Few 16th-century men contributed so decisively to Swedish foreign policy as the Pomeranian Joachim Burwitz. He was typical of the many Germans employed by the early Vasa kings to manage administrative, military, diplomatic and security matters. Burwitz also stands out as one of the most prominent men within the extensive web of intelligence agents organised by King Gustav Vasa (1521-60). For almost 20 years, Burwitz was deployed abroad, operating at the nexus of intelligence and diplomacy. Despite being one of the most trusted royal agents of the Vasa court, he nevertheless fell out of grace with the paranoid monarch and was even suspected of being a double agent.

In many respects, the Sweden of the early Vasas was reminiscent of the more well-known case of Elizabethan England. Expansive ambitions were coupled with feverish efforts to divine the intentions of foreign adversaries. In Europe of this era, political intrigue seemed a pastime at European courts, where secret plans for subversion or invasion were produced either on religious, dynastic or geopolitical pretexts. In such an environment, nothing seemed more dangerous than a false sense of security. Prudent statesmen perceived of the necessity for perpetual vigilance and organised extensive networks of intelligence agents.

Burwitz hailed from a Stralsund burgher family, but spent some years in Livonia before he entered Swedish service in 1541. He was employed as secretary in the chancery of Gustav Vasa, and soon advanced to become the head of the newly established German chancery. According to court gossip, the men in the German chancery were drinkers and tricksters, but Burwitz nevertheless grew to become an exceptional man. At this time there was a great influx of Germans in Sweden and the royal administration was governed by the chancellor, Conrad von Pyhy, a flamboyant German formerly in the service of Emperor Charles V. In 1543, however, von Pyhy became the target of Vasa’s unpredictable wrath and was imprisoned for life. No doubt this represented a stark reminder to other royal servants of the consequences of a faux pas.

A Swedish system of resident embassies had yet to develop. Instead, diplomatic envoys travelled to communicate Swedish foreign policy. In such a capacity, Burwitz soon proved to be an invaluable asset. Following the Count’s Feud (a war of Danish succession, which began in 1534) and the peace of Hamburg in 1536, Sweden’s diplomatic standing in international politics gradually deteriorated. The evangelical princes of the Schmalkaldic League refused to admit the Swedish king due to resentment towards him stirred up by Swedish exiles in Germany. The Elector Palatine and the Duke of Lorraine – sons-in-law of the deposed former king, Christian II – plotted to invade Sweden in consort with the disgruntled Duke of Mecklenburg and the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Formal Swedish alliances with Denmark and France followed in 1541-42, but the Danes nevertheless continued to produce secret plots against Sweden. Further to the east, Muscovy also represented a growing threat.

In these troubled waters, Burwitz navigated to pursue Swedish strategic interests and soon became a key player in Swedish diplomacy. In 1545, the king sent him to Bremen and, in 1546-47, he took part in a mission to Lübeck. There he may have met with the intelligence agent Hans Krafft, who secretly operated from one of the city’s inns. At this time, the evangelical princes of the Schmalkadic League were all but defeated by the emperor, and Burwitz reported to the king of an expected ‘papist’ reaction in Germany. He also provided intelligence of a Danish legation to the emperor and of Danish negotiations with the Elector Palatine and the Duke of Lorraine, both enemies of Sweden.

The king read Burwitz’ pessimistic reports on the threatening developments with great interest. Lacking allies in the Lutheran camp, he contemplated following Burwitz’s advice to pursue a separate Swedish settlement with the emperor. During the autumn of 1547, the king eagerly awaited new intelligence dispatches from Burwitz and, on his return to Stockholm, he was again dispatched to the ambulating imperial court in southern Germany. Due to the present unrest in Germany, Burwitz claimed to have risked his life in making this journey.

Returning to Sweden again in 1548, Burwitz was sent to the Low Countries to negotiate with the Antwerp magistrate, where he also secretly collected intelligence. In August, he continued to Stralsund where he stayed for some time on a similar intelligence-gathering mission. There, he probably conferred with the bailiff of Rügen, Matthias Norman, who secretly provided the Swedish king with a wealth of intelligence on German affairs – in dispatches that he sometimes asked the king to burn after reading. The following year, Burwitz was also deployed to Copenhagen together with the secretary Olof Larsson – another chancery member and prominent Swedish intelligencer.

Ciphered letters were still rarely used in the Swedish intelligence organisation and messages were mostly carried by specially designated messengers. Several such agents disguised themselves as merchants while travelling to collect dispatches in Germany. Burwitz’ itineraries frequently coincided with times and places where Swedish intelligence agents were deployed, and he may have served as a dispatch collector on his travels.

After another diplomatic stint in Lübeck in 1549, Burwitz returned to Sweden once more. By then he had received a considerable annual pay raise in recognition of his services. He was also granted royal exemption from custom-fees and seemed intent to settle down to pursue mercantile business. The king could not afford to keep such an asset idling in Sweden, however, and demanded that he should continue his deployment abroad. Burwitz grudgingly returned to his post in Stralsund, from where he continued to send his ominous reports concerning Danish and German plots against Sweden.

In 1550-51, Burwitz also took part in another a diplomatic mission, to the emperor at Augsburg. From Travemünde, he sent dispatches to the king concerning military developments in Germany, foreign troop enlistments and of the imperial siege of Magdeburg. Burwitz’ reports represent a realistic understanding of the difficulty of Sweden’s standing in foreign affairs, deeply affecting the king’s decisions.

In 1554, Swedish strategic focus shifted eastward, which affected the fortunes of Burwitz. Across the Baltic Sea, the State of the Livonian Order crumbled while the posture of the Muscovite Tsar Ivan IV (the ‘Terrible’) became ever more aggressive. Gustav Vasa made overtures for an anti-Muscovite alliance with the Livonian Order, and Burwitz was sent there in his accustomed dual role as diplomat and intelligence agent. In an attempt to separate two fighting men in Reval in 1540, Burwitz had allegedly committed manslaughter and left Livonia to evade charges. Furnished with diplomatic credentials he could now return without fear of legal prosecution. Due to the declining health of his wife, from 1555 Burwitz settled down in Riga where he became a resident intelligencer on behalf of the Swedish king.

Burwitz nevertheless failed to attain Livonian support for Sweden, and, when the Muscovite tsar attacked Finland in 1555, Sweden was left to fight alone. Despite the diplomatic setback, Burwitz continued to send intelligence reports from Livonia. The dispatches represent detailed strategic analyses on themes pertaining to the developing situation there. Burwitz informed the king of diplomatic exchanges between Livonia, Muscovy, Poland-Lithuania, Denmark, the imperial court, Lübeck and even the Tatar polities of the steppe. He also provided analysis of the so-called Coadjutor’s Feud of 1556-57 between the Landmeister and the Bishop of Riga, and wrote of attempts by both sides to enlist mercenaries in Germany.

Burwitz also reported on the expired Livonian-Muscovite treaty and the tsar’s excessive demand for Livonian concessions, which Burwitz assessed to be a Muscovite pretence for a casus belli. He gave a pessimistic view of Livonian military capabilities, criticised their unwieldy plans for enlistment projects in Germany in anticipation of an attack, and estimated which cities could withstand a siege in the expected war. He also described the Polish king’s difficulties to fund his military projects and divined that, without assurances from the Holy Roman Empire about his right to Livonia, the Polish king would not take the trouble to intervene militarily.

As well as relating the Muscovite and Tartar struggle over Kazan and Astrakhan and Muscovite military setbacks, he also discussed internal problems in Muscovy, and the tsar’s distrust towards his own people, which would later result in the Oprichnina, Ivan the Terrible’s repression of the Boyars. The reports clearly demonstrate Burwitz’ ability to identify the matters of strategic significance in the constant flow of intelligence, news and rumours.

During these years, Swedish spies were sent to Narva, Dorpat, Riga and Reval, as well as inside Muscovy – to Kexholm, Nöteborg, Novgorod, Pskov and Moscow. When the agent Marcus Scharemberg was dispatched to Livonia to collect intelligence in August 1559, he was told first to visit Burwitz to receive further instructions.

Burwitz’ reports were compiled from a mix of his own observations, from Livonian diplomatic envoys to Moscow, and from Russian interpreters whom he probably paid for information. Burwitz also deployed his own network of agents to collect intelligence within Muscovy, among whom was his own brother, Hans Burwitz, a burgher of Dorpat. One agent reported that, following a defeat at the hands of the Tartars, the Russians did not consider it necessary to mobilise further against the Swedes. Burwitz explained to the king that the Russians were an arrogant people, taught to consider themselves invincible even when defeated, ‘so that for them, white is black, and black is white’.

The Coadjutor’s Feud spelled the end of the State of the Livonian Order, and several foreign powers seemed intent on helping themselves to the territory. With his sharp strategic gaze, Burwitz had predicted this development and promoted the expansion of Swedish interest in Livonia through the purchase, for example, of pawned fiefdoms. Gustav Vasa remained cautious on this issue, but closely followed the unfolding events.

The devastating Muscovite invasion of 1558 brought the final collapse in Livonia and Burwitz strongly advocated a Swedish military response. Unable to persuade the king, he instead approached the king’s eldest sons, dukes Erik and Johan, who embraced the opportunity, giving Burwitz underhand instructions to continue to pursue Swedish interests in Livonia preliminary to an intervention.

This, however, prompted the king to suspect that Burwitz had been bought by the Livonian authorities. When Burwitz visited the court in Stockholm in 1559, the king secretly instructed agents to survey his activities and, on his departure, he was relieved of diplomatic duties. Despite this, the king expected Burwitz to continue sending intelligence dispatches.

Around 1560, Burwitz finally acquired burgher rights in Riga and engaged in local politics. Shortly thereafter, his intelligence reports to the Swedish court were discontinued. From a prominent and well-documented position within the Swedish bureaucracy, Burwitz disappears from the extant source material around 1562; he may have remained in Riga.

For almost 20 years, Burwitz provided the king with realistic intelligence reports, which seemed to reaffirm Sweden’s troublesome position in foreign affairs. When Livonia was plunged into decades of war following the Muscovite invasion, Burwitz divined a future as foreboding as the past. He was also aware of his assumed character of a ‘storm crow’, who always brought dire warnings to the Swedish court. In his final report to the new Swedish king, Erik XIV, in the spring of 1561, Burwitz admits that in his premonitions: ‘Perhaps I presage darkly and imitate those old men of my childhood.’

A few months later, Erik finally decided on a Swedish military invention in Livonia in accordance with the policy long championed by Burwitz. Even though this generated decades of war, it aligned Swedish and Livonian interest for the century ahead, for which the intelligence provided by Burwitz proved pivotal.