a safe haven in the shadow of war? – mia korpiola 91 någon gifuin orsaak), the court did not discover any reasonable cause (skäligh orsak) to commute the sentence. Moreover, the court argued, it did not even seem Christian (Sÿnes Christeligit) to spare his life (skonas). Immediate execution was thus ordered.256 Even after the Court of Appeal was established, litigants and people with an interest in court cases approached the king in person or through intermediaries. While appeals in criminal matters were largely forbidden, most capital sentences were referred to the Court of Appeal in the King’s absence or the king directly. On 13 March 1616, the Dutch diplomat Andries van Wouw described how he had been approached in Turku by a Scottish widow and some German ladies. The widow wanted the Dutchman to plead with the king for the pardoning of his son, who was being tried for a recent accident, expecting an imminent verdict and death penalty. Because of other intercessors, van Wouw accepted her letter of supplication. He was assured that the king would grant the supplication for pardon “as there were attenuating circumstances and the condemned was still quite young, only 16 years of age.” The Dutchman did not receive an audience with the king, but was received by Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna to whom van Wouw presented the supplication, receiving a promise that Oxenstierna would do his best in the matter. Three days later, the diplomat met the Chancellor again and received the news of the boy’s pardon, which he then proceeded to tell the extremely thankful mother.257 Other fines were routinely levied such as those for adultery. As the fine rolls testify, in the case of single adultery, the married party was usually fined eighty dalers and the unmarried forty. For recidivists or in the case of double adultery, the fine could be twice as high.258 Here the Court of Appeal referred to King Charles IX’s Ordinance of Heinous Crime of 1611. This was not really an ordinance, although it has later been called so in Schmedeman’s collection (K. Carl den IX Straff-Ordning 1611), but rather a routine letter regarding the use of royal prerogative of pardon in individual cases adjudicated locally. In this particular case, the governor of Kalmar on the island of Öland had referred some cases of heinous crime adjudi256 RA, SHA, B I a:1, 16 July 1614, fols. 27v-28r. 257 “Monsieur Andries van Wouw’s resa,”En holländsk beskicknings resor, ed. and trans. Hildebrand, pp. 228-230. See also, e.g., RA, Riksregistraturet, vol 127, 1616, S21435 21/22: Royal resolution regarding some cases of heinous crime in Småland, 11 Dec. 1616. 258 RA, SHA, D VIII a:1.
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