594 



GUSTAVUS III. GUSTAVUS IV. 



swore fidelity to his cause. The king's address to 

 the soldiers was received with loud acclamations. 

 He then set a guard over the entrances to the hall 

 if (lie council, and commanded them to remain quiet, 

 after which he returned to the arsenal, amidst the 

 acclamations of tin- people, and secured the adher- 

 ence of the regiments of artillery. A public procla- 

 mation exhorted the inhabitants of Stockholm to 

 remain tranquil, and to obey no orders but those of 

 the king. Cannon were planted, guards distributed, 

 and several persons arrested, by way of precaution. 

 Thus was the decisive blow struck without blood- 

 shed, and the king returned to the castle, where he 

 nreived the congratulations of foreign ambassadors, 

 whom he had invited to his table. On the following 

 day, the magistrates of the city took the oath of alle- 

 giance in the great market-place, amid the acclama- 

 tions of the people. But it was necessary for the 

 estates also to approve of the revolution, and to 

 accept the new constitution, by which the royal power 

 was enlarged, not so much at the expense of the 

 estates as of the council. The next day, they were 

 summoned to meet at the castle, where they found 

 themselves without any attendants. The court of 

 the castle was guarded by soldiers, cannon were 

 planted before the liall of assembly, and a cannoneer 

 stationed at each piece with a lighted match. The 

 king appeared with a numerous retinue of officers 

 and unusual pomp, depicted, in a forcible manner, 

 the situation of the kingdom and the necessity of a 

 reform, declared the moderation of his views, and 

 caused the new constitution to be read, which was 

 immediately approved and confirmed by subscription 

 and oath. Almost all the public officers retained 

 their stations ; those persons who had been arrested 

 were set at liberty, and the revolution was com- 

 pleted. The king now exerted himself to promote 

 the prosperity of his country. In 1783, he went 

 through Germany to Italy, to use the baths of Pisa, 

 and returned to Sweden the following year through 

 France. During his absence, a famine had destroyed 

 thousands of his subjects ; the people murmured ; 

 the nobility rose against the king's despotic policy, 

 and the estates of the kingdom, in 1786, rejected 

 almost all his propositions, and compelled him to 

 make great sacrifices. A war having broke out 

 between Russia and the Porte, in 1787, Gustavus, hi 

 compliance with former treaties, determined to attack 

 the empress of Russia, who had promoted the dissen- 

 sions of Sweden. War was declared in 1788 ; but, 

 when the king attempted to commence operations by 

 an attack on Friedrichsham, he was deserted by the 

 greatest part of his army, who refused to engage in 

 an offensive war. The king retired to Haga, and 

 thence to Dalecarlia, in search of recruits. He soon 

 collected an army of determined defenders of their 

 country, and delivered Gothenburg, which was hard 

 pressed by the Danes. Meanwhile, however, the 

 insurrection of the Finnish army, which had con- 

 cluded an armistice with the Russians, still continued. 

 The critical situation of the kingdom required the 

 convocation of the estates. To overcome the oppo- 

 sition of the nobility, he constituted a secret commit- 

 tee, of which the nobility chose twelve members from 

 their own number, and each of the estates, who were 

 devoted to the king, six. The nobility, however, 

 continued their opposition to the king, who, being 

 encouraged by the other estates to avail himself of 

 every measure he might think advisable, finally took 

 a decisive step, arrested the chiefs of the opposition, 

 and exacted the adoption of the new act of union and 

 safety, April 3, 1789, which conferred on him more 

 extensive powers. The war was now prosecuted 

 with great energy and with various success. Bloody 

 battles, especially by sea, were gained and lost ; but 



although Gustavus valiantly opposed superio 

 yet the desperate state of his kingdom, and the pro- 

 ceedings of the congress at Retchenbach, inclined him 

 to peace, which was concluded on the plain of Were- 

 lae, August 14, 1790. Untaught by the warnings of 

 adversity, he now determined to take part in ihe. 

 French revolution, and to restore Louis XVI. to hi* 

 throne. He wished to unite Sweden, Russia, Prussia, 

 and Austria, and to place himself at the head of the 

 coalition. For this purpose, in the spring of 17!) I, 

 he went to Spa and Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded a 

 peace with Catharine, and convened a meeting of the 

 estates at Gefle, in January, 1792, which was dis- 

 solved, in four weeks, to the satisfaction of the kin . 

 Here his assassination was agreed upon. The counts 

 Horn and Ribbing, the barons Bielke and Pechlin, 

 colonel Liliehorn, and many others, had conspired to 

 murder him, and restore the old aristocracy. An- 

 karstroem (q. v.), who personally hated the king, 

 begged that the execution might be intrusted to him. 

 A masquerade at Stockholm, on the night of March 

 15, 1792, was chosen for the perpetration of the 

 crime. Just before the beginning of the ball, the 

 king received a warning note ; but he went, at about 

 eleven o'clock, with count Essen, stepped into a 

 box, and, as all was quiet, into the hall. Here a 

 crowd of maskers surrounded him, and, while one of 

 them (count Horn) struck him upon the shoulder, 

 with the words, " Good night, mask," the king was 

 mortally wounded, by Ankarstrcern, with a shot in 

 the back. With remarkable presence of mind, he 

 immediately took all the necessary measures. He 

 expired March 29, after having arranged the most 

 important affairs with serenity (see Armfelt), and 

 signed an order for proclaiming his son king. 



GUSTAVUS IV., ADOLPHUS, the deposed king of 

 Sweden, was born Nov. 1, 1778, and, on the death 

 of his father, Gustavus III. (March 29, 1792), wa"s 

 proclaimed king. He remained four and a half years 

 under the guardianship of his uncle, Charles, duke of 

 Sudennanmand, then regent (afterwards' king Charles 

 XIII.), and ascended the throne Nov. 1, 1796. In 

 his eighteenth year, he was betrothed to a princess of 

 Mecklenburg, when the empress Catharine invited 

 him to St Petersburg, with the design of marrying 

 him to her grand-daughter Alexandra Paulowna: 

 Every thing was ready for the marriage, and the as- 

 sembled court waited for the young king, when he 

 refused to sign the marriage contract, because it em- 

 braced some articles which he would not concede to 

 the empress ; among others, one securing to the 

 young queen the free exercise of the Greek religion 

 in her palace, which was contrary to the fundamental 

 laws of the Swedish kingdom. Nothing could change 

 the determination of Gustavus ; he retired, and siiut 

 himself up in his chamber, so that a stop was put to 

 the whole ceremony. Soon after (October, 1797), 

 he married Frederica, princess of Baden, sister-in-law 

 of the emperor Alexander and the king of Bavaria. 

 As a striking example of his folly, it is related, that 

 he was once on 'the point of commencing a bloody 

 war with Russia, because he insisted on painting a 

 boundary bridge, with the Swedish colour on the 

 Russian side. When the northern powers were ne- 

 gotiating the renewal of the armed neutrality, directed 

 especially against Britain, he went to St Petersburg, 

 in 1801, to hasten the conclusion of the treaty ; he 

 was well received by Paul I., who bestowed on him 

 the cross of St John of Jerusalem. In July, 1803, 

 he visited the court of his father-in-law at Carlsruhe, 

 in order to gain over the emperor and the princes oi 

 the empire to the project, which then seemed imprac- 

 ticable, of again placing the Bourbons at the head of 

 the French government. He was in Carlsruhe when 

 (March 15, 1804), the duke D'Enghien was seized 



