Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson (Old Norse, Gautstafr Eiríksson; colloquial 15th century Upplandic, Gösta Jerksson) and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September 1560), was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death. He was the first monarch of the House of Vasa, an influential noble family which came to be the royal house of Sweden for much of the 16th and 17th centuries. Gustav I was elected regent in 1521 after leading a rebellion against Christian II of Denmark, the leader of the Kalmar Union who controlled most of Sweden at the time.

Gustav was an enigmatic person who has been referred to as both a liberator of the country and as a tyrannic ruler, which has made him the subject of many books. When he came to power in 1523, he was largely unknown, and he became the ruler of a still divided country without a central government. Though not as famous as most of his continental contemporaries, he became the first truly autocratic native Swedish sovereign and was a skilled propagandist and bureaucrat who laid the foundations for a more efficient centralized government. During his reign Protestantism was introduced in the country.

In traditional Swedish history he has been labeled the founder of modern Sweden, and the "father of the nation". Gustav liked to compare himself to Moses, who is said to have liberated his people and established a state. As a person, Gustav was known for ruthless methods and a bad temperament, but he also loved music, and had a certain sly wit.

Gustav Eriksson's (Vasa) mother was Cecilia Månsdotter and father was Erik Johansson (Vasa) who descended from Birgitta Gustafsdotter (Sture), the sister of childless Regent Sten Sture the Elder who had died in 1503 when Gustav was a child. According to genealogical research, Birgitta and Sten Sture (and consequently also Gustav Vasa) descended from King Sverker II of Sweden, through King Sverker's granddaughter Benedikte Sunesdotter (who was married to Svantepolk Knutsson, son of Duke of Reval). Gustav was born in Rydboholm castle. The Vasa family belonged to the highest level of hereditary Swedish nobility (högfrälse) and they possessed some wealth: several manors etc. As most Swedes at the time, he used no family name and was originally known by his given name and patronymic, but the name of the dynasty, derived from the main heraldic charge of the family, has often been given to him by later authors.

Gustav Vasa's father, Erik Johansson (Vasa), was involved in the party of Sten Sture the Younger fighting against the Danes in the early 16th century. When the Danes, under Christian II, conquered Sweden and took the capital Stockholm in 1520 several members of the Sture party were executed in the Stockholm Bloodbath in October that year, among whom was Erik Johansson. The young Gustav survived by hiding.

He got involved in some of the revolts against the Danish king. At the battle of Brännkyrka on October 2, 1518, he was among those captured and taken prisoner in Denmark. But he managed to escape, and on May 31, 1520, he returned by ship to Kalmar, on the southeastern side of Sweden. From there, he travelled all the way up to the province of Dalarna, in (what was then) northwestern Sweden. He tried to gather troops to take down the Danish government, but had little success initially.

According to popular history, as depicted in the 19th century in Swedish schoolbooks, Gustav encountered many adventures while he was fleeing around Dalarna. Their historical validity is questioned, however. In 1521 he had managed to gather a small army in Dalarna and become its leader. He also received help by troops from Leipzig, Germany. By August 1521, the men of Dalarna had elected him regent of Sweden, whereafter two years of battle followed whereby the Danish troops were gradually defeated.

Gustav was elected king on June 6, 1523, at the riksdag in Strängnäs. This date has later been celebrated as the Swedish national holiday. (Gustav was later crowned in Uppsala Cathedral on 21 January, 1528.) His troops had besieged the capital, and on June 24, they finally could march into Stockholm. The country was however in no way united in support of the king at that time.

After seizing power, the previous Archbishop Gustav Trolle, who at the time held a post of some kind of chancellor, was exiled from the country. Gustav sent a message to the Pope requesting the acceptance of a new archbishop selected by Gustav himself: Johannes Magnus.

The Pope sent back his decision demanding the unlawful expulsion of Archbishop Gustav Trolle to be reverted, and that the archbishop was to be reinstated. Here Sweden's remote geographical location proved to have a marked impact—for the former Archbishop had been allied with the Danish king, or at least was considered to have been in contemporary Stockholm, and to reinstate him would be close to impossible for the king.

The king let the Pope know the impossibility of the request, and the possible results if the Pope persisted, but—for better or worse—the Pope did persist, and refused to accept the king's suggestions of archbishops. At the time, incidentally and for different reasons, there were also four other unoccupied bishop's seats, where the king made suggestions to the Pope about candidates, but the Pope only accepted one of the candidates. As the Pope refused to budge on the issue of Gustav Trolle, the king, influenced by Lutheran scholar Olaus Petri, in 1531 took it upon himself to appoint a new archbishop, namely the brother of Olaus, Laurentius Petri. Hereby in effect, the Pope had lost any influence over the Swedish Church.

In the 1520s, the Petri brothers led a campaign almost for the introduction of Lutheranism. The decade saw many events which can be seen as gradual introductions of Protestantism, for instance the marriage of Olaus Petri — a consecrated priest — and several texts published by him, advocating Lutheran dogmas. A translation of the New Testament had also been published in 1526. After the reformation, a full translation was published in 1540-41, called the Gustav Vasa Bible. However, knowledge of Greek and Hebrew among Swedish clergymen was not sufficient for a translation from the original sources; instead the work followed the German translation by Martin Luther in 1534.

Gustav encountered resistance from some areas of the country. In 1542, people from Dalarna rebelled, as they considered the king to have been too harsh on everyone he perceived as a supporter of the Danish.

People in Småland rebelled later, and initially gave Gustav severe difficulties in the dense forests. What he did was to send a letter to the people of Dalarna, and requesting that they should send out letters to every Swedish province, saying that Dalarna would support the king with troops, and urging every other province to do the same. Gustav got his troops, with which help he managed to defeat the rebels.

The leader of the rebels, Nils Dacke, has traditionally been seen as a traitor to Sweden. Historical records state that Nils was seriously wounded during a battle, taking bullet wounds to both legs; if this is true, his survival may have been surprising in view of contemporary medical techniques. Nils was eventually shot on the border between Blekinge and Småland. He was executed posthumously by quartering; it is said that his body parts were displayed throughout Sweden as a warning to other would-be rebels. Modern Swedish scholarship has toned down criticism of Nils Dacke, sometimes making him into a hero in the vein of Robin Hood, particularly in Småland.

Difficulties with the continuation of the Church also troubled Gustav Vasa. The 1540s saw death sentences from his hand for both the Petri brothers, as well as his former chancellor Laurentius Andreae. All of them were however granted amnesty, after spending several months in jail. In 1554-1557, he waged an inconclusive war against Ivan the Terrible of Russia.

In the late 1550s, Gustav's health declined. When his grave was opened in 1945, an examination of his corpse revealed that he had suffered chronic infections of a leg and in his jaw.

He held a so-called "last speech" in 1560 to the chancellors, his children and other noblemen whereby he encouraged them to remain united. On September 29, 1560, Gustav died of a severe colonic disease. He is buried together with his three wives in the Cathedral of Uppsala.

Gustav's heritage has been disputed. In 19th century Swedish history a folklore developed wherein Gustav was to have experienced all kinds of adventures when he liberated Sweden from the Danes. The memory of Gustav has been honored greatly, resulting in embroidered history books, memory coins, and the annual ski event Vasaloppet (the largest ski event in the world with 10,000 participants). The city of Vaasa in Finland was named after the royal house of Vasa in 1606. Gustav is currently portrayed on the 1000 kronor note.

However, today most of these stories are regarded to have no other foundation than legend and skilful propaganda by Gustav himself during his time.

An example of one of his better known adventures among the Swedish people. While Gustav was in exile from the Danish, he was staying over at a farm owned by a close friend for a day's rest. As he was warming himself in the common room, the Danish soldiers got a tip from one of the farm hands that Gustav was in his landlord's farm house. The Danish soldiers burst into the farm house and began searching for someone that would fit Gustav's description in the common room. As one of the soldiers came close to check Gustav Vasa, all of a sudden the landlady took out a bakery spade and started to hit Gustav and scolded him as a "lazy farmboy" and ordered him to go out and work. The Danish soldier found it amusing and didn't realise this "lazy farmboy" was in fact Gustav Vasa himself who managed to slip away from danger and escaped death. There are many other stories about Gustav's close encounters with death, however it is questionable if any of his adventures really did happen or were dramatised by Gustav himself; anyways whether they happened or not, his adventures are still told to this day in Sweden.

Gustav has been regarded by some as a power-hungry man who wished to control everything: the Church, the economy, the army and all foreign affairs. But in doing this, he also did manage to unite Sweden, a country that previously had no standardized language, and where individual provinces held a strong regional power. He also laid the foundation for Sweden's professional army that was to make Sweden into a regional superpower in the 17th century.

In 1739, English playwright Henry Brooke wrote the play Gustavus Vasa, dealing with the liberation of Sweden from Danish rule. However, Robert Walpole, British Prime Minister at the time, believed that the play's villain was intended to represent himself, and had the play banned - the first English play to be so banned under the Licensing Act 1737.

Later in the 18th Century, the name Gustavus Vasa was used by Olaudah Equiano, a prominent African ex-slave living in Britain and involved in the struggle to abolish slavery.

Gustav Vasa had a series of paintings made during his reign. The originals are lost but watercolor reproductions of unknown date remain. These paintings show Gustav's triumphs, showing what Gustav himself considered important to depict. <gallery> Image:Gustav Vasa triumphs 1.jpg|Part one. Year 1521-23, Outside Stockholm Image:Gustav Vasa triumphs 2.jpg|Part two. Year 1525, Inside Stockholm Image:Gustav Vasa triumphs 3.jpg|Part three. Year 1527, Inside and outside Västerås Image:Gustav Vasa triumphs 4.jpg|Part four. Year 1542, the Dacke uprising Image:Gustav Vasa triumphs 5.jpg|Part five. Year 1541, in Brömsebro with Christian III of Denmark </gallery>

Gustav's first wife was Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg (1513–1535), whom he married on September 24, 1531. They had a son:

#Eric XIV (1533–1577), Duke of Kalmar

On October 1, 1536, he married his second wife, Margareta Leijonhufvud (1514–1551). Their children were:

#John III (Johan III) (1537–1592), Duke of Finland #Katharina (1539–1610), wife of Edzard II, Count of Ostfriesland. A grandmother of Anna Maria of Ostfriesland (and thereby an ancestor of Queen Victoria) and great-grandmother of Adolf Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. #Cecilia (1540–1627), wife of Christopher II, Margrave of Baden #Magnus (1542–1595), Duke of Östergötland #Carl (1544) #Anna Maria (1545–1610), wife of George John, Count Palatine of Veldenz #Sten (1546–1549) #Sofia (1547–1611), wife of Magnus II, Duke of Lauenburg #Elisabeth (1549–1598), wife of Christopher, Duke of Mecklenburg #Charles IX (Carl IX) (1550–1611), Duke of Södermanland

At Vadstena Castle on August 22, 1552 he married his third wife, Katarina Stenbock (1535–1621).

*Early Vasa era *Vasaloppet *Vasa *City of Vasa

*Roberts, Michael: The Early Vasas: A History of Sweden 1523–1611 (1968) *Åberg, Alf: Gustav Vasa 500 år / The official anniversary book (1996) *Lars-Olof Larsson: Gustav Vasa - Landsfader eller tyrann? (2003)

*The Rapier of Gustav Vasa, King of Sweden (myArmoury.com article)