Gustav I of Sweden

Gustav Vasa, also known as Gustav I of Sweden, born Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family – 29 September 1560), was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560, previously self-recognised Protector of the Realm (Riksföreståndare) from 1521, during the ongoing Swedish War of Liberation against King Christian II of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Gustav rose to lead the Swedish War of Liberation following the Stockholm Bloodbath, where his father was executed. Gustav's election as king on 6 June 1523 (the National Day of Sweden) and his triumphant entry into Stockholm eleven days later marked Sweden's final secession from the Kalmar Union. A process of radical change of the Kingdom of Sweden Gustav Vasa gradually became the country's leader during the Swedish War of Liberation. Gustav continued the process begun by his predecessor Sten Sture the Younger and Sten Sture the Elder of freeing Sweden from foreign political and economic interests such as the Kalmar Union with Denmark, the Catholic Church in Rome, and the Hanseatic League in Lübeck. Under Sten Sture the Younger, the archbishop Gustav Trolle was removed from his office, and his castle Almarestäket on lake Mälaren was demolished in the winter of 1517 on orders from the Swedish Parliament. The Swedish Parliament was then declared in interdict by the Pope which remains in effect to this day. This was followed by Christian II's invasion in 1520 in which Sten Sture the younger died. After the Battle of Bogesund and the Stockholm bloodbath in 1520, and the Swedish liberation war, Gustav was elected king in Strängnäs 6 June 1523 and Stockholm's liberation declared at midsummer 1523. Sweden has been free from foreign powers ever since. The process continued another 13 years until the Count's Feud in Denmark in which Gustav and Sweden were very active. When Christian III entered Copenhagen in 1536, the Catholic Church and the Hanseatic League were bankrupt and lost power in the Nordic countries, where the Lutheran Church of Sweden by the Reformation in Sweden obtained an ecclesiastical monopoly and the Church of Denmark by the Reformation in Denmark–Norway and Holstein. This process largely changed all the old power structures in Sweden, where previously every issue had to be negotiated with powerful nobles. With the rest of the power elite wiped out in the Stockholm bloodbath, Gustav and the parliament had sole control in Sweden.