Skara

Skara long remained a place where kingdoms met: kings stayed in the town from time to time, and in January 1458 Swedish, Danish and Norwegian councillors gathered here. The Reformation stripped its churches of their wealth, and many fell into decay. Gustav Vasa had the Dominican friary emptied, and John III turned its buildings into Skaraborg, the castle of the king's governor, from which the surrounding county took its name. Danish troops destroyed the castle in 1612, and fire and war struck the town again and again until the last great blaze of 1719. In 1775 Sweden's first veterinary school was founded in Skara, on the foundations of the old Franciscan church.