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 Castle.

Family Arvid Eriksson till Lindö i Tenala was born into the Finland-Swedish Stålarm family around the years 1540 or 1549. On 9 July 1569, he married Elin Fleming, a daughter of Herman Fleming and Gertrud Håkansdotter Hand. of the Finnish navy in 1588. Stålarm however re-took Åbo when Charles left in October,

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. 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,

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. Both were already led to the execution site in what became known as the Linköping bloodbath, but their execution was postponed

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. 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."

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.