See Martin Veibull, Sveriges Storhedstid (Stockholm, 1881); Frederick Ferdinand Carlson, Sveriges Historia under Konungarne af Pfalziska Huset (Stockholm, 1883–1885); E. Haumant, La Guerre du nord et la paix d’Oliva (Paris, 1893); Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia (Cambridge, 1905); G. Jones, The Diplomatic Relations between Cromwell and Charles X. (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1897). (R. N. B.)
CHARLES XI. (1655–1697), king of Sweden, the only son of
Charles X., and Hedwig Leonora of Holstein-Gottorp, was born
in the palace at Stockholm, on the 24th of November 1655.
His father, who died when the child was in his fourth year,
left the care of his education to the regents whom he had appointed.
So shamefully did they neglect their duty that when,
at the age of seventeen, Charles XI. attained his majority,
he was ignorant of the very rudiments of state-craft and almost
illiterate. Yet those nearest to him had great hopes of him.
He was known to be truthful, upright and God-fearing; if he
had neglected his studies it was to devote himself to manly
sports and exercises; and in the pursuit of his favourite pastime,
bear-hunting, he had already given proofs of the most splendid
courage. It was the general disaster produced by the speculative
policy of his former guardians which first called forth his sterling
qualities and hardened him into a premature manhood. With
indefatigable energy he at once attempted to grapple with the
difficulties of the situation, waging an almost desperate struggle
with sloth, corruption and incompetence. Amidst universal
anarchy, the young king, barely twenty years of age, inexperienced,
ill-served, snatching at every expedient, worked day
and night in his newly-formed camp in Scania (Skåne) to arm
the nation for its mortal struggle. The victory of Fyllebro
(Aug. 17, 1676), when Charles and his commander-in-chief
S. G. Helmfeld routed a Danish division, was the first gleam
of good luck, and on the 4th of December, on the tableland
of Helgonabäck, near Lund, the young Swedish monarch defeated
Christian V. of Denmark, who also commanded his army in
person. After a ferocious contest, the Danes were practically
annihilated. The battle of Lund was, relatively to the number
engaged, one of the bloodiest engagements of modern times.
More than half the combatants (8357, of whom 3000 were
Swedes) actually perished on the battle-field. All the Swedish
commanders showed remarkable ability, but the chief glory
of the day indisputably belongs to Charles XI. This great victory
restored to the Swedes their self-confidence and prestige. In
the following year, Charles with 9000 men routed 12,000 Danes
near Malmö (July 15, 1678). This proved to be the last pitched
battle of the war, the Danes never again venturing to attack
their once more invincible enemy in the open field. In 1679 Louis
XIV. dictated the terms of a general pacification, and Charles XI,
who bitterly resented “the insufferable tutelage” of the French
king, was forced at last to acquiesce in a peace which at least
left his empire practically intact. Charles devoted the rest of his
life to the gigantic task of rehabilitating Sweden by means of a
reduktion, or recovery of alienated crown lands, a process which
involved the examination of every title deed in the kingdom,
and resulted in the complete readjustment of the finances.
But vast as it was, the reduktion represents only a tithe of Charles
XI.’s immense activity. The constructive part of his administration
was equally thorough-going, and entirely beneficial. Here,
too, everything was due to his personal initiative. Finance,
commerce, the national armaments by sea and land, judicial
procedure, church government, education, even art and science—everything,
in short—emerged recast from his shaping hand.
Charles XI. died on the 5th of April 1697, in his forty-first year.
By his beloved consort Ulrica Leonora of Denmark, from the
shock of whose death in July 1693 he never recovered, he had
seven children, of whom only three survived him, a son Charles,
and two daughters, Hedwig Sophia, duchess of Holstein, and
Ulrica Leonora, who ultimately succeeded her brother on the
Swedish throne. After Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus Adolphus
Charles XI. was, perhaps, the greatest of all the kings of Sweden.
His modest, homespun figure has indeed been unduly eclipsed by
the brilliant and colossal shapes of his heroic father and his
meteoric son; yet in reality Charles XI. is far worthier of
admiration than either Charles X. or Charles XII. He was in
an eminent degree a great master-builder. He found Sweden
in ruins, and devoted his whole life to laying the solid foundations
of a new order of things which, in its essential features,
has endured to the present day.
See Martin Veibull, Sveriges Storhedstid (Stockholm, 1881); Frederick Ferdinand Carlson, Sveriges Historia under Konungarne af Pfalziska Huset (Stockholm, 1883–1885); Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia (Cambridge, 1905); O. Sjögren, Karl den Elfte och Svenska Folket (Stockholm, 1897); S. Jacobsen, Den nordiske Kriegs Krönicke, 1675–1679 (Copenhagen, 1897); J. A. de Mesmes d’Avaux, Négociations du comte d’Avaux, 1693, 1697, 1698 (Utrecht, 1882, &c.). (R. N. B.)
CHARLES XII. (1682–1718), king of Sweden, the only surviving
son of Charles XI. and Ulrica Leonora, daughter of Frederick III.
of Denmark, was born on the 17th of June 1682. He was carefully
educated by excellent tutors under the watchful eyes of his
parents. His natural parts were excellent; and a strong bias
in the direction of abstract thought, and mathematics in particular,
was noticeable at an early date. His memory was astonishing.
He could translate Latin into Swedish or German, or Swedish
or German into Latin at sight. Charles XI. personally supervised
his son’s physical training. He was taught to ride before he was
four, at eight was quite at home in his saddle, and when only
eleven, brought down his first bear at a single shot. As he grew
older his father took him on all his rounds, reviewing troops,
inspecting studs, foundries, dockyards and granaries. Thus the
lad was gradually initiated into all the minutiae of administration.
The influence of Charles XI. over his son was, indeed, far greater
than is commonly supposed, and it accounts for much in Charles
XII.’s character which is otherwise inexplicable, for instance
his precocious reserve and taciturnity, his dislike of everything
French, and his inordinate contempt for purely diplomatic
methods. On the whole, his early training was admirable; but
the young prince was not allowed the opportunity of gradually
gaining experience under his guardians. At the Riksdag assembled
at Stockholm in 1697, the estates, jealous of the influence of the
regents, offered full sovereignty to the young monarch, the senate
acquiesced, and, after some hesitation, Charles at last declared
that he could not resist the urgent appeal of his subjects and
would take over the government of the realm “in God’s name.”
The subsequent coronation was marked by portentous novelties,
the most significant of which was the king’s omission to take
the usual coronation oath, which omission was interpreted to
mean that he considered himself under no obligation to his
subjects. The general opinion of the young king was, however,
still favourable. His conduct was evidently regulated by strict
principle and not by mere caprice. His refusal to countenance
torture as an instrument of judicial investigation, on the
ground that “confessions so extorted give no sure criteria for
forming a judgment,” showed him to be more humane as well
as more enlightened than the majority of his council, which had
defended the contrary opinion. His intense application to affairs
is noted by the English minister, John Robinson (1650–1723),
who informed his court that there was every prospect of a happy
reign in Sweden, provided his majesty were well served and did
not injure his health by too much work.
The coalition formed against Sweden by Johann Reinhold Patkul, which resulted in the outbreak of the Great Northern War (1699), abruptly put an end to Charles XII.’s political apprenticeship, and forced into his hand the sword he was never again to relinquish. The young king resolved to attack the nearest of his three enemies—Denmark—first. The timidity of the Danish admiral Ulrik C. Gyldenlöve, and the daring of Charles, who forced his nervous and protesting admiral to attempt the passage of the eastern channel of the Sound, the dangerous flinterend, hitherto reputed to be unnavigable, enabled the Swedish king to effect a landing at Humleback in Sjaelland (Zealand), a few miles north of Copenhagen (Aug. 4, 1700). He now hoped to accomplish what his grandfather, fifty years before, had vainly attempted—the destruction of the Danish-Norwegian monarchy by capturing its capital. But for once prudential considerations prevailed, and the short and bloodless war was terminated by the peace of Travendal (Aug. 18), whereby
