Stockholm Bloodbath

Timeline

1. 1520Stockholm · SwedenChristian II entered the city after defeating the forces of Sten Sture the Younger and besieging Stockholm for about four months. He promised amnesty to the anti-union faction and was crowned king of Sweden on 4 November, then held a coronation banquet at the Tre Kronor palace, summoning Swedish nobles and senior clergy.
2. 1520Stockholm Stortorget · StockholmArchbishop Gustav Trolle charged that the Sture faction's earlier deposition of him constituted heresy. The court accordingly declared the amnesty made with heretics void, and had the bishops of Skara and Strängnäs, along with many nobles, aldermen, and citizens, beheaded or hanged on the Stortorget. The executioner's register listed about 82 people; the eyewitness Olaus Magnus recorded over 120.
3. 1520–1521Central Sweden · SwedenChristian II came to be known in Sweden as "Christian the Tyrant." Sten Sture's body was exhumed and burned, and his widow Christina and other noblewomen were taken to Denmark. Far from eliminating the anti-union faction, the bloodbath propelled Gustav Vasa's leadership of a war of liberation, becoming the turning point in the Kalmar Union's collapse.