The colossal labors of the great Vasa in raising a semi-barbarous state to an honor able place among the civilized monarchies of Europe, were rendered almost useless by the crimes and misfortunes of his son and successor, Erik XIV., whose high intellectual powers were clouded by a wayward and revengeful nature, leading him finally to in sanity. His cruelties and excesses led to his deposition in 1568, when his younger brother Johan ascended the throne, which he occupied for nearly a quarter of a century, dying in 1592, after a stormy reign, stained by the cruel murder of his unfortunate brother Erik, and distracted by the internal dissensions arising from his attempts to force Catholicism on the people, and to carry on war with the Danes, Poles, and Russians. Johan's sou and successor, Sigismund, who had been elected king of Poland through the influence of the relatives of his Polish mother, after a short and stormy reign of eight years, which were spent in attempting to restore Catholicism iu Sweden, was compelled by the diet to resign the throne in 1599 to hig uncle Karl, the only one of Gustaf Vasa's sons who inherited any share of his legislative and administrative talents. The policy of Karl IX., was to encourage the burgher classes at the expense of the nobility; and by his successful efforts to foster trade—in furtherance of which he laid the foundation of Goteborg and other trading ports—develop the mineral resources of the country, and re organize the system of Swedish jurisprudence, he did much to retrieve the calamitous errors of his predecessors. The deposition of Sigismemd gave rise to the Swedo-Po]ish war of succession, which continued from 1604 to 1660; and on the death of Karl in 1611, his son and successor, the great Gustavus Adolphus, found himself involved in hostilities with Russia, Poland, and Denmark. By the ability of his minister, Oxenstierna, the young king was soon enabled to conclude treaties of peace with his northern neighbors, and to place the internal affairs of his kingdom iu order (see GUSTAVUS II.); and al though he justly ranks as one of the greatest military commanders of his age, the extra ordinary number of benefits which he conferred on every department, of the administra tive system of Sweden, entitle him to still greater renown as the benefactor of his native country. His death in 1632, on the field of Liitzen, would have proved an irreparable calamity to Sweden, had not the able administration of Oxenstierna, during the minority of Gustavus's daughter, Christina, maintained the renown of the Swedish arms abroad, and the political reputation of the country among the other states. The reign of Chris tina (q.v.) was disastrous in every act but that of her abdication. The short reign of Karl X. was occupied in generally unsuccessful wars against Poland and Denmark; while the minority and long rule of his sou, Karl XI.—from 1660 to 1697—was charac terized by success abroad, and in the augmentation of the regal power, which was de clared by an act of the diet to be-absolute. His son Karl. known to us as Charles XII. (q.v.), succeeded, at the age of 15, to the power and dominions which his father's abili ties had consolidated, but which, notwithstanding his own brilliant genius, he so deeply imperiled by his insatiable ambition, that at his untimely death in 1718, at the siege of Frederikshald, after a brilliant career of glorious but checkered military achievements, he left his country overwhelmed with debts, and disorganized by prolonged misrule.
With him the male line of the Vasas expired, and his sister and her husband, Frederick o Hesse-Cassel, were called to the throne by election, but were the mere puppets of the nobles, whose rivalries and party dissensions plunged the country into calamitous wars and almost equally disastrous treaties of peace, and, under the leadership of the two great factions of the " Hats," or French party, and the " Caps," or Russian party, de moralized all ranks of society. The weak Adolphus Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, who was called to the throne on the death of Frederick iu 1751, and died in 1771, did little to retrieve the evil fortunes of the state; but his son, Gustavus III. (q.v.) (1771-92), skill fully turned to account the general dissatisfaction of the people with the nobles, to de stroy the factions of the Hats 4nd Caps, and to recover the lost power of the crown. His extravagance, dissoluteness, and insincerity detracted, however, from his merits as a ruler, and raised up numerous enemies against him, through whose agency he was assassinated in 1792. His son and successor, Gustavus IV. (q.v.) lacked the ability to cope with the difficulties of the times, and after suffering in turn for his aliance with France, England, and Russia, was forcibly deposed in 1809, and obliged to renounce for himself and his direct heirs the crown in favor of his uncle, Charles who saw himself compelled at once to conclude a humiliating peace with Russia by the cession of nearly a fourth part of the Swedish territories, with 14- million of inhabitants. The early part of the reign of Charles, who was childless, was troubled by domestic and foreign intrigues to regulate the choice of an heir to the throne; and when, under the erroneous idea of conciliating Napoleon, the dominant party in Sweden elected General Bernadotte to the rank of crown prince, the latter assumed the reins of government, and by his steady support of the allies against the French emperor, secured to Sweden at the con gress of Vienna, the possession of Norway, when that country was separated from Den mark. Under the able administration of Bernadotte, who, in 1818, succeeded to the throne as Charles XIV., the united kingdoms of Sweden and Norway made great ad vances in material prosperity and political and intellectual progress; and although the nation at large entertained very little personal regard for their alien sovereign, his son and successor, Oscar (1311 59), and his grandsons, the late king, Charles XV., and the present king, Oscar II., who came to the throne in 1872, have so identified them selves with their subjects that the Bernadotte dynasty has secured the loyal affections of every section of the united nations of Sweden and Norway.