endowed with rare natural gifts, which were cultivated by careful education; he conversed freely in the German, French, Italian, and Latin languages, and was also deeply versed in mathematics and history. He accompanied his father, whilst yet a boy, on his journeys and campaigns, and held his first command at the taking of Constantinople. When the death of his father left him the crown at the age of seventeen, his majority being then established by the diet, he had an opportunity not only of perfecting himself in the accomplishments of a ruler, but by the wars in which he was involved with all his neighbours—Danes, Russians, and Poles—of becoming also an experienced general. Fortunately he had the sagacity to discern in Oxenstjerna, the youngest member of the council, all the qualifications of a great statesman, and one whose guidance he might safely follow in the most difficult circumstances; he appointed him prime minister, and formed with him a warm personal friendship. Of the three wars which he inherited from his father, he endeavoured first to bring that with Denmark to a close. After several severe battles peace was concluded in January, 1613. He next turned his arms against Russia, which by the peace of Stolbova, 27th February, 1617, was compelled to give up a great part of Livonia and the important port of Riga. In the meantime the quarrel with Poland continued, King Sigismund, nephew of the late king of Sweden, asserting a claim to the crown on behalf of his son Ladislaus. In 1626 the Poles were compelled to sue for peace. This left Gustavus at liberty to attend to the entreaties addressed to him by the protestants of Germany for help against the tyranny of Ferdinand II. He landed in Pomerania on June 13, at the head of fifteen thousand Swedish troops, who were speedily joined by six Scotch regiments under the duke of Hamilton. In spite of faction and treachery he made rapid progress in his schemes; he restored the exiled duke of Mecklenburg, defeated the detested Tilly at Breitenfeld, made himself master of the country between the Main and the Rhine, and was on his advance into Bavaria, when, on the death of Tilly, the redoubtable Wallenstien assumed the command of the imperial troops. On the 16th of November the rival armies met on the battle-field of Lützen. Gustavus performed his devotions in front of his army, the troops knelt with him, and all joined in singing Luther's grand hymn—Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott—accompanied by the military music. The king mounted his horse, the protestant cry, "God with us," was raised, and the battle began with terrific fury. The first attack was successful; in the second the king fell. The exact circumstances of his death were variously represented, but the universal opinion was that he fell by the hand of an assassin, the foul suspicion falling upon the duke of Lauenburg who was near him, and who shortly before had left the imperial service for that of Sweden, but had again turned catholic and joined the forces of the emperor. At the close of the engagement, the fury of which his death had only increased, his victorious generals found the body of the king trampled and disfigured, and stripped of its valuables and clothes; it was conveyed by Count Bernard of Weimar to the queen, by whom it was taken to Sweden. Thus perished a truly great man. Spite of the warlike occupations of his life he was a wise and good king, employing every interval of rest for the improvement of his country in the arts of peace. In private life he was pure and simple, moderate in his desires, and upright in all his dealings. He died esteemed even by his enemies. He was beloved by his soldiers, and served with rare devotion. The war which he commenced raged for sixteen years after his death. By his wife, Eleonora of Brandenburg, he left a daughter, the celebrated Queen Christina of Sweden.—M. H.
GUSTAVUS III., King of Sweden, eldest son of King Adolf Frederik and Lovisa Ulrica, sister of Frederik II., was born 24th of January, 1746, and succeeded his father in 1771. He possessed naturally many promising qualities, which, however, were perverted by education and circumstances. When he ascended the throne he found the country governed and oppressed by two aristocratic parties, those of Horn and Gyllenborg, known as the "Caps and Hats," under the respective influence of Russia and France. On the 19th of August, 1772, the new king suppressed both factions and asserted the royal prerogative, accomplishing with the co-operation of the people a complete revolution in the state. The heads of the two factions were arrested; a new and liberal constitution was inaugurated; torture was abolished; the freedom of the press extended; financial affairs regulated; trading companies established or renovated, and many other excellent measures carried out. The popularity which accrued to the king from these sweeping measures was greatly marred, however, by the prodigality of his expenditure, so that when the unfortunate war broke out with Russia in 1788, his army refused to fight. The Danes at this juncture attacked Götheborg, but were repulsed by the valour of the Dalecarlians. The war with Russia was carried on with alternating success and defeat, till finally peace was concluded, 14th August, 1796, on the terms of all territory remaining as it was before the war. But the king was not yet tired of war, whatever the nation might be. Friendship for the royal house of France, and horror at the doctrines promulgated by the French revolution, led him to conceive a plan of coalition between Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, against France, and for this purpose he made a journey to Aix-la-Chapelle in the spring of 1791; but the want of means to carry out his views led him to summon a diet at Gefle in January, 1792. A conspiracy, at the head of which were Counts Horn and Ribbing and others, was now formed to murder him. The crime was first attempted at Gefle, but not succeeding, one of the conspirators, Ankarström, who hated the king, undertook the deed, and shot him at a mask ball at Stockholm, on 16th of March. Whatever might be the errors of Gustavus III., he exercised a great influence on the national taste for literature and the fine arts. He instituted or enlarged the academy of sciences, the Swedish academy, and the academies of music and painting. He encouraged the national and dramatic literature, and was himself an orator and dramatist. His letters and works were published under the title of "Konung Gustaff III.'s Skrifter," 1806-12, 6 vols. He also left an interesting packet of MSS. to the university of Upsala, under seal, not to be opened till fifty years after his death. This was opened in 1842, and found to consist of letters to and from the king, political and historical treatises by his own hand, diplomatic notes, &c. The arrangement of these papers was committed to the historian Geijer, and they were published in 1843 as "Konung Gustaf III.'s efterlemnade papper." Gustavus III. married Sophia Magdelena of Denmark, and had two sons.—M. H.
GUSTAVUS IV., King of Sweden, son of the preceding, and last of the Wasa dynasty, was born November 1, 1778. During his minority, his uncle and guardian, afterwards Carl III., acted as regent. He attained his majority, November 1, 1796, and on the 31st of October, 1797, married the Princess Fredrike of Baden. He was a zealous partisan of the rights of legitimacy, and inheriting his father's desire to uphold the Bourbons, and especially styling himself the champion or knight of Marie Antoinette, he endeavoured to unite the sovereigns of Europe against Napoleon, for whom he entertained an inveterate hatred. He was at Carlsruhe for this purpose in 1803, when the Duke d'Enghien was taken prisoner by Napoleon, and indignant at this outrage despatched his adjutant to Paris to save the prince, but he had then been shot. So violent now became his hatred of Napoleon that he refused to accept the order of the black eagle from Prussia because it had been conferred on the emperor. Obstinate and self-willed as Gustavus might be, he was at least consistent in his abhorrence of the usurper, and in proportion as the various powers of Europe approached to friendly relationships with him, he grew angry and broke with them. The Swedish people, however, oppressed by burdens of taxation and bewildered by the uncertain political aspect of the European world, little relished this policy, so that when at length he broke even with his only ally, England, Gustavus seemed to have filled the measure of his misgovernment. A deep-laid plan was now concerted against him. The Western army, under Adlercreutz, marched against Stockholm, where other members of the conspiracy surrounded the person of the king. The king, aware of approaching danger and in want of funds, determined to appropriate the treasure of the bank. On the 13th of March, 1809, however, he was seized by Adlercreutz, who, demanding his sword, arrested him as a traitor in the name of the nation, and on the afternoon of the same day his abdication was published—an abdication, be it remembered, that shortly after led to the establishment of Bernadotte on the throne. He was first taken to Drottingholm, then to Gripsholm. He behaved with great resignation, and at Gripsholm devoted himself to the study of the Apocalypse. By his abdication he endeavoured fruitlessly to secure the crown to his son, but the diet which met in May, declared him and his heirs, born or unborn, to have forfeited for ever the throne of Sweden. A yearly pension was settled at first on him and his family, but afterwards exchanged for a sum which was paid down at once. Gustavus separated
