Gustav I of Sweden

Gustav Eriksson Vasa took up arms in 1521 after the Stockholm Bloodbath claimed his father's life, declared himself Protector of the Realm, and waged war against Christian II of Denmark until the foreign king was gone. Elected King of Sweden on 6 June 1523, he entered Stockholm eleven days later and severed the country from the Kalmar Union for good. Over the next decades he broke the old church's hold by pushing through the Protestant Reformation, converted the elective crown into a hereditary one, and built Sweden's first standing army and navy. He died in 1560 having recast the kingdom in h…