Part 149

"Christina, the only child and successor of Gustavus Adolphus, had been brought up by her aunt, Katerina, the Princess Palatine, until the death of the latter in 1639, and in the year 1644, when she reached the age of eighteen, the regency was absolved, and she began to rule in her own name. She had inherited much of her father's talent, and was perhaps the most learned and accomplished woman of her time. {2823} She had received the education of a man. … She had great taste for the fine arts and for the pursuits of science; but while she encouraged scientific men at her court, she also spent money too recklessly in rewarding artistic merit of all kinds. … As a dangerous drawback to her many splendid qualities, she had all the waywardness, caprice, restlessness of mind, fickleness and love of display for which her beautiful mother, Maria Eleanora of Brandenburg, had been noted. She lavished crown lands and the money of the state upon favourites. … In the meanwhile the national Estates had been split up into parties, the aristocrats being led by Axel Oxenstjerna, and the democrats, with whom the queen sided, by Johan Skytte. The clergy struggled to maintain their independence under the oppressive patronage of the nobles, and the peasants agitated to recover some of the power which the great Gustavus Vasa had granted them, but which his successors had by degrees taken from them. The kingdom was in a ferment, and a civil war seemed to be unavoidable. The council urged upon the queen to marry, and her cousin, Karl Gustaf of the Palatinate, entreated her to fulfil the promise which she had given him in earlier years of choosing him for her husband. At length … she proposed him for her successor. … After much opposition, Karl Gustaf was declared successor to the throne in the event of the queen having no children of her own. … The few years of Christina's reign after her solemn coronation were disquieted by continued dissensions in the diet, attempts at revolts, and by a general distress, which was greatly increased by her profuse wastefulness and her reckless squandering of the property of the crown. As ear]y as the year 1648 she had conceived the idea of abdicating, but, being hindered by her old friends and councillors, she deferred carrying out her wishes till 1654." In that year the abdication was formally accomplished, and she left the country at once, travelling through Europe. In 1655 she renounced Protestantism and entered the Roman Catholic Church. "At the death [1660] of her cousin and successor, Karl X. Gustaf, as he was called by the Swedes, and who is known to us as Charles X., she returned to Sweden and claimed the crown for herself; but neither then, nor in 1667, when she renewed her pretensions, would the council encourage her hopes, and, after a final attempt to gain the vacant throne of Poland in 1668, she gave up all schemes of ever reigning again, and retired to Rome, where she died in 1689 at the age of sixty-three. … The short reign of Charles X., from 1655 to 1660, was a time of great disorder and unquiet in Sweden. … He resolved to engage the people in active war. … The ill-timed demand of the Polish king, Johan Kasimir, to be proclaimed the true heir to Christina's throne, drew the first attack upon Poland. Charles X. was born to be a soldier and a conqueror, and the success and rapidity with which he overran all Poland, and crushed the Polish army in a three days' engagement at Warsaw in 1656, showed that he was a worthy pupil and successor of his uncle, the great Gustavus Adolphus. But it was easier for him to make conquests than to keep them, and when the Russians, in their jealousy of the increasing power of Sweden, took part in the war, and began to attack Livonia and Esthonia, while an imperial army advanced into Poland to assist the Poles, who, infuriated at the excesses of the Swedish soldiers, had risen en masse against them, Charles saw the expediency of retreating; and, leaving only a few detachments of troops to watch his enemies, he turned upon Denmark. This war, which was closed by the peace signed at Roeskilde in 1658, enriched Sweden at the expense of Denmark, and gave to the former the old provinces of Skaania, Halland and Bleking, by which the Swedish monarchy obtained natural and well-defined boundaries. The success of this first Danish war, in which Denmark for a time lay crushed under the power of the Swedish king, emboldened him to renew his attacks, and between 1658 and 1660 Charles X. made war five times on the Danish monarch; more than once laid siege to Copenhagen; and, under his able captain, Wrangel, nearly destroyed the Danish fleet. At the close of 1659, when it seemed as if Denmark must be wholly subjugated by Sweden, the English and Dutch, alarmed at the ambition of the Swedish king, sent an allied fleet into the Cattegat to operate with the Danes." Charles, checked in his operations, was preparing to carry the war into Norway, when he died suddenly, in the winter of 1660, and peace was made by the treaty of Oliva. "By the early death of Charles X., Sweden was again brought under the rule of a regency, for his son and successor, Charles XI., was only four years old when he became king. … Every department of the government was left to suffer from mismanagement, the army and navy were neglected, the defences of the frontiers fell into decay, and the public servants were unable to procure their pay. To relieve the great want of money, the regency accepted subsidies, or payments of money from foreign states to maintain peace towards them, and hired out troops to serve in other countries. In this state of things the young king grew up without receiving any very careful education. … Charles was declared of age in his 18th year. … He was not left long in the enjoyment of mere exercises of amusement, for in 1674 Louis XIV. of France, in conformity with the treaty which the regents had concluded with him, called upon the young Swedish king to help him in the war which he was carrying on against the German princes.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1674-1678.

Charles sent an army into Germany, which advanced without opposition into the heart of Brandenburg, but before these forces could form a junction with the French troops then encamped in the Rhinelands, the Elector came upon them unawares at Fehrbellin [June 18, 1675] and defeated them. The losses of the Swedes on this occasion were not great, but the result of their defeat was to give encouragement to the old rivals of Sweden; and early in 1675 both Holland and Denmark declared war against the Swedish king, who, finding that he had been left by the regency almost without army, navy, or money, resolved for the future to take the management of public affairs entirely into his own hands." When he "began the war by a sea engagement with the enemy off Oeland, he found that his ships of war had suffered as much as the land-defences from the long-continued neglect of his regents. The Danes, under their great admiral, Niels Juel, and supported by a Dutch squadron, beat the Swedish fleet, many of whose ships were burnt or sunk. {2824} This defeat was atoned for by a victory on land, gained by Charles himself in 1676, over the Danes on the snow-covered hills around the town of Lund. Success was not won without heavy cost, for after a most sanguinary fight, continued from daybreak till night, King Charles, although master of the field, found that more than half his men had been killed. The Danes, who had suffered fully as much, were forced to retreat, leaving Lund in the hands of the Swedes; and although they several times repeated the attempt, they failed in recovering the province of Skaania, which was the great object of their ambition. In Germany the fortune of war did not favor the Swedes, although they fought gallantly under their general, Otto Königsmark; [Stettin was surrendered after a long siege in 1677, and Stralsund in 1678] and Charles XI. was glad to enter into negotiations for taking part in the general peace which France was urging upon all the leading powers of Europe, and which was signed at the palace of St. Germains, in 1679, by the representatives of the respective princes. Sweden recovered the whole of Pomerania, which had been occupied during the war by Austria and Brandenburg, and all Swedish and Danish conquests were mutually renounced. … At the close of this war Charles XI. began in good earnest to put his kingdom in order." By sternly reclaiming crown-lands which had been wantonly alienated by former rulers, and by compelling other restitutions, Charles broke the power of the nobles, and so humbled the National Estates that they "proclaimed him, in a diet held in 1693, to be an absolute sovereign king, 'who had the power and right to rule his kingdom as he pleased.'" He attained an absolutism, in fact, which was practically unlimited. He died in 1697, leaving three children, the eldest of whom, who succeeded him, was the extraordinary Charles XII.

_E. C. Otté, Scandinavian History, chapter 21._

ALSO IN: _H. Tuttle, History of Prussia to 1740, chapter 5._

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapters 2 and 4 (volume 3)._

_G. B. Malleson, Battle-Fields of Germany, chapter 8._

See, also, BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1646-1648. Last campaigns of the Thirty Years War in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark and Norway): A. D. 1648. Accession of Frederick III.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1648. The Peace of Westphalia. Acquisition of part of Pomerania and other German territory.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1655. Conquest of the Delaware colony by the Dutch.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1640-1656.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1668. Triple Alliance with Holland and England against Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark and Norway): A. D. 1670. Accession of Christian V.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark): A. D. 1674-1679. In the coalition to resist Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678; also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1686. The League of Augsburg against Louis XIV.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1686.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1697. Accession of Charles XII.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1697. The Peace of Ryswick.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1697-1700. The conspiracy of three sovereigns against Charles XII. and how he met it First campaigns of the young king, in Denmark and Russia.

"Charles XII, at his accession to the throne, found himself the absolute and undisturbed master, not only of Sweden and Finland, but also of Livonia, Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Viborg, the Islands of Rügen and Oesel, and the finest part of Pomerania, together with the duchy of Bremen and Verden,—all of them the conquests of his ancestors. … The beginning of the king's reign gave no very favorable idea of his character. It was imagined that he had been more ambitious of obtaining the supreme power than worthy of possessing it. True it is, he had no dangerous passion; but his conduct discovered nothing but the sallies of youth and the freaks of obstinacy. He seemed to be equally proud and lazy. The ambassadors who resided at his court took him even for a person of mean capacity, and represented him as such to their respective masters. The Swedes entertained the same opinion of him: nobody knew his real character: he did not even know it himself, until the storm that suddenly arose in the North gave him an opportunity of displaying his great talents, which had hitherto lain concealed. Three powerful princes, taking the advantage of his youth, conspired his ruin almost at the same time. The first was his own cousin, Frederick IV, king of Denmark: the second, Augustus, elector of Saxony and King of Poland; Peter the Great, czar of Muscovy, was the third, and most dangerous. … The founder of the Russian empire was ambitious of being a conqueror. … Besides, he wanted a port on the east side of the Baltic, to facilitate the execution of all his schemes. He wanted the province of Ingria, which lies to the northeast of Livonia. The Swedes were in possession of it, and from them he resolved to take it by force. His predecessors had had claims upon Ingria, Esthonia, and Livonia; and the present seemed a favorable opportunity for reviving these claims, which had lain buried for a hundred years, and had been cancelled by the sanction of treaties. He therefore made a league with the King of Poland, to wrest from young Charles XII all the territories that are bounded by the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Sea, Poland, and Muscovy. The news of these preparations struck the Swedes with consternation, and alarmed the council." But the effect on the young King was instantly and strangely sobering. He assumed the responsibilities of the situation at once, and took into his own hands the preparations for war. From that moment "he entered on a new course of life, from which he never afterwards deviated in one single instance. Full of the idea of Alexander and Cæsar, he proposed to imitate those two conquerors in every thing but their vices. No longer did he indulge himself in magnificence, sports, and recreations: he reduced his table to the most rigid frugality. He had formerly been fond of gayety and dress; but from that time he was never clad otherwise than as a common soldier. He was supposed to have entertained a passion for a lady of his court: whether there was any foundation for this supposition does not appear; certain it is, he ever after renounced all commerce with women, not only for fear of being governed by them, but likewise to set an example of continence to his soldiers. … {2825} He likewise determined to abstain from wine during the rest of his life. … He began by assuring the Duke of Holstein, his brother-in-law, of a speedy assistance. Eight thousand men were immediately sent into Pomerania, a province bordering upon Holstein, in order to enable the duke to make head against the Danes. The duke indeed had need of them. His dominions were already laid waste, the castle of Gottorp taken, and the city of Tönningen pressed by an obstinate siege, to which the King of Denmark had come in person. … This spark began to throw the empire into a flame. On the one side, the Saxon troops of the King of Poland, those of Brandenburg Wolfenbüttel, and Hesse Cassel, advanced to join the Danes. On the other, the King of Sweden's 8,000 men, the troops of Hanover and Zell, and three Dutch regiments, came to the assistance of the duke. While the little country of Holstein was thus the theatre of war, two squadrons, the one from England and the other from Holland, appeared in the Baltic. … They joined the young King of Sweden, who seemed to be in danger of being crushed. … Charles set out for his first campaign on the 8th day of May, new style, in the year 1700, and left Stockholm, whither he never returned. … His fleet consisted of three-and-forty vessels. … He joined the squadrons of the allies," and made a descent upon Copenhagen. The city surrendered to escape bombardment, and in less than six weeks Charles had extorted from the Danish King a treaty of peace, negotiated at Travendahl, which indemnified the Duke of Holstein for all the expenses of the war and delivered him from oppression. For himself, Charles asked nothing. "Exactly at the same time, the King of Poland invested Riga, the capital of Livonia; and the czar was advancing on the east at the head of nearly 100,000 men." Riga was defended with great skill and determination, and Augustus was easily persuaded to abandon the siege on the remonstrance of the Dutch, who had much merchandise in the town. "The only thing that Charles had now to do towards the finishing of his first campaign, was to march against his rival in glory, Peter Alexiovitch." Peter had appeared before Narva on the 1st of October, at the head of 80,000 men, mostly undisciplined barbarians, "some armed with arrows, and others with clubs. Few of them had guns; none of them had ever seen a regular siege; and there was not one good cannoneer in the whole army. … Narva was almost without fortifications: Baron Horn, who commanded there, had not 1,000 regular troops; and yet this immense army could not reduce it in six weeks. It was now the 15th of November, when the czar learned that the King of Sweden had crossed the sea with 200 transports, and was advancing to the relief of Narva. The Swedes were not above 20,000 strong." But the czar was not confident. He had another army marching to his support, and he left the camp at Narva to hasten its movements. Charles' motions were too quick for him. He reached Narva on the 30th of November, after a forced march, with a vanguard of only 8,000 men, and at once, without waiting for the remainder of his army to come up, he stormed the Russian intrenchments. "The Swedes advanced with fixed bayonets, having a furious shower of snow on their backs, which drove full in the face of the enemy." The victory was complete. "The Swedes had not lost above 600 men. Eight thousand Muscovites had been killed in their intrenchments: many were drowned; many had crossed the river," and 30,000 who held a part of the camp at nightfall, surrendered next morning. When czar Peter, who was pressing the march of his 40,000 men, received news of the disaster at Narva, he turned homeward, and set himself seriously to the work of drilling and disciplining his troops. "The Swedes," he said phlegmatically, "will teach us to beat them."

_Voltaire, History of Charles XII., King of Sweden, books 1-2._

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark and Norway): A. D. 1699. Accession of Frederick IV.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1701-1707. Invasion and subjugation of Poland and Saxony by Charles XII. Deposition of Augustus from the Polish throne. Charles at the summit of his career.