Sweden enjoyed freedom until the middle of the fourteenth century; during this long period several revolutions occurred, but all innovations were in the direction of liberty. The chief magistrate had the title King, which in different countries involves very different degrees of power. Thus in France and Spain it implies an absolute monarchy, while in Poland, Sweden and Finland it stands for a representative or limited monarchy. In Sweden the King was powerless without the Council, and the Council in turn derived its powers from the Parliament, which was frequently convened. In these great Assemblies the nation was represented by the nobility, the bishops, and deputies from the towns. In course of time even the peasantry, that section of the community which had been unjustly despised and enslaved throughout almost the whole of North Europe, was admitted to the Parliament. In about 1492 this nation, essentially liberty-loving, and never forgetful of the fact that she had conquered Rome thirteen centuries before, was brought into subjection by a woman and a nation weaker than the Swedes. Margaret of Valdemar, the Sémiramis of the North, Queen of Denmark and Norway, conquered Sweden partly by force of arms and partly by means of diplomacy, and united her vast estates into one kingdom. After her death Sweden was rent by civil war; she alternately shook off and submitted to the Danish yoke, and was ruled by kings and ministers alternately. In about 1520 she passed through a period of cruel oppression at the hands of two tyrants: one was Christian II, King of Denmark, a monarch with all the vices, and no one redeeming feature; the other, Archbishop of Upsala, and Primate of the kingdom, was as cruel as the former. One day these two, acting in concert, had the consuls, the magistrates of Stockholm and ninety-four senators seized and massacred by the executioners, on the ground that they had been excommunicated by the Pope for having defended the State against the Archbishop. Whilst these two men, united in oppression, but opposed when it was a question of dividing the spoil, were exercising the utmost tyranny and the cruelest vengeance, a new event changed the whole aspect of affairs in the North.