GUSTAVUS III. (1746-1792), king of Sweden, the eldest son of Adolphus Frederick, king of Sweden, and Louisa Ulrica of Prussia, sister of Frederick the Great, was born on Jan. 24, 1746. Gustavus was educated under the care of two eminent Swedish statesmen, Carl Gustaf Tessin and Carl Scheffer; but he owed most, perhaps, to the poet and historian Olof von Dalin. His teachers were amazed by the brilliance of his natural gifts, and, while still a boy, he possessed that charm of manner which was to make him so fascinating and so dangerous in later life, coupled with the strong dramatic instinct which won for him his honour able place in Swedish literature. There was scarce a French author of his day with whose works he was not intimately ac quainted; while his enthusiasm for the new French ideas of enlightenment was as sincere as his mother's. On Nov. 4, 1766, Gustavus married Sophia Magdalena, daughter of Frederick V. of Denmark. The match was an unhappy one.
Gustavus first intervened in politics in 1768, at the time of his father's interregnum, when he compelled the dominant Cap faction to summon an extraordinary diet from which he hoped for the reform of the Constitution in a monarchical direction. But the Hats refused to redeem the pledges which they had given before the elections. "That we should have lost the con stitutional battle does not distress us so much," wrote Gustavus, "but what does dismay me is to see my poor nation so sunk in corruption as to place its own felicity in absolute anarchy." From Feb. 4 to March 25, 1771, Gustavus was in Paris, where the poets and the philosophers paid him enthusiastic homage. But his visit to the French capital was a political mission. The duc de Choiseul, weary of Swedish anarchy, had resolved to discuss with him the best method of bringing about a revolution in Sweden. Before he departed, the French Government undertook to pay the outstanding subsidies to Sweden unconditionally, at the rate of one and a half million livres annually; and the comte de Vergennes was transferred from Constantinople to Stock holm. On his way home Gustavus visited his uncle, Frederick the Great, at Potsdam. Frederick bluntly informed his nephew that, in concert with Russia and Denmark, he had guaranteed the integrity of the existing Swedish constitution, and advised the young monarch to play the part of mediator and abstain from violence.
On his return to Sweden Gustavus made a sincere attempt to mediate between the Hats and Caps who were ruining the country between them (see SWEDEN : History) . On June 21, 1771, he opened his first parliament in a moving speech. Addressing the diet in the Swedish tongue, he laid stress on the necessity of sac rifice for the common weal and offered to mediate between con tending factions. A composition committee was actually formed, but it proved illusory from the first. The subsequent attempts of the dominant Caps still further to limit the prerogative, induced Gustavus 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. Only by a swift coup d'etat could the inde pendence of a country isolated from the rest of Europe by a hostile league, be saved from absorption into that northern system, the invention of Count Nikita Panin. At this juncture Gustavus was approached by Jakob Magnus Sprengtporten, a Finnish nobleman of determined character, with the project of a revolution. He undertook to seize the fortress of Sveaborg, and, Finland once secured, 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 to accept a new constitution from the king.
The plotters were reinforced by an ex-ranger from Scania (Skane), Johan Kristoffer 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 to secure the southern fortress of Kristianstad. It was finally ar ranged that, a few days after the Finnish revolt had begun, Kris tianstad should declare against the Government. Prince Charles was thereupon to mobilize the garrisons of all the southern for tresses, ostensibly to crush 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 Aug. 6, 1772, Toll succeeded in winning the fortress of Kristianstad, and on the i6th Sprengtporten successfully surprised Sveaborg. But contrary winds prevented him from crossing to Stockholm, and in the meanwhile events had occurred which made his pres ence there unnecessary.
On Aug. 16, the Cap leader, Ture Rudbeck, arrived at Stock holm with the news of the insurrection in the south, and Gus tavus, finding himself isolated in the midst of enemies, resolved to strike the decisive blow without waiting for the arrival of Sprengt porten. On the evening of the 18th all the officers whom he thought he could trust received instructions to assemble in the square facing the arsenal on the following morning. At ten o'clock on the 19th Gustavus rode to the arsenal, joined on the way by his adherents, so that by the time he reached his destina tion he had about 200 officers in his suite. After parade he recon ducted them to the guard-room of the palace and unfolded his plans. He then dictated a new oath of allegiance, absolving them from their allegiance to the estates, and binding them to obey their lawful king, Gustavus III. Meanwhile the senate and the governor-general, Rudbeck, had been arrested and the fleet se cured. On the evening of the loth heralds proclaimed 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 the 21st, a few moments after the estates had assembled, the king in full regalia appeared, and taking his seat on the throne, delivered that famous philippic in which he reproached the estates for their unpatriotic venality in the past. A new constitution was recited by the estates and ac cepted by them unanimously. The diet was then dissolved.
Gustavus was inspired by enthusiasm for the greatness and welfare of Sweden, and worked in the same reformatory direc tion as the other contemporary sovereigns of the "age of enlighten ment." He took an active part in every department of business, but relied far more on extra-official counsellors of his own choos ing than upon the senate. The effort to remedy the corruption which had been fostered by the Hats and Caps engaged a con siderable share of his time and he even found it necessary to put the whole of a supreme court of justice (Gota Hofratt) on its trial. Measures were taken to reform the administration and the judicial procedure, and torture as an instrument of legal investigation was abolished. In 1774 an ordinance providing for the liberty of the press was issued, the national defences were developed on a "Great Power" scale, and the navy was so enlarged as to become one of the most formidable in Europe. The finances were set in good order by the "currency realization ordinance" of i777, and in 1775 free trade in corn was promoted and a number of oppressive export-tolls abolished.
The poor law was amended, absolute religious liberty was pro claimed, and he even succeeded in inventing and popularizing a national costume which was in general use from 1778 till his death. His one economic blunder was the attempt to make the sale of spirits a government monopoly, which was an obvious infringement upon the privileges of the estates. His foreign policy, on the other hand, was at first both wise and wary. Thus, when the king sum moned the estates to assemble at Stockholm on Sept. 3, 1778, he could give a brilliant account of his six years' stewardship. Never was a parliament more obsequious or a king more gracious. Yet, short as the session was, it was long enough to open the eyes of the deputies to the fact that their political supremacy had de parted. They had changed places with the king, who for all his gentleness, guarded his prerogative jealously. Even the few who were patriotic enough to acquiesce in the change by no means liked it. The diet of 1778 had been obsequious; the diet of 1786 was mutinous. The consequence was that nearly all the royal propositions were either rejected outright or so modified that Gustavus himself withdrew them.
The diet of 1786 marks a turning-point in Gustavus's history. Henceforth we observe a determination on his part to rule with out a parliament ; a passage, cautious and gradual, yet unflinching, from semi-constitutionalism to semi-absolutism. His opportunity came in 1788, when the political complications arising out of his war with Catherine II. of Russia enabled him by the Act of Unity and Security (on Feb. 17, 1789) to override the opposition of the rebellious gentry, and, with the approbation of the three lower estates, establish a new constitution, in which, though the estates still held the power of the purse, the royal authority largely predominated. Throughout 1789 and 1790 Gustavus gal lantly conducted the unequal struggle with Russia, finally winning in the Svensksund (July 9—Io) the most glorious naval victory ever gained by the Swedish arms, the Russians losing one-third of their fleet and 7,00o men. A month later, on Aug. 14, 179o, peace was signed between Russia and Sweden at Varala. The peace of Varala saved Sweden from humiliating concessions, and in Oct. 1791 Gustavus took the bold step of concluding an eight years' defensive alliance with the empress, who thereby bound herself to pay her new ally annual subsidies amounting to 300,000 roubles.
Gustavus now aimed at forming a league of princes against the Jacobins, and every other consideration was subordinated thereto. His profound knowledge of popular assemblies enabled him ac curately to gauge from the first the scope and bearing of the French Revolution. But he was hampered by poverty and the jealousy of the other European Powers, and, after showing once more his unrivalled mastery over masses of men at the brief Gefle diet (Jan. 22—Feb. 24, 1792), he fell a victim to a widespread aristocratic conspiracy. Shot in the back by Anckarstrom at a midnight masquerade at the Stockholm opera-house, on March 16, 1792, he died on the 29th.
Although he may be charged with many foibles and extrava gances, Gustavus III. was indisputably one of the greatest sov ereigns of the i8th century. Unfortunately his genius never had full scope, and his opportunity came too late. Gustavus was, more over, a most distinguished author. He may be said to have created the Swedish theatre, and some of the best acting dramas in the literature are by his hand. His historical essays, notably the fa mous anonymous eulogy on Torstenson crowned by the Academy, are full of feeling and exquisite in style, his letters to his friends are delightful. Every branch of literature and art interested him, every poet and artist of his day found in him a most liberal and sympathetic protector. (R. N. B.; X.) See E. G. Geijer, Konung Gustaf III.'s efterlemnade papper (Upsala, ; B. von Beskow, Om Gustaf III. sasom Konung och man niska (186o-61) ; Geffroy, Gustav III. et lay tour de France (1867-2 vols.) , Ehrensvard, Dagboksanteckningar forda , vid G. Ill's hof (1878) ; Gustaf 111.'s bref till G. M. Armfelt (Fr.) (1883) ; Y. K. Grot, Catharine II. and Gustavus III. (Russ.) (St. Petersburg, 1884) ; C. T. Odhner, Sveriges politiska historia under Konung Gustaf III.'s regering (1885-96) ; Mellin, Verschworung and Mordal tentat gegen G. III. (189o) ; E. Tegner, Frdn Tredje Gustays dagar (1892-94) ; O. Levertin, Gustaf 111. som dramatisk f orf attare (1894) ; and Fran Gustav III. (1909) ; H. Schack, Gustav III., en karaktarsstudie (19o4) ; R. N. Bain, Gustavus III. and his Contemporaries (1904) ; Stavenow, Konung G. III. (end ed. 191o) ; A. Soderhjelm, Sverige och den franska revolu tionen (192o).