Gustav III of Sweden

Gustav III (13 January 1746 (O.S.) (24 January 1746 (N.S.))–March 29, 1792) was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, sister of Frederick the Great.

Revolution

On his return to Sweden Gustav made a sincere and earnest attempt to mediate between the Hats and Caps who were ruining the country between them. On June 21, 1771 he opened his first Riksdag of the Estates (parliament) in a speech which awakened strange and deep emotions in all who heard it. It was the first time for more than a century that a Swedish king had addressed a Swedish Riksdag from the throne in its native tongue. The orator placed special stress on the need for all parties to sacrifice their animosities for the common good, and volunteered, as "the first citizen of a free people," to be the mediator between the contending factions. A composition committee was actually formed, but it proved illusory from the first, the patriotism of neither of the factions being equal to the puniest act of self-denial.

Related Topics:
June 21 - Riksdag of the Estates

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The subsequent attempts of the dominant Caps still further to limit the prerogative, and reduce Gustavus to the condition of a roi fainéant, induced him at last to consider the possibility of a revolution. Of its necessity there could be no doubt. Under the sway of the Cap faction, Sweden, already the vassal, could not fail to become the prey of Russia. She was on the point of being absorbed in that northern system, the invention of the Russian vice-chancellor, Count Nikita Panin, which that patient statesman had made it the ambition of his to realize. Only a swift and sudden coup d'etat could save the independence of a country isolated from the rest of Europe by a hostile league. At this juncture Gustav was approached by Jacob Magnus Sprengtporten, a Finnish nobleman, who had incurred the enmity of the Caps, with the project of a revolution. He undertook to seize the fortress of Sveaborg by a coup de main, and, Finland once secured, Sprengtporten proposed to embark for Sweden, meet the king and his friends near Stockholm, and surprise the capital by a night attack, when the estates were to be forced, at the point of the bayonet, to accept a new constitution from the untrammelled king. The plotters were at this juncture reinforced by Johan Christopher Toll, also a victim of Cap oppression. Toll proposed that a second revolt should break out in the province of Scania, to confuse the government still more, and undertook personally to secure the southern fortress of Kristianstad. After some debate, it was finally arranged that, a few days after the Finnish revolt had begun, Kristianstad should openly declare against the government. Prince Charles, the eldest of the king's brothers, was there upon hastily to mobilize the garrisons of all the southern fortresses, for the ostensible purpose of crushing the revolt at Kristianstad; but on arriving before the fortress he was to make common cause with the rebels, and march upon the capital from the south, while Sprengtporten attacked it simultaneously from the east. On 6 August 1772 Toll succeeded, by sheer bluff, in winning the fortress of Kristianstad. On August 16 Sprengtporten succeeded in surprising Sveaborg. But contrary winds prevented him from crossing to Stockholm, and in the meanwhile events had occurred which made

Related Topics:
Nikita Panin - Jacob Magnus Sprengtporten - Sveaborg - Stockholm - Estates - Johan Christopher Toll - Scania - Kristianstad - Prince Charles - 6 August - 1772 - August 16

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his presence there unnecessary.

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On 16 August, the Cap leader, Ture Rudbeck, arrived at Stockholm with the news of the insurrection in the south, and Gustav found himself isolated in the midst of enemies. Sprengtporten lay weather-bound in Finland, Toll was five hundred miles away, the Hat leaders were in hiding. Gustav thereupon resolved to strike the decisive blow without waiting for the arrival of Sprengtporten. He acted promptly. On the evening of August 18 all the officers whom he thought he could trust received secret instructions to assemble in the great square facing the arsenal on the following morning. At ten o'clock on 19 August Gustav mounted his horse and rode straight to the arsenal. On the way his adherents joined him in little groups, as if by accident, so that by the time he reached his destination he had about two hundred officers in his suite. After parade he reconducted them to the guard-room of the palace and unfolded his plans to them. He then dictated a new oath of allegiance, and every one signed it without hesitation. It absolved them from their allegiance to the estates, and bound them solely to obey their lawful king, Gustav III. Meanwhile the Privy Council and its president, Rudbeck, had been arrested and the fleet secured. Then Gustav made a tour of the city and was everywhere received by enthusiastic crowds, who hailed him as a deliverer. On the evening of 20 August heralds perambulated the streets proclaiming that the estates were to meet in the Rikssaal on the following day; every deputy absenting himself would be regarded as the enemy of his country and his king. On August 21, a few moments after the estates had assembled, the king in full regalia appeared, and taking his seat on the throne, delivered his famous philippic, viewed as one of the masterpieces of Swedish oratory, in which he reproached the estates for their unpatriotic venality and license in the past. A new Constitution was recited by the estates and accepted by them unanimously. The diet was then dissolved.

Related Topics:
16 August - Ture Rudbeck - August 18 - 19 August - Privy Council - Fleet - 20 August - August 21 - Constitution

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