- Project Runeberg -  Norway and Sweden. Handbook for travellers /
lxvi

(1889) [MARC] Author: Karl Baedeker
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foreign countries and hired out troops to serve abroad. At the
age of seventeen Charles assumed the reins of government (1672).
In 1674 he was called upon as the ally of France to take part in
the war against Holland, Spain , and Germany, but the Swedish
army was signally defeated at Felirbellin by the Elector of
Brandenburg. Hereupon the Danes declared war against Sweden,
causing new disasters, but by the intervention of the French
peace was again declared at Lund in 1679. The distress occasioned
by these defeats and popular indignation against the nobility,
who were now in possession of five-sevenths of the land in
Sweden, and who did their utmost to reduce the peasantry to the
condition of mere serfs, eventually served greatly to strengthen the
king’s position. At the diet of Stockholm in 1680, after stormy
debates, it was determined to call the regency to account for their
gross mismanagement of affairs , and the king was empowered to
revoke the alienations made during his minority. The king was
told that he was not bound to consult his cabinet, but to obey the
laws, and that he was responsible to God alone. Another diet
(1682) entrusted the king with the sole legislative power, merely
expressing a hope that he would graciously consult the Estates.
Charles was thus declared an absolute monarch, the sole right
reserved to the diet being that of levying taxes. The king
thereupon exacted large payments from his former guardians and
exercised his right of revocation so rigidly that he obtained possession
of about one-third of the landed estates in Sweden. The money
thus acquired he employed in paying the debts of the crown, in
re-organising his army and fleet, and for other useful purposes,
while he proceeded to amend the law and to remedy ecclesiastical
abuses. On his death in 1697 he left his kingdom in a strong and
prosperous condition, and highly respected among nations.

Under Charles XII., the son and successor of Charles XI., this
absolutism was fraught with disastrous consequences. Able,
carefully educated, energetic, and conscientious, but self-willed and
eccentric, Charles was called to the throne at the age of fifteen
and at once declared major. In 1699 Denmark, Russia, and Poland
concluded an alliance against Sweden, which led to the great
northern war. Aided by England, Holland, and the Duke of
Gottorp and Hanover, Charles speedily compelled the Danes to
conclude the Peace of Traveudal (1700), defeated the Russians
at Narva, took Curland from the Poles (1701), and forced Elector
Augustus of Saxony to make peace at Altranstädt, whereby the
elector was obliged to renounce the Polish crown. Meanwhile
Peter the Great of Russia had gained possession of Kexholm,
Ingermanland, and Esthonia. Instead of attempting to regain
these provinces, Charles, tempted by a promise of help from
Ma-zeppa, a Cossack chief, determined to attack the enemy in
another quarter and marched into the Ukraine, but was signally

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