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6. SOME EMINENT LEADERS. 273
6. THE GREAT KINGS AND THE GREAT BISHOPS. THE
STORMAKTSTID (16181718). CHARACTER OF
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. JOHANNES BOTHVIDI
AND I SAAC ROTHOVIUS. RUDBECKIUS AND
THE HUMANISTS, MESSENIUS AND STIERNHIELM.
RUDBECKIUS AND GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. JUDAISM
IN THE DIOCESE OF VESTER&S AND ELSEWHERE.
The most striking feature of the
"
Stormaktstid
"
of
Sweden, that period of exactly a hundred years, from the
outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618 to the death
of Charles XII. in 1718, to which its people naturally most
readily turn back, and on which they dwell with lingering
affection, is the eminence of certain of its leaders, and in
particular its kings and its bishops. As regards the kings
greatness may be ascribed to all of them to Charles IX.,
the somewhat reluctant saviour of Lutheranism in Sweden,
who, as it were, ushers in the period, and, above all, to his
son Gustavus Adolphus, the saviour of Protestantism in
Europe;
23
to Charles X., though he is less known than the
others; to Charles XL, the reformer of the constitution,
both of Church and State; and to Charles XII., the best
known of all, next to Gustavus Adolphus. Their reigns
make up the period when Sweden not only took the lead
in the Thirty Years War, which ended with the peace of
Westphalia in 1648, but controlled the Baltic and extended
its dominions to the widest area ever reached by it in
historical times.
Let me, in reference to the greatest of these sovereigns,
make my own some closing words of Mr. Fletcher s attrac
tive biography of Gustavus Adolphus. After describing
his fatal wound, at the Battle of Liitzen, 6th (i4th) Novem
ber, 1632, and his last words to the cuirassiers who rode
up to inquire the name of the fallen man :
"
I am the King
of Sweden, who do seal the religion and liberty of the
23
Prof. Harald Hjarne s Gustav Adolf der Retter des Pro-
testantismus in Pastor Werckshagen s composite illustrated
work Der Protestantismus, Vol. i, pp. 141-168. It is translated
by Kammer-Rat E. Jonas, of Berlin.
18
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