On the 25th of September a battle was fought at Stongebro, near Linkœping, ending in the defeat of the royal army. An armistice followed. The conditions of peace were that the king should remain in Sweden, dismissing his foreign troops, and take charge of the government. No one should be punished except five of the nobles, to be placed before a jury of ambassadors. The king agreed to the conditions, but soon left Sweden never to return. A meeting of nobles and clergymen, in 1599, accepted him as reigning king if willing to return within four months. In July, a Riksdag was called at Stockholm, which declared Sigismund dethroned and his son Vladislav king if sent to Sweden to be educated in the Lutheran faith. Sigismund took no heed of these stipulations, planning to regain his throne by force.
Charles followed up the punishment with such unprecedented severity that it has left a stain upon his memory. Three nobles were beheaded after Kalmar was taken, and proceeding to Finland, the duke applied capital punishment to a wide extent, in more than twenty cases at Abo alone. At a Riksdag in Linkœping, in 1600, the duke appeared as an accuser against the five imprisoned nobles and several others, eight state councillors being among them. The accused, thirteen in number, were sentenced to death for high treason, but the majority were pardoned upon confession of guilt. The councillors Gustavus Banér, Eric Sparre, Sten Banér and Ture Bielke were beheaded. They were all men of learning and great ability, who had faithfully served their king. During John’s reign they had already suffered years of imprisonment for intrigues against a hereditary kingdom and a strong government.
_Charles IX._ was chosen king at the bloody Riksdag of Linkœping, and his son Gustavus Adolphus heir-apparent. The hereditary rights of Duke John, second son of John III., were acknowledged, and a duchy, consisting of East Gothland and Leckœ Castle, granted him; but he was passed over as too young and too closely related to Sigismund. Measures to strengthen the financial administration and the army were passed.
Sigismund prepared, by alliances with Catholic powers, to gather support, Charles turning to England and France for the same purpose. A conflict was unavoidable, and Charles decided to invade the disputed province of Livonia, which he captured, only to be ousted by the Polish general, Zamoisky. The castle of Volmar was long and heroically defended by the Swedes under Jacob de la Gardie, a son of General Pontus, and Charles Gyllenhielm, an illegitimate son of Charles IX. After their surrender the former received for five years a tolerable treatment, the latter a most severe one for twelve years. After attempts to place conditions on a better footing in Finland, where the peasants had long suffered through aristocratic oppression, Charles increased the army still further and invaded Livonia once more, in 1604. He met with a crushing defeat at Kerkholm, close by Riga, at the hands of the Pole, Chodkiewitz, losing 9,000 men. But the Poles did not understand how to use their victory, and the centre of the conflict changed to Russia.