The breach between the king and popery was now open. Gustavus had actually flung down the gauntlet at the feet of Rome, asserting that if officers satisfactory to him were not appointed by the pope, he would take the duty of appointing them upon himself. Still he did not relinquish hope that the breach might yet be healed; and on the 2d of November he wrote again, this time requesting the pope to confirm the election of Erik Svensson, a former secretary of Gustavus, to the vacant bishopric of Åbo. "And if your Holiness," wrote the king, "shall delay in confirming the bishops-elect, we shall ourselves undertake the restoration of our ruined churches, and shall have the bishops confirmed by Him who is our High Pontifex, that His Church and religion may not be injured through the negligence of the Apostolic See. Moreover, Most Holy Father, we hear from certain men of Lubeck that one Francisco of Potentia has returned from Rome to Denmark with arguments in justification of that tyrant Christiern's massacre of our bishops, and that your Holiness has rewarded him with the bishopric of Skara. If this be true, the Apostolic See has done us and the Church a wrong equal in enormity to that of the Danish king, and we shall by God's aid avert it if necessary with our blood. Let not your Holiness fancy that we shall permit foreigners to rule the Church in Sweden." At about the same time with this letter the monarch, in writing to Johannes Magni, uses even stronger language. After suggesting that Christiern has so impoverished the Church that it is unable to send its bishops elect to Rome for confirmation, he asserts that it is rumored the real cause of the delay is that the Church has not been able to furnish the pope the customary fees for confirmation. "Some assert, too," he adds, "that there is no authority in Scripture for all the dues that belong by custom to the pope.... So soon as we find that our patience and moderation are of no avail, we shall proceed to rigorous measures. We shall not suffer our people to bend beneath a cruel foreign yoke, for we are confident that Christ, who is our High Priest, will not let his people die to suit the pope's caprice."[86]