Charles XII. has been idolized by his countrymen of all ages, who in him have recognized an impersonation of all their chief national virtues, with a few of their national faults, enlarged into the image of a patriotic hero of almost supernatural grandeur. The Swedish people were forced to accept absolute power as a salvation from the impending thraldom of oligarchy. In Charles XII. it saw to what a climax of abuse this power could attain, even in hands which were deemed righteous and free from stains. With Charles XII. the political grandeur and the absolute monarchy of Sweden came to an end, although attempts to restore both were to be made. A new phase of her development, with new improvements and new evils, commenced with the reign of Ulrica Eleonore.
[CHAPTER XIV]
Period of Liberty—The Aristocratic Republic
Ulrica Eleonore succeeded her brother Charles XII as the sovereign of Sweden. She was proclaimed queen by birthright, and called the Riksdag, willing to cede the absolute power. When the Riksdag convened a disagreeable surprise met her. The Estates refused to acknowledge her right to the crown, stating that both she and her older sister had deprived themselves of their rights of succession by marrying without the consent of the Estates of the Riksdag. Princess Hedvig Sophie was dead, but her son, the young Duke Charles Frederic of Holstein was in Sweden, ready to claim the throne. Ulrica Eleonore was compelled to yield gracefully. She sent a note to the Riksdag disclaiming her hereditary right, but declaring herself willing to accept the crown, with restriction of the absolute power. She was at once elected queen by the Riksdag of 1719, which then proceeded to pass a new constitution. Such a constitution had been formulated in advance by a new party, chiefly consisting of nobles, who aimed at introducing a royal government, restricted in its power by the state council and the Riksdag. They were successful in their efforts, but unfortunately lost their ablest leaders at the start, Per Ribbing dying soon after the first Riksdag, and Arvid Horn retiring from the government and council on account of a conflict with the queen. Thus the new government did not open up under favorable auspices. Baron von Gœrtz was captured and put to death for high treason without being granted the privilege of an appropriate legal defence. The queen overstepped her limit of power in being the active force in this illegal execution, anxious to rid herself of Gœrtz because he was the ablest man among the supporters of Duke Charles Frederic of Holstein. The duke gave up his chances and left for Russia, where he married a daughter of Czar Peter. The arrangements made to establish order in financial matters were not satisfactory. The management of the war with Denmark was miserable. The army was recalled from Norway and little done to protect the coast from attacks by the Danish fleet under Admiral Tordenskiold. This valiant naval hero, of Norwegian birth, who, during the reign of Charles XII., had made unsuccessful attacks on Strœmstad and Gothenburg, through cunning captured the strong fortress of Carlsten, but was unable to take New Elfsborg. Danckwardt, the commander who surrendered Carlsten, was executed by the Swedish government. The Swedish army of 6,000 men, which had entered the district of Dronthiem by the command of Charles XII., perished from hunger and cold when returning through the mountains of Jemtland. Only a few hundred survived to tell the terrible tale. The Russians sent a fleet to the Swedish shores with 40,000 men, and burned, in two expeditions, twelve Swedish towns in the middle and northern parts of the country. They avoided open battle, and when landing in great numbers were effectively repulsed.
Under such conditions Sweden was anxious for peace. In compensation for various sums of money, Bremen and Verden were ceded to Hanover in 1719, Pomerania, south of the river Peene, with Stettin, Usedom and Wollin to Prussia, in 1720, and Ingermanland, Esthonia, Livonia, with Viborg and Kexholm, and surrounding Finnish territory, to Russia, in 1721. Denmark had to give up all territory captured from Sweden, but received a sum of money in exchange for Carlsten, in 1720. Thus the Baltic empire of Sweden was swept away. It had been of importance during the time of the German war and for the shielding of new conquests in the Scandinavian Peninsula itself. Now its loss was a gain for Sweden, as it allowed her to concentrate her attention upon the interior development of the country.
The tendency of Ulrica Eleonore to exert more power than was within her authority had created dissatisfaction, and when she commenced an agitation to have her consort, Prince Frederic of Hesse, share the throne with her, the crown was granted him only upon her own resignation from the government.
Frederic I. was crowned in 1720 and Ulrica Eleonore retired from the government. Frederic left the Reformed and entered the Lutheran Church. The crown was to be inherited by his male issues only, in the union with Ulrica Eleonore. He showed a tendency for mixing in the affairs of state to further his own interests, but soon gave in to his easy-tempered, pleasure-loving nature, occupying himself exclusively with his hunts and his mistresses.
The real ruler of Sweden, during the first two decades of Frederic’s reign, was Arvid Horn, one of the greatest of Swedish statesmen. His was not the work of building up the government of a strong and influential nation, like that of Oxenstierna or Gyllenstierna, nor were his their grand, far-reaching views. But his mission was to raise from the dust his bleeding, downtrodden country, and to reinstall it in the honor and respect, not only of itself but of the world. Count Arvid Bernhard Horn was an opportunist, but one of the noblest kind, who by means of peace found the only way in which to protect and further the financial and cultural development of Sweden. He was an able soldier and a skilled diplomatist. The son of an illustrious but poor family, of the Finnish nobility, he entered the military service after a university course at Abo. He served in foreign armies, but was with Charles XII. in Stockholm as the best companion of his youth. As the commander of the royal body-guard he took an honorable part in the early victories of Charles XII., later being chosen to fulfil the delicate task of making the Polish nobles elect Stanislav king, in which he was eminently successful. After a short captivity he was released and returned to Sweden, where he became a member of the state council and president of the state chancery. In this position he repeatedly sent letters to Charles XII., in which he described the distress of the country, in eloquent words pleading its need of peace. Upon his return Charles XII. removed him from office with the other councillors, although he was the one who had saved the tottering throne for the king. Of this Ulrica Eleonore was aware and was glad to accept his resignation; when reinstated in his position he found that he could not preserve it with dignity in the face of the irregularities committed by the queen. Count Horn was responsible for the exclusion of Ulrica Eleonore from the government at King Frederic’s ascendency, but the latter was forced to accept Horn in his former position as the controlling power of the government. With due reason, the peaceful and honorable decades of Frederic’s reign have been named the “Period of Arvid Horn.”
The new form of government introduced by Ribbing, Horn and others was nothing else than that of an aristocratic republic. The rights of the monarch, reduced in 1719, were still further reduced in 1720. He had two votes in the state council and a deciding vote in deadlock, but besides the authority to appoint councillors from the candidates nominated by the Riksdag, and to appoint all higher officials, no other rights. The government was in the hands of the state council, consisting of sixteen members. The Riksdag decided all questions of taxes and legislation, and settled issues of peace and war. Each of the four Estates was represented in the committees, except in the “secret committee,” for international affairs, to which no yeoman could be chosen. Each Estate had its speaker. The president of the chancery was the minister of foreign affairs and consulted the secret committee on important questions, being the only head of a department who was allowed as a member of the state council. The nobility held the balance of power, much to the opposition of the lower Estates, who tried, by repeated agitation, to invest the king with the authority held by him before the days of absolute power. The nobility had done away with its three classes, and, with these abandoned, it was the majority, viz., the lower nobility, who were the governing class. The aristocracy tried its best to regain the privileges enjoyed during the reign of Queen Christine and Charles X., but Horn forced it to be satisfied with those granted by Gustavus Adolphus. The power of the higher nobility was forever crushed by the loss of their immense possessions. The friction between the nobility and the lower Estates of the Riksdag was constant, Horn siding with the former, but keeping them all in check.