Arvid Stålarm the Younger Arvid Stålarm , actually Arvid Eriksson ( Stålarm ) till Lindö i Tenala ( c . 1540 or 1549 – May 1620 , Gripsholm Castle ) was a Swedish noble and soldier from the Finland - based Stålarm family . He is sometimes called " the Younger " to distinguish him from his grandfather and namesake who died in 1529 . In his early career , Arvid Stålarm served as a captain in the Swedish navy . Later , he was promoted admiral , governor in Narva and Finland , and during the War against Sigismund led Finnish forces loyal to Sigismund against the latter ' s opponent and successor duke Charles of Södermanland , the later king Charles IX . Stålarm was taken prisoner and condemned to death in the Åbo bloodbath ( 1599 ) and again in the Linköping bloodbath ( 1600 ) , but both times was spared from execution and remained in prison . In 1602 , during the Polish – Swedish War ( 1600 – 11 ) , he was released to command the Swedish forces in Livonia , who by then were in a precarious state and position . Stålarm received ambiguous orders and was unable to turn the tide . After a major defeat in September 1604 , Charles removed him from the command , and Stålarm was again tried and condemned to death in the spring of 1605 . He was , however , again spared , and spent the rest of his life as Charles ' prisoner at Gripsholm . Family . Arvid Eriksson till Lindö i Tenala was born into the Finland - Swedish Stålarm family around the years 1540 or 1549 . He was the son of Erik Arvidsson ( Stålarm , died 1569 , son of the elder Arvid Eriksson Stålarm and Christina Knutsdotter ) and Beata Nilsdotter Grabbe , her husband ' s step - sister , daughter of Nils Magnusson Grabbe the Elder and his first wife , Elin Claesdotter ( Christina Knutsdotter became Nils Magnusson ' s second wife ) . On 9 July 1569 , he married Elin Fleming , a daughter of Herman Fleming and Gertrud Håkansdotter Hand . Naval , Narva , Finnish and Livonian commands , first detention . Stålarm was " häradshöfding " ( chief administrator of a härad ) in Nyslötts ( Savonlinna ) län in 1583 . He served in the Royal Swedish navy as a captain , and was promoted admiral of the Finnish navy in 1588 . In 1590 , at the beginning of the Russo - Swedish War ( 1590 – 1595 ) , he was appointed supreme commander in Narva , where he became governor in 1592 . In addition , he became " häradshövding " of Sexmäki ( Sääksmäki ) in 1593 and of Savolax ( Savonia ) in 1594 . In the same year , king Sigismund confirmed Stålarm as his governor in Narva and also appointed him commander of all forces in Finland and Livonia , after he had made Stålarm his envoy to the Russian tsardom already in 1593 . Upon the death of " översteamiral " ( supreme admiral ) Clas ( Klaus ) Fleming in 1597 , he was given supreme command over the naval and land forces in Finland by king Sigismund and became governor of " all Finland . " During the War against Sigismund , he supported Sigismund against his adversary duke Charles of Södermanland . In 1597 , Charles ' forces invaded Finland and in September took from Stålarm the town of Åbo ( Turku ) , where he gathered the Finnish estates and had them accept his rule . Stålarm however re - took Åbo when Charles left in October , making Finland again one of the strongholds of Sigismund loyalists with the peasantry however tending to support Charles . In 1598 , Sigismund planned to plunge Charles in a two - fold attack , with Sigismund attacking him from the south and Stålarm ' s forces from Finland and Uppland attacking from the north . Three days before Stålarm arrived in Stockholm , however , Sigismund had already been forced to agree to an unfavourable truce in the Treaty of Linköping of 28 September , after Charles had won the upper hand in the Battle of Stångebro . Stålarm retreated to Finland without the Uppland troops , who defected to Charles , Sigismund retreated to Poland - Lithuania and never returned , and Charles , who had already detained the leading loyalists at Linköping , subsequently cleared the western parts of the Swedish kingdom of his opponents before he started a campaign to control the remaining loyalist strongholds in the east . Together with Axel Kurck ( Kurk ) , Stålarm commanded the forces in Finland , but was taken prisoner after Charles ' forces had conquered the loyalist strongholds there in September and October 1599 . Along with other opposition members , Stålarm was sentenced to death by a jury assembled from thirty - seven of Charles ' followers in Åbo , but together with Kurck was spared from decapitation during the subsequent Åbo bloodbath of 10 November . Instead , Stålarm and Kurck were transferred first to Stockholm and later to Linköping , where they were again tried and sentenced to death by a jury of 155 men during the riksdag of the estates of March 1600 . Both were already led to the execution site in what became known as the Linköping bloodbath , but their execution was postponed and Stålarm remained Charles ' prisoner until 1602 . Livonian command , second detention . Stålarm ' s temporary release in 1602 was due to difficulties Charles encountered in his war against Poland - Lithuania in the Duchy of Livonia . There , Charles had attracted the renowned John of Nassau to command his forces in July 1601 . John began to re - organize the Swedish forces in Livonia according to the Dutch model , but due to shortages in equipment , numbers and other problems he gave up and left for Holland in the summer of 1602 . He left behind an army reduced to the Livonian strongholds of Dorpat ( Tartu ) and Pernau ( Pärnu ) and even losing ground in famine - plagued Swedish Estonia , which Michal Roberts described as follows : " The Dutch tactics were worse than useless — indeed , they were positively dangerous — as long as the men had an inferior firearm and no pike - hedge behind which they could take cover . [ . . . ] The army had been half - reformed , and the last state of it was arguably worse than the first . " Charles then released Stålarm from prison to take over John of Nasau ' s command . Stålarm ' s opponent in Livonia was the Lithuanian hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz , whose forces until mid - 1603 had taken Dorpat and most of Estonia , except for the Reval ( Tallinn ) and Narva regions , from Stålarm . Charles ordered Stålarm to take a strictly defensive position and avoid battle until he had raised a mercenary army , but according to Roberts , " simultaneously harassed him with demands for action , and bitterly criticized him when action proved unsuccessful . " Stålarm , though not authorized by Charles , wanted to force a decision in the battle of Weissenstein ( Paide ) on 15 September 1604 , but was utterly defeated by Chodkiewicz . Charles removed Stålarm from the Livonian command , which he took over himself . In the spring of 1605 , Stålarm once again faced a court . Charles had summoned a riksdag in Stockholm after he became aware of an aristocratic conspiracy by the beginning of the year , and Stålarm was among the real and perceived opponents whom Charles had tried by a tribunal composed of 274 men during the riksdag . The tribunal sentenced Stålarm to death , whereupon he was tortured and again brought to the execution site . While the verdict was again not carried out , Stålarm spent the rest of his life imprisoned and died in May 1620 in Gripsholm Castle .