30YearsWar: #11 - "Northern Tremors"

In this episode we radically change our focus, away from the Empire and towards a brand new theatre of Europe – Scandinavia. It was there, in the sphere of the Baltic, Eastern Europe and the wild North, that an incredible drama was playing itself out, as the House of Vasa divided over matters or religion and leadership, with profound results for Poland, Sweden, Russia and pretty much everyone else in the region. The House of Vasa’s predominant King, Sigismund III, rowed away from Sweden in the late 1590s, never to return again. His uncle, Charles IX, had effectively deposed him in the name of Lutheran leadership and more rights for the nobility. It was a watershed moment for both Poland and Sweden, and shaped relations between the two of them for more than a century.

Here we examine the shots which were fired before the ascension of a new King, Charles IX’s son, Gustav Adolph, better known to posterity and history nerds the world over as Gustavus Adolphus. But the latter did not rule a majestically powerful kingdom when he assumed the throne in 1611. Sweden was exhausted and divided, surround by enemies in Denmark and Russia as well as Poland, and there was no guaranteed way to keep his Polish Catholic cousin away from his new throne. The conflict between the two cousins was destined to be bloody and all-consuming, and this story forms a vital part of the wider narrative of the Thirty Years War, so I hope you’ll join me for it!

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