[POTN] 3.8 - Church Law of 1666

With King Gustav back in picture, the Swedish legislation became much more functional as the year 1665 began. Meaningful bills were no longer vetoed just because Princess Kristina and Prince Karl could not reach a consensus.

He also began reviving certain administrative plans that he was working on before Henrietta's death, with those being largely discarded following his prolonged absence.

After all, the Swedish treasury did not benefit too much from the administrative mess in the year prior, and Gustav knew better than anyone that a sustainable, healthy finance would be key to maintain intensity in any potential conflicts. With strained relations with Paris, Gustav absolutely did not wish for Sweden to once again suffer from an empty treasury half way through a war, which would allow the French to bribe Stockholm with gold for them to continue fighting, much like what happened in the 1630s.

While Sweden did enjoy a stable relation with the previous French Regency government, Gustav had little love for the young King now in charge of France. It was apparent to him that Louis XIV was a blatant expansionist, and he had little faith that a staunchly Catholic man like Louis would ever truly see Sweden as an ally. That prompted Gustav to consider the sustainability of the Swedish treasury a top priority, limiting different expenses to ensure Sweden would not collapse financially in a war.

While the massive Danish reparations from 1658 did benefit the Swedes a lot, it was not exactly sustainable. Nonetheless, It managed to allow Gustav to slightly reduce taxes on commoners in the early 1660s. Practically all previous Swedish debts were repaid with the Danish reparations, leaving the Swedish treasury in a healthy condition never seen since the 1620s.

Meanwhile, during Gustav's absence, several old aristocratic families tried to take that opportunity to restore old nobles' power and curb the massive royal influence since the implementation of the Instrument of Government 1660. Gustav had begun planning how to curb the nobility power since 1660. However, Henrietta's illness and death meant he hadn't worked on it for a while, and it was largely seen by both Kristina and Karl as a discarded project.

As Gustav was again dealing with governmental affairs, he was yet again eager to implement this long-planned project of his. After all, following reforms in the 1650s that promoted meritocracy, Gustav's inner circle had become much more diverse in terms of social classes. Many of his trusted advisors were of gentry or merchant backgrounds, or well-off commoners who had served the government for decades. These classes, along with the peasantry that Gustav did talk to every now and then, were almost unanimously in favour of a reduction to curb the noble influence.

A devout Lutheran, Gustav believed that he was God's representative in Sweden, and did not necessarily need to share his power with nobles simply because of their birth. He believed that, when he did share power, it was for the nation's greater good, not for appeasing traditional nobles. With support from different classes of society, Gustav officially signed the Acts for reducing the properties and power of noblemen in July 1665, giving the nobles a choice, either to "contribute" a significant amount to the national treasury, or to have a certain portion of land confiscated.

Some noble families, with "outstanding contributions to the state", like the Oxenstierna family, were exempted from the grand confiscation that would later be dubbed the Great Reduction of 1665. Non-Swedish provinces were hit harder than mainland Sweden, and in the Danish and Norwegian lands annexed in 1658, the nobles there suffered the harshest blow. Stockholm was especially lacking leniency when dealing with these areas, hoping to ruin the lives of the Danish and Norwegian nobles so they would voluntarily leave Sweden.

Following that, another great wave of Swedification was put in place, on Gustav's insistence. The Danish and Norwegian populations were once again made to pledge loyalty to Gustav, with their Swedish proficiency tested by local officials. Those who could not speak proper Swedish were taxed at an agonising rate that would almost certainly force them to leave. Gustav and other high officials toured Scania occasionally to check on the progress.

With that settled, Gustav also began returning to live in the capital once again, seemingly having mostly moved on from the grief from 1663. While the building of the memorial towers continued, he saw them more as heartfelt gifts to his bygone wife, rather than a way to channel his misery. Gustav thus began working on a second project he had been invested in since 1661, also scrapped with his absence. Since the reforms by him and Kristina in 1649, many schools had been founded, and many Swedes became literate.

Yet, with the war and the occasionally limited budget, the rate of schools being founded was not exactly enough for the siblings. In 1661, Lutheran Church priests made an offer to Gustav, proposing that the Church could participate in this nationwide campaign to improve education. After several years of planning, sometimes with Gustav absent, a new Church Law was largely prepared by late 1665. It did not seek to replace the old laws entirely, but it was meant to provide more state responsibilities for the Lutheran Church, as the national church of Sweden.

As advised by both the Church and Kristina, Gustav intended to make literacy mandatory throughout all Sweden, in an attempt to make sure Sweden, despite numerical inferiority, would possess a population much more educated than potential enemies. Yet, Gustav did not wish to do it by law. Instead, Gustav intended to utilise the Church, designating the people's literacy as the church's responsibility, as the Lutheran Church itself had offered in 1661.

After all, the Lutheran faith stressed the personal relationship between the believer and the Creator, and both Gustav and church officials believed that it would greatly benefit the people if they themselves could read the Holy Scripture, which had already been translated into Swedish in 1541 under King Gustav Vasa.

The Church Law 1666 was passed and signed into effect by Gustav in early 1666, setting the stage for another round of education improvement through all his realms. The vicar if every parish in the country was obliged to conduct annual surveys on every single household in their parish, and to test every grown member, male or female, on their knowledge of the Holy Scripture, and also the ability to read Biblical Swedish, and to write simple Swedish.

For those who failed the demonstrate the required knowledge, the vicar of the parish should send knowledgeable priests to teach the concerned individuals basic Swedish and Lutheran interpretations of the Bible's teachings. Illiterate families should also be given proper support to educate themselves Swedish orthography. Funds were also provided to the Church under close official monitoring to hire more young priests to conduct these surveys in rural lands and to educate rural children with basic reading and writing. This, in a decade or two, would turn out to be extremely effective, elevating the Swedish literacy rate significantly like never before.

Meanwhile, after the bill became law in February 1666, the Riksdag began turning their attention ro another matter that was deemed even more serious by them - the King's marriage. Many had submitted potential options, and Gustav would review them every now and then, trying to find someone who Henrietta would appreciate, while also likeable enough for him.