devoted ministers, and his best friends. The same court influences, and the same pliability on the part of the judges were found in both cases; and, by a stroke which recalled the Tudor sovereign, the king insisted that the archbishop should sit as a judge at the trial of his brother. Olaf and Anderson were condemned to death in the spring of 1540. This was paying rather dear for the folly of the mock suns. ‘Simplicity,’ it is said, ‘is better than jesting’; and a simple and credulous proceeding often disarms the man who has a right to complain of it. Olaf had been simple and credulous, but his foolishness did not disarm the king. The sentence which filled the ultramontanes with joy threw consternation among the evangelical Christians, and especially among the parishioners of Olaf. The man who had so often consoled and exhorted them was to be smitten like a criminal. They could not bear to think of it. They remembered all the services which he had rendered them, and, what does not often happen in this world, they were grateful. They therefore bestirred themselves, interceded in behalf of their pastor, and offered to pay a ransom for his life. The king did not push matters to extremities, but granted a pardon. Perhaps his only intention had been to inspire fear in those who assumed to set limits to his power. The townsmen of Stockholm paid for their pastor fifty Hungarian florins. Anderson also saved his life, but by a payment out of his own purse. These pecuniary penalties contributed to keep people in mind that the king was not to be contradicted. The exaction of these sums for the ransom from the scaffold of the two men who had done the most good to Sweden did no honor to Gustavus. But he appears to have thought that strong measures were necessary for the purpose of maintaining himself on the throne to which he had been elevated. It was part of his system to strike and to strike hard. [Sidenote: Olaf’s Sermon.]