Sture Murders
The Sture Murders (Swedish: Sturemorden) in Uppsala, Sweden of 24 May 1567 were the murders of five incarcerated Swedish nobles by Erik XIV of Sweden, who at that time was in a state of serious mental disorder, and his guards. The nobles, among them three members of the influential Sture family, had been charged with conspiracy against the king and some were previously sentenced to death. Erik's old tutor, who did not belong to this group, was also killed when he tried to calm the king after the initial murders.
In the 1560s, Erik XIV of Sweden was involved in the Livonian War and the Northern Seven Years' War. Since he led many campaigns in person, his secretary Jöran Persson was left in charge of the administration. The Privy Council of Sweden, the board of nobles technically responsible for advising the king, was effectively replaced by Persson; also, nobles had been ousted from Erik's High Court (Konungens Nämnd) and replaced by loyal commoners, and Persson was made the king's chief prosecutor. The king and his secretary used the High Court not only to enforce their financial, war-related demands on the nobles, but also to torture nobles to reveal information about opposition groups. For the use of torture to be legal, the tortured person had to be sentenced to death first – therefore, the High Court sentenced more than 300 people to death between 1562 and 1567, yet in most cases reduced the penalty later.
Though Erik distrusted the nobility as a whole, he became particularly suspicious of Nils Svantesson Sture, who was arrested and tried. Despite his many illegitimate children, Erik lacked a legal heir and feared that Sture might claim his throne. The Stures were a very influential family, and Erik projected an astrological reading on Nils Sture saying that he would be succeeded by a "light-haired man". According to Peterson (2007),
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