Two days later, on the 7th of September, the burgomasters crossed over in a body to Södermalm, and delivered the keys of the city gates into the hands of Christiern. Then, with bugles sounding and all the pomp and ceremony of a triumph, he marched at the head of his army through the city walls and up to the Great Church, where he offered thanksgiving to Almighty God. That over, he proceeded to the citadel and took possession. The same day and the day following he obtained two documents,--one from the Cabinet members then in Stockholm, and the other from the burgomaster and Council,--granting the castle to Christiern during his life, and at his death to his son Hans, or, if he should die before the king, then to the king's wife Elizabeth, to revert, after the death of all three, to the Cabinet of Sweden. Christiern then appointed his officers throughout the country, after which he sailed away for Denmark.[49]
Not long, however, was Sweden freed from his contaminating presence. Within a month he had returned, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the nation that he had vanquished. A general diet had been summoned to meet at Stockholm on the first day of November. As this diet was to be immediately followed by the coronation of the king, special efforts had been made to secure a large attendance of the Danish party. The venerable Ulfsson, now tottering to the grave, had recently written to Christiern that he would be present at the triumphal entry into Stockholm, "even if," as he says, "I have to crawl upon my knees;" and he was present at the diet. When the appointed day arrived, the delegates were summoned to a hill outside the town, and were shut in on every side by the pikes and rapiers of the royal soldiers. The proceedings were cut and dried throughout. A pompous oration was delivered by one of the king's satellites, declaring the grounds on which his master claimed the throne of Sweden, at the close of which the people were asked whether they would have him for their king, and with their tyrants' weapons brandished before their eyes they answered yes. With this elaborate farce the ceremony ended and the people scattered, being first ordered to return on the following Sunday and share in the coronation festivities of the king whom they had thus elected against their will. The ostentatious mummery of these mock ceremonies would cause a smile but for the frightful tragedy with which they were to close. None but the blindest partisans could have felt anything else than aversion for this monster on whose head they were to place the crown. Even his own friends hated him, and despised the very ground on which he trod. But it was the age of heaven-born rulers; so the masses bent their knee and sang their pæans to the demon whom fate had made their king.[50]