Sweden - Becky Ohlsen [9]
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King Gustav III wrote his own plays and frequently arrived at formal dinners in fancy dress, to the horror of his more conservative courtiers.
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RISE OF THE SWEDISH STATE
Olof Skötkonung was the first king to rule over both the Sveas and the Gauts, creating the kernel of the Swedish state. During the 12th and 13th centuries, these united peoples mounted a series of crusades to Finland, Christianising the country and steadily absorbing it into Sweden.
Royal power disintegrated over succession squabbles in the 13th century. The medieval statesman Birger Jarl (1210–66) rose to fill the gap, acting as prince regent for 16 years, and founding the city of Stockholm in 1252.
King Magnus Ladulås (1240–90) introduced a form of feudalism in 1280, but managed to avoid its worst excesses. In fact, the aristocracy were held in check by the king, who forbade them from living off the peasantry when moving from estate to estate.
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In his private diaries from May to October 1785, when he was 37 years old, King Karl XIII apparently doodled a number of small illustrations of the male reproductive organ.
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Magnus’ eldest son Birger (1280–1321) assumed power in 1302. After long feuds with his younger brothers, he tricked them into coming to Nyköping castle Click here, where he threw them into the dungeon and starved them to death. After this fratricidal act, the nobility drove Birger into exile. They then chose their own king of Sweden, the infant grandson of King Haakon V of Norway. When Haakon died without leaving a male heir, the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden were united (1319).
The increasingly wealthy church began to show its might in the 13th and 14th centuries, commissioning monumental buildings such as the domkyrka (cathedral) in Linköping (founded 1250; Click here), and Scandinavia’s largest Gothic cathedral in Uppsala (founded 1285; Click here).
However, in 1350 the rise of state and church endured a horrific setback when the Black Death swept through the country, carrying off around a third of the Swedish population. In the wake of the horror, St Birgitta (1303–73) reinvigorated the church with her visions and revelations, and founded a nunnery and cathedral in Vadstena, which became Sweden’s most important pilgrimage site.
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HANSEATIC LEAGUE & THE UNION OF KALMAR
A strange phenomenon of the time was the German-run Hanseatic League, a group of well-organised merchants who established walled trading towns in Germany and along the Baltic coast. In Sweden they built Visby and maintained a strong presence in the young city of Stockholm. Their rapid growth caused great concern around the Baltic in the 14th century: an allied Scandinavian front was vital. Negotiated by the Danish regent Margrethe, the Union of Kalmar (1397) united Denmark, Norway and Sweden under one crown.
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On his death, it was discovered that Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (king of Sweden for 26 years) had a tattoo that read ‘Death to kings!’
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Erik of Pomerania, Margrethe’s nephew, held that crown until 1439. High taxation to fund wars against the Hanseatic League made him deeply unpopular and he was eventually deposed. His replacement was short-lived and succession struggles began again: two powerful Swedish families, the unionist Oxenstiernas and the nationalist Stures, fought for supremacy.
Out of the chaos, Sten Sture the Elder (1440–1503) eventually emerged as ‘Guardian of Sweden’ in 1470, going on to fight and defeat an army of unionist Danes at the Battle of Brunkenberg (1471) in Stockholm.
The failing Union’s death-blow came in 1520: Christian II of Denmark invaded Sweden and killed the regent Sten Sture the Younger (1493–1520). After granting a full amnesty to Sture’s followers, Christian went back on his word: 82 of them were arrested, tried and massacred in Stockholm’s main square, Stortorget in Gamla Stan, which ‘ran with rivers of blood’.
The brutal ‘Stockholm Bloodbath’ sparked off a major rebellion under the