The heroic aspects of this Scandinavian patriot and King have alike endeared his memory to his own people and made his fame to endure in the world annals of mankind. His last appearance and address before the estates of his kingdom, in the closing year of his life, have been finely commemorated in art, with a commingling of power and pathos, the aged monarch taking leave of his people and his throne. "He took his place in the hall of assemblage, accompanied by all his sons. The King having saluted the estates, they listened for the last time to the accents of that eloquence so well liked by the people." [Illustration: Gustavus I (Vasa) addressing his last meeting of the Estates Painting by L. Hersent] The most influential yeomen of all the parishes in the eastern and western dales elected Gustavus to be "lord and chieftain over them and the commons of the realm of Sweden." Some scholars who had arrived from Westeras brought with them new accounts of the tyranny of Christian. Gustavus placed them amid a ring of peasants to tell their story and answer the questions of the crowd. Old men represented it as a comfortable sign for the people, that as often as Gustavus discoursed to them the north wind always blew, "which was an old token to them that God would grant them good success." Sixteen active peasants were appointed to be his bodyguard; and two hundred more youths who joined him were called his foot-goers. The chronicles reckon his reign from this small beginning; while the Danes and their abettors in Stockholm long continued to speak of him and his party as a band of robbers in the woods.