The fight of Westeras, from its influence on public opinion, acquired greater importance than of itself it would have possessed. Little was gained by the conquest of the town, so long as the castle held out; and how unserviceable a force of peasants was for a siege, Gustavus was often subsequently to experience. Wherever the tidings of his victory came, the people revolted, and he was already enabled to divide his power, and to invest the castles of several provinces. Siege was accordingly laid to Stegborg, Nykoping, and Orebro. A division of the Vermelanders, with the peasants of Rekarne, in Sudermania, was employed in beleaguering the castle of Westeras; of whose exploits, however, nothing else is told than that they shot the councillor Canute Bennetson (Sparre), to whom Slagheck transferred the command, so that he tumbled in his wolfskin coat from the wall into the stream. Howbeit, another detachment reduced Horningsholm in Sudermania; Christian's governors in Vermeland and Dalsland were slain; the people of the former province, under the command of their justiciary, prepared for an attack upon the councillor Thure Jonson, the King's lieutenant in West-Gothland, and, crossing Lake Vener, entered that district. In Dalsland, fifteen hundred men took up arms; several thousand peasants from Nerike marched across the Tiwed with the same object. Gustavus had been obliged to grant a furlough to his Dalesmen about seed-time; and to supply their place he caused the people of several districts of Upland to be summoned to assemble in the forest of Rymningen, at Oeresundsbro; from which point his two captains essayed an attack upon the Archbishop of Upsala. It was St. Eric's Day (May 18th), and a great confluence of people was present at the fair. An assault was expected; for a deputation of four priests and two burgesses, sent from Upsala to the forest, had received from the leaders the answer that it must be Swedes, not outlandish men, who should bear the shrine of holy Eric, and that they would come to take their part in the festival. Bennet Bjugg (Barley), the Archbishop's bailiff, to show his contempt of such foes, caused a banquet to be set out in the open space between the larger and smaller episcopal manor houses of that day, where, before the eyes of the people, he made himself and his fellows merry till late in the night with drinking, dancing, and singing. Roused from a late sleep by an assault on the gates of the fortified house, and finding it beset by the enemy, they attempted to escape by a concealed passage, which then connected the Bishop's house with the cathedral. But the peasants set fire to this passage, which was of wood, and shot fire arrows at the roof of the episcopal residence, in which the flames soon burst forth. The building was laid in ashes, and next day the females of the household, with some burghers of Upsala, crept out of its cellars, in which they had taken refuge. Great part of the garrison perished. The