Early in June Gustavus came from Vesterås, and opened negotiations with the canons of Upsala, with a view to win them over to his side. As they refused, however, to take action without consulting the archbishop, he begged them to consult him at once, and he himself wrote a pacific letter urging the archbishop to champion his country's cause. Trolle, then in Stockholm, scorned the message and seized the messenger who brought it. Then he placed himself at the head of a troop of three thousand foot and five hundred horse, in glittering armor, and marched to Upsala, declaring that his answer to the message he would convey in person. Gustavus, expecting daily the return of his messenger, was taken wholly unawares. The great body of his soldiers had gone back to their farms, and he had but six hundred of them left. With these it would be madness to withstand the archbishop's force. He therefore evacuated the city, and hurried over the meadows to the west. As soon as he was out of danger, he despatched officers to call back the farmers to his ranks, and meantime drew up an ambuscade on the road between Stockholm and Upsala, thinking to spring upon the archbishop as he returned. The plot was discovered, and when the troops returned they took another path. Gustavus, however, did not give up the chase. With his ranks once more replenished, he pursued the enemy, and a battle followed so hot that when the archbishop arrived at Stockholm, he entered the town with only an eighth part of the glittering troop with which he had started out.[62] The patriot army now proceeded to the capital, and pitched their camp on the hill north of the town. There they found four gallows from which were hanging the bodies of four Swedes, murdered to glut the rapacity of their Danish masters. One day, while encamped on this spot, the Danes came out against them, and dividing their forces into two bodies stormed the Swedish redoubt simultaneously on both sides. The charge was fierce, and lasted half a day, when the Swedes were driven from their stronghold with heavy loss, and forced to take up a new position about twelve miles farther north. There they remained three weeks, battling daily with the enemy with varying success. At last the commandant of Stockholm had recourse to strategy. Advancing with a powerful army till near the vicinity of the Swedish camp, he halted and placed his force in ambuscade. He then pushed forward with some forty horse and a few weak infantry to the enemy's earthworks, as if to storm them. After a slight skirmish, in which some eight or ten of the horse were captured, the Danish leader shouted that all was lost, and took to flight. The patriots, all unsuspecting, dashed after them, and followed blindly into the very midst of the Danish army, into the jaws of death. Thus ended the first attempt of Gustavus Vasa to capture Stockholm.[63]