CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SCANDINAVIAN KINGDOMS.

THE struggle between Denmark and Sweden under Charles X left abiding marks upon the national life of both adversaries. While in Sweden, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, the Regents were negotiating a general peace of the north, the Danish Estates assembled at Copenhagen to repair the ruin wrought by war (September, 1660). So terrible had been its disasters that a great part of Denmark lay waste, and the Crown was compelled to repudiate part of its debt and to sell one-half of its vast estates to pay the remainder. The clergy and burghers, uniting in a new feeling of enthusiasm for the King who had heroically defended his capital, were more bitter than ever against the nobles, to whose selfishness they might well ascribe the devastated and defenceless state of the country, the triumphant establishment of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and the loss of many provinces by both Denmark and Norway beyond the Sound. That some five or six hundred families should monopolise the chief places in Church and State, own half the soil of Denmark, enjoy freedom from taxation, and evade the burden of national defence, was a political situation which, after the heroism of the King and of the capital, men could not but regard as anomalous. It remained to be seen whether there existed in Denmark any force capable of effecting a reform.

At the Diet, however, which had been summoned to sanction a complete change in the national system of taxation, the members of this Estate showed that they had learned nothing. In place of the old direct taxes, the Government proposed a wide system of indirect taxes on commodities in daily use, together with duties on certain movables and contracts. The nobles at once claimed exemption for themselves and their villeins ; and to the former demand they clung firmly during heated negotiations between the several Estates. It therefore became possible for the leaders of the clergy and burghers, Hans Svane, the Bishop of Zealand, and Hans Nansen, the Burgomaster of Copenhagen, to strike a great blow for the monarchy and for the nation. By inducing the Bishops and citizens to lay down their privileges, on condition that the nobles and university did the same, they confronted the Rigsraad and nobles as a solid Opposition, which advanced a far-reaching claim of equality before the law. At the end of September the oligarchical party capitulated. The struggle had, however, demonstrated afresh both the selfishness and the weakness of the caste lampooned as "hares and wasters of the realm." With an ambitious Queen by his side, and Hans Svane and Hans Nansen as his allies, Frederick determined to follow up his advantage with a coup d'etat.

A bloodless campaign of six days, October 8-13, 1660, sufficed to give to the feeble monarchy the prospect of becoming the most absolute in Europe. On October 8, after much secret preparation, the clergy and burghers resolved to offer Denmark to Frederick III as a hereditary kingdom, and called upon the nobles to concur in a joint resolution of the Rigsraad. On the 10th, after some stormy scenes, the First Estate refused and prepared to quit the Diet. Thereupon, the Opposition turned to the King. Frederick was a student and an alchemist rather than a leader of men, and at this crisis many conflicting influences were at work upon his mind. At last, relying on the army and on the citizens of Copenhagen, which was placed in a state of siege, he resolved to break the resistance of the aristocracy by armed force. The threat sufficed ; and, on October 13, Denmark became in due form of law a monarchy hereditary in both the male and the female line of the reigning House.

Meanwhile, both in Denmark and in Norway, absolutism was taking the customary means for preserving itself. Those who, like Ulfeld, might imperil the dynasty were punished with a violence born of panic. After a generation of frequent and disastrous wars, foreign policy was directed towards the preservation of peace. Frederick sought a good understanding with Gottorp and an alliance with France, which might give him security against both Gottorp and Sweden. A new administration was built up, for which talent and royalism were necessary qualifications, and which was no longer the exclusive property of the nobles. Many high offices, both civil and military, were filled by Germans. The Rigsraad received the name of Royal Council and became a Court of law. After the Swedish fashion, Colleges or Departments of State were established, and the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway were divided into districts each governed by a sheriff with a fixed salary. The central Government showed itself active, but always paternal. Essaying no social revolution, it left the nobles opulent and the commons depressed. The former soon accepted the autocracy, and the latter did not repudiate their royal ally. Offices were now open without distinction of birth; and Copenhagen, though baulked of its high ambitions, added to its privileges and doubled its population. Norway, too, gained in independence and privilege, though falling short of the height of her desires.

His ability soon gave him great influence over his master and all others with whom he came in contact. It was he who, in November, 1665, expressed in the Kongelov the autocratic ideals of the King, and who became the custodian of a document which might by its absolutism have displeased the people, and which by its rules for the succession would certainly have displeased the Queen. When, in February, 1670, Frederick III was succeeded by his son Christian V, Schumacher soon displaced the German Minister Christopher Gabel and became the real ruler of the State. A disciple of Hobbes, he inspired and facilitated the wider development of autocratic power. The Kongelov was published, and its author received a grant of arms and the title of Count of Griffenfeld -a name which Louis XIV declared to be that of one of the world's greatest Ministers. Under Griffenfeld's influence there was established a new high nobility, in which he himself accepted a place, a new order of merit, that of the Dannebrog, a new system of titles, and a new aristocracy of service. At the same time, under the impetus given by Griffenfeld and by his friend Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlöve, a son of Frederick III, the Government showed great activity at home. The finances were reformed, provision made for trade and industry, immigration facilitated, and the army reorganised so as to increase its Danish constituents and diminish the foreign. The navy became one of the largest in Europe, and Kort Adeler, the Norwegian naval hero who created it anew, found an apt pupil in Niels Juel, who was named Admiral at twenty-eight. At the same time, the administration both central and provincial was systematised, and a new Privy Council of seven members was established at its head. In Norway, under Gyldenlöve, the action of Government was equally vigorous. The seat of power remained at Copenhagen ; but in administration, defence and material well-being the land made progress during the years of peace.

Griffenfeld was sacrificed by the autocracy which he had helped to rear. From 1675 to 1679 the so-called War of Scania raged between Denmark and her Scandinavian neighbour, whose fortunes during ^fourteen years of peace may now be traced.

In 1661, when Sweden made peace at Kardis with Russia, the last and most obstinate of her foes, it became clear how vast was the advance which she had made in fifty years. When Gustavus Adolphus ascended the throne, it had just been demonstrated by war that her power was less than that of Denmark. Charles X, on the other hand, had treated Denmark as insolently as Napoleon treated Spain. With the exception of Norway, always separated from her neighbour by a broad belt of desolation, the Swedes were masters of the vast Scandinavian peninsula. Towards the south, in Pomerania and Bremen-Verden, they had secured large outworks beyond the sea, and had thus become a formidable constituent of the Empire, with the estuaries of two great German rivers in their grasp. In the east, not only did they hold provinces enough to prevent Russia from launching a boat upon the Baltic without their leave, but they had compelled Poland to renounce her claim to much that she had regarded as rightly hers. By half a century of warfare Sweden had thus acquired the unquestionable primacy of the north.

In the wider sphere of Europe, Sweden occupied a position of greater insecurity than in Scandinavia. Her outworks in Germany, for which she had striven so long, afforded her some security, but at the cost of some danger. With the city of Bremen she had already had one armed conflict, and was soon (in 1666) to enter on another. Her lands between Weser and Elbe were standing provocations to several German Princes, while those to the west of the Oder challenged others, of whom the Great Elector was the chief. The dominion of an alien race in one part of Germany affronted the whole Germanic body, and by binding the Swedes to the House of Habsburg aggravated the difficulties of their international position. In an age of rivalry between France, her old ally, and the Emperor, it was a serious matter for Sweden that she had now become a German Power. So far as Poland was concerned, it seemed as though the quarrel which had endured for two generations had been settled at Oliva. But the Baltic Provinces, inhabited inland by a turbulent native nobility and a population of serfs, offered difficulties of their own. Peace with the Tsar, moreover, could never be deemed safe so long as the Swedish empire was flung right across the path of Russian national aspiration ; and for some years it was anticipated that the treaty which had cost so much labour at Kardis would be broken. To hold the gates of Russia was, moreover, to hazard conflict with the Maritime Powers; while the Dutch were particularly sensitive to the efforts of Sweden to transfer her commerce into the hands of her own subjects.

In its dissensions and uncertainty, moreover, the administration did but reflect society in Sweden. Now, as under Christina, peace brought out the national defects. War, it has often been asserted, was at this time the most lucrative industry of Sweden. It is untrue, indeed, that in any given year the State had drawn pecuniary profit from her campaigns. Individual soldiers, such as the Wrangels, had grown rich ; but the peasants and the Treasury looked to peace for financial salvation. It is none the less true that the sole national enterprise in which Sweden excelled was war, and that peace soon made it apparent that the moral fibre of the nation had softened. Many of the nobles had become luxurious, arrogant, and rapacious. Jealous of every vestige of wealth and power in non-noble hands, they quarrelled among themselves about precedence with a violence that made every festival a likely occasion for strife. Industry and commerce, inchoate in almost everything except furniture of war, but feebly adjusted themselves to the changed conditions. There was hardly a section of the population without a long list of grievances against every other section. And, when the levies of Charles X were disbanded, the homesteads which should have supported them in time of peace were found too often to have been alienated to private persons by the Crown.

The decay of the political structure designed to sustain the army formed but part of the formidable problem with which the Regency was confronted. Despite her imposing empire and the pomp of a few great nobles, Sweden remained one of the poorest and least populous countries of Europe. Her exchequer was empty. Her bank was tottering. Her civil service had long remained unpaid. To meet the most pressing claims of the army, disbanded in 1660, the Councillors were obliged to pledge their private credit, while the sum of 30,000 dollars for the English sailors was raised by pawning the cannon from the fleet. The National Debt approached 10,500,000 dollars, at a time when Crown lands to the annual value of some millions had passed into the hands of the nobles.

Although the administration of the Regency in its early years is entitled to fair credit, yet signs were not wanting that the kingdom lacked a king. The Regents owed at least a nominal responsibility to the Council, and both Regents and Council were substantially delegates of the nobles. The familiar weaknesses of party government therefore made their appearance. Crown lands were bestowed upon the Regents and their friends, while in three years more than forty families received ennoblement. Worst of all, the Chancellor and the brother-in-law of the Queen, Count Magnus Gabriel de La Gardie, attained to an influence which only the weakest of kings would have allowed. Himself of French ancestry, La Gardie shed over the rugged Swedish Court something of the lustre of Versailles. Rich, handsome and urbane, he knew no rival as an orator and as a man of feeling. All his contemporaries pronounce his talents and his person brilliant. He was the Maecenas to whom Sweden owed many of the literary and artistic achievements which mark the age. In forming and consolidating his political influence he proved adroit, while on occasion he showed himself both penetrating and energetic. But there was in him something too superficial for his station and his times. A lover of dignified ease, he would abandon politics for months together. During four months of the year 1672 he spent twelve days at Stockholm. When stoutly opposed he yielded, and in the hour of disaster he collapsed.

In 1667 Bonde died. No longer opposed by this champion of Swedish honesty and independence, La Gardie held the Treasury at his mercy. To the end of his career he never understood how facts could be too hard for graceful words; and he now turned inevitably to financial jugglery, in order to meet the heavy annual deficit. "Cease paying off' debt," he urged, "and borrow, anticipate, take foreign subsidies ; and not a doit of deficit will remain."

Warning voices were heard in opposition to a policy so ruinous in time of peace. Per Brahe, the quasi-monarch of mid-Sweden, urged retrenchment, but in vain. Year by year, the finances grew more involved, until at last their chaos spread to the department of foreign affairs. Bonde had struggled hard to keep expenditure within the limits of revenue and had even contrived to pay off a small part of the debt. In 1667, however, a Commission reported a deficit of over three million dollars-the result largely of the gifts, exemptions, and privileges lavished by the Regency upon themselves and their supporters. It was under the pressure of financial necessity, which Regency, Council, and Diet would make no sacrifice to meet, that in 1672 La Gardie embarked Sweden on the venture, equally dishonest and disastrous, of an alliance with France.

The Treaty with France had still nearly ten years to run when, in December, 1672, Charles XI became of age to govern. For a time, his reign seemed to be merely a prolongation of the Regency. Though the Estates were disposed to take a far less favourable view, the young King received the report of the Regents with a grateful declaration that they and their heirs were for ever freed from further indictment on account of their actions.

The sovereignty, though in name no longer fettered, had passed to a youth so untutored that later generations believed him still unable to read or write, and so shy that a foreign ambassador declared it cruelty to make him speak. His enthusiasm was for field-sports, especially for mimic war. In all else, La Gardie, his uncle, seemed to be his tutor. Under such auspices, Sweden advanced gaily along the road to ruin. In the Swedish polity, however, it was impossible that any change connected with the throne should remain void of constitutional effect. Two grave consequences swiftly resulted from the majority of the King. La Gardie, rejoicing to govern through a docile youth instead of through a fickle assembly of forty members, began to withdraw portions of public business from the consideration of the full Council, and to transact them with the King and a few Councillors and Secretaries. Thus the Chancellor's dislike of criticism and the King's of ceremony caused a royal Cabinet to come into being. More immediately apparent, however, was the influence of the King in the departments of revenue and of war. A soldier cherishing a deep reverence for the royal office, Charles found himself a King who could neither borrow money, nor pay his servants-nor provide for the support of his army in time of peace. Unhampered by that regard for persons which had hitherto rendered it almost ineffective, he turned naturally to the "Reduction" (the origin of which has been explained in an earlier volume) to banish such infamy. Incited by the rough giant John Gyllenstierna, he pressed the claims of the Crown with so much vigour that in 1674« nearly 3000 homesteads were recovered. Many of these were assigned to the support of the army and navy ; but even more important than the immediate relief to the services was the demonstration of the power of the Estates to decree, and of the Crown to procure, relief for the penury of the State at the expense of private persons.

France into a war which she desired to avoid, and which she was to prove herself beyond all expectation incompetent to conduct. The young King, who had been trained for war and not for peace, dreamed of leading Swedish troops to fresh victories on German soil. La Gardie, corrupted by French gold, still hoped to gain subsidies by a show of arming. But the nation, heroically ready for sacrifice on behalf of its religion or its independence, loathed the conflict into which it was now betrayed. La Gardie raised an army which Sweden could not maintain unassisted, in order to receive without fighting subsidies which Louis soon refused to pay on these terms. In vain the duped Chancellor struggled to break through the net in which he had enmeshed his country. He tried to induce England to mediate for peace, Louis to change his policy, Holland to purchase Swedish neutrality, and the Great Elector to desist from war. As Feuquières had foreseen, however, the army transported to Swedish Pomerania to menace the Emperor was soon compelled, by lack of supplies, to cross the frontier of Brandenburg, so that in December, 1674, Sweden found herself at war with the Great Elector, the Emperor's ally. She sought in vain an alliance with Denmark ; and, six months later, the Dutch joined the number of her foes.

The events of 1674 had shown the depths to which Swedish diplomacy had sunk since the days of Axel Oxenstierna. The campaign of 1675 was to show that Swedish strategy had sunk as low since the days of Charles X. The Council was for giving foreign Powers the least possible offence, while Wrangel, though full of martial ardour, was no longer capable of constructing a plan of operations. Midsummer was scarcely past, when the slow uncertain movements of the Swedish forces were rudely interrupted by the Great Elector's victory at Fehrbellin, described elsewhere, which at one blow changed the position of Sweden in Germany. For a quarter of a century to come, the military prestige of Sweden was shattered. Wrangel's army sank to 7000 men; and, unless a new host could cross the sea to his assistance, the whole of Pomerania was lost. Christian V suddenly overwhelmed the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and declared war upon Charles XI. La Gardie fell into a political stupor. The Estates, assembled at Upsala, plucked up courage to call in question the policy of the Regents. Confronted by the prospect of an investigation, the Council showed itself timorous and divided. Per Brahe declared with tears that, though he had been at forty Diets, he had never heard the like; but the King undertook to comply with the wish of the Estates. At Michaelmas they dispersed, having placed a powerful weapon in the hands of the monarchy, and having voted men and money to the utmost of their ability.

During two eventful years the fate of Sweden hung upon the struggle in Scania. Its earliest phase revealed the revolution in the comparative strength of the combatants which sixteen years of autocracy on the one side and aristocracy on the other had brought about. Instead of besieging Copenhagen, the Swedes were compelled to despatch troops in all haste to man their decaying fortresses, and to withdraw the remnant of the army, less than 6000 strong, out of the invaders' reach. While one force marched south from Norway under Gyldenlöve and another landed at Ystad in southernmost Sweden, Duke John Adolphus of Holstein-Plön crossed the Sound with 14,000 men. He soon proved his own quality and that of his men by capturing Landskrona, an invaluable base of operations, and by storming in two hours the fortress of Kristianstad, which was reputed impregnable. These successes made Scania once more a Danish province. The exulting peasants fell upon the estates and other property of the Swedish nobles and officials, and began a bitter guerilla warfare which Charles found it well-nigh impossible to extinguish.

King, however, was determined not to quit Scania without a battle. At last, on the night of December 3, the vigilance of the Danes relaxed and they found themselves compelled to fight near Lund. A confused and desperate struggle ensued. Helmfelt and Charles, who fought like a hero of old, crushed the Danish left under King Christian, but rode so far in pursuit that their weary comrades of the centre and left were brought to the verge of destruction. Gyllenstierna and Feuquières fled from what seemed to be a lost battle, but the troops bravely stood their ground until the King cut his way back to them and gained a complete victory. Nearly half the combatants, 5000 Danes and 3000 Swedes, had fallen, and Charles captured 2000 men with the Danish camp and artillery.

The victory of Lund rescued the Swedes from a well-nigh desperate plight and led to the recovery of Helsingborg, Kristianopel, and Karl-shamn. Above all, it made Charles XI the hero of the army and of the nation. Scania, however, was by no means regained. The Danes still held Landskrona and Kristianstad. No severity could stamp out the guerilla warfare. A victorious invasion by the Norwegians under Gyldenlöve assisted the Danes. In May, 1677, Christian took the field with 12,000 men, while the Swedes had less than half that number in the field. The strategy of Charles was still to march straight at the enemy, sword in hand ; and, but for a mysterious error on the part of his opponent, he must have been crushed. When wiser counsels prevailed on both sides, the Danes found themselves masters of central and southern Scania; and in June and July the victories of Niels Juel off Femern and in the bay of Kjöge confirmed their command of their sea. But Malmö remained Swedish ; its assailants fell out among themselves ; a great assault failed ; and at the end of June the Danes were compelled to abandon a siege which had cost them some 4000 men. These losses contributed greatly to give Charles the victory in a pitched battle near Landskrona (July 14), when, after eight hours1 fighting, he drove the Danes from a field where 3000 of their number had fallen. After this disaster, Christian was content to stand on the defensive near Landskrona, and actually detached some 5000 men to help the Great Elector in Pomerania and Kugen. In spite of the continual guerilla warfare and the dangerous incursions which Gyldenlöve and his Norwegians renewed in 1677 and 1678, the mainland had been saved by the victories of the Swedish King.

Power that could promise advantages to Sweden. While the ambassador offered to betray France, his master most obstinately insisted that the French should invade Germany in order to compel the restoration to Sweden of every acre that she had lost. The issue deeply wounded Charles XL In February, 1679, France and Sweden made up their quarrel with the Emperor and the Empire, and Louis and Leopold undertook to mediate between the northern Powers. The former, acting as the self-constituted guardian of Sweden, at the same time made peace at Celle between Charles XI and the three Brunswick-Lüneburg Dukes. The disgusted monarch, whose subsequent severe illness was attributed to chagrin, was powerless to resist, and next month averted a similar slight by coming to terms with the Bishop of Münster. The greatest boon, peace with the Great Elector, was however flung to Sweden by Louis XIV. At the end of June, 1679, by the Peace of Saint-Germain, she recovered all her possessions in Pomerania except a strip of territory on the right bank of the Oder.

Two months later, although Jens Juel and Gyllenstierna were negotiating in the cathedral at Lund, Louis dealt with Christian V as he had dealt with the Great Elector. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Denmark restored her conquests to Sweden and received only an insignificant sum of money in exchange. Finally, in October, the state of nominal war between Sweden on the one hand and Spain and the Dutch on the other was brought to an end.

Halmstad early in 1678, demands for a new "Reduction" had been heard, and the Estates had laid before the King a statement of the faults and infirmities from which the constitution of the realm was suffering. At the same time every possible rival to the monarchy had been swept away by the War. La Gardie, the high nobility, and the Council were discredited or paralysed. War had made Charles XI virtually a dictator ; and the nation, save perhaps a few great nobles, looked expectantly towards a King who might maintain the same ascendancy in times of peace.

No period illustrates better than the years 1675 to 1697 the truth that the history of Sweden has been the history of her Kings. It was Charles XI who transformed the Swedish Crown, created Charles XII and bequeathed them to each other. Having rescued the State by force of arms, he remoulded her by laws and administration. His heir he endowed with many of his own qualities, trained in his own school, and invested with the purple mantle of absolutism. Yet the personal life of the King who raised monarchy so high was that of a peasant. For months together he dwelt remote from his capital and inaccessible to all save a few Ministers and servants. The French ambassador, who more than once stalked the royal quarry to his lair, got little profit by intruding upon a Prince who rivalled Louis XIV in kingly pride. Charles delighted in feverish rides of fiom seventy to ninety miles in a day ; and in his wide and sparsely peopled realm these could be performed almost in solitude. On the parade ground, where few words save those of command were needed, he gladly played his part, and was wont to hew asunder faulty harness with his own sword. But the usages and pleasures of society he detested ; he was married on an obscure manor, and forbade all festivity at the birth of his first-born son. He preferred a written petition to an audience, and a midnight drive into Stockholm to torch-bearers and triumphal arches. Thus few of his contemporaries enjoyed an opportunity of penetrating his mind or estimating his capacity. To some he seemed a stupid, gullible tyrant ; to others, the wise and resolute father of his people-and neither view can be pronounced wholly wrong.

At the close of the War, Charles found the Council discredited, Sweden half-ruined, and himself the hope of the nation. Under these conditions he met the Estates at Stockholm in October, 1680. The Diet of 1680, followed by that of 1683, was to effect nothing less than the transformation of Sweden from a limited to an absolute monarchy. This revolution appears to have been thought out beforehand, facilitated by the appointment of formidable nobles to posts overseas, and accomplished by parliamentary strategy. Feuquières observed that the Guards were quartered in Stockholm, while five or six thousand men, chiefly under Livonian or foreign officers, lay close at hand. The whole movement was directed by a King whose nature impelled him, in debate, in negotiation, and in war alike, to rush straight towards his unconcealed goal. Charles was indeed not destitute of advisers. Gyllenstierna, with his plans for an army of 80,000 men and an alliance with Denmark, had doubtless sowed fruitful seeds in his mind. Louis XIV had counselled him to remain in the background and merely to accept the profitable proposals of the Estates. Klas Fleming, as strenuous as the King in the public service and an able opponent of the high nobles, obeyed the royal command to act as president (Landtmarskallt) of the First Estate, and must have stood in relations of peculiar intimacy with his master. Hans Wachtmeister, the most conspicuous of a group of old comrades in war whom Charles always trusted, was regarded as expressing in his many and passionate speeches ideas at least acceptable to the King. It is difficult, however, to resist the conclusion that the victorious result must be ascribed to Charles himself, and that its secret lay, not in craft and astuteness, but in a will firm even to fanaticism, an unbounded sense of duty, and the irresistible logic of the situation.

Thus aided, the Crown obtained its ends with unprecedented thoroughness and speed. The familiar torpor of the executive, indeed, afforded no clue to the pace of the deliberative assembly of Sweden. The Council had been wont to break off for months together, and when it was nominally in session an attendance of two, or even of one, of the forty members was not unknown. Feuquières complained that to procure the transaction by it of a piece of business was as hard as to make two Popes and three Kings of Poland. Ten years after the death of Gyllenstierna, the correct basis on which to calculate his salary as ambassador was still in question. The Estates, on the other hand, unhampered by complex forms of procedure, anxious to return to their homes, confronted with simple questions to which their class interests suggested the answer, and in a sense presided over by the Crown, were ready to sanction the most weighty enactments in a few days. The King first asked for means to establish the independence of the State, and Hans Wachtmeister declared to his brother nobles that this could be accomplished without a new grant, if only the Regents were brought to book. A storm of conflicting passions was thus let loose; but within six days Charles and the Estates had decreed that those persons or their heirs who had been responsible for the government during the minority should be tried by a Great Commission. This body, which was appointed on October 26, 1680, and took the place of the Commission of enquiry appointed in 1675, consisted of nine members from each of the four Estates chosen by that Estate in concert with the Crown. The fortunes of 118 great Houses depended on its deliberations.

While the great Houses were thus enduring the blows of the Great Commission, they were exposed to still heavier chastisement from the Commission of Reduction, which the King likewise inspired and over which the untiring Klas Fleming presided until his death in 1685. The great surrender of 1680 had been made by the nobles in the full expectation that this would be the final sacrifice exacted from them by the Crown. At the Diet which met at Stockholm in October, 1682, they were undeceived. Many of the great Houses had now been laid low. Their latifundia were reverting to the Crown. The Council of the Realm had become, in composition and in name alike, a Royal Council. But the hostility of the non-noble Estates remained unquenched, and they clamoured for a further Reduction as the only means of paying the debts of the State. As in 1680, therefore, both sides were brought to commit all authority over the Reduction and much else into the willing hands of the King. From this Diet Charles emerged a full-fledged autocrat. He claimed, with slender limitations, the right to make laws, to order the succession, to abolish freedom of speech, to levy taxes, to direct education,administration and the Church, and under one or another branch of the Reduction to repudiate most of the debts due from the Crown to its subjects, while appropriating most of their property at will. At the same time, a standing army was in contemplation which, when complete, would render the King wholly independent of the Estates. Sweden, it seemed, in guarding against oligarchy, had abjured her ancient freedom.

Under the guidance of Oxenstierna, he had, in September, 1681, joined with the Dutch in the so-called Hague Treaty of Guarantee, by which the two Powers engaged to defend for twenty years the Treaties of Westphalia and Nymegen, which were then being violated by Louis XIV. Despite the efforts of the French party at Stockholm to overthrow the Minister, his policy of diplomatic opposition to France as the disturber of Europe continued to prevail. Swedish troops played so limited a part in the War of the Grand Alliance that Charles XI could act as mediator in the negotiations for its close.

In internal affairs, Sweden derived benefit from a foreign policy which often appeared cowardly and insincere. In many branches of the national life progress became possible. Although Church and State were uniting to massacre witches, and although the King was too ignorant and too practical to play the patron, science, literature and art flourished as never before in Sweden. The nation seemed to be struggling to fit itself for the great position which it owed to the fortune of war and politics. It strove to incorporate with itself the non-German provinces which it had won, and at the same time to increase the strength and culture which afforded the only basis of empire. In education, in worship, and in law, Scania was made Swedish. The serfs of Livonia were safeguarded against the nobles, at a time when the Reduction was pressing upon that province with a severity which drove Patkul to rebellion. A national army and a national fleet grew up ; yet the revenue exceeded the yearly needs of the State. But all initiative came from the Crown, and every class was taught to look to the King alone. The Council had become a law-court, the Diet an echo, while the governmental offices or Collegia, which were now regularly paid, fell into the position of unambitious instruments of the royal will. The ascendancy of the great nobles had vanished with their estates. Charles succeeded, moreover, where the great Gustavus had failed, in bridling the Church. In 1686 a new Ecclesiastical Law enforced the supremacy of the State, and the King took care to make this supremacy real. A new Swedish service-book, catechism, hymn-book, and Bible were the fruits of his zeal for reform.

For industry and commerce Charles did all that benevolent despotism could accomplish. By incessant journeys of inspection he gained insight into the resources of the land and the needs of the people. He preserved peace, improved the administration of justice, began a revision of the law, and resorted to the well-known contrivances of the Mercantilists for creating trade by legislation, and for preserving Sweden for the Swedes. The industries which made the greatest advance were however those of cloth, iron and shipbuilding, which supplied the needs of the King's greatest creations-the army and the fleet.

The first years of autocracy were thus for Sweden years of activity, order, and growth. Yet even under the sway of Charles XI many of the familiar vices of absolutism made their appearance. Personally the most unassuming of mankind, Charles claimed and obtained for his office the most subservient renunciation of popular freedom. He could pardon a drunkard who gave battle to the royal suite, but he could not pardon criticism of his father's testament recorded a quarter of a century before. Ruling with the aid of a few secretaries and friends, he became the unconscious centre of faction and of intrigue. The Reduction, which gave rise to a regular government department and added some two and a half million dollars to the annual revenue, developed into an offensive tyranny. No land except such as could be proved to have never belonged to the Crown was secure against confiscation, and small inquisitorial commissions were despatched to determine whose inheritance should be taken and whose left. As was almost inevitable, corruption spread. In a year and a half (1701-a) the family of Königsmarck expended a sum equivalent to nearly ,£6000 of our money in bribing the officials of the Reduction. Charles had solved the problem of dealing with the great nobles ; but he bequeathed to Sweden the still greater problem of settling the position and powers of the Crown.

After the Peace of 1679, however, the need of the Treasury and the ambition of the King prompted a reorganisation of the country. In area and in social structure, Denmark had been rapidly transformed. The financial basis of the army was now reconstructed, and the land underwent a survey which facilitated a revised scheme of taxation, the most scientific in Europe. Despite the opposition of the clergy, Huguenots were brought in with the right to non-Lutheran worship. Trade and industry were overwhelmed with government regulations. Most famous of all, in 1683 there was published the " Danish Law of King Christian V"- a codification compiled under Frederick III and revised under his successor -and from this Code, which was common to all the provinces, both autocracy and popular convenience gained much. These reforms were in part the work of new men. The bureaucracy, composed largely of German burghers, was gaining rank and influence. The punishment of Olaf Rosenkrans for his Apologia nobilitatis Daniae (1681) bore witness to the decline of the old nobility, while the influence exercised by the incorruptible aristocrat Jens Juel from the close of the War to 1697 proved that autocracy was not entirely dependent on its creatures.

It was the Gottorp question which, as a matter of fact, determined the policy of Denmark. Christian desired nothing better than a double marriage between his children and those of Charles XI, provided that his designs on Gottorp were thereby furthered. In default of an understanding with Sweden, however, he was ready to incite Tsar Peter against her Baltic provinces, and to intrigue with her famine-stricken peasants and with the victims of the Reduction. In 1697, when a Regency came into power at Stockholm, he sent into the territory of the Duke an army which demolished his new fortifications. The attitude of Sweden and of the numerous enemies of France compelled him to recall the troops, and next year Duke Frederick married Hedwig Sophia, the favourite sister of Charles XII. The issue of this marriage, male or female, would stand dangerously near the Swedish throne. Frederick, moreover, became Swedish generalissimo in Germany, and proceeded to restore his fortifications with Swedish aid. Christian accordingly continued his negotiations with the Tsar and lent an ear to the adventurous proposals of his nephew, Augustus II of Poland. Patkul thus found abundant material for a conflagration of the North.

The intimacy between Charles XII and Duke Frederick constituted a standing menace to Denmark. In August, 1699, another active young autocrat, Frederick IV, succeeded his father at Copenhagen. A defensive treaty with the Tsar had been signed on the previous day, and, early in November, Augustus, Peter and Frederick agreed to make a combined attack upon the Swedish empire. In the spring of 1700 this design ripened into the great Northern War, the course of which is related elsewhere. The part played in it by Denmark may therefore be traced here very briefly ; while an account of the peaceful activities of Frederick IV is reserved for a future chapter.

The Peace of Traventhal marked another failure on the part of Denmark to curb Gottorp and Sweden, but failed to cut the roots of their hostility. With the House of Gottorp the King of Denmark remained in a state of perpetual friction, and the alliance of that House with Sweden and Brunswick-Luneburg survived the death of Duke Frederick on the field of Klissow (July 19, 1702). By forming a militia, by hiring out his mercenaries to fight against Louis XIV, by diplomatic efforts and by care for the finances, the King prepared for a struggle which seemed inevitable, while the prospect of it was rendered doubly formidable by the triumphs of Charles XII.

In 1708, however, the Swedish army was entangled in Russia. Frederick, a self-indulgent prince, who -nas more than once guilty of bigamy, ventured to seek his pleasure in Italy for the winter. At this time Peter was clamouring for Danish help and the coalition of 1700 seemed likely to be revived. On his way homeward Frederick visited Saxony and came to an agreement with Augustus II (June, 1709). The two Kings bound themselves, conditionally upon the cooperation of the Tsar, to take up arms for the full restitution of their Polish and Scandinavian dominions. According to the published articles, Germany was to remain undisturbed ; but a secret agreement provided for the annexation of part at least of Schleswig-Holstein and of Poland.

The confederates, however, failed to secure either an offensive alliance with Frederick I of Prussia or money from the Tsar. It was, moreover, hardly to be expected that the Maritime Powers would be more ready than in the days of Frederick III to tolerate a Danish empire on both shores of the Sound. Frederick's treasury was by no means full, nor was his army strong enough to assure a victorious invasion of Sweden. It might well happen, as so often in the history of the north, that the Swedes would gain compensation from their neighbours for disasters further afield. These arguments for peace were urged upon Frederick both in the Council Chamber and from the pulpit. A war party however existed, an autocrat was in power, and after Poltawa the verdict was for war. In October, 1709, Frederick and the Tsar entered into an alliance to confine Sweden within her rightful boundaries. Next month 15,000 men under Count Reventlow crossed the Sound, bearing upon their ammunition waggons the motto "Aut nunc auf nunquam? This improvised expedition met with well-deserved failure. The men were ill-found and ill-paid; no simultaneous invasion from Norway came to pass; Reventlow fell ill; and, in March, 1710, Magnus Stcnbock and his Swedes crushed the whole enterprise at Helsingborg.

Frederick, indeed, trusting in the traditional Danish superiority at sea, planned to bring a Russian corps to Zealand and to renew the attack in the autumn. In a series of naval movements, however, Hans Wachtmeister proved that his own work and that of Charles XI had made the Swedish fleet strong enough to frustrate the enterprise. Next year (1711) the Plague, which carried off more than one-third of the inhabitants of Copenhagen, paralysed the Northern War.

At this time, however, thanks to the imprudence of Charles XII, the Danes received encouragement on all hands to attack the Swedish possessions on their own side of the sea. The War therefore assumed a new form. While Norway cooperated by descents upon southern Sweden, and the Danish fleet strove to regain the command of the sea, the Danes, Saxons, and Russians invaded the scattered Swedish provinces in northern Germany.

In September, 1712, the Danes, with the help of the Saxon artillery, captured Stade and seized the whole of Bremen and Verden. Meanwhile Stralsund was attacked by all three allies, until in September Stenbock arrived there with more than 16,000 men at his disposal. To destroy this army must be the condition of further progress by the allies. It fell to Frederick, assisted by the Saxon cavalry, to make the first attempt; but Stenbock gained a great victory at Gadebusch (December, 1712). Frederick thereupon threatened to make peace, if Peter would not join him in Holstein, where the victor of Gadebusch threatened to repeat the exploits of Charles X. The Tsar obeyed the summons ; and Stenbock, who had found shelter in the Gottorp fortress of Tönning, was imprisoned there by the forces of the three allies. In May, 1713, he capitulated to Frederick with some 11,000 men at Oldensworth. The Danes did not fully carry out the terms of the capitulation, which, ow-ing to the anxiety of their allies to depart, were favourable to Sweden. Stenbock and many of his troops were imprisoned until death or peace set them free.

So long as Charles XII lived, however, a hard frost in the Sound might expose Copenhagen to the vengeance which it now became his fixed idea to wreak on his hereditary foes. Failing Denmark, he, in the winter of 1715-6, turned against Norway, and occupied the town of Christiania, but was driven from the fortress by the arrival of help from Denmark. At Frederikshald, on the border, he again met with a stout resistance; and in July a brilliant feat of the Norwegian naval hero Tordenskiold, who captured or destroyed 44 Swedish ships, compelled him to retreat.

Again, in the summer of 1716, Frederick contemplated invading Scania with Russian help, and a combined army more than 50,000 strong prepared to cross the Sound. In the autumn, however, the Tsar, perhaps fearing both the might of Charles and the treachery of Frederick, abandoned the enterprise; nor could he be induced to resume it. His defection alienated George I ; and, while Charles was preparing a mighty army, Frederick could no longer reckon upon his allies for aggrandisement or even for defence.

In 1717 he despatched Tordenskiold against Swedish harbours, but without success ; and next year the storm broke upon the outnumbered and ill-found Norwegians. The death of Charles in December, 1718, rescued Norway from peril and made it possible once more to negotiate with Sweden for peace.

The Swedes, however, were far from willing to purchase peace from Denmark. In 1719, Frederick made yet another campaign, in which he led a Norwegian invasion in person, while Tordenskiold with mingled audacity and good fortune captured the port of Marstrand and its strong fortress of Karlsten. Frederick, however, did not follow up this success.

The defection of George and Frederick William, and his own strained relations with Peter the Great threatened to leave Frederick alone face to face with Sweden. Thus his only hope of profit lay in a speedy peace. To gain Schleswig, he therefore accepted the mediation of England and France. In July, 1720, by the Treaty of Frederiks-borg, his old boundaries were confirmed, while Sweden recognised his possession of Schleswig, which was guaranteed to him by Great Britain and France. He further received from Sweden 600,000 dollars and a renunciation of her exemption from the Sound Dues. Two great wars had thus established in Scandinavia an even balance of power.