STURE, STEN the YOUNGER. - Swedish statesman, b. ca. 1493, d. 3 Feb. 1520. Son of Svante Nilsson, who after Sten Sture the Elder had been regent from 1504 to 1512, he had little prospect of succeeding him in office upon his father’s death.
The Royal Council in fact had openly declared for Erik Trolle, favoring a policy of détente toward Denmark. But S., who could avail himself of the experience of his father’s old counsellors and who had been placed by his parent in possession of the country’s most important fortresses, contested the Council’s designation; in July 1512 the Council was therefore compelled to entrust him with the regency. Once in power, his first concern was to strengthen his position. Against the treacherous collaboration of the Council and the nobles, he appealed to the people, with whose help he established a veritable personal dictatorship in the country. He admitted no other political power beside his own, and when the new archbishop Gustav Trolle (son of the man who had sought to oppose his regency) refused to hand over the family fortress of Ståket, he laid siege to it and destroyed II. The same archbishop was imprisoned but released in 1518 through the intervention of the papal legate Arcimbold