Kingdom of Sweden

The early Vasa era began in 1523, when Gustav Vasa retook Stockholm after the Stockholm Bloodbath and led Sweden out of the Kalmar Union. His reign was devoted to internal consolidation: the Protestant Reformation was introduced, church property was taken by the crown, and the provinces were brought under firmer royal control. After Gustav died in 1560, his eldest son Eric XIV took the throne and fought Denmark, Russia and Poland, but bouts of insanity led to his deposition in 1568. His brother John III made peace abroad and sought, without success, a partial restoration of Catholicism at home. The crown then passed to John's son Sigismund and finally to Gustav's youngest son Charles IX, whose conflicts with Poland and Denmark prepared the ground for Sweden's later great-power era. The period ended in 1611, on the eve of the Swedish Empire, when the Baltic kingdom had become firmly Lutheran and militarily ambitious. Gustav's seizure of church lands financed a stronger central administration and a standing army.