aspects of belonging that Reynolds identifed, such as customs and descent, have their signifcance refected in Nordin’s example of two “naturalised” Swedes, one of German and one of English origin, who were said to pass for “native Swedes” due to their embrace of Swedish customs and language.30 This also serves as an example of how the concept of descent was closely related to cultural heritage, and how a claim of common descent of a specifc people could be completely abstracted away in its confation with more concrete expressions of ethnicity, such as language, religion, and clothing, which Reynolds addressed.31

28 Reynolds, 1997, pp. 253–256. 29 Nordin, 2000, p. 106. 30 Nordin, 2000, p. 107. 31 Reynolds, 1997, pp. 255–256. 12 With the complexity of the relationship between a distinct people, its kingdom, and culture, territory, and politics in mind, it is understandable that Eng proposes that the understanding of the Swedish rike be nuanced to accommodate its various manifestations across diferent levels of politics.32 He points out that the usage of the rike term could have had an ideological signifcance, and when it was stretched beyond its conventional extent it was an expression of the State’s expansive and integrative ambitions. Likewise when the rike is utilised more conservatively as to only encompass Sweden and Finland, it is refective of resistance towards enlarging the political franchise and the gens, a position mostly taken by the nobility. An inclusive and integrative attitude to the rike, at least in regards to Estonia and Ingria, was displayed by Charles IX (r. 1604–1611) and Axel Oxenstierna, while reservations about fully introducing Swedish law and political representation to the provinces were expressed by various noble factions.33 This may explain the apparent inconsistency in terminology, and it also suggests that the rike is a useful term for analysing imperial ideology with regards to geopolitical expansion and integration, as opposed to a rigid term referring to specifc territories that fll certain judicial or political criteria. The signifcance of these discussions to the objective of this study is that it sets the stage for how to interpret the Swedish discourse on Norway, and yields understanding for the fundamental system early modern states were working in. Eng makes the case that respect for such legal structures was widespread in Europe, illustrated in the preservation of most titular kingdoms and lesser units well into the modern period, even when they held little to no practical use.34 A highly relevant example of how this impacted the Swedish relation to Norway is that Gustav Vasa (r. 1523–1560) considered Norwegian Jämtland and Danish Skåneland core parts of the Swedish rike, and expressed specifcally that they would be subject to Swedish law if conquered. With regards to Bohuslän, the same sentiment was rejected, due to Bohuslän decidedly being an inherent part of the Norwegian rike.35 This motivates further inquiries into how the rest of Norway ftted into this structure, and if the structure itself, the rike, was used as justifcation for conquest of territories supposedly belonging to it, or if it changed with territorial growth. Assuming there is a very clear discursive diference between conquest and reconquest in the source material, the rike can be inferred here during the study even if it is not explicitly evoked by the source.

32 Eng, 2001, p. 298. 33 Eng, 2001, pp. 298–302. The previously mentioned Hans Wachtmeister was one such advocate for a conservative interpretation of the rike in the period. 34 Eng, 2001, p. 68. 35 Eng, 2001, p. 76. 13 The conglomerate state The contemporary political structuralism where the rike is indispensable as a practical separation between diferent territories is refective of one of the most central concepts to the study of early modern states, namely that of the theory of the conglomerate state. Both Nordin and Eng use this theory popularised by Harald Gustafsson as one of their fundamental points of departure (although Eng chooses to problematise the specifcity of the word “state”, and instead prefers to term it “conglomerate empire”, konglomeratvälde36). Harald Gustafsson describes a conglomerate state as a state area consisting of several territories, usually brought together by a ruling house but kept together by a few other factors. Each territory - or rather the social elite of each territory - had its distinctive relation to the ruler, its privileges, its own law code, its administrative system stafed by that same local elite, and often its own estate assembly. In questions of taxation or conscription, the ruler had to negotiate with each territory separately.37

Most early modern states, according to Gustafsson, ft this description of a structure of polity bodies centered around a relatively weak central power. The diversity in local administrative and legal systems is in the case of the Swedish Empire complemented by a diversity of spoken languages and a wide cultural gap, owing to most of its constituent territories being separated from the core Swedish lands by the Baltic Sea. Eng’s thorough analysis of the Swedish conglomerate state as it was expressed both in reality and on paper, particularly with regards to Norway, provides the backbone of the theoretical perspective as well as a large part of the factual background. Besides the acknowledgement of ceremonial units such as the rike, Eng writes about the importance and impact of other abstract expressions of power and national diferentiation. One of the characteristics of a conglomerate state is its multiplicity of internal political domains, and the disparate relationship the central state has with them. Eng illustrates the manifestation of this with the numeracy of royal adopted by early modern monarchs, each of which appealed to a diferent territory within the state. A Swedish king styling himself as the “King of Norway” when he wasn’t, was to be interpreted as a claim to ambition and provocation against a foreign power, Eng argues. Such claims was the source of many conficts Sweden engaged in with Denmark and Poland during the frst half of the Great Power Era.38 The political signifcance of royal titles is reinforced by the contemporary understanding of cultural and ethnic geography, illustrated in the presentations of maps in the early modern period.

36 Eng, 2001, p. 82. 37 Gustafsson, 1998, p. 195. 38 Eng, 2001, pp. 82–83, 104. 14 Understanding where the ends and the lands of the Lapps, , Kajans, or Karelians begins was a difcult task for many early modern cartographers, and the ambiguity of such terms had, as Eng demonstrates, real political implications. When Charles IX of Sweden adopted the “King of Lapps, Karelians, Kajans and Finns39”, Eng argues it is supposed to be seen as a hostile move against Denmark-Norway, with which Sweden shared taxing rights of the Sami in far-northern Scandinavia. The lack of defned borders and overlapping territories made the region variously called Lapland, Norrland, or Finnmark (applying at least to the northernmost coast strip of the and its vicinity) a constant source of military tension for almost a full century after Swedish independence from the Danish-led Union in 1523.40

Early modern nationalism The confuence of and interactions between power manifestation through abstract claims, such as royal titles, and early modern perceptions of nationhood, expressed through the discourse on the rike, seem to be the keys to analysing geopolitical developments in Northern Europe during the 17th century. In his study on medieval Norwegian national awareness, “Norwegian Identity in the Late , Regnal or National?”, Norwegian historian Erik Opsahl criticises Harald Gustafsson’s description of pre-modern communities as strictly territorially bound units, where loyalty was directed at the regnal institution and not to what we would today call a nation. According to Gustafsson, ‘Regnal ideology’, a term he borrows from Susan Reynolds, was not akin to nationalism because it did not stress biological or cultural unity among its constituents.41 Opsahl questions this ‘modernist’ approach to nationalism as something exclusive to the modern period, pointing to the fact that the words ‘nation’ as well as contemporary ethnic demonyms (Swedish, Norwegian) existed also during the middle ages. He argues that communities of descent and culture developed independently of political units, and that nations without states therefore existed, appealing to Reynold’s theory of the kingdom and its gens. It is through this framing that he also argues that there should be no theoretical obstacles or complications in referring to pre-modern communities precisely as ‘nations’, and not reserving the term for their modern iterations only.42 A similar position was argued by Anthony D. Smith, although he argued that the nation is not inherent, but is the politically potent construction of an already established ‘ethnie’, that is to say a community united by factors such as a collective proper name, language, common ancestry, cultural

39 The homonymity of “Finns”, confusingly not pertaining directly to the inhabitants of Finland, is evidenced by the name of the northernmost Norwegian province of Finnmark. 40 Eng, 2001, p. 164. 41 Opsahl, “Norwegian Identity”, 2017, pp. 449–450. 42 Opsahl, “Norwegian Identity”, 2017, pp. 449, 451–452. 15 practices, shared historical memories, and myths. The claim to common ancestry may or may not be mythical in and of itself, but it still functions as an emotional connection between the people that make up the ethnie.43 The ambiguity as to the question of descent is also acknowledged by Reynolds, who was previously cited as having written that many factors that enabled the existence of a gens were poorly defned because they were seldom systematically refected on before the modern period, and that the issue of biological heritage was subject to much abstraction. Opsahl demonstrates, through historical accounts of two rebellions in 1436 and 1448, the existence of a medieval Norwegian identity and community that evoked the collective welfare and kinship of all people of Norway, rather than loyalty to any particular regnal institution. In the peasant uprising of 1436, the rebels demanded specifcally the expulsion of “Danish” and other foreign administrators for the “great injustice and burdens” they inficted upon the people of Norway. Similar anti-Danish sentiments were at play during the 1448 rebellion, when the Swedish King Charles VIII contested Danish king Christian I’s right to the Norwegian throne. Supporters of Charles in Norway rejected having a “Danish and German” king, and when rallying support for Charles they appealed to ’ own welfare and that of future generations. In their addresses to the people, Charles’ supporters not only invoked God’s greetings, but also those of the Norwegian patron Saint Olav.44 Opsahl concludes with a discussion about the true continuity between this medieval Norwegian nationalism and the later modern iterations of it. While no collective identity can remain constant for hundreds of years, he says that one must not fail to account for nationalistic expressions in the past, when attempting to understand 19th-century nationalism.45 200 years later, Opsahl writes in a study of the province of Jämtland around the time it was ceded to Sweden, that the nation of Norway still was an obvious concept to Scandinavians. The people of Jämtland were identifed by authorities of both Denmark-Norway and Sweden to indeed be Norwegian, although the provincial demonym of jämtar seems to have taken precedence, as can be seen in a negotiation between a Norwegian commander and a Swedish garrison at Frösö in 1657, where the latter were demanded to release all captive “native Jämts and other Norwegians or ”.46 The preponderance of Danes in Norway’s Denmark-led administration and military was the cause of much ambiguous terminology for Swedes, who often identifed all such personnel as Danes, while the civilian population of Norway was exclusively Norwegian, Opsahl writes. He

43 Smith, 1994, pp. 19–28. 44 Opsahl, “Norwegian Identity”, 2017, pp. 457–459. 45 Opsahl, “Norwegian Identity”, 2017, p. 460. 46 Opsahl, “Jemtland fra dansk til svensk”, 2011, p. 186. 16 describes the perceived national distinction between civilians and employees of the state as so sharp that a farmer was considered Norwegian as long as he was a civilian, but the moment he was put in a soldier’s uniform, he was a Dane.47 This may be an instance of the abstraction of biological descent, and its frequent confation with other cultural characteristics and political afliations, that Reynolds attests to. But more concretely it illustrates a view from the Swedish perspective of the Norwegian nation as benign and subjugated, while all malevolence in the wars was represented by their Danish overlords, going so far as to arbitrarily assign the latter nationality to all organised opposition Sweden met. It is however unknown whether this phenomenon should be assumed to indicate that nationality was always conditional on loyalty or behaviour, or if it merely refects a context where the Danish-Norwegian state was genuinely widely assumed to be an exclusively Danish organisation. Both options pair well with the notion of Norway as a victim entity under the Danish monarchy. It can however not be ruled out that the common description of Norwegian soldiers as Danish was a mere colloquialism or shorthand, even among people with better understanding of the situation. This theoretical foundation allows for an appreciation of national identities in Scandinavia during the 17th century, while also providing an understanding of how nations related to culture and politics. A nation, or a rike, was as a concept largely separate from the political status of its geographical space, and was as such not necessarily tied to notions of political loyalty to a monarch. On the other hand, ambiguity in national belonging could arise in certain contexts where distinctions were made between civilians and state institutions for political reasons. This is especially pertinent in a conglomerate state like Denmark-Norway, where the relation between the state and each of its constituent riken, provinces, and cultural groups was complex and likely opaque to outsiders. In a wider geopolitical perspective, perceptions of nationhood that separated an expanding state from the inhabitants of its territorial ambitions also afected the gain from said ambitions. The local estates of Jämtland, perceived to be part of the Swedish rike, were invited to parliament within two years of the conquest in 1645, a hefty and exclusive political concession from the State. This province also saw eforts and resources put into replacing allegedly “Danish” administrators, while no thorough surveys of what could be extracted to weigh up the investments were undertaken, as described by Vikestad and contrasted with the moreso perceived utrikes province of Trondheim. Through the importance of the rike, it is apparent that the view that the people of Jämtland either were Swedes, or were destined to become Swedes, played a large role in the province’s

47 Opsahl, “Jemtland fra dansk til svensk”, 2011, p. 188. 17 conquest and integration into Sweden. The rigidity of national categories can therefore be expected to afect the geopolitical ambitions of a state that, in its expansion in Scandinavia, stressed the status of conquered provinces as part of its rike, its nation. That there was a distinction between Swedes and Norwegians is therefore entirely central to understanding the Swedish movement into Trondheim, an undeniably very integral cultural and ecclesiastical centre of the Norwegian nation.

Geopolitics and concepts of nations hand in hand The riken of medieval and early modern Scandinavia were both popularly imagined ethnic communities and potent political frameworks for the increasingly powerful states. How the perceptions of the rike afected the physical expansion of the Swedish state in this period was at times complex, as can be seen in the ambiguous use of the term in contemporary sources; Estonia and Livonia were regarded as part of the rike from a judicial point of view, presumably refecting their uniformity with the rest of the Swedish legal system, at least in the highest judicial instances. Simultaneously, they were considered utrikes from a more normative point of view, potentially due to being ethnically and culturally separate from Sweden proper, resulting in their political marginalisation with regards to estate representation. This stratifcation of territories all under the same state is the core of what defnes a conglomerate state, but it does not reject the existence of nations within its system. Rather, the manifestations of nations are what cause an expanding state to adopt its conglomerate form to begin with, since each constituent ‘nation’ is largely defned by its own political franchise and legal tradition, which may or may not be compatible with the systems espoused by the ‘core nation’ of the state. In the Swedish Empire, this is refected in the relatively easy integration of formerly Danish and Norwegian territories, in contrast with the difculties faced in Estonia, Livonia, and not to mention Pomerania, territories which were characterised by particularly strong German aristocratic regimes that had a number of conficts with the Swedish regime. Perceptions about the true extent of the Swedish rike coloured Swedish decision-making in the construction of its empire, not just in the post-war integration of conquered territories, but also in the choice of what regions to expand into. The conquests of Jämtland and Skåneland were anticipated by king Gustav Vasa with reference to their supposed inherent Swedish belonging, more than a century before they were realised by his successors. But to return to the more peripheral conquests of the imperial days, how did these cultural-political frameworks infuence the decisions leading up to the sudden expansion into Norway in 1658?

18 Sources and method The study of geopolitics of any state requires an insight into the thoughts and motivations of its foremost ofcial actors, and the ofcial discussions they had with each other. One of the central sources utilised is Swedish privy council protocols (Svenska riksrådets protokoll, SRP), accounts of what was discussed at the meetings of the privy council, essentially Sweden’s cabinet of ministers. They are complemented by the correspondence of Axel Oxenstierna (Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar, AOSB), the chancellor and head of the privy council between 1612 (although the earliest letters subject to this study are from 1611) and 1654, who in this capacity was also the most powerful man in the country in the absence of the king. The council protocols exist from at least as early as 1621, with occasional gaps appearing towards the . Incidentally a year that is lacking protocols is 1659, a pivotal year for the subject matter, which further motivates the use of several sources. This is where the parliamentary protocols of the noble estate (Sveriges ridderskaps och adels riksdagsprotokoll, SRAR) will serve its most exclusive role, covering 1659 and 1660. These protocols will of course furthermore be utilised for the preceding period that they cover, starting in 1627. General parliamentary documentation (Svenska riksdagsakter, SR) from the early 17th century has been used to a lesser extent, giving additional cover to the period 1611–1616. The other three estates of the Swedish parliament do either not have records from the period in question (the peasant estate does not), or did not discuss relevant foreign policy issues to such a degree that they would be useful to include in the study. The correspondence of relevant monarchs is a lesser concern, due to the privy council’s, and in particular chancellor Oxenstierna’s, hierarchical supremacy for much of the examined time period. Any issues portrayed by an individual monarch would doubtlessly also be featured in either the council or parliament, where the monarchs of the period made regular appearances. The diference in nature between the parliament of the estates and the council with regard to their respective functions within the State relegates the former source to be primarily complementary, since the privy council and chancellor Axel Oxenstierna represent the executive body of the State, and naturally discuss foreign policy issues more extensively than the legislative parliament, who is only the receiver of their proposals on the topic. The opinions expressed in parliament are also only arguably representative of the State as a whole, even if the privy council was constituted of members largely drawn from the noble estate itself. There must always be an awareness of both the distinction between the institutions and more specifc contexts in this regard when comparing the discourses presented in the three sources.

19 As is already implied, the sources need to not only cover the dramatic years of 1658–1660, but should also reasonably stretch further back, in order to encompass previous important Swedish interactions with Norwegian geography necessary for contextualisation, most notably the conquest of Jämtland in 1645. Sweden had geopolitical concerns with Norway already before the inception of the source materials, however, as Gustav Vasa’s previously mentioned expressions about Jämtland and Bohuslän prove. None of the sources will therefore be subject to delimitation going back in time, but will be examined in their entirety, altogether covering a period between 1611 and 1660. This is not only with regards to contextualisation with previous expressed geopolitical aims in Norway, but also in particular regard to the signifcance of Axel Oxenstierna. The chancellor represents such a major political force during most of the studied period there is no stone that can be left unturned when it comes to his correspondence. As he is a political actor with a near-constant presence during the examined period, Oxenstierna’s words on the concerned topics of Norway must always be taken into account, whether they are from the early days of his tenure as chancellor, or from the height of Swedish military activity preceding his death. Furthermore, since his correspondence is organised in volumes according to themes and individual correspondents rather than chronology, approaching the letters without discrimination for what year they’re from also makes studying them signifcantly easier. There is an assumption from the start that using the privy council protocols as well as Axel Oxenstierna’s letters might reveal some discrepancies between them, leading to the issue of which one of them should be considered to be more “ofcial” as the voice of the executive branch. Potentially such discrepancies can be used to highlight eventual changes of policy that occurred with the ascension of a new monarch (the two enthronements of the period being that of queen Christina in 1645 and King Charles X in 1654), or other dynamics between Oxenstierna and actors from the council. One notable shift of this nature naturally occurs with the death of Oxenstierna in 1654, from which point an unmatched voice of the period is lost, and in its place there will only be the council and parliament. The issue of singling out individuals in order to discern the general opinion of the State from the sometimes unique opinions of the servants that constitute it deserves some clarifcation, with regards to the privy council protocols. When the protocols are cited in the study, they will always be attributed to the person they are attributed to by the protocols. Oftentimes however, the protocols present discussions in a difuse way that makes no distinction between its contributors, and sometimes discussions are only noted by their outcome, with the preceding argumentation being omitted. These potential protocol faws are likely the result of the varying contexts in which

20 discussions were held, such as their length and detail, and also the varying practices of the difering secretaries who produced them. The responsible secretaries for all protocols are (where available) always noted by the editors of the transcriptions, but no attention had been paid to these persons in this study. The privy council protocols as well as the letters were, originally handwritten, transcribed into printed text, done in several volumes from the late 19th century into the middle of the 20th century, under four diferent editors. Original spellings were mostly preserved, although the use of W, V and U was modernized for easier reading, as was punctuation and capitalisation.48 Due to this comprehensive and meticulous approach, the transcriptions yielded extensive indexes that let the reader search up specifc words in the vast records. The privy council protocols and the correspondence of Axel Oxenstierna are easily navigable thanks to this. The compilation of the noble estate’s parliamentary protocols however, do not come with any such index, and so is only navigable through its chronological arrangement. In the case of the two indexed sources, the relevant topics Norge (Norway) and Trondheim will be searched up in these sources indexes. Additional useful search terms have been added to the search vocabulary as research has been conducted. It must be assumed that any such additional terms will occur in the sources together with the base terms Norge or Trondheim, and never be written about without such context. For example, the Norwegian province of Vardöhus has only been accounted for because it was frst referenced in, or close to, a discussion that involves the base terms. As more search terms have been added, these have served as keys to deepen the search, uncovering new information that would have been invisible when using only the two base terms. This approach is useful because it narrows down the starting point in the sources to what is directly relevant to the study, instead of starting of with a higher number of search terms and risking some of them not becoming useful. Regions of interest only being introduced upon relevance is also a principal safeguard against a priori-assumptions. The terms to use for the search were arrived at incrementally during the research process. The following terms, annotated with their meaning, are all that were ultimately used to navigate the source materials (presented alphabetically):

48 Thanner, “Förord”, 1959, p. VII. 21 Akershus49, Arkhangelsk50, Jämtland, Nordsjön/Västersjön51, Kola52, Lappar53, Lappland54, Norden, Norge, Norrland55, Titisfjord56, Trondheim57, Varanger58, Vardöhus59

Interestingly, the medieval and traditional name of Trondheim, Nidaros, does not seem to have been in use anymore by the Swedish in this time period, which explains its absence in the above list. There are a number of problems which must be addressed when discriminating source material based on the absence of specifc wanted terms. The editors who compiled the indexes are always liable to human error, which could cause them to miss occurrences where a listed word was mentioned. Editor Lennart Thanner of the 18th volume of council protocols (covering the year 1658) admits to the difculty of indexing hard-identifed Eastern European names and locations.60 Fortunately, locations outside of Scandinavia are not within the scope of this study, probably decreasing the risk of oversights.61 Instinctively, it is reasonable to assume that the more common a word is, the more likely it is that it will be overlooked in the text by the editor. If a specifc word only occurs in one or two places in an otherwise very loaded volume, it would probably be harder for the editor to miss it during the transcription. If a word has a very high frequency on the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that at least one occurrence has slipped through the net. But with this in mind, the reverse situation can also be true, depending on the meticulousness of the editor. Archaic or otherwise inconsistent and varying spellings of places and names can also be reason for a mentioned word to slip under the radar. For example, relevant to this study, the name of the city of Trondheim is variously rendered Dronthjem, with the heim-sufx also having a great variety ranging from hejm to hem. In general, inconsistent spellings are not difcult to identify, since they

49 County in the Norwegian capital area that has its namesake from a fortress. Most importantly, it includes the capital city of . 50 Settlement in north-western Russia. 51 The North Sea and its historical synonym. Both terms were used interchangeably. 52 Peninsula in north-western Russia. 53 Historical term for Samis, an ethnic group inhabiting northern Scandinavia and extending into Russia. 54 Historical name for the far-northern region inhabited by Sami people. 55 Historical general name for northern Scandinavia. Its modern meaning in Swedish is more exclusive and only pertains to the northern half of Sweden itself, although similar namesakes are still found in Norway too. 56 A fjord in northern Norway known today as Tysfjord. 57 Interestingly, no reference is ever made in the sources to the medieval and traditional name of Trondheim, Nidaros, implying it had fallen out of use by the Swedish in this time period. 58 A peninsula in north-eastern Norway. 59 Locality on the eastern tip of the Varanger peninsula. 60 Thanner, “Förord”, 1959, pp. VII–VIII. 61 Places that may technically be considered eastern European but with close relations to Scandinavia, such as the Russian port of Arkhangelsk, have actually been very thoroughly attested to in the indexes. Arkhangelsk has occasionally been referred to by the name of the patron saint of a nearby monastery, an obscurity that did not elude the editors. 22 have often been acknowledged in the index, but the awareness should always be there. Referring back to editor Thanner, the inconsistent renderings of names and locations in the original protocols was one of the reasons for the fawed indexing of certain Eastern European names and locations.62 The noble estate’s parliamentary protocols will on the other hand have to be consulted on basis of their relation to contemporary political events, such as during wars and peace negotiations, since the topic of Norway cannot be searched per each individual mention. The risk of vital inter-war discussions in parliament eluding the study is however low, due to the above stated reasons for why the parliamentary protocols are subordinated to the two other sources; they do not initiate foreign policy or geopolitical discussions, but only respond to the council’s proposals on said issues. Quotes from the sources will be translated into English for readers’ comprehension. Although the English spellings are modernised, syntax has mostly, where possible, been preserved in order to closely replicate the grammatical subtleties of the original texts. This is to convey any ambiguities and difculties in interpretation that were apparent during the studying process, and to avoid giving the sources meanings that were not intended by their authors. Full quotes in their original language, predominantly in Swedish but occasionally also in Latin, will be rendered in their respective footnotes.

Disposition The structure of the study will refect the chronological order of the cited sources, in practice meaning the discussions of the Norwegian question around the 1611–1613 will be the frst to be addressed, followed by the 1643–1645 Torstenson War, and fnally the 1657–1660 Danish theatre of the . Intermediate discussions that touch on geopolitics in Norway will of course be presented in-between the major wars where they occur, or where otherwise relevant, but the expectation is that territorial issues were largely settled, even if only temporarily, with the conclusion of each major war. After the analysis of the source material, the study will be summarised and have its conclusions discussed.

62 Thanner, “Förord”, 1959, pp. VII–VIII. 23 Norway and the Swedish Empire The far north before and after the Treaty of Knäred In 1611, Sweden had a de facto presence in what was after 1613 considered to be an integral and indisputable part of Norway. The northernmost part of the country, sometimes referred to as Finnmark but historically defned by the county of Vardöhus, was subject to overlapping authorities of Danish-Norwegian, Russian, and Swedish tax collectors, profting of the local Sami populations there. When the end of the Kalmar War was agreed upon with a peace settlement in the small Danish-Swedish border town of Knäred in 1613, the authority in Vardöhus was restricted to Denmark-Norway only, for the frst time defning the border in the far north, and creating out of the vast Norrland expanse a defnitely Norwegian and a Swedish Norrland. Axel Oxenstierna defned the county of Vardöhus in a correspondence with the delegates present at the negotiation in December 1612, as stretching “från Tittisford in till Varanger”63. Its extent into the mainland seems to have been limited by the rise of the highlands, as a much later discussion in the privy council mentions that Sweden’s authority in Lapland runs along “Kölen”64, a term for a part of the Scandinavian Mountains that makes out a natural border between Norway and Sweden. Furthermore, as the issues in this region concerned the right to taxation of the local Samis, the geographical relation of the diferent Sami populations is also used to demarcate whom the king of Denmark ruled over and whom the king of Sweden ruled over; “Siölapper eller Siöfnner”65 (“Sea Lapps or Sea Finns”) referred to the Sami population of Vardöhus, who were from 1613 onward considered to be Danish-Norwegian subjects only. From this geographical framing of the issue, it is obvious that Sweden prior to the Knäred treaty had a marked presence not only in the interior of Vardöhus, but also on the coast. At least one concrete form of Swedish pre-war presence is mentioned in the sources. During the peace negotiation in late 1612, Sweden presented a number of grievances felt inficted upon them by Denmark-Norway, in argumentation as to who was the aggressor in the confict. King Gustav II Adolf wrote to Oxenstierna that Danish agents had destroyed a “bygning” (a structure or a settlement, the direct meaning is unclear) that Sweden had under his father and predecessor Charles IX established near Alta, a fjord in east-central Vardöhus county.66 The Swedish right to this land was insisted on by Gustav Adolf, who cited a prior agreement with Denmark67 as well as a 1595

63 AOSB I:2, 24/12 1612, p. 119. 64 SRP VI, 29/11 1636, p. 760. 65 AOSB I:2, 8/12 1612, p. 103. 66 AOSB II:1, 17/11 1612, p. 11. 67 The king refers to a meeting at Flackesjöbäck, which took place in 1603. Originaltraktater med främmande makter II. 1572–1632, pp. 127–157. 24 treaty with Russia, describing Swedish jurisdiction as stretching from halfway between Tysfjord and Malangen fjord, and then from Malangen towards Varanger for an unclear distance: If Lapland should do its part, that, after we possess against Norway’s crown half of what is between Titisfjord and Maallanger, and, since the treaty was settled between us and the Russians anno 1595, two parts between Maallanger and Varanger both to land and water, people and rights68

Gustav II Adolf, who was newly ascent to the throne at the time, had inherited this northern power relation from his father Charles IX, who had been the frst Swedish king to adopt the title “King of Lapps, Karelians, Kajans and Finns”, according to Torbjörn Eng.69 The ‘Norwegian’, or at least ‘northern’, ambition as it was expressed around the Kalmar War can therefore be seen as his own doing, and perhaps as having little relation to any geopolitical goals more widely deemed necessary by other representatives of the State. The Finnmark region being mainly defned by its Sami population, combined with its loose and informal territorial integrity, made it appropriate within the normative political framework of the time to consider it not part of the Norwegian rike, and therefore ripe for the monarch who styled himself King of the Lapps (similarly in the same war, Jämtland was occupied under the pretext that it was considered an inseparable part of the Swedish rike). But although Gustav Adolf did express refusal to give up the titles intruding on Danish territory70, he and Axel Oxenstierna ultimately had no strong objections to the Danish demands of ceding all positions in Vardöhus county (and Jämtland), neither ones held before the war such as Alta, nor ones captured from Denmark-Norway during the war, such as Vardöhus fortress itself.71

Map 2. Striped area indicates Swedish claims in Finnmark, also known as Vardöhus county, until 1613.

68 AOSB II:1, 17/11 1612, p. 12. Original Swedish quote: “Om Lappemarcken skole våre göre sin fijtt, att, efter vij ege emott Norgis crono halfparten ifrån Titisfjorden och till Maallanger, och, sedan dedh fördraged oprättedes emillan oss och Ryssen anno 1595, två deelar emillan Maallanger och Varanger både i landh och vatn, folck och rättigheter”. 69 Eng, 2001, p. 164. 70 AOSB II:1, 17/11 1612, p. 13. 71 AOSB I:1, unspecifed date between November 1612 and January 1613, pp. 69, 71. In the discussion of the peace terms Oxenstierna confrms the surrender of Vardöhus as well as Jämtland with the King’s explicit promise and concession. 25 The Russian trade The Swedish interests in Vardöhus county were not however just a product of what could seem to be a whim of Charles IX. Among the grievances presented by the Swedish delegates to the Danish, one claims that the Danish commander at Vardöhus fortress had mistreated Swedish subjects sailing by the coast, even ones with the recognised royal passports.72 The confict in the far north was therefore also grounded in commercial issues, as Vardöhus oversaw the trade route to and from the important Russian White Sea port of Arkhangelsk. With the loss of access to the northern coast, Sweden was completely locked out of guaranteeing the safety of its commercial ventures in this direction, a problem which has further implications on the geopolitical aims in the far north, even outside of Norway. Although the Kalmar War had concluded, Sweden was at the time also at war with Russia in the Ingrian War (1610–1617). In a 1614 letter written to Oxenstierna by Gustav Adolf, the king discussed the ofer of mercenary commander Hans Georg von Arnim to capture the Russian fort of Kola for Sweden, which had been proposed as an attempt “upon Archangel”. It is unclear whether this implies it was part of a larger attempt to conquer Arkhangelsk itself, or merely a shorthand for the general region surrounding the port, the route to which the Kola fortress overlooked. von Arnim asked the crown to provide a ship and a sum of money to pay his soldiers with, whereupon he would subsequently, if the plan had been put in action, been acting as the crown’s governor in the remote Barents Sea outpost. The king seems to have accepted the ofer, although he suggested instead that Swedish soldiers should quickly move in and replace von Arnim as garrison, and proposed a diferent governor, with the concern that expensive mercenaries such as von Arnim should be put to use elsewhere.73 A potential reason for this campaign being considered is found in a council discussion from around the same time in 1614, where it is said that the difculty in subjugating Russia was due to the country’s many material imports through Arkhangelsk (although the port is here referred to as “Sanchte Niclas”, after the nearby monastery named after the saint), which it would be hard to stife because the trade there was dominated by the English and the Dutch, who were deemed unlikely negotiating parties in the issue.74 Although the matter did not arise again in the sources and the idea seems to have been scrapped for unknown reasons, this represents another Swedish attempt at gaining a foothold on the northern coast, much like the project in Vardöhus. Aside from the outspoken object of desire being

72 AOSB II:1, 17/11 1612, p. 11. 73 AOSB II:1, 17/5 1614, pp. 24, 50. 74 SR II:1, 26/6 1614, pp. 514–518. This is a privy council document pre-dating 1621, the earliest year presented in the comprehensive SRP volumes. In this instance, it appears as material for a parliamentary session. 26 Arkhangelsk, Swedish interests in north-western Russia can also potentially be linked to previous attempts at claiming Swedish jurisdiction of coastal Samis in Norway. The Kola peninsula was after all just like its adjacent regions mostly inhabited by Sami people, creating an incentive for Gustav II Adolf to act upon his royal title as King of the Lapps to annex it. This title or any claims to Sami subjugation was however never evoked in the sources, and no claims to permanent expansion into Kola or towards Arkhangelsk are expressed either. The immediate contemporaneity of this proposed Russian campaign to the failure in Vardöhus suggests that Sweden was motivated into seeking coastal access further east, after it had been locked out in Norway when the formal borders was drawn in 1613. Although it is hard to pin down the exact relation between Finnmark and Kola in Swedish interests because the campaign never moved beyond conceptualisation, it is reasonable due to the Arkhangelsk reference to assume that Swedish interests in the north were not limited to Norway, but did extend into Russian territory. If Swedish interests in the Arkhangelsk trade persisted despite the settlements with Denmark-Norway in 1613 and with Russia in 1617 (where Sweden did not procure any coastal territories), this may have continued to be a latent issue for Sweden four decades later, when they did gain access to the North Sea through Trondheim. The fuctuating, and as a consequence occasionally spiking, importance of Arkhangelsk as a port for Russian trade did cause concern for some of the council members, with regards to how it afected the trade volumes in Swedish Estonia and Livonia. Economic difculties in the city of Reval (modern day Tallinn) were attributed to the Arkhangelsk trade in 1634,75 and concerns were raised about the prospects of against the same background in 1636.76 Axel Oxenstierna responded in the latter discussion that the current downturn in Baltic trade and upswing in the Arkhangelsk trade was an efect of the war in Germany, and expressed no necessity for Sweden to attempt to capitalise on the alternative trade route to the north.77 This conservative approach, whether stemming from the previous failure of Sweden to penetrate the far north, or from a sincere belief in the recovery of the Baltic trade, illustrates why the borders remained static in the far north for the remainder of Oxenstierna’s tenure.

Swedish Lapland as a Baltic zone But that the far-northern issue was never truly settled is evident from the continued conficts arising regarding Sami taxation after 1613, despite Sweden and Denmark-Norway formally reaching an

75 SRP IV, 30/8 1634, pp. 208–209. 76 SRP VI, 15/8 1636, pp. 541, 555. 77 SRP VI, 15/8 1636, p. 555. 27 agreement on how the power relation in Lapland should look. As late as 1624, Oxenstierna complained in a letter to Danish authorities that tax collectors from Norway had taken the liberty to tax Samis across the established border, and had even taxed Samis under Swedish jurisdiction who had relocated to the coast for seasonal fshing. He furthermore accuses Denmark-Norway of deliberately luring Samis from the mountains down to the coast for taxation purposes.78 While there are no heavier violations of sovereignty nor any suggested further claims to Norwegian territory by Oxenstierna or any of his correspondents in the letters between 1613 and 1624, these small frontier incidents regarding the Sami taxation reaching the top of the Swedish government shows that the border issues in the far north were still far from settled and were still of importance more than a decade after the Kalmar War had concluded. Beyond taxation issues, in 1636 when silver was discovered close to the Norwegian border in Swedish Lapland, that being on the Swedish side of the mountain range, Oxenstierna anticipated that it would cause a confict with Denmark, going so far as to say the Kalmar War was itself in actuality a war over rights (presumably including commerce) in Lapland.79 As predicted, Denmark questioned Sweden’s right to the silver fnds, to which Oxenstierna responded that the extraction would be modest in order to not cause any upset.80 He furthermore motivated Swedish ownership of the mine with its situation along rivers that discharged into the Baltic,81 openly acknowledging Sweden’s inherent relation to the Baltic even as a political construction, and refecting Villstrand’s characterisation of the Swedish Empire as entirely contingent on maritime communication in connection with this sea. The situation in Europe saw the priorities of Swedish foreign policy change, however temporarily. In letters sent during, and following the failure of, the Danish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War (1625–1629), Oxenstierna adopts a conciliatory stance on the Swedish-Danish rivalry by appealing to the idea of the Nordic Protestant kingdoms being threatened by a common enemy in the Catholic Holy Roman Empire. Sometimes expressed in Latin as “regnum septentrionale” (“the northern kingdoms”), Oxenstierna seems to have wanted to rally political support against the anti-Protestant cause that threatened both Sweden and Denmark, and described Scandinavia as “the North” in letters addressed to among others the king of Denmark, the king of , and the mayor and council of Riga.82 This evocation of a Protestant North united

78 AOSB I:2, 24/8 1624, pp. 626–627. 79 SRP VI, 20/7 1636, p. 445. Oxenstierna’s formulation is “den Lappiske handelen störste orsaken var till dedt förra kriget” (“the Lappish afairs the greatest cause was for the last war”), where “handelen” in its modern interpretation would more likely refer to commerce specifcally, but where from the context it seems more likely that it refers to economic activity in general, such as mining. 80 SRP VI, 22/9 1636, p. 605. 81 SRP VI, 29/11 1636, p. 760. 82 AOSB I:4, 9/9 1628, pp. 219–223, 12/1, p. 330. AOSB I:5, 27/2, p. 124. 28 in destiny was however limited to a couple of years between 1628 and 1630, and no further appeals to a regnum septentrionale appeared in Oxenstierna’s lifetime. Soon thereafter, Oxenstierna found it necessary to discuss military strategy with Gustav II Adolf in the event of a Danish attack during Sweden’s direct involvement in the war in Germany, which started in 1630. In January 1631, he wrote to the king that Jämtland should in such a scenario, just as had been done in 1611, be occupied in order to secure Norrland from attacks from that direction, which would otherwise prevent it from contributing to the Swedish efort (“render Norrland safe and utilise the means there to Your Majesty’s strength”).83 While Vardöhus had been conceded as a legitimate Norwegian territory after the Knäred treaty, Jämtland remained a point of contention because it was still considered part of the Swedish rike. From the point of view of Oxenstierna, while he respected Danish-Norwegian sovereignty in Finnmark as per the treaty, Sweden still had a just war to wage over Jämtland. The internal consistency of Oxenstierna’s approach to the far north, the Arkhangelsk trade, and the pragmatic relationship to Denmark-Norway that has been outlined so far can be viewed as a coherent and deliberate Baltic-focused imperial policy or doctrine, and will from here on be referred to as such.

The Torstenson War Just as Hildebrand, Rosén, and Theland concur, Jämtland was in the 17th century considered an integral part of the Swedish kingdom, or at the very least, not inherently a part of Norway. This is consistently expressed in the source material, starting in 1611, when commander Carl Bonde wrote to Oxenstierna regarding his planned occupation of the province, that he would lead his soldiers there, fortify, and “let the Jämts swear under Sweden’s crown again”: The Jute wants to enter western or Värmland, but in Jämtland it is rumoured, that he has a force foreigners, though Jutes or Norwegians. I have after His Majesty’s order decided to on the 11th of June march there with a force, God willing and His Majesty commanded, that they there should erect a fort and let the Jämts swear under Sweden’s crown again84

83 AOSB I:6, 8/1 1631, p. 40. Original Swedish quote: “göra Norlandh reen och nyttja dhe medelen till E.K. M:tts styrckie”. The exact meaning of “göra [...] reen” is not clear, and it could alternatively be interpreted as rendering Norrland complete, referencing the geographical continuity of Norrland east of the mountain range. This does not radically change the fundamental geopolitical implication of what Jämtland meant to Sweden, though. 84 AOSB II:11, 3/6 1611, p. 3. Original Swedish quote: “Juten wijll in i Vesterdallarna eller Vermeland, men i Jemtland seies föruisa, att han skall hafva der en hop fremat folk, dåck Jutar eller Norbagga. Jagh hafver efter K. M. befalningh [tänkt] den 11 Junii begifva migh på vegen dittått med en hop folck, Gud gifve till lycka och hafver K. M. befallatt, att man der skulle slå en skanzch och låtta Jemterna suerie under Sueries krona igen”. “Norbagga” was a common slang for Norwegians. 29 In this quote, Bonde makes a nominal distinction between Danes (“Jutes”, slang derived from the Danish mainland peninsula Jutland), Norwegians, and Jämtland’s native inhabitants, the Jämts. The perceived historical connection between Jämtland and Sweden is also apparent, as the Jämts were expected to take an oath to the Swedish king “again”. With this perception widespread, Jämtland was never refected upon, before or after its fnal transfer to Sweden, as a ‘Norwegian’ province. This perception also existed regarding Gotland, as both evident by Hildebrand and Rosén, as well as Axel Oxenstierna, who in 1638 wrote that previous Swedish kings ceded these integral territories “to avoid greater evils” (“ad evitanda majora mala”).85

The peacef ul war Oxenstierna’s doctrine called for what was portrayed as a reuniting between Jämtland and the rest of the Swedish rike. While the province was to be occupied by Swedish troops, Norway ‘proper’ was in the Torstenson War to be left alone Oxenstierna explained to the council in early 1644, some months after the war had broken out with Denmark over, among other issues, the rising inconvenience of the Danish Öresund tolls, which profted of of and impeded the now recovering Baltic trade. He reasoned that occupying Norway proper would be cumbersome and that not much would be gained out of it: Was then discussed whether one could go with dessein into Norway; [...] Chancellor meant it would be inconvenient to go there, and that not much would there be accomplished, but rather that one proves to the Norwegians all humanity, invite them with letters to friendship, promise them safety, as long as they sit still; [...] But with Jämtland the chancellor meant a dessein was necessary.86

As an alternative, by treating Norway proper respectfully by not violating its borders, Oxenstierna believed that one could prevent Norwegian attacks into Sweden, and cultivate an amicable relationship with the Norwegian people. In line with this intention, the chancellor ordered the issuing of a proclamation of intent to the inhabitants of the country and of Jämtland, where it was promised that they would not be disturbed if they “sit still”, not make resistance to the Swedes.87 The proclamation aimed at the Jämts assured the justness of the Swedish war declaration, and

85 SRP VII, 2/6 1638, p. 226. 86 SRP X, 8/1 1644, p. 433. The word ‘dessein’ is a French loanword which was in Swedish commonly used in military contexts to describe a plan, intent, or aim with a military campaign. Original Swedish quote: “Taltes sedan om huru man skulle kunna gå medh dessein i Norie; [...] R. Cantzleren mente det vara besvärligit att gå där in, och icke heller vara därmedh myckyt uthrättat, uthan heller att man bevijsar de Norske all humanitet, invitera dem medh bref till vänskap, lofva dem säkerheet, så frampt de sittia stilla; [...] Men medh Jemptelandh mente Rix-Cantzleren nödigt vara att en dessein på giordes.” 87 SRP X, 10/1 1644, p. 436. 30 claimed that they (and presumably the Norwegians as well) lived in “träldom” (slavery) under the Danish crown, along with that they in actuality lived within the borders of Sweden.88 Much efort was put into organising defences along the rest of the Norwegian border in western and south-western Sweden. Riksdrots (one of the major ofces constituting the privy council) Per Brahe stated that as soon as Jämtland was secured, Norrland would be safe from Norwegian attacks, which would leave Värmland as the only entry point into Sweden from the west.89 The Värmland peasantry was armed in order for them to do their part in covering this weakness, although a suggestion from a border commander to let them attempt to seek friendly contacts with their Norwegian equivalents was rejected by Oxenstierna, who advised against commoners handling such relations without supervision.90 Per Brahe furthermore urged that the city of Vänersborg in Västergötland, located where lake Vänern turns into the border-defning Göta River, be fortifed to defend against attacks from Norwegian Bohuslän.91 In the fnal months of the war in the summer of 1645, commander Lars Kagg was in charge of a military force that was tasked with defending Västergötland from both the north and west through Vänersborg and across the Göta River, and from the south through Danish-held Halland (part of what in this study is routinely simplifed as Skåneland).92

Ambiguous Bohuslän Interestingly however, the Norwegian fortress of Bohus, guarding the riverine border between Bohuslän and Västergötland, was brought up in the council as a potential object of conquest due to it reportedly being poorly manned at the time, despite the stated non-aggressive intentions towards Norway: Was then discussed a dessein on Bohus regarding what use we could have of its transition. 2. It is currently badly manned, that it now could be worth the risk to take.93

From the use of the word “öfvergong”, which approximately means “transition” or “transaction”, it is clear that there was not just a temporary military occupation in mind, but a permanent territorial cession on behalf of Denmark-Norway. But there is reason to believe that the sentence concerns the

88 SRP X, 15/2 1644, p. 455. 89 SRP X, 21/3 1644, p. 469. 90 SRP X, 20/1 1644, p. 441. 91 SRP X, 21/3 1644, p. 469. 92 AOSB II:9, 2/8 1645, p. 656. In one of Kagg’s entries to his correspondence with Axel Oxenstierna he writes that he was currently encamped in Svenstorp, a position mid-way down the Göta River from which he stated he could keep an eye on the river, Vänersborg, and Halland. 93 SRP X, 16/1 1644, p- 439. Original Swedish quote: “Taltes sedan om een dessein på Båhus i betrachtande hvadh nytta vij kunne hafva af dess öfvergong. 2. Det är nu illa besatt och bemannat, att det nu till efventyrs kunde stå att emportera.” 31 fortress of Bohus only, and not its eponymous county, Bohuslän. From the point of view of the council, this probably violated the integrity of the Norwegian rike marginally at best, assuming the fortress only came with marginal land gains at the expense of its whole county of Bohuslän. This is reinforced by continued references to Bohuslän through mention of specifc parts of its geography. is the most prominent such part, and another that occurs in the discussions around the 1643–1645 war is Viken, a historical name ambiguously applied to either all of, or only parts of Bohuslän. That Bohus fortress was not necessarily considered within whatever Viken encompassed geographically is evident in a listing of territories from 1644 that names Bohus and Viken as separate items.94 An annexation of specifc localities within Bohuslän does not seem to have been considered a violation of the integrity of Norway, as there are no concerns regarding this issue raised surrounding the council’s plans to this end. To this should be added that Viken was only mentioned as a proposed territory that might be ceded to Sweden as “caution”, that being as temporary security, or collateral, that Denmark-Norway would have had to redeem with monetary payment.95 Although no parts of Bohuslän were ever included in any form in the fnal peace treaty of Brömsebro in 1645, the province of Halland was actually ceded to Sweden formally as collateral for 30 years in order to guarantee Swedish freedom from tolls in Öresund, but wound up being treated by Sweden almost from the start as a permanent conquest.96 The fate of Bohuslän (either in part or in whole) had it fnally been on the table as a “caution” is therefore uncertain. Although it is likely it would have been treated similarly to Halland, the stated approach to Norway may have made this

94 SRP X, 2/4 1644, p. 487. 95 SRP X, 2/4 1644, p. 487. 96 The terms on which Denmark could retain Halland according to the Brömsebro peace was that it did not attack Sweden or break any of the other stipulations of the treaty for 30 years. Sven Larsson writes that having to return the province to Denmark would have been considered a failure by the Swedes, and so Sweden treated Halland favourably in order to win the population’s loyalty ahead of a future confrmation of the cession. (Larsson, 2004, p. 19.) According to Hanne Sanders, although all of Halland was not admitted parliamentary representation from the start, the burghers of the city of were, as an example of the placating treatment. (Sanders, 2008, p. 65.) 32 impossible to justify. Ofcially, Sweden was only ever meant to damage Denmark, which makes the deceptive Halland acquisition understandable within the framework of the war, whereas similar actions in Norway could have been viewed as severely illegitimate. Even after the conclusion of the Torstenson War, commander Lars Kagg reiterated to chancellor Oxenstierna the necessity of permanently fortifying Vänersborg, in a letter sent in October 1645, two months after the peace treaty had been ratifed.97 This speaks to the expectation that the Göta River would remain the border between Sweden and Norway for the foreseeable future, and that any real, permanent territorial acquisition in Bohuslän was not on the agenda. To this it should be added that Lars Kagg was a member of the privy council, and could not possibly have been in the dark about any of the council’s plans regarding Bohuslän. The recurring mention of Bohus fortress in concerns about the security along the Göta River border98 makes the few expressed Swedish interests in Bohuslän seem to be motivated primarily by military strategic considerations. There is no indication of any commercial interests linked to advancing Swedish control of the coast, like in the far north, perhaps understandable since the mouth of the Göta River already granted Sweden access to the North Sea. In another instance, when the council was discussing the possibility of an attack into Norway despite the stated peaceful approach, the prospect of gaining control of, or at least preventing the enemy from utilising, the port of Marstrand in Bohuslän was brought up, again framing Bohuslän as an exclusively ofensive military object.99 As this plan never advanced beyond conceptualisation, it seems that the lack of new economic opportunities, along with the fact that Bohuslän laid outside of the Swedish rike, made the county ultimately undesirable for Sweden in 1645.

The ephemeral North Sea orientation Despite the reluctance to attack Norway, the privy council still expressly agreed that a strategic advantage in the North Sea needed to be secured, in order to sever Danish contact with Norway and prevent the shipment of resources that could contribute to the war efort. It was also agreed that the Dutch needed to be barred from trading with Norway for the same reason.100 Swedish-occupied Jutland would serve to maintain the planned North Sea feet, with its base in “Als”, the city of Aalborg. The island of Vendsyssel, constituting the northern half of Jutland, was

97 AOSB II:9, 12/10 1645, pp. 666–667. 98 Aside from during the 1643–1645 war, a peace-time example is that king Gustav II Adolf complained in 1624 to the Danish with regards to their observance of the 1613 treaty, that the command at Bohus fortress had destroyed a road on the Swedish side of the Göta River, and misled nearby Swedish households that they should pay taxes to them (AOSB II:1, 1/5 1624, pp. 237–238). 99 SRP X, 21/3 1644, p. 469. 100 SRP X, 6/11 1644, p. 664, SRP XI, 28/3 1645, p. 36. 33 even proposed as a cession from Denmark to Sweden to serve the North Sea ambition, likely as a “caution” as opposed to a permanent acquisition, although this isn’t entirely clear. Something that however indicates that the North Sea feet and its base on Jutland was not intended merely as a temporary investment is that it was motivated with the resulting availability of the harbour, which usually hosted all ships on the west coast. The harbour in Gothenburg could “year in and year out be held open”, which would provide revenue for the feet’s maintenance, it was argued.101 The idea was nonetheless dropped after it was deemed unrealistic that Denmark would ever agree to it.102 In another instance, the landshövding (an administrative ofce in charge of a county) of Västernorrland, Frans Krusebjörn, produced a report to the council about the geography of his far northern territory, in particular touching on the issue of whether it was possible to reach the North Sea from there through rivers and waterways.103 The contents of the report is not presented or discussed in the council protocols, but since the far northern issue is not addressed again for the duration of the war, it can be assumed that the results were unsatisfying. Possibly this would have otherwise yielded a prospect for Swedish navigation (likely only of military character, and small scale at that) to the coast without making any claims to Norwegian territory in the process, forcing locals to accept Swedish trafc on threat of violence, as per the proclamations issued at the start of the war. With the exception of Halland, which was formally to be held as collateral to ensure Denmark upheld one of the major objectives of the war, Sweden’s free passage through Öresund, Sweden’s territorial gains when the peace was settled in the town of Brömsebro in 1645 were in the end strictly oriented to the Baltic, and included beyond Jämtland the island of Gotland (a constituent of the rike, as it were104) and the island of Ösel. The noble estate initially voiced opposition to the conclusion of the war on these terms proposed by the council (although ofcially drafted by queen Christina), and argued that such a peace would be uncertain, meaning the army would have to remain mobilised, incurring a large cost for territories which defence would not pay for itself.105 No demands for expansion into Norway or otherwise towards the North Sea are expressed by the nobility however, and when the proposed peace treaty was fnally accepted after a few days of debate, the estate celebrated the fact that Sweden had recaptured old core provinces (“Provinces

101 SRP X, 13/9 1644, p. 632. 102 SRP XI, 19/4 1645, p. 56. 103 SRP X, 5/9 1643, p. 264. 104 SRAR 4, 21/7 1645, p. 30. One of the most explicit statements on this topic was voiced during a session of the noble estate, where it says that for Gotland “the war was taken up for liberty alone and not for any recompensation’s sake” (“[...] der doch kriget för liberteten allenast är uptagit och iche för någon recompens skull”). 105 SRAR 4, 16/7 1645, pp. 7–9. 34 that have under Sweden previously laid”).106 Oxenstierna and the council’s general approach to preserving what they perceived to be the Norwegian rike intact was evidently prevalent also among Sweden’s nobility, who preferred to emphasise the war against Denmark-Norway, where it would hurt Norway, as a just act to reconquer an integral province. Skåneland was often brought up in the discussions of the peace terms, both as a permanent cession and as temporary collateral,107 illustrating that even if the war had some non-rike objectives (Skåneland is never in this period explicitly stated to be a part of the Swedish rike, despite precedent instances of this view being widespread in the 16th century), they should all have occurred at the expense of Denmark. The lack of interest in commercial opportunities in the North Sea made the Swedish interests there limited to serving the war efort against Denmark. The Baltic orientation of the fnal outcome of post-1613 Swedish policy was noticeable also in how Jämtland (and Härjedalen) were treated administratively after its transfer to Sweden. Rather than being created a new county, Jämtland was assigned to the county of Västernorrland, and Härjedalen was added to a new county created out of Hälsingland and Gästrikland, just south of Västernorrland, instead of being assigned to the inland county of Dalarna to the south: 3. Hälsingland and Gästrikland with Härjedalen. The latter not upon Dalarna, but rather to the former, so that it runs with the water108

The new provinces were now deliberately oriented administratively towards the Baltic, a natural integrative consequence of the fow of the rivers that dominated the provinces, such as the river Ljusnan, which fows through Härjedalen and meets the Baltic Sea in Hälsingland. This is also refective of the chancellor’s previously mentioned defnition of the Scandinavian Mountains as a drainage divide being the border between Norwegian and Swedish Lapland, where in the latter all rivers ran to the Baltic.109 Although the council wanted to reorient the new provinces economically as well as administratively, they ultimately decided to let Jämtland maintain its commercial links with Trondheim, which had always been its principal port. Axel Oxenstierna however warned that such continued ties across the now ofcial Sweden-Norway border would also mean continued

106 SRAR 4, 21/7 1645, p. 27. Original Swedish quote: “Provincier som för detta en del av under Swerige legat hafwa”. 107 In a discussion on the peace terms on 23/3 1644 (SRP X, pp. 477–478) Jämtland is scarcely mentioned, and is even omitted from the listings of territories that should be demanded in some instances, while Skåneland and other Danish cessions dominate the conversation. Riksmarsk suggests Skåneland in addition to the other territories (SRP XI, 19/4 1645, p. 57), but he concedes that if that was too excessive, “40 barrels of gold” would be an acceptable substitute (21/4, p. 62). Riksdrots Per Brahe along the same lines suggested Skåneland as collateral for 50 years, in addition to 50 barrels of gold (21/4, p. 61). 108 SRP XI, 5/9 1645, p. 186. Original Swedish quote: “3. Helsinglandh och Gestrikelandh medh Herredalen. Detta sidsta icke på Dalerne, uthan hijt till, att dedh föres till vatnet”. 109 SRP VI, 29/11 1636, p. 760. 35 correspondence and friendship between the Jämts and the Norwegians, but he conceded that it was necessary for local imports, as well as to prevent uprisings among the populace.110 That Oxenstierna was concerned about the social and economic bonds between Jämtland and adjacent Norwegian regions reinforced the geopolitical conservatism that his doctrine espoused with regards to Norway since 1613, and ruled out any plans of expansion into Trondheim.

The wars of Charles X Gustav In June 1654 queen Christina abdicated the Swedish throne, and was succeeded by her cousin Charles X Gustav. Axel Oxenstierna died shortly after, in August the same year, leaving his chancellor ofce to his son, Erik, who would work closely with the new king of Sweden in all matters of domestic and foreign policy, until he too died an early death in 1656. Ellen Fries wrote in her biography of Erik Oxenstierna that his work for the State was in most aspects heavily guided by his father, such as when he served as the governor of Swedish Estonia between 1646 and 1653. He also inherited his father’s opposition to the revocation of land granted by the crown to the nobility, a recurring political question in the middle of the 17th century, although he later seems to have adopted a more pro-crown position on the issue shortly before his death. Most centrally, King Charles was said to have held a lot of admiration for Axel Oxenstierna’s foreign policy accomplishments, something which naturally translated into his confdence in Erik Oxenstierna’s abilities in the same feld. Erik was entrusted to negotiate the terms of peace with Poland, wherein Sweden would gain considerable territorial advantages in Royal (although these would be reversed when the left Poland for Denmark in 1657). Despite instances where King Charles circumvented chancellor Erik’s advice, Fries concludes that the two shared a relationship much like king Gustav II Adolf and Axel Oxenstierna before them, in that the would serve to moderate the kings’ sometimes excessive ambitions.111 The loss of the chancellor, with the ofce remaining vacant for the rest of Charles X’s reign, may have strongly infuenced the king’s geopolitical priorities, with the Oxenstiernas’ Baltic focus being sidelined in favour of the far north.

Post-Oxenstierna policy When Denmark declared war on Sweden in the summer of 1657, the council discussed the possibility of sending an army to Norway in order to “make a diversion on Denmark’s force”,

110 SRP XI, 12/12 1645, p. 257, 19/12 1645, pp. 262–263. 111 Fries, 1889. 36 originally proposed by landshövding Lorentz Creutz of Dalarna. There was some agreement to this, one of the reasons being that the construction of fortifcations along the Norwegian border was advancing very slowly, making an ofensive into the country the best way to defend Sweden. Carl Leijonhufvud opposed a fully fedged Norwegian campaign, arguing the soldiers given the task would be more needed elsewhere, and that it would only serve to wholly weaken Sweden militarily. He was however positive to the idea of letting peasants from the border regions equip themselves and march into Norway. Schering Rosenhane, whose suggestion was according to the protocols the one which was decided on, said an attack on Norway would be permissible if the army’s return to Sweden could be guaranteed without enemy interferences and encirclements, and that it was commanded with “dexterity”, meaning being fexible to changing situations. Furthermore any such attack should not be undertaken until the entire enemy force was inside Sweden.112 This approach to Norway resembles the one held during Oxenstierna’s leadership in the previous war, where Norway, excluding its unrecognised possession of Jämtland, was to remain practically untouched militarily in order to win the favour of its people, even if some departure from this policy was that time deemed possible (foremost in the case of Bohus fortress). The message from the Swedish state to the people of Norway in 1644 promised that they would only retaliate if the Norwegians did not remain “still”; the essence of this restraint existed also in 1657, where attention would only be directed at Norway as a response to the severity of the enemy invasion. The slight apparent diferences can likely be attributed to the important distinction between 1643 and 1657, wherein the former Sweden was the aggressor, whereas in the latter Denmark-Norway was, probably creating a diferent scenario for justifcation of military action. Count Leijonhufvud’s statement on how an eventual attack into Norway would be perceived, where he said that “Denmark knows, our biggest intent is on Skåne and not on Norway”113 further confrms that the agenda that framed the Torstenson War was still active. This was seen as an opportunity to accomplish what had been left unfnished in the last war, namely to take Skåneland, a desired but unfulflled acquisition in the discussions over the content of the 1645 treaty of Brömsebro. Against this background, the decision to occupy Trondheim came rather unexpectedly in December 1657. King Charles had assigned count Robert Douglas (an ofcer of Scottish descent) to the Norwegian border defence, which became an issue for the privy council, since there already was a commander of the same rank present at the border (no geographical specifcity is given, but it

112 SRP XVII, 16/6 1657, p. 167. 113 SRP XVII, 16/6 1657, p. 167. Original Swedish quote: “[...] elliest vet och Danmark väl, att vår största dessein ähr på Skåne och inthet på Norige.” 37 can be assumed to be in Värmland or Dalarna), Gustaf Stenbock. In order to prevent conficts between the two equal commanders, the council suggested that Douglas could be reassigned to capture Trondheim, after rallying troops in Dalarna and Norrland. [Gustav Stenbock], after he has equipped once, cannot depart from there; therefore one should see, if one could accommodate Count Douglas, since he over the winter will remain home after His Majesty’s letter, and was suggested, if one should not let him go to Dalarna and Norrland, gather as many people as he can, and attempt to conquer Trondheim.114

This is the frst mention of Trondheim in the source material, and the context surrounding it makes the Swedish attempt on it appear to have been sporadic and unplanned. That the council did not refect on the choice of Trondheim as the target for Douglas’ spontaneous campaign however makes it likely that the city, or the whole county, of Trondheim was always viewed as a potential target for military occupation in the case of a war with Denmark-Norway, even if there were no expressed ambitions to permanently conquer it. The outcome of Douglas’ march into Trondheim is not apparent in the sources, but it seems to have failed or never been executed, as the Norwegian commander in charge of the defence of the region, Jørgen Bielke, managed to force the Swedes out of Jämtland the same year, according to Yngvar Nielsen.115 Nevertheless, in the same time, King Charles had already forced Denmark to the peace of Roskilde in March, in which Skåneland, Bohuslän, and Trondheim were ofcially ceded to Sweden, meaning all Norwegian gains in the north were undone. In the frst discussion of the content of the peace terms in the council, taking place less than a month after the signing of the treaty, King Charles described the acquisition of Bohuslän in terms of “Svinsund”, referring to the water passage Svinesund, which today makes out the Norwegian-Swedish border in northern Bohuslän, and the confrmation of the Swedish possession of Halland as “Hall”. His Majesty meant, that after the king in Denmark hardly would cede Rendsburg to , one then should try to help Holstein to acquire these by the North Sea, Hall, Svinesund, Vardöhus county, to satisfaction, and His Majesty therefore refunded him a sum money, so that the named lands could likewise with Trondheim be incorporated with Sweden.116

114 SRP XVII, 2/12 1657, p. 289. Original Swedish quote: “[Gustaf Stenbock], efter han hafver equipperat sigh en gång, kan inthet heller väl gåå derifrån; altså skulle man see till, huru man kunde accomodera Gr. Douglas, efter han öfver vintern blijfver hema efter K. M:tz bref, och gafs förslagh, om man icke skulle låta honom gåå åth Dalarne och Norlanden, taga så mycket folk, som han kan fåå ihoop, och sökia till att bemechtiga sigh Trundhem.” 115 Nielsen, 1897, p. 79. 116 SRP XVIII, 29/3 1658, p. 24. It must be added that “Hall” could also potentially refer to the Norwegian fortress of , just north of Svinesund, perhaps erroneously believed by the king to be part of what was ceded, however unlikely. Original Swedish quote: “K. M:t mente, att efter Kongen i Danmark nepligen skulle afstå Rensburg til Holsten, man då måtte söka att hielpa Holsten til att få den delen uthe vid Norresiön, Hall, Svinsund, Vardhuus lähn, til satisfaction, och H. K. M:t derför refunderade honom en summa penningar, att sedhan be:te stycke land kunde tillijka medh Tronhemb incorporeras medh Sverige.” 38 The context it is presented in expressed that Bohuslän (through Svinesund), Halland, and Vardöhus county were demanded as a means for Sweden to gain an advantage on the North Sea (“Norresiön”). Specifcally, it was formulated—admittedly rather ambiguously—that Sweden would in order to be conceded these territories pay Denmark a sum of money, in order to also satisfy the Swedish ally the , a small German state in the south of Jutland, a number of concessions which King Charles believed Holstein was owed due to its contribution to the war. This was considered better than scaling back on the previously cited territorial demands. “Is his alliance necessary and useful his royal majesty has had reason to have him remembered in the Danish treaty”, it was agreed in the council.117 Vardöhus did however end up being exempted from the fnal peace treaty, it should be noted. There are two interesting things to note here. The frst is that Bohuslän was, just as with the earlier considerations about Bohus fortress in 1644, not motivated on the basis of the county’s totality, but only stressed through key parts of its geography. Svinesund was a natural barrier into the province from which it was easy to launch attacks onto Gothenburg and into Västergötland, which motivated its complete annexation by Sweden for security reasons. From a maritime, North Sea-oriented strategic point of view, Bohuslän was rich in harbours, a point that refects the 1644 plan against the Bohuslän port of Marstrand. The Roskilde treaty in 1658 was the execution of this geopolitical scheme to sever Bohuslän from Norway without having a proper framework abiding by the normative rike structure, that geopolitics in Scandinavia otherwise was beholden to. Instead, the claim to the region seems to have been motivated out of national security concerns. The second thing of note here is that Charles was more prepared to monetarily compensate Denmark for excessive territorial demands, than to scale back on them, in order to reach an agreement. This is in contrast with the negotiations in 1645, where the council was prepared to sacrifce the popular prospect of gaining Skåneland, that time in favour of receiving monetary compensation (see note 107). This strikes the Treaty of Roskilde and the underlying reasoning behind it as considerably more aggressive than the one in Brömsebro thirteen years earlier, and marks a departure from the restraint that characterised Sweden’s policy prior to Charles X. It can be argued that where the Oxenstierna doctrine saw a necessity of power balance in Scandinavia between Sweden and Denmark-Norway, King Charles rejected such deference in order to secure more direct advantages for Sweden.

117 SRP XVIII, 29/3 1658, p. 24. Original Swedish quote: “Är hans alliance nödigh och nyttig. H. K. M:t haf:r och haft orsak til att hafva honom ihogkommit vedh den danske tractaten.” 39 Norway as a planned second kingdom of Charles The war that once again broke out between Sweden and Denmark-Norway less than half a year after the Treaty of Roskilde has often been described as an attempt by Charles X to completely subjugate Denmark-Norway. Swedish historian Björn Asker writes in his biography of the king that the decision to absorb the rest of the two kingdoms into Sweden was motivated by his army requiring lands to live of of, while a Swedish campaign in Germany was barred by among other things French diplomacy, and there was no enthusiasm among the soldiers or the king to return to Poland. Alongside this, the Swedes suspected Denmark of protracting the execution of the Roskilde treaty in order to await the military aid of allies.118 There are things that support that King Charles had at least nominal ambitions on the entirety of Norway, showing that his interests in Norway did stretch far beyond just Trondheim. In the frst negotiations of the Roskilde treaty, the king supposedly wanted the entirety of Norway as collateral for 30 years, along with the permanent cession of a number of territories, such the capital region of Akershus and .119 This occurs in council protocols from before the diplomatic breakdown that occurred later in the summer of 1658, after which he expressly sought to end Danish and by extension also Norwegian independence.120 Although, in the initially imagined scenario Denmark was actually after its separation from Norway instead intended as a Swedish ally, but the details in the sources on this arrangement are scarce.121 King Charles also constructed the normative right to permanently possess territory in Norway. In April 1658, the council discussed the incorporation of the new territories to his royal titles, wherein King Charles proposed the invention of the title Partium Norvegiæ Rex (“King of part of Norway”), although rather haphazardly, as he follows this proposal with “or something like that”. As a more serious suggestion, he stated that if King Frederick III of Denmark did not revoke the title Rex Gothorum, which encroached on Swedish Götaland, Regis Norvegiæ would be incorporated into the Swedish royal title as a concrete pretension to all of Norway.122 The interroyal game of title claiming became the means through which one legitimised what would otherwise have been an unjust conquest, echoing the practices from fve decades earlier that led Sweden to claim to rule over all Lapps. If King Frederick did not attempt to claim right to Sweden through his titles,

118 Asker, 2009, pp. 253–257. 119 SRP XVIII, 11/2 1658, pp. 141–142. 120 SRP XVIII, 23/7 1658, pp. 87–88. In this council meeting one month before war would break out again, King Charles drafts administrative plans for Denmark as a Swedish province, wherein Zealand and Jutland would be designated two court districts along the Swedish judiciary system, the Danish nobility was proposed to emigrate, and the university in Copenhagen was to be relocated to Gothenburg. There was also uncertainty of the order in which Denmark and Norway would be listed in the complete royal title. 121 SRP XVIII, undated protocol draft from March 1658, p. 185. 122 SRP XVIII, 20/4 1658, p. 51. 40 Charles would likely not have had reason to counter-claim Norway in order to challenge him. With this in mind, the Norwegian conquest could have been entirely the result of the same process, lacking any direct geopolitical motivations beyond the Swedish king’s attempt to symbolically undermine the Danish king. Indirectly, the removal of Danish dominion in Norway would naturally have enabled Sweden to gain a strong advantage on their historical enemy in the future. The plan to wholly incorporate Norway into the Swedish Empire may have had a semblance of proto-Scandinavistic123 motivations. In his account of his foreign policy at the 1658 estates parliament that was summoned in Gothenburg, King Charles repeatedly appealed to Nordic communion, celebrating that he had “the Nordic kingdoms to a peaceful state and condition brought again”. Rather than even naming his conquests in Norway, he warned that disunity between the Nordic kingdoms was to the ruin of the Protestant cause, and evoked a similar sentiment against the Catholic Habsburg emperor in Germany that Axel Oxenstierna had done on the onset of the Swedish involvement in the Thirty Years’ War.124 The reality was defnitely similar, the Catholic emperor was involved in the war against Sweden, as a result of the Polish war. With the ambition of the complete annexation of Norway, and the intent to either bring Denmark under the fold as an ally or as a new Swedish province, the return of this Nordic rhetoric is understandable. Practically it resembles an attempt to subsume the conquest of Norway, potentially also of Denmark (it is unknown how the plan for Denmark looked at the occasion of the king’s account) under the guise of a defence of the North and of . A further comparison with Oxenstierna’s appeal to Nordic unity shows that his doctrine tolerated peace with Denmark-Norway if it furthered Swedish interests in the Baltic. The chancellor promoted territorial expansion westwards only in exceptional circumstances, for the purpose of guaranteeing Swedish advantages there such as Gothenburg, or freedom from Danish tolls in Öresund. When the Habsburg emperor threatened the Baltic, Oxenstierna called for Sweden and Denmark to settle their diferences to counter the common enemy. In this context his ‘proto-Scandinavism’ was in essence a harmonious maintenance of the status quo between Sweden and Denmark-Norway. Charles X’s equivalent of this was however more oriented to the North Sea, which necessitated the incapacitation of Denmark, as well as a signifcant Swedish presence on the North Sea coast. This background may also explain why the possession of Trondheim was rarely elaborated on in ofcial capacity for the council, and never for parliament. The larger ambition that the conquest of

123 ‘Scandinavism’ was an idea espoused by nationalists across Scandinavia in the 19th century who sought the unifcation of what was then Denmark and Sweden-Norway into one state. 124 SRAR 5, Bil. A., p. 321. 41 Trondheim was a part of may have been more important than the county itself, and in this context the geopolitical aim with Trondheim may simply have been to damage the integrity of Norway from a military and communication point of view, as it deprived the country of one of its most important harbours.

Trondheim as a Swedish province But one of the conventional geopolitical issues from the past was actually invoked in at least one instance, when King Charles mentioned to the council that Trondheim may serve the prospect of taking control over the Arkhangelsk trade, and the possibility of retaking (a colony founded on the in North America in 1638, and subsequently lost to the Dutch in 1655): His Majesty stated about Trondheim, that one with time would be able to bring under oneself the entire Arkhangelsk trade; likewise that New Sweden would be worth to attempt and recover.125

These openly stated geopolitical goals manifest the reorientation of the Swedish Empire to the north and to the west that was attempted before 1613, substituting the unreliable trade fows from the Baltic ports with the Arkhangelsk trade route. Since the king in this instance stressed Trondheim in particular, it suggests the conquest of the county had an intrinsic economic value on its own, on top of however it may have contributed to weakening Norway ahead of the country’s complete annexation. The confict during the transfer of Trondheim over where its borders ran, and what exactly that would be ceded to Sweden, also speaks to that the county was at least in part, if not entirely, intended to be an integral province on its own, and not just a stepping stone to conquering Norway. King Charles demanded that the ceded territory should not refect the proper county of Trondheim, but instead the archdiocese by the same name, which also covered the county of Romsdalen to the south.126 In an account presented to the 1659–1660 estates parliament in the king’s absence, the king complained that the Romsdal and Sunnmøre areas to the south had not properly been transferred to Sweden, and as a result of this accused the Danes of duplicitous behaviour: In the same way has a county, Romsdal, belonging under Trondheim, which with all its subordinate counties and pertinents Royal Majesty should be accommodated, and so as well Sundmør, an entire

125 SRP XVIII, 15/4 1658, p. 41. Original Swedish quote: “K. M:tt judiceraden, en passant, om Tronhem, att man medh tijden skulle kunna dertil bringa hela dhen Archangelske handeln; såsom och att Nya Sverige vore väl värdt til att söka igen-bekomma.” The original description of how the king presented these statements are French loanwords, the exact meaning of which are difcult to translate adequately, which is why they have been simplifed in the English translation. 126 SRP XVIII, 28/6 1658, p. 81. 42 domain, attempted against the [literal terms of the treaty] and with all cunning to divest from there and withdraw127

The reason for demanding more than just the county of Trondheim itself was likely founded in concerns for the safety of the new province, which would be safer from attacks on land if it utilised natural barriers such as fjords to its advantage. The border discussion did not only concern the south, but the north as well, as Yyngvar Nielsen wrote that Sweden negotiated the northern border of Trondheim to the Bindal fjord.128 The northern border likely became particularly pertinent when Sweden settled for peace without receiving Vardöhus, and together with the confrmation of the southern borders, it implies an expected permanence of the territorial confguration.

Map 4. Swedish county of Trondheim. Striped area indicates approximate additional claims beyond the proper county borders, belonging to the archdiocese of Trondheim. The ecclesiastical territory to the north which extended into Vardöhus was initially demanded, but ultimately left out.

127 SRAR 7, Bil. A. 2, p. 129. Original Swedish quote: “I lijka måtto hafwa the ett lähn, Romsdalen, hörande under Trontheem, som medh alle ther under liggiande lähn och pertinenter Kong. M:tt borde inrymmas, så ock Suntmoren, ett heelt fögderij, söcht emott klare bookstafwen och medh all lijstigheet att rijwa derifrån och undandraga”. 128 Nielsen, 1897, pp. 98–100. 43 Charles was not inexplicit only with his true intentions with Trondheim, he also neglected in his 1659 account for parliament to even acknowledge his plan to completely annex Denmark-Norway. He instead reported that he had sought help from England in the war, and appealed to his want for peace, stressing that the resumed hostilities in the summer of 1658 were caused by the failure of Denmark-Norway to live up to the treaty of Roskilde.129 This may add credence to the idea that Trondheim was to serve as a singular integral province with specifc utility, but it may also show that the lack of transparency between the king, council, and parliament was part of a political intrigue.

The council questions the king The only issue King Charles ever raised with the estates over Trondheim after its 1658 conquest was over its status and representation, whether it would be ruled “á part”, or according to “Swedish custom and constitution”.130 It would seem that this was the only aspect of territorial expansion that the estates were concerned with. While parliament did not necessarily oppose expansion into Norway (at least no such opposition has been recorded in the sources), the inclusion of an entirely new kingdom into the Empire that did not directly serve to protect Sweden proper or its established interests in the Baltic was likely not viewed too positively, maybe as it would afect the power of the estates in relation to the king, depending on the integration forms of the new territories. Such a concern was at least expressed by the council with King Charles’ plan to subjugate Denmark-Norway, though only with regards to Denmark itself, and not with Norway. The problem, which was posed by councilor Christer Bonde, was that if Sweden completely annexed Denmark, the State would be faced with the internal instability and confict between the two (or three) kingdoms that it was argued could be seen between England and Scotland in the British union. Bonde urged that the union between the Scandinavian kingdoms should be arranged in such a way that it would not incur such enmity: 2. The outcome should be considered. If the states are to be at ease, the [Danish] king is to be removed, and foreigners will intervene. 3. Are there other propositions that may enable this; are there powers elsewhere or here to consider? 4. If you actually [annex] Denmark entirely and not just partially. Under this principle, would it [truly] be good if Sweden was conjoined [with them]? Examples are never without enmity. Scotland and England. So also in . Would it not be much better to have a vassal king, to mitigate enmity? 5. A kingdom will doubtlessly succumb [at such an] enlargement and new and prosperous situation. It would not be benefcial for Sweden. It would become a province. [Much like] Castile, Catalonia, [or] Portugal. Margareth ruled in the same way. Sweden broke free. Norway submitted. 6. [Such a] rapid growth cannot be maintained for all future with just one king’s prudence and bravery.131

129 SRAR 7, Bil. A. 2, pp. 188–190. 130 SRAR 6, Bil. B, p. 344. 131 SRP XVIII, 19/5 1658, p. 154. Original Latin quote (see also next page): “2. Considerandum, quo eventus. Si Status fomendandi, Rex evertetur, peregrini accedent non patiendi. 44 In the event of a state constellation that would accommodate Sweden, Denmark, and Norway within itself, Bonde was concerned that Sweden as a sovereign unit would cease to exist at that point. He compares the potential situation to the Spanish Habsburg state, speculating that Sweden would be reduced to a province in the new dual monarchy much like he perceived Castille, Catalonia, or Portugal to be in Spain. The most central issue in Bonde’s opposition is that he would rather see the king of Denmark be turned into a vassal king under the Swedish king, in order to prevent such a new state formation. Worth noting is also that Bonde acknowledged the error of pursuing such an aggressive expansion from a foreign policy perspective, as it would put Sweden at risk of intervention from other European powers, a concern that did come true. Riksdrots Per Brahe opined in response to Bonde’s concerns that Denmark should under the Swedish king be reduced to a subordinated crown, and not coexist as an equal kingdom.132 Christer Bonde did not object further to this proposition, but urged King Charles to maintain his positions in occupied Denmark with the help of those high nobles who opposed King Frederick III, seemingly warning that failing to maintain the support of the nobility is what caused Spain to lose the .133 In order to preserve the internal balance in Scandinavia, where Sweden and Denmark would still be separate as political units through the preservation of Danish self-rule, the council seemed prepared to obstruct or at least moderate King Charles’ ambition. It is possible that this played into a concern that a too powerful monarchy would undermine the power of the privy council, as the council naturally exercised considerable infuence at the expense of the monarch. How the State would subsequently handle a very powerful local nobility in Denmark was not elaborated on, but one can speculate that the hypothetical Danish province may have been comparable to Estonia and Livonia, where the aristocracy exercised considerable rights.134

3. An alia proposita possint hoc pati; vires an alibi et hic arbitrari etiam? 4. Si ad actualitatem, tota omnino Dania, et non pars. Sub hoc fundamento, an bonum Sveciae tot conjungi regna? Exempla nunquam absque inimicitia. Schotia et Anglia. Item in . Annon ergo melius habere Regulum, qui has inimicitias possit declinare. 5. Fatale regnis nimi magnitudo et nova et laetior situatio. Sveciae ergo hoc non utile. Quae foret provincia. Castilia, Catalognia, Portugallia. Margarethae tempore hoc institutum. Vindicata Svecia. Norvegia mansit. 6. Hastigh magnitudo comparata per consilium et fortitudinem unius Regis ex postsecuturo non potest sustineri.” 132 SRP XVIII, 19/5 1658, p. 154. Brahe’s statement on the matter was “Melius etiam regulus”, where “regulus” denotes a minor or otherwise subordinated government or regnal institution. The full sentence translated is something akin to “a lesser crown is preferable”. 133 SRP XVIII, 19/5 1658, p. 155. 134 This is stated with some reservation, as Jerker Rosén actually claimed that Danish noble privileges were unlike the Estonian and Livonian ones highly compatible with the Swedish system, which is why “uniformity” was successfully introduced in Skåneland, but less so in Estonia and Livonia. 45 The council tried to control the expansion into Denmark, conditioning it on the integration of the new lands in a way that would assure internal peace and coexistence between the Danish and Swedish riken. But Norway remained entirely absent in this discussion, understandable as it was not the political or economic center of gravity of the new imperial prospects. This may show that Norway sans Trondheim and Vardöhus was peripheral to the king’s overall ambitions, and that his main objective always had been to destroy Denmark. But there is another possible explanation as to why all political content in the council around this time concerned Denmark. As Erik Opsahl writes, the political class of Denmark-Norway were commonly perceived by Swedes to exclusively be Danish, resulting in the political implications of integration being only applied to the discussions on the future of Denmark. Norway seems to on the other hand have been considered dormant from a political point of view, owing to its subject status to Denmark. Jerker Rosén attributed the relatively easy integration process of Jämtland to its lack of native nobility, and this same factor was likely on the minds of the State as well, leaving the complicated integration issues to Denmark alone. This is refected in Bonde’s historical example of Norway submitting to Denmark in the breakdown of the , while Sweden managed to liberate itself, “Vindicata Svecia. Norvegia mansit”, “Sweden broke free. Norway submitted.”.135 If the Norwegian rike was possessed by Danish noblemen, military, and administrators, they would naturally be replaced upon Swedish conquest, which had precedent in both Jämtland and Trondheim, as Tord Theland and Petter Kristian Vikestad, respectively, show.136

Post-Charles policy Charles X’s north- and westward orientation of the Swedish Empire did not win any loyal friends in the council, and already before his early death reluctance to carry through his will started to show. In late 1658 the barely integrated Trondheim came under attack from Norwegian soldiers, and the king urged that an army be commissioned to march towards Jämtland and over the fell to defend the province. The council however advised caution, and wanted to await correspondence from the region to know if the province had already been captured or not. They believed it impossible to retake Trondheim if it had already been lost: The council decided, that War Collegium should wait, for what Norrland’s post brings, if Trondheim is captured, or not; is it captured, then there is no need, that any people marches up there, since it is vain to assist them and will prove impossible.137

135 SRP XVIII, 19/5 1658, p. 154. 136 Theland, 2020, pp. 89–90, Vikestad, 2017, pp. 77–78. It must be reiterated that the provincial clergy was allowed to stay in both instances. 137 SRP XVIII, 3/11 1658, p. 117. Original Swedish quote: “Rådet hölt före, att Krijgz Coll. skulle vänta, hvadh norländske posten medbringar, om Trundhemb är öf:r eller icke; ähr det öf:r, så giörs dhet inthet behof, att något folk går dijt upp, emädan dhet är fåfängt sedan att adsistera dhem och vill falla omöijeligt.” 46 That the Jämtland-Trondheim fell region was militarily very difcult was likely a judgement that the council based on the experience during the previous war, where Sweden had failed to defend Jämtland from Norwegian attacks. No further discussions about the precarity of Trondheim took place in the council, which in practice seems to have decided to leave the province to its destiny, against the king’s wishes. In an account to the estates parliament of the peace settled in Copenhagen in 1660, after King Charles’ death earlier the same year, no further refection is made on the loss of Trondheim, or what this meant for the prospects of other ambitions. The restoration of the county to Denmark-Norway was explained succinctly as “since an equivalent remuneration must be returned”138, referring to the peace terms in which the rest of the Swedish conquests, Bohuslän and Skåneland, would be confrmed. Even in the most optimistic circumstances for the realisation of King Charles’ plan in May 1658, riksdrots Per Brahe said that “Denmark [is] more important than any other land in the world”,139 centering his focus southward, on securing whatever could be gained from Denmark proper, as opposed to Norway. The ambivalence of the council and the estates in the Norwegian ambition was likely rooted in the political motivations of these institutions as adherents to the post-1613 Oxenstierna policy. The council consistently displayed a conservative approach to the Norwegian issue, only considering expansion into the Norwegian rike in small increments in Bohuslän, that would serve the defence of Gothenburg and Västergötland. Even though these aspirations were on the table in 1645, they were never put into action until Charles X acted on them in 1658, and their general compatibility with the Oxenstierna doctrine allowed Bohuslän to remain Swedish even after the 1660 undoing. As the Oxenstierna doctrine was strictly committed to the Baltic, exerting Swedish control into the North Sea was only ever on the agenda as part of military operations in specifc conficts with Denmark-Norway, while the commercial side of things was humbly limited to maintaining the sole gate to the west, Gothenburg.140 Properly challenging Russia in the Arkhangelsk region was also out of the question for this reason, although the inherent difculty in dealing with a power like Russia defnitely also contributed to why no Barents Sea expansions ever occurred.

138 SRAR 8, Bil. B, p. 170. 139 SRP XVIII, 18/5 1658, p. 151. Original Swedish quote: “Danmark mehr important än någre andre land i werden.” While it cannot be ruled out that Brahe included Norway in this conception of Denmark, Norway would likely have been referred to by its own name, as in previous discourse on the topic. 140 This is furthermore echoed in my bachelor’s thesis, where the Swedish possession of - on the north-western German coast was motivated purely as a means to control the major rivers whose mouths it overlooked, the and the Weser, as this would aid Swedish campaigns in Germany. The economic gains from commercial tolls by the river mouths seem on the other hand to have been negligible. (Norgren, 2018). 47 The geopolitical interests in Trondheim represented a defance to all of these political and commercial limitations to what the Swedish Empire was capable of maintaining, or what it should have focused on achieving. The Norwegian ambition lived and died with Charles X’s dramatic reign.

48 Conclusion

The Swedish conquest of Trondheim in 1658 was preceded by several decades of political developments between Sweden and Denmark-Norway that afected the geopolitical dynamics between the two states. The misplacement of the Atlantic port of Trondheim in Sweden’s otherwise interiorly concentrated Baltic empire is not apparent only in Swedish historiography as it can be observed today, but was also fundamentally disturbing to the consciousness of the Empire in its own day. What has been identifed is that at the core there were guiding principles of what the Swedish Empire should seek to accomplish, which delimited the direction of its expansion and the goals it could pursue. These principles, which can be described alternatively as the Oxenstierna doctrine or the Baltic doctrine, remained largely consistent throughout the time period, only to be broken suddenly with the replacement of the Empire’s leadership with a new actor, who expressed diferent geopolitical priorities.

The coincidence of commercial opportunity, geography,and rike Early Swedish expansion into Norway took place in the far northern region of Finnmark, where the goal was to establish connections with the coastline of the northern North Sea and Barents Sea, owing to the trade routes that ran there to and from the important Russian trade port of Arkhangelsk. Under King Charles IX Sweden had contested Danish-Norwegian supremacy in Finnmark through claims of dominion over the Lapps, the population that inhabited northern Scandinavia, and so used the claimed status as King of the Lapps to justify moving northwards. Denmark-Norwegian defance of Swedish presence in Finnmark resulted in a frmer border being established in the region, solidifying Sweden’s territorial limits to the eastern and southern side of the Scandinavian Mountains, whereas Denmark-Norway continued to rule sovereign on the coast. Swedish territorial integrity in mainland Scandinavia would continue to be bound by natural geography, as the relation of territories to mountains and rivers were repeatedly stressed in border conficts with Denmark-Norway over the coming years. The failure to assert Swedish interests on the northern coastline and take advantage of the Arkhangelsk trade in 1613 seem to have tempered the ambitions of the State in this direction, and under the newly ascent chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, a strictly Baltic-focused foreign policy doctrine seems to have been adopted. This Baltic doctrine was expressed over the course of Oxenstierna’s tenure in many forms, such as the chancellor’s reassurance of the long-term prosperity of Sweden’s Estonian and Livonian ports, and the reluctance to challenge Russia and Denmark-Norway over

49 the northern coastline. With the focus being on the Baltic trade, direct conficts with Norway became rare, and the emphasis on conficts with Denmark-Norway fell directly on Denmark instead, whereas Norway would as enemy territory be treated cautiously. This relationship to Norway was not uncomplicated, as the province of Jämtland, claimed by Sweden repeatedly since at least as early as the frst years of king Gustav Vasa in the 1520s, was a military objective during the so-called Torstenson War between 1643 and 1645. The successful conquest of Jämtland in the Torstenson War was motivated not only by the province’s supposed inherent position in the Swedish rike (through its relation to the Scandinavian Mountains and its numerous rivers running to the Baltic Sea), but also because it served as a gate from Norway into Swedish Norrland, which Danish-Norwegian forces had frequently used as an entrance for conducting raids. Similar security concerns were expressed with regards to Norwegian Bohuslän, which enabled enemy attacks into south-western Sweden and the important city of Gothenburg, Sweden’s only port to the North Sea. As Bohuslän was however not viewed as a part of the Swedish rike along the lines that Jämtland was, the desire to neutralise the province for military strategic reasons never translated into territorial claims. The Danish province of Halland which threatened Sweden in the same way from the south was however ceded to Sweden, since the approach to Denmark was directly hostile and not bound by statements of cordiality. It is apparent that the interest in these two western coastal provinces were not of commercial character for the Swedish state, but were only to serve as defensive barriers, since they are only ever discussed in such terms. When Bohuslän was eventually annexed in 1658, it was also explained in terms of specifc geography, namely the strait of Svinesund, which separates the province from the rest of Norway to the north, and constitutes a natural defensible border. This is self-explanatory within Oxenstierna’s Baltic doctrine, which did not seek to actively expand Swedish trade in the North Sea, and only ever expressed interest there in military contexts; for example, it was proposed, although ultimately rejected, that Sweden should procure a harbour on the Danish mainland peninsula of Jutland, in order to secure the North Sea navy. This is to be understood in the contemporary context of Sweden’s ongoing wars, and the naval disadvantages the country naturally had outside of the Baltic. The conquest of Jämtland and its subsequent integration into the Swedish system displayed the Baltic doctrine as not just a geopolitical but an administrative doctrine as well. The province’s separation from the Norwegian county and port of Trondheim to the west was cemented with its reorientation along its rivers to the Baltic-lain counties to the east, deemed preferable to letting the province constitute a new landlocked county on its own. This action, the last of its kind

50 attributable to chancellor Oxenstierna, solidifed the Swedish-Norwegian border as a strict geographical barrier, although minor concessions, such as the provincials’ right to trade with Trondheim, were still admitted with concern for the local population. When the relationship between Denmark-Norway and Sweden was at its most constructive during the Danish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, Oxenstierna appealed to a conception of the Nordic kingdoms as united against their foes in Germany, the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor who threatened the Baltic. This underlines the doctrine’s approach to coexistence within reasonable limits, an order which was predicated on the respect for each rike’s integrity and right to commerce; one of the main demands in the Torstenson War was that Swedish commerce would be exempt from the Danish Öresund toll. Within this framework, Sweden could lay claim to what it considered integral to its rike and to its commercial interests in the Baltic, while still respecting the Danish dominion of the North Sea, as long as it did not threaten Sweden. This is how Norway (disregarding Jämtland) was ascribed to the peripheries of Swedish interests under Axel Oxenstierna, who had managed the 1611–1613 failure in the far north early on in his chancellery, and likely shaped his view on the State after this experience. In short the Oxenstierna doctrine can be said to have promoted a balance of power in Scandinavia between Sweden and Denmark-Norway.

Northwestward reorientation and reversal Oxenstierna’s Baltic doctrine would see a tacit rejection by King Charles X Gustav, who ascended the throne in 1654, the same year the chancellor died. Although the Baltic ambitions were in full force in the frst half of King Charles’ short reign (arguably attributable to the duration of the chancellery of the late Oxenstierna’s short-lived son), with intensive military campaigning in Poland, the sudden war with Denmark-Norway that broke out in 1657 resulted in a drastic reorientation of where the Empire’s expansions should be directed. In the Treaty of Roskilde in March 1658, King Charles fulflled not only the old ambition of conquering Skåneland (discussed extensively during the Torstenson War as well), but also managed to cede of of Denmark-Norway Bohuslän and Trondheim. The purpose of Trondheim in the king’s plans was partly expressed as commercial, with its prospects in the Arkhangelsk trade being brought up at least once. The wider implication of a major North Sea port like Trondheim was also that Sweden could operate in the Atlantic like never before, and King Charles to this end said that the lost colony of New Sweden in North America might be recovered.

51 The overall goals of King Charles with Denmark-Norway are hard to decipher completely. The king expressed ambitions to annex the entirety of Norway in the summer of 1658, which put Trondheim in a very obvious military strategic position, where Sweden would in the event of such a war now control a major harbour on the North Sea. With the naval power this enabled they could obstruct communication between Norway and Denmark, which was the stated intent of the North Sea feet during the Torstenson War. But the planned annexation, which also came to include Denmark in a later iteration, was likely inhibited by the difculty of the ensuing war that was started later in the summer. To the Swedish estates at the parliaments between 1658 and 1660, King Charles never revealed any radical ambitions to annex the neighbouring state to the west, and only explained his desire for peace, making the Trondheim conquest resemble a deliberate functional new province, rather than a precise strategic division of Norway. His demand to have the ceded territory correspond not to the county of Trondheim, but instead the larger archdiocese of Trondheim, would have given the new territory a large hinterland to defend its core, as well as large fjords in the north and in the south to make the province harder to approach on land. The king’s frustration with the inert Danish fulfllment of these conditions may show that the exact borders of the Trondheim province were of highest importance, which would have been a trivial issue if the rest of Norway truly was to be subjugated as well. Furthermore, Vikestad writes that as soon as Trondheim had been transferred to Sweden, Jämtland was removed from the county of Västernorrland to which it was assigned in 1645, and was administratively reunited with Trondheim, like the provinces had been ruled together under Denmark-Norway.141 If this confguration was to be permanent it would have been a violation of the Swedish rike as one of its inherent provinces was tied to a ‘foreign’ one, that is unless Trondheim was itself supposed to be incorporated into the Swedish rike with this administrative union. In either case, this administrative reform signifed a departure from the Oxenstierna doctrine, drawing borders across the traditional natural barriers, and orienting what was perceived as a to the North Sea. The discourse between King Charles and the privy council shows that the Oxenstierna doctrine did not only function as a guideline to geopolitics and political integration of territories in relation to the Baltic, but also served as a guarantor for internal stability. To moderate his new prospects, it was suggested that King Charles sought to legitimise his rule in Denmark either through allowing its king to remain as a vassal of the Swedish king, or through the country’s high nobility, who were discontent with their own ruler. The Danish high nobility should not only have been the king’s

141 Vikestad, 2017, p. 29. 52 proxies in the Danish provinces, they should also have been ceremonially inferior to their peers in Sweden. Any alternative other than Denmark being subordinated the crown of Sweden, as opposed to equal, was interpreted by one councilor, Christer Bonde, as the transformation of Sweden from a sovereign state into a “province” in a dual (or triple) monarchy. This is how the Oxenstierna doctrine conditioned geographic expansion and integration on the preservation of the autarky of the Swedish rike. Furthermore, there was likely a concern about the imbalance of power between the king and the privy council at play in the proposition of . As no utrikes territories were granted access to the estate parliament, it naturally follows that the privy council excluded non- on the same grounds, which means the hypothetical Danish province would have otherwise been an alternative source of unmoderated royal powers. As Jonas Nordin writes regarding the view on ‘citizenship’ in the Swedish Empire, political representation was a considerable aspect of what it meant to be considered Swedish. It is likely no exaggeration to say that it would have been unthinkable that Danish nobility would suddenly be admitted the status of Swedes, after centuries of enmity. In this manner, the Oxenstierna doctrine may also have served to preserve the powers of the council aristocracy from absolutist monarchist tendencies. With the looming threat from the continent, King Charles evoked the unity of the North much like Oxenstierna had done during the Thirty Years War, with the distinction that this time Denmark-Norway was largely under Swedish military occupation. The implication of Nordic unity without the Oxenstierna doctrine was that the North was to be united under Sweden, as opposed to expressing any form of solidarity between Denmark and Sweden as separate but friendly states within a system of balance. This appeal coincided with King Charles’ expressed ambitions to annex Norway and, at the very least, turn Denmark into a subject through a supposed “alliance”, strongly suggesting it was rhetoric meant to obfuscate his radical scheme and justify a united front in Scandinavia against its enemies. The balance of power in Scandinavia that Oxenstierna had designed was as such seen as completely obsolete by the king. The privy council, presumably infuenced by chancellor Oxenstierna’s long guidance, showed little interest in advancing King Charles’ Norwegian ambitions when difculties arose. They claimed it was meaningless to send military assistance to retake Trondheim, and after the king’s death and the end of the war in 1660, the loss of the province was not referenced more than in passing in the account to the estates that outlined the events. The enthusiasm that was shown for the king’s war with Denmark-Norway was concerning Denmark alone, understandable since Skåneland had been a Swedish interest for a very long time by this point. The prospect of ending

53 the independence of the long-time rival to the west was probably not completely unwelcome, but it did come with some complications regarding where the State would be after such a dramatic annexation, as described above. When the option of subjugating Denmark was denied with the involvement of Sweden’s other enemies, Norway held little intrinsic value to the adherents of the Oxenstierna doctrine, and no particular efort was put into securing Trondheim in the fnal peace treaty in 1660. This reluctance of the council to proceed with their earlier king’s geopolitical plans mirrors the events of 1613, where Axel Oxenstierna and Gustav II Adolf expressed the same ultimate indiference regarding the Swedish positions in Vardöhus from Charles IX’s time. The Baltic doctrine prevailed and resumed being the agenda of the empire.

What the fate of Bohuslän can tell The geopolitical confguration in Norway resulting from King Charles X’s wars was not completely undone in 1660, as Bohuslän was retained by Sweden, and evidently eventually absorbed into the Swedish rike, through processes of integration such as parliamentary representation, and assignment into the civilian administrative structure of the state’s counties. The same goes for Skåneland, although in the case of those provinces there is precedent to consider them a part of the rike to begin with. In any case, Sweden’s new border against Denmark-Norway in 1660 was to remain static, evolving the perception of what the rike truly was in the eyes of the State. Could this have happened with Trondheim if it had not been returned in 1660? Could it have happened with Norway in its entirety, if King Charles had succeeded with his ambition? There are important aspects of integration to consider in these alternative scenarios. Skåneland was the seat of the archdiocese of Lund, which was subsequently demoted and subordinated to the archdiocese of Uppsala upon its conquest in 1658. The idea of one central ecclesiastical authority that coincided with the rike was evident in this case, as Uppsala was intended to remain the only archdiocese in Sweden proper. The same idea was expressed when Jämtland was severed by Denmark-Norway from its roots in Uppsala in 1570, and placed under the archdiocese of Trondheim, in order to prevent Swedish claims of authority in the province. The Trondheim archdiocese from then on corresponded to the extent of the Norwegian rike, as it was perceived on their side (that is to say, including Jämtland). The ecclesiastical fate of Trondheim would have been an indicator of its future within the Swedish Empire, as if the archdiocese would have been allowed to remain, it would have indicated a Swedish respect for the Norwegian rike, which in turn would have enabled a host of other political privileges. In such a scenario it is possible Norway would have continued to be diferentiated from Sweden, and would likely have had its own estate parliament.

54 Vikestad writes that the archbishop of Trondheim was allowed to keep his ofce after the Swedish conquest, which he suggests was founded on the idea that the ecclesiastical positions could be replaced organically with the death of their current seats, in order to maintain their spiritual legitimacy.142 But if the seats would be assigned from Sweden, what would that have meant for the integrity of the Norwegian rike within the Swedish Empire? Since the Norwegian conquest never proceeded to these hypothetical stages, Bohuslän, the only constituent part of the Norwegian rike still within Sweden after 1660 (if one does not count Jämtland), remained as a rump province in this regard. Its status if Sweden had succeeded in subjugating Norway may have been that it could still have been considered a part of its original rike, but there is also the security aspect of the province, which was the reason Sweden ever expressed interest in it. It is likely it would still have been admitted to the Swedish rike on behalf of its military strategic importance.

Epilogue After Sweden’s retreat from Trondheim it never again sought to expand westwards. After Charles X’s death in 1660, the privy council would seize nominal control over the Empire’s foreign policy due to the late king’s son and successor, Charles XI, being far from age of majority. Despite Charles XI in 1680 managing to marginalise the power of the council and have himself declared the absolute king of Sweden, he never took up his father’s territorial ambitions, and aside from the against Denmark-Norway in 1675–1679, his rule was marked by a lasting peace, continuing the Oxenstierna doctrine of power balance in Scandinavia, and Swedish dominance in the Baltic. As an ironic reminder of the limits of its empire, Sweden’s Great Power Era came to an end with the notorious death of Charles XII at the siege of the Norwegian fortress of Halden (then known as Fredrikshald) in 1718. But in the closing days of the , Sweden would fnally succeed in establishing a dual monarchy with Norway in 1814, after a century of territorial setbacks. The Scandinavian dominance was fnally achieved, but as if by force majeure, it seemed to have come at the cost of all of Sweden’s Baltic territories, including Finland.

142 Vikestad, 2017, pp. 45–46. 55 Sources and literature Printed sources Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar I:1. Historiska och politiska skrifter, 1897, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar I:2. 1606–1624, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1896). Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar I:4. 1628–1629, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1909). Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar I:5. 1630, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1915). Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar I:6. 1631, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1918). Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar II:1. Gustaf Adolfs bref och instruktioner, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1888). Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexlingar II:9. Bref från Herman Wrangel med fera generaler, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1898). Originaltraktater med främmande makter II. 1572–1632, O.S. Rydberg & C. Hallendorf, Stockholm (1903). Svenska riksdagsakter II:1. 1611–1616, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1932). Svenska riksrådets protokoll IV. 1634, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1886). Svenska riksrådets protokoll VI. 1636, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1896). Svenska riksrådets protokoll VII. 1637–1639, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1895). Svenska riksrådets protokoll X. 1643, 1644, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1905). Svenska riksrådets protokoll XI. 1645, 1646, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1906). Svenska riksrådets protokoll XVII. 1657, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1929). Sveriges ridderskaps och adels riksdagsprotokoll 4. 1645–1649, Riddarhuset, Stockholm (1871).

Bibliography Asker, Björn, Karl X Gustav: en biograf, Historiska media, Lund (2009). Carlsson, Helene (ed.), Bohuslän som gränslandskap: före och efter Roskildefreden, seminar report, Bohusläns museum (2013). Eng, Torbjörn, “Det svenska väldet: ett konglomerat av uttrycksformer och begrepp från Vasa till Bernadotte”, PhD diss., (2001). Fries, Ellen, Erik Oxenstierna: en biografsk studie, P.A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm (1889).

56 Gustafsson, Harald, “The Conglomerate State: A Perspective on State Formation in ”, in Scandinavian Journal of History 23:3–4 (1998). Hildebrand, Emil, Svenska statsförfattningens historiska utveckling från äldsta tid till våra dagar, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm (1896). Holmström, Bertil, Kampen om Sveriges västra kust: Roskildefreden och dess konsekvenser, Warne, Partille (2008). Larsson, Sven, När hallänningarna blev svenskar: ett dramatiskt nationalitetsbyte 1645–1720, Länsmuseet Halmstad, Halmstad (2004). Nielsen, Yngvar, Kampen om Trondhjem: 1657–1660, Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab (1897). Nordin, Jonas, “Ett fattigt men fritt folk: nationell och politisk självbild i Sverige från sen stormaktstid till slutet av frihetstiden”, PhD diss., Uppsala University (2000). Norgren, Elias, Jus Belli: Frameworks for the Swedish occupation of Pomerania 1630–1648, unpublished bachelor’s thesis, Uppsala University, Uppsala (2018). Opsahl, Erik, “Jemtland fra dansk til svensk i 1645? Staten, riket og nasjonen som identitets- og lojalitetsgrunnlag i Norden i tidlig nytid”, in Jämtland och den jämtländska världen 1000–1645, edited by Olof Holm, Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (2011). Opsahl, Erik, “Norwegian Identity in the , Regnal or National?”, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 51, no. 1 (January 2017), 449–460. Reynolds, Susan, Kingdoms and communities in western Europe, 900–1300 (second edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford (1997). Roberts, Michael, The Swedish imperial experience 1560–1718, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1979). Rosén, Jerker, “Statsledning och provinspolitik under Sveriges stormaktstid. En författningshistorisk skiss”, Scandia (1946). Rosén, Jerker, “Krig och handelspolitik i öster”, in Den svenska historien. Sverige blir en stormakt, edited by Gunvor Grenholm, Bonnier Lexikon, Stockholm (1967A). Rosén, Jerker, “Gustav II Adolfs ryska krig”, in Den svenska historien. Sverige blir en stormakt, edited by Gunvor Grenholm, Bonnier Lexikon, Stockholm (1967B). Rosén, Jerker, “Krig och utrikespolitik 1617–1648”, in Den svenska historien. Sverige blir en stormakt, edited by Gunvor Grenholm, Bonnier Lexikon, Stockholm (1967C). Rosén, Jerker, “Westfaliska freden”, in Den svenska historien. Sverige blir en stormakt, edited by Gunvor Grenholm, Bonnier Lexikon, Stockholm (1967D).

57 Rosén, Jerker, “Karl X Gustavs tid”, in Den svenska historien. Karl X Gustav, Karl XI. Krig och reduktion, edited by Gunvor Grenholm, Bonnier Lexikon, Stockholm (1967E). Sanders, Hanne, Efter Roskildefreden 1658: Skånelandskapen och Sverige i krig och fred, Makadam, Göteborg (2008). Smith, Anthony D., National identity, University of Nevada Press, Reno (1994). Thanner, Lennart, “Förord”, in Handlingar rörande Sveriges historia. Svenska riksrådets protokoll XVIII. 1658, edited by Lennart Thanner, V–VIII, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (1959). Theland, Tord, “Mildhet och saktmod. Den svenska konglomeratstaten och Jämtland efter freden i Brömsebro 1645”, PhD diss., Mittuniversitetet, Sundsvall (2020). Vikestad, Petter Kristian, "Sveriges Trondheim". Svensk integrasjon og ekstraksjon av Trondhjem len 1658 – En komparasjonsstudie med Jemtland 1645, unpublished master’s thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim (2017). Villstrand, Nils Erik, “Kustbygd och centralmakt 1560–1720”, in Kustbygd och centralmakt 1560–1721: studier i centrum-periferi under svensk stormaktstid, pp. 9–23, edited by Nils Erik Villstrand, Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, Helsingfors (1987).

58