Everything about Charles Xi Of Sweden totally explained
Charles XI (
24 November 1655 –
5 April 1697) was
King of Sweden from
1660 until his death and during the same time succeeded his father as
Pfalzgraf. He was the only son of King
Charles X of Sweden and
Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp.
Under guardian rule
Charles was born in the palace at
Stockholm. His father, who died when Charles was four years old, left the care of his education to the
regents whom he'd appointed; his mother was the formal president of the regency, but never had much to do with politics. Charles was deeply devoted to his mother his entire life; she's described as a very dominating personality, while Charles was shy as a boy; during his first sittings with the parliament, when he was still a minor, he spoke to the members of the parliament through her; he'd whisper the questions he'd to his mother, and she'd ask the government loud and clear. At the age of seventeen, when Charles XI attained his majority, he devoted himself to sports and exercises, including the pursuit of his favourite pastime, bear-hunting, and appeared ignorant of the very rudiments of
state-craft and almost
illiterate. According to many contemporary sources, the king was considered poorly educated and therefore not qualified to conduct himself effectively in foreign affairs. Charles was thus dependent on his advisors and diplomats, mainly because he'd no foreign language skills beside German and therefore couldn't interact with the foreign envoys, but also because he was ignorant of the world outside the borders of Sweden.
Foreign affairs
The general situation produced by the speculative policy of his former guardians has been called forth to explain the king's qualities and to show why he was hardened prematurely. He is said to have attempted to grapple with the difficulties of the situation, waging a struggle against what is referred to as sloth, corruption and incompetence. The 20-year old king was inexperienced and considered ill-served amidst what has been called the
anarchy in the nation and is said to have worked day and night in his newly-formed camp in
Scania to arm the Swedish nation for struggle in the
Scanian War.
The victory of
Halmstad (
August 17,
1676), when Charles and his
commander-in-chief Simon Grundel-Helmfelt defeated a
Danish division, was the first gleam of good luck for him, and on
December 4, on the
tableland of
Helgonabäck, near
Lund, the Swedish monarch defeated
Christian V of Denmark, who also commanded his army in person. The
Battle of Lund was, relative to the number engaged, one of the bloodiest engagements of modern times. More than half the combatants (8,357, of whom 3,000 were Swedes) actually perished on the battle-field. All the Swedish commanders showed ability, but the chief glory of the day have been attributed to Charles XI.
In the following year, Charles with 9,000 men routed 12,000 Danes at the
Battle of Landskrona. This proved to be the last
pitched battle of the war, in September 1678 Christian V evacuated his army back to
Zealand. In 1679
Louis XIV of France dictated the terms of a general pacification, and Charles XI, who is said to have 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.
Sweden's weak economy didn't favour wars, even if Sweden was very successful in conflicts,
conscription was hated by the
peasants and
mercenaries, and drained government
revenue. Therefore, Charles initiated a
dividing system; each region would contribute one citizen for warfare and supply him in peacetime.
Domestic affairs
Charles devoted the rest of his life to the task of rehabilitating Sweden by means of a
reduction, 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 nation's finances. In 1680 he intimidated the
Riksdag into authorizing the reversion to the
Crown of
counties,
baronies and large
lordships from the
nobility. In addition to reduction, Charles XI's administration was involved in many other activities which are considered constructive and beneficial today. However, he wasn't solely responsible for the various activities that aimed to strengthen the Swedish state. Charles XI had numerous advisors, many who came from German or
Baltic noble families, who were behind several reform projects during the king's rule. Changes in finance, commerce, the national armaments by sea and land, judicial procedure, church government, education, even art and science emerged during this period. Charles XI died on
April 5,
1697, in his forty-first year.
On
May 6,
1680, he'd married
Ulrike Eleonora (1656 - 1693), daughter of King
Frederick III of Denmark (1609-1670). He had previously been engaged to his cousin
Juliana of Hesse-Eschwege, but the engagement had been broken and he was engaged to Ulrike in 1675, and married her after the war as apart of the peace treaty. Ulrike Eleonora was beautiful and kind, and, though she always had to stand back to his mother, was a wife genuinely loved by him, and from whose death in July 1693 Charles would never recover; when she was alive, he couldn't fully express his feelings towards her, but after she died, he told his mother he'd never been happy since she died.
Charles XI, like
Gustav Vasa and
Gustavus Adolphus, has sometimes been described in Sweden as the greatest of all the Swedish kings, unduly eclipsed by his father
Charles X and his son
Charles XII. In nationalistic lore, he's often depicted as a modest, homespun figure, and a master-builder who found Sweden in ruins and devoted his whole life to laying a solid foundations of a new order which, in its essential features, has endured to the present day, with the exception of
absolute monarchy.
Ancestors
Children
He had seven children, of whom only three survived him, a son Charles, and two daughters, Hedwig Sophia, duchess of
Holstein-Gottorp and grandmother of
Tsar Peter III, and Ulrike Eleonora, who ultimately succeeded her brother on the Swedish throne.
- Hedwig Sophia (1681-1708)
- King Charles XII (1682-1718)
- Gustav (1683-1685)
- Ulrich (1684-1685)
- Friedrich (1685-1685)
- Carl Gustav (1686-1687)
- Queen Ulrika Eleonora (1688-1741)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Charles Xi Of Sweden'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://charles_xi_of_sweden.totallyexplained.com">Charles XI of Sweden Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
