The Lutheran doctrines were introduced in 1522 by Olaus Petri, and in 1528 the Confession of Augsburg was solemnly adopted as the standard of faith by the king and people at the diet of Westeriis. Under Gustavus the country attained a degree of affluence and pro sperity hitherto unknown, and was raised from the condition of a semi-barbarous and dependent territory to the rank of a considerable state. But Erik XIV. (1560-8), son and successor of the great Gus tavus, was a gloomy and cruel tyrant. He became insane from remorse for the slaughter of the Sture family (1567), and was deposed in favour of his brother John III. (1568.92), who confined Erik in a dungeon, and at length (1577) put him to death. The rule of John was at first prosperous ; but the attempts which he made to restore Catholicism gave rise to religious disputes which occupied a great part of his reign. John was succeeded by his son Sigismund (1592.1604), who bad in 1587 been elected king of Poland in right of his mother : but his open profession of Catholicism speedily alienated the Swedes, a civil war commenced, which continued till 1601, the king being supported by Polish troops. At length the diet of Norrkoping for mally prohibited the obnoxious faith, and raised the duke of Suder mania to the throne as Charles IX. (1604.11) in the place of his nephew. From this revolution arose the Swedo-Polish war of succession, which continued almost without intermission for sixty years (1600-60). Charles IX. was succeeded by his son, the famous Gustavus Adolpinia (1611-32). The first acts of his reign were directed to the improve ments of his kingdom, in which lie was aided by his illustrious minister Oxenntiern. By the peace of Stolbova (1617), concluded under the mediation of England, Russia ceded all her remaining territory on the Baltic ; and the king, heading his army against the Poles, took Riga (1621), and subdued Livonia and Polish Prussia, which wero ceded to Sweden (1629) by the truce of Altmark. His arms were now turned towards Germany, where the success of Austria in the Thirty Years' War seemed to threaten Protestantism with annihilation ; end being chosen captain-general of the Protestant league, he landed in Pomer ania Juno 1030: his campaigns and victories occupied him till his fall in the moment of triumph at the battle of Littzen (November 0, 1632).
Christina (1632-54), the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, succeeded at the age of six peace, under the guardianship of Oxenstiern, who administered the kingdom with consummate ability. A war with Denmark (1643.45) terminated to the advantage of Sweden by the peace of Bromsebro; and at the general peace of Westphalia (1648), Sweden received Pomerania, Rugen, Bremen, &c., with the annexed rights as a state of the empire : acquisitions which elevated her to the rank of A first-rate power. In 1654 Christina abdicated the crown in favour of her cousin, the Count Palatine of Deux-Ponts, retired to Franco, and afterwards to Rome, where she died a Roman Catholic in 1689. The new king, Charles Gustavus (1054-60), renewed the war with Poland, overran the country, and attacked Denmark, which had sided with Poland, obtaining by the peace of Roskilde, in 1658, the cession of Scania and the other Danish provinces beyond the Sound. In a subsequent attack on Denmark the Swedes were repulsed from Copenhagen by the assistance of the Prussiaus and the Dutch, and the disappointed ambition of the king is said to have hastened hie death. During the minority of his son Charles XI. (166097), the long contest with l'oland was concluded (1660) by the peace of Oliva; Livonia, Esthoule. and Oesel were confirmed to Sweden, and the claim of the Polish kings to the Swedish crown was given up. In the war with Prussia and Denmark (1675-79), the Swedes were worsted, but at the of Fontainebleau (1679) they -regained all that they had lost. This reign was also the epoch of the first struggle between the crown, supported by the burghers and peasants, and the power of the senate and nobles. In 1693 the king was formally declared absolute by an act of the diet, lie died in 1697, leaving his dominions to his son, the famous Charles XII. (1697.1718), then only fifteen, in the highest state of prosperity and organisation ; but the inexperience of the young king tempted the attacks of his neighbours, and a coalition was formed against him (1699) by Poland, Denmark, and Russia. Charles MAIIIMCil the offensive, and leading his forces first against Denmark, in six weeks reduced the king to sue for peace : he next utterly routed the czar before Nerve ; then invading Poland he ex pelled the king, Frederick Auzuatns, elector of Saxony, and dietatel the election of Stanislaw+ Leczinki (1701) in his room. But his inva sion of Russia (1708.9) was fatal to Ids schemes of ambition, and in the course of a year or two all his conquests, in spite of the efforts of hisgenerals, were loot as rapidly as they bed bean gained. In 1715, while he was endeavouring to re-establish his power both by arms and by the diplomacy of his nunister Ofirtz, he fell at the siege of Frederic •hall in Norway, leaving his kingdom on the verge of ruin. His sister Ulrica-Elconers (1718-20), after she had been compelled to renounce her hereditary right, resigned the crown in favour of her husband Frederick of liesse-Cassel (1720.51). The treaty of Nystad with Russia (1721) at length gave peace to the exhausted kingdom ; but Ingria, Livonia, Esthonia, Carclis, Oescl, &c., were ceded to the czar. For the next twenty years the court of Stockholm was a scene of foreign Intrigue and corruption, in which the Hats, or French party, and the Caps, or Russian faction, alternately predominated. Agriculture and commerce nevertheless flourished. Linnreus and his disciples gave a new impulse to science, and legislation was improved by the publica tion of a new code (1734). The aseeedancy of the Hats led to a war (1741) with Russia, in which the Swedes were everywhere defeated, and at the peace of Abo (1743), through British mediation, part of Finland was ceded to Russia.
The reign of Adolphus Frederick (1751.71) was peaceful in its foreign relations, with the exception of the share taken against Prussia, through the influence of the Hats, in the Seven Years' War. His son Gustavus III. (1771.92), in 1772, supported by the army and the body of the people, forcibly repealed the constitution of 1720, re establishing the relative powers of the various branches of govern ment nearly as before 1080: while the party names of Hats and Caps were for ever prohibited, the use of torture abolished, and the press declared free. In 1780 Sweden joined the Armed Neutrality of the northern powers against England, headed by the czarina; and in 1783 a commercial treaty was concluded with the United States of America. An alliance with the Porte (1787) led to a war the next year with Russia, aed with Denmark as her ally : but the mutinous conduct of the Swedish officers, who refused to invade Russia without orders from the States, produced the Act of Safety (1789), which gave the king absolute power of war and peace, at the same time abolishing the senate, the last stronghold of aristocratio power. The peace of Werela (1790) was concluded on the basis of mutual restoration. In 1792 Gus tavus was assassinated, and his successor, Gustavus IV. (1792.1809), formed an alliance in 1805 with Russia and England against Napo leon L; but the French occupied Pomerania and Stralsund (1807); and Russia, after the conferences of Tilsit, turned her arms against her late ally, and seized upon Finland, the impregnable fortress of Svea borg being, it is said, betrayed by the governor. An auxiliary force of 11,000 English, under Sir John Moore, was dismissed without effect ing anything : the Dane. also declared war ; and Tornea and the Aland Isles were taken by the Rnssians (1809). These multiplied misfor tunes were ascribed to the incapacity of the king, who was considered to have shown symptoms of mental derangement; and he was deposed (March 1809) by a conspiracy of military officers, his uncle Charles XIII. (1809.18) being called to the throne to the exclusion of the son of Gustavus', who was declared incapable of ever inheriting. The peace of Fredericksham with Russia (1809) was dearly purchased by the cession of Finland, East Bothnia, and Aland (or nearly one fourth of the territory, with one-third of the population, of the kingdom): but Prance restored Pomerania (1810) on the adoption of the continental system prescribed by Napoleon I. In 1810, on the election of a Crown Prince, in consequence of the age of the king and the want of an heir, the choice of the states fell on Bernadotte, prince of Ponte Cerro, the ablest of the marshals of Napoleon I. Bernadotte assumed the reins of government ; but though compelled by France to declare war against England, he too clearly perceived the true interests of Sweden to enter on active hostilities; and, on the reverses of Napo leon I. in Russia, peace and alliance was concluded with England at Orebro, and with Russia at Abe. During the War of Liberation (1813) in Germany the Swedish troops were led by the crown-prince, and their service. were rewarded (1814) by the acquisition of Norway, which Denmark was compelled to cede by the peace of Rid, Sweden at the same time resigning to Prussia Pomerania and her remaining German posseasions. The two crowns were declared indissolubly united, though each kingdom retained its separate constitution. On the death of the king in 1818 the crown-prinee mounted the throne as Charles XIV., and was crowned at Stockholm and Trondhjem ; and his rule was marked by the uniform and increasing prosperity of the Scandinavian kingdoms. Notwithstanding the loss of Finland, the commerce of Sweden is now more than double what it was in 1800, and the opening of the Gotha Canal in 1832 greatly added to the facilities for internal water-communication. The present sovereign, Oscar I., succeeded his father in March 1844.
By the Swedish constitution of 1809 the crown is declared heredi tary in the male line, and the king is required to profess the Lutheran religion, which is the established creed of the realm. The state-council consists of nine members, of whom six are appointed by the king, but three of these must be civil functionaries : the chancellor and the ministers of justice and foreign affairs are ex-officio members; and the four secretaries of state may be summoned to give advice on matters relating to their own departments. The king has a negative voice on the resolutions of the diet, and the right to introduce measures for their consideration : but he can neither control the freedom of their deliberations, nor (without their sanction) impose new taxes, contract loans, or alienate any part of the territory. The diet, or parliament of the kingdom, in which resides the supreme legislative power, consists, as of old, of the four orders of nobles, clergy, burghers, and peasants (landholders who are not noble). in the houeo of nobles, the head of each of the 2300 noble families has a seat by right, but seldom more than 400 to 500 attend. The eccle siastical order (of which the archbishop of Up sale is always president) consists, besides the twelve bishops, of about sixty deputies from tho various dioceses. The presidents of the burgher and peasant houses are named by the king, and a small property qualification is required for a deputy : the proper number of burgher representatives is 97; the peasant deputies should be 144, returned by different districts ; but the full number rarely if ever make their appearance. The four orders sit and deliberate sometimes separately, and at other times altogether; and in ordinary ca=ts the question is carried or lost by a simple majority. The diet meets at Stockholm every fifth year, and the session should close at the end of three months, unless prevented by press of business.