Johan's lifetime was estrangement, and very nearly civil war, between the brothers; after his death it led to the triumph of Lutheranism at the Upsala mote.
All this time the King was carrying on negotiations with the Papacy. So early as 1572 Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius was writing hopefully of his conversion. In 1576 two Jesuits from Louvain, Florentius Feyt and Laurentius the Norwegian, appeared at Stockholm in the guise of evangelical preachers. They were instructed to proceed with great caution. The Cardinal gave directions that the last-named was to extol faith and depreciate works without faith, to preach Christ as the only mediator, and His cross as the only means of salvation; "and thereupon," he proceeded, "let them show that nothing else has been preached in the papal Church." We know from their own account that at the King's bidding they concealed their real condition and were taken for Lutherans; and the clergy were compelled to receive their instruction, which was carried on in the spirit of Hosius' directions. In the same year the King sent messengers to Rome to negociate for the restoration of the papal authority in Sweden. It soon became evident that he was asking for conditions which were not likely to be granted; he demanded, amongst other things, the concession of the Cup to the laity, the partial use of Swedish in the liturgy, the surrender of clerical exemptions, toleration of the marriage of the clergy (though with a preference for celibacy), and the condonation of all that had been done in the past.
The time was past for such concessions, although hopes of something of the kind were held out more than once by Cardinal Hosius in his letters. In 1577 however the Jesuit Antony Possevin was sent to the north, with a commission as Legate to the Emperor, and instructions to use all his influence with King Johan. He made his appearance in the following year; and so great was the impression which he produced upon the King that after a few interviews, as we are told in his reports, Johan declared his willingness to make the Tridentine profession of faith without waiting to see what concessions the Pope might be willing to make towards Sweden. He accordingly did so, made his confession and was absolved (penance being imposed upon him for the murder of his brother, for which he had always felt the deepest remorse), and received the Communion in the Roman manner. This year, then, marks the zenith of the papal influence. About the same time Bishop Martin Olafsson of Linkceping, who had always been opposed to the direction in which things were moving in the Swedish Church, was deposed and degraded for calling the Pope antichrist. Luther's Catechism, which had been used in the schools for some years, was made to give place to that of Canisius; many Jesuits were admitted into the country, on one pretext or another, and large numbers of Swedish boys were sent abroad to be educated in their seminaries; above all, the primatial see was kept vacant for four years after the death of Laurentius Petri Gothus in 1579, in the
