was summoned to Upsala to judge between the king and those of the aristocracy whom he regarded as his personal enemies. Eric himself arrived at Upsala on the 16th in a condition of incipient insanity. On the 19th he opened parliament in a speech which, as he explained, he had to deliver extempore owing to "the treachery" of his secretary. Two days later Nils Sture arrived at Upsala fresh from his embassy to Lorraine, and was at once thrown into prison, where other members of the nobility were already detained. On the following day Eric murdered Nils in his cell with his own hand, and by his order the other prisoners were despatched by the royal provost marshal forthwith. These murders were committed so promptly and secretly that it is doubtful whether the estates, actually in session at the same place, knew what had been done when, on the 26th of May, under violent pressure from Goran Persson, they signed a document declaring that all the accused gentlemen under detention had acted like traitors, and confirming all sentences already passed or that might be passed upon them. During the greater part of 1567 Eric was so deranged that a committee of senators was appointed to govern the kingdom. One of his illusions was that not he was king but his brother John, whom he now set at liberty. When, at the beginning of 1568, Eric recovered his reason, a reconciliation was effected between the king and the duke, on condition that John recognized the legality of his brother's marriage with Karin Mansdatter, and her children as the successors to the throne. A month later, on the 4th of July, he was solemnly married to Karin at Stockholm by the primate. The next day Karin was crowned queen of Sweden and her infant son Gustavus proclaimed prince-royal. Shortly after his marriage Eric issued a circular ordering a general thanksgiving for his delivery from the assaults of the devil. This document, in every line of which madness is legible, convinced most thinking people that Eric was unfit to reign. The royal dukes, John and Charles, had already taken measures to depose him; and in July the rebellion broke out in Ostergotland. Eric at first offered a stout resistance and won two victories; but on the 17th of September the dukes stood before Stockholm, and Eric, after surrendering Goran Persson to the horrible vengeance of his enemies, himself submitted, and resigned the crown. On the 30th of September 1568 John III. was proclaimed king by the army and the nobility; and a _Riksdag_, summoned to Stockholm, confirmed the choice and formally deposed Eric on the 25th of January 1569. For the next seven years the ex-king was a source of the utmost anxiety to the new government. No fewer than three rebellions, with the object of releasing and reinstating him, had to be suppressed, and his prison was changed half a dozen times. On the 10th of March 1575, an assembly of notables, lay and clerical, at John's request, pronounced a formal sentence of death upon him.