Master Olof: A Drama in Five Acts

and the peasants to the King, whom they implored "on their knees and with tears" to withdraw his abdication. The Courtier's reference to Olof's debate with Galle renders it still more uncertain whether we are in Stockholm or in Vesterås. The Courtier also informs Olof of his appointment as pastor of Greatchurch, the facts being that Olof was not ordained until 1539 and received his appointment a year after the events described in the last act of the play. In the metrical version, Strindberg makes his most radical departure from the historical course of events by letting Luther's marriage precede and influence that of Olof, although in reality Olof's anticipated that of Luther by several months.

The complaints of the Man from Småland in the first scene of the second act could scarcely have been warranted in 1524, when that act takes place. The hold of the young King was far too precarious at that early date to permit any regulations of the kind referred to. The establishment of a maximum pr