CHARLES IX. king of Sweden, the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa and Margareto Lejonhufrud, was born on Oct. 4, 1550. By his father's will he received the duchy of Soder manland (Sudermania) in 156o. In 1568 he and his brother John led the rebellion against Eric XIV., but when John be came king, as John III., the relations between the two brothers were strained. Duke Charles was the centre of the opposition to John's attempts to romanize Sweden on the one hand, and he resisted all the king's efforts to restrict his authority as duke of Sodermanland on the other, though in 1587 he was obliged to resign his claim to autonomy within his own duchy. The religious question came to a crisis on the death of John III. in 1592, when his eldest son, Sigismund, a devoted Catholic who was already king of Poland, succeeded to the throne of Sweden. Duke Charles came forward as the champion of the Protestant majority, who were alarmed lest Sigismund should attempt to re-catholicize Sweden ; it was with his assent that they held the famous Synod or "Uppsala-mote" Feb. 1593, which proclaimed Sweden's adherence to the Augsburg Confession ; and when Sigismund arrived in Sweden Charles, who had governed jointly with the Estates during his absence, backed by an army, compelled him, before he could be crowned, to guarantee to maintain the Uppsala convention, thereby recognizing that Sweden was essentially a Protestant state. In Aug. when Sigismund left for Poland, Charles was left in control of affairs, and in 1595 he was elected regent by the Riksdag of Soderkoping. He ruled firmly, almost despotically. Roman Catholicism was suppressed. In May 1595 the peace of Teusin was concluded with Russia, who recognized Sweden's title to Narva and Estonia. By 1S97 however, the country was in a state of civil war. Charles had quarrelled with the council over their refusal to make war on Finland, whose ruler, Klas Fleming, refused to recognize Charles's authority as opposed to that of Sigismund. Sigismund forbade the summoning of the Riksdag which supported Charles, and authorized the council to govern alone, but Charles summoned the Riksdag when the council was not sitting, and persuaded it to give him all the powers of govern ment. He then sailed to Finland and captured Abo. Sigismund landed at Kalmar in Sweden with an army, in July but though large numbers of the nobles flocked to his standards he was regarded as a heretic by the majority of the Swedish nation. Charles defeated him at Stangebro on Sept. 25, 1598, after which he fled for aid to Poland, though he had promised to disband his forces and to abide by the decision of the Estates. He was f or mally deposed by the Riksdag in 1599, and on Feb. 24, 1600, the diet of Linkoping declared that he and his posterity had forfeited the Swedish throne, and passing over duke John, the second son of John III., a youth of ten, recognized Duke Charles as king under the title of Charles IX.
Charles proceeded to conquer Finland, and to take cruel ven geance on the nobles who had opposed him. He did not, however, style himself king until March 6, 1604, after Duke John had for mally renounced his claim to the throne, and was not crowned until March 15, 2607. His short reign was a period of uninter rupted warfare. In the long war with Poland (1600-6o), begun in his reign, he was on the whole unsuccessful, his severest defeat being at Kirkholm (Sept. 1605) (see CHODKIEWICZ). Sweden and Poland also supported rival claimants to the tsardom in Rus sia. In 1610 Charles, who had concluded an alliance with the tsar Basil against Sigismund in 1609 and who aimed at obtaining the county of Keksholm for Sweden, sent an army under Jacob de la Gardie (q.v.) to Moscow. After his defeat by the Polish general, Zolkievski, at Klutsjino (June, 161o) and the collapse of Basil, de la Gardie seized Keksholm and Novgorod in 1611. In the same year Christian IV. of Denmark (q.v.) declared war on Sweden, partly as a result of Charles's pretensions to Lapland, and his veto on trade with Riga and Kurland and his foundation of the city of Goteborg (Gothenburg), partly from an ambition to conquer Sweden. Christian besieged Kalmar (whence the name "Kalmar War," given to this war). In July, 1611, Charles IX. fought an indecisive battle near that city, and on the 28th the castle of Kalmar was surrendered treacherously. Old and worn out, Charles died on Oct. 3o, leaving his son, Gustavus Adolphus, to carry on war with Denmark and Russia. As a ruler Charles IX. is the link between his great father Gustavus Vasa and his still greater son. He consolidated the work of Gustavus Vasa, the creation of a great Protestant state : he prepared the way for the erection of the Protestant empire of Gustavus Adolphus. By his first wife Marie, daughter of the elector palatine Louis VI., he had six children, of whom only one daughter, Catherine, sur vived; by his second wife, Christina, daughter of Adolphus, duke of Holstein-Gottorp, he had five children, including Gustavus Adolphus and Charles Philip, duke of Finland.
See Sveriges Historia, vol. iii. (1878) ; R. N. Bain, Scandinavia (1905) ; see also SWEDEN: History. (R. N. B.; X.)