Charles XI of Sweden

“ At great expense, the best fleet ever under Swedish command was constructed by Wachtmeister, who enjoyed the full confidence of the king. His excellent means wherewith to conduct a successful war, Charles XI. used to maintain a dignified peace, of which his country was badly in need. Bengt Oxenstierna held the reins of diplomacy, which had no attraction for Charles XI. The old alliance with France was broken off and close connections with William of Orange established for the maintenance of peace. Sweden regained its prestige, rising to a power whose support was sought by all. ”

“ KING OF SWEDEN
BOOK I Outline of Swedish history up to the time of Charles XI—Charles’s education—His enemies—Character-sketch of the Czar, Peter Alexiowitz—His peculiarities—Alliance of Russia, Poland, Denmark against Charles XII.
THE kingdom which is made up of Sweden and Finland is, according to our measurement, about 200 leagues broad and 300 long, and stretches from south to north as far as the 55th degree or thereabouts. ”

“ Some time after he was admitted to the court of King Augustus. Charles XI was dead, but the sentence of Patkul was not annulled, and he was still most resentful. He pointed out to the King of Poland how easily Livonia could be conquered; the people were in despair, and eager to shake off the Swedish yoke; the King was only a child, and unable to defend himself. These proposals were well received by a prince who had long meditated this conquest. Preparations were immediately made for a sudden invasion of Sweden, empty formalities of ultimata and manifestoes being dispensed with. ”

“ He understood better than any king since Charles XI. how to put himself in cordial relation with the masses of the people. But fond of playing practical jokes on high and low, he did not like to receive in the same measure. Charles XV. was devoted to the pursuits of art. Especially in his youth, he wrote poetry and distinguished himself as a landscape painter through his love for typical Swedish sceneries. Sweden did not at first know [Pg 392] what to expect of her new ruler, and no one was able to predict the course of his policy. ”

“ In April, 1697, when the prince was not yet fifteen, King Charles XI, his stern-faced father, suddenly died, and the boy king succeeded to the throne as absolute lord of "Sweden and Finland, of Livonia, Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Wibourg, the islands of Rugen and Oesel, of Pomerania, and the duchies of Bremen and Verdun"—one of the finest possessions to which a young king ever succeeded, and representing what is now Sweden, Western Russia, and a large part of Northern Germany.
A certain amount of restraint is best for us all. ”

“ Thus Sweden, as well as Denmark, had become an absolute monarchy, but with this important difference, that the right of the Swedish people, in parliament assembled, to be consulted on all important matters was recognized and acted upon. The Riksdag, completely overshadowed by the throne, was during the reign of Charles XI. to do little more than register the royal decrees; but nevertheless it continued to exist as an essential part of the machinery of government. ”

“ Sweden never had a greater lover of law and order than Charles XI., and he used his absolute power in their interests, trying to remold the old laws to suit modern requirements, and having a new church law, a masterpiece in its line, introduced. The church itself and its men had in Charles XI. an interested friend. New catechism, hymn book and ritual were prepared, and a new translation of the Bible completed, being published after his death. Commerce and mining industries were encouraged, while agriculture improved with the improvement of the financial conditions of the peasants. ”

“ When William became king of England, Sweden was a member of the alliance against Louis XIV., but contributed to the great European war only a few thousand soldiers, according to agreement, preserving, together with Denmark, an armed neutrality. Charles XI. lived to the proud moment when the powers selected Sweden as an arbiter in the deliberations for peace in Riswick, a worthy satisfaction gained over the earlier insolence of Louis XIV.
Charles XI. improved the administration by filling the offices of the excellent institutions with excellent men. ”

“ Charles XII, king of Sweden, was born June 27, 1682, the son of Charles XI. Ascending the throne when 15 years old, his boyishness tempted Denmark, Poland and Peter the Great of Russia to attack Sweden, at that time the great power of the north. ”

“ Charles XI., father of the celebrated Charles XII., was one of the most despotic, but, at the same time, wisest monarchs, who ever reigned in Sweden. He curtailed the enormous privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the Senate, made laws on his own authority; in a word, he changed the constitution of the country, hitherto an oligarchy, and forced the States to invest him with absolute power. ”

“ Suffice it to say that, immediately after his death, the regency appointed to govern Charles XI. Sweden during the minority of his only son and successor, Charles XI., a child four years old, hastened to come to terms with Sweden's numerous enemies, which now included Russia, Poland, Brandenburg and Denmark. ”

“ In 1660, after five years of incessant warfare, Sweden had at length obtained peace and with it the opportunity of organizing and developing her newly won empire. Unfortunately, the regency which was to govern her during Minority of Charles XI. the next fifteen years was unequal to the difficulties of a situation which might have taxed the resources of the wisest statesmen. Unity and vigour were scarcely to be expected from a many-headed administration composed of men of mediocre talent whose contrary opinions speedily gave rise to contending factions. ”

“ The rich children, like the poor, were being deprived of true religion, something which he vaguely summarized as the Fear of God.
Undoubtedly sincere in his charges, Jesper Swedberg was not so foolhardy in attacking the nobles as he might seem, because King Charles XI, clearing the ground for absolute monarchy, was busily shearing them of both property and power. Preferment for the clergy came from the King, and Charles XI was quick to be both entertained and pleased by Swedberg and to see his usefulness. The King was one of those stern and pious warriors produced by Sweden. ”

“ Charles XI. was a child of four years at the death of his father; his country at war with a world, and in a sorely afflicted condition. In the will of Charles X., the queen-dowager, Hedvig Eleonore, was named to preside over the government, with two votes, and the brother of Charles X., the duke Adolphus John, was to take a seat with her as Riksmarsk. This arrangement displeased the nobility, understanding that it was directed against their influence, and they had the duke excluded from the government. ”

“ If to this is added that a good deal was done to encourage art and science, principally through Count Magnus de la Gardie, who was the Mæcenas of Sweden, the meritorious deeds of the government during Charles XI.’s minority are enumerated. The less that is said of it in addition, and of its leading men, the better for these. They were men of some patriotism, but, through their exceedingly aristocratic views and [Pg 251] lack of stability, unable to further the interests of their country, so badly in need of reform. There was not one of them who possessed the abilities of a statesman. ”

“ The jealous opposition of the King of Sweden has recently given way to feelings the very opposite. The difficulty which his ambition threatened to occasion has been solved in a manner which will happily secure the Scandinavian kingdoms against any such danger in the future, and, moreover, gives promise of uniting them on equal terms and by mutual consent into one powerful and harmonious kingdom. Prince Christian, the heir to the crown of Denmark, has a tolerably large family; Charles of Sweden has only one daughter. ”

“ In a word, the natural equilibrium of Swedish society was seriously threatened by the preponderance of the nobility; and the people at large looked to the new king to redress the balance. A better arbiter between the various estates than Charles X. Charles X., 1654-1660. it would have been difficult to find. It is true that, primarily a soldier, his whole ambition was directed towards military glory; but he was also an unusually sharp-sighted politician. He affected to believe that only by force of arms could Sweden retain the dominion which by force of arms she had won ”

“ But since I'm King of Swedish ground
A poorer man was never found."
But his career was not yet ended. He was again to sit on the throne. Friends arose in his favor, the people again grew dissatisfied with Danish rule, and the archbishop, his greatest enemy, died. Charles was recalled and returned from Finland, a third time standing on Swedish ground as king.
He had still a hard fight before him. A Swedish nobleman, Erik Wase, sought to win the throne for himself, and Christian of Denmark sent a new army to Sweden ”

“ By this measure some of the foremost families in Sweden were ruined, and the crown was made almost independent of the diet, for it recovered no fewer than ten counties, seventy baronies, and many smaller estates. Charles became virtually an absolute sovereign, and on the whole he made an excellent use of his power. For more than a century Sweden had been almost constantly engaged in war. She now enjoyed a period of repose, and profited greatly by the king's vigorous administration. ”

“ He was born June 17, 1682, at the castle of Stockholm. The astrologers declared that Sweden was to receive a new war-lord, and that time they were not mistaken. Charles XII. was born in the same year as the absolute monarchy of Sweden, which power he was to abuse in such a great measure. Shortly after his birth, one of the speakers of the knightly chapter house, Justice Gyllencreutz, said while warning against the consequences of an absolute power: “A king may come who follows his own will, being more fond of war than peace, or utterly extravagant. ”

“ Sweden among the little ones.
Before 1709 Sweden still held the rank to which Gustavus Adolphus had raised her in the Thirty Years' War. Her prestige had been a little dimmed by the victories of the "Great Elector" of Prussia; but her ally Louis XIV had saved her from any considerable diminution of the extensive territories which she held on the mainland to the south and east of the Baltic Sea. About 1700 the young and gallant warrior, Charles XII, the "Madman of the North," reasserted her prowess, made her once more the dictator of Northern Europe, one of the five great powers of the world. ”

“ To sink in five years from the position of the champion of Protestantism to that of the common enemy of every Protestant power was a degradation not to be compensated by any amount of military glory. Charles's subsequent endeavour, in stress of circumstances, to gain a friend by dividing his Polish conquests with the aspiring elector of Brandenburg was a reversal of his original policy and only resulted in the establishment on the southern confines of Sweden of a new rival almost as dangerous as Denmark, her ancient rival in the west. ”

“ A Swedish despatch fell into the hands of the Danes. Denmark dreaded the union of Russia and Sweden; Saxony saw that she would lose Poland; Hanover, that her projects upon Bremen and Verden, Prussia that hers on Stettin would fail. Frederick of Hesse would no longer be heir to the crown of Sweden; while the power of Charles by so great a marriage would swell to a height dangerous to the aspirations of the Swedish aristocracy. ”

“ Accustomed in his hereditary dominions to absolute power, he was perhaps too confident that he could govern Poland like Saxony.
The beginning of his reign raised malcontents, his very first acts irritated the party which was opposed to his election, and alienated almost all the rest. The Poles resented the fact that their towns were filled with Saxon garrisons and their frontiers with troops. The nation, far more anxious to maintain their own liberties than to attack their neighbours, did not consider the king’s attack on Sweden and his invasion of Livonia as advantageous to the State. ”

“ The great parliamentary and many other liberal reforms were instituted in Sweden during his reign, and he was extremely popular with all classes on account of his enlightened policy as well as his personal qualities. He was an excellent sportsman and artist, an accomplished poet and writer, and author of several works. During the Franco-German war of 1870-'71, he sympathized with France, but prudently refrained from committing his state. His death was mourned in Sweden and Norway as a great public calamity. ”

“ Charles IV. King of Spain, i. 49; ii.
257-258; iii. 191; iv. 236; v. 74
Charles V. King of Spain, iii. 221; v. 75
Charles VII. King of Spain and XI.
of France and Navarre, ii. 279
Charles IV. King of the Two Sicilies
(see Charles III. King of Spain)
Charles XI. King of Sweden, v. 51
Charles XIII. King of Sweden, ii. 257; iii. 46
Charles XIV. John King of Sweden
and Norway, ii. 257; iii. 46, 102,
127, 144, 181, 162-167, 202, 208,
220; v. 144
Charles I. King of Wurtemberg, v. 322
Charles of Prussia, Prince, iv. ”

“ The heir to the throne was John’s eldest son, Sigismund, already king of Poland and a devoted Catholic. The fear lest Sigismund might re-catholicize the land alarmed the Protestant majority in Sweden, and Charles came forward as their champion, and also as the defender of the Vasa dynasty against foreign interference. It was due entirely to him that Sigismund was forced to confirm the resolutions of the council of Upsala, thereby recognizing the fact that Sweden was essentially a Protestant state (see Sweden: History) . In the ensuing years Charles’s task was extraordinarily difficult. ”