when revolt arose in Dalarne, Gustavus fancied that he saw the bishop's hand. "The priests," he said to one of his officers, "are at the bottom of all rebellion, and the diocese of Linköping is the heart of this conspiracy." Gustavus had no ground for this suspicion, and the charge was utterly untrue. Brask thought the tax imposed upon the Dalesmen altogether too severe, and did not hesitate to say so; but he was very far from sympathizing with the rebels, and when it was ordered that the diet should be held in Vesterås to please the Dalesmen, he was the first person to suggest a danger in holding it so near the seat of the revolt.[168] Brask's influential position in the diet only added to the monarch's wrath, and it was against him chiefly that the diet's acts were framed. He was the wealthiest of the Swedish bishops. Hence the reduction in their incomes, as commanded by the diet, fell heaviest on him. But even here the monarch's greed was not assuaged. After the "Ordinantia" had been passed, Gustavus rose and called upon the several bishops to resign their castles. This step, though advocated by the burghers and mountaineers as well as common people, had not been ordered by the diet. Gustavus seems, therefore, to have made the demand upon his own authority alone, and the issue proved that his authority was great. The bishops of Strengnäs and Skara, on whom the demand was made first, acquiesced as gracefully as was possible to so provoking a demand. But when the monarch came to Brask, that prelate did not readily comply. One of the nobility addressed the king, and begged him to allow the aged bishop to retain his castle during the few short years that yet remained to him of life. This reasonable request, however, the monarch would not grant; and Brask persisting in his right to hold the castle, Gustavus deprived him of his retinue and held him prisoner till he furnished bail conditioned for his good behavior as well as for the surrender of his castle. The diet then adjourned, Gustavus sending forth a body of men who entered the bishop's castle by main force, and placed it under the supremacy of the king.[169]