Total

206,924 100,455 208,758 122,784 104,783

.170,664 4,565,668 4,784,675

The state religion is that of the Lutheran Church, ruled by twelve bishops, of whom the Bishop of Upsala ranks as primate. Except about 22,000 persons, all the population belong to the national church; but religious confession is perfectly free to every man. In the matter of education Sweden occupies an honourable position amongst the countries of Europe. Primary education is compulsory but free, and there is an excellent system of elementary schools. The illiteracy, taking the country over, is not more than 27 per cent. Various grades of secondary education are provided in more than 100 schools. Besides normal schools, schools of navigation, and technical schools, there are military, naval, artillery, veterinary, mining, agricultural, and other academies. The highest branches are provided for by the Medical Institution of Stockholm (330 pupils) and by the universities of Upsala (1880 students) and Lund (810). The percentage of illegitimate births has gone on steadily increasing all through the 19th century, from 6-14 in 1801 to 10 per cent. in 1890. The asylums contain about 11,500 idiots and insane, 4800 deaf-mutes, and 3700 blind. In the year 1888 1,031,250 savings-banks investors owned a total of £14,405,342, or an average of £13, 19s. 44d. each. About 5 per cent. of the population are recipients of poor relief.

Occupations. More than one-half of the population are dependent on agriculture and its associated callings. Ninety-nine per cent. of the farms are less than 240 acres in size, and 843 per cent. of the total do not exceed 25 acres. Between 7 and 8 per cent. only of the entire area is under cultivation, though in addition 4 per cent. is laid down as meadows. The principal crops are potatoes, oats, rye (of which the ordinary bread of the peasantry is made), barley, and wheat, beets for sugar, and roots for fodder. Gardening and fruit cultivation are somewhat neglected. There is comparatively little poultry. Some attention is given to the breeding of cattle and sheep, and both classes of animal are exported. Butter, upon the preparation of which great pains and skill are now expended,

forms one of the largest items of the national exports.

The mines give employment to 34,000 persons, of whom more than 29,000 are engaged in extracting iron, and smelting and working it. In 1889 the iron-mines, which numbered 517, produced an aggregate of 2,009,380 tons. In the same year 123 other mines yielded 20,800 tons of copper, 8650 tons of manganese, 5900 tons of zinc, 700 tons of nickel, 270 tons of cobalt, and 13,000 oz. of silver.

About 40 per cent. of the aggregate surface is forest, and of this again 60 per cent. is in Norrland. Four-fifths of the forest area is private property. Only one-twelfth of the timber cut every year in Sweden is sent abroad; the rest is used in the ironworks, and metallurgical and other industrial establishments. About one-half of the quantity exported goes to Great Britain, chiefly in the form of pit-props.

The industries of Sweden have grown very rapidly since the middle of the 19th century. Between 80,000 and 90,000 persons, of whom onefourth are vomen, are employed in the various industrial callings; and the year's results average the grand total of £11,600,000. The most important branches are ironworks, foundries, and so forth (220 establishments yielding an annual value of £1,513,400), sugar-refineries (£1,432,000), cottonspinning and weaving (£1,350,500), breweries (£688,000), tobacco-factories (£594,000), papermills (£505,600), clothing-factories (£500,000), match-factories, tanneries, papier-maché works, brickworks, distilleries, glass and porcelain works, chemical works, and woollen-yarn factories. The old domestic industries-the spinning and weaving of linen and cotton-still survive in Ångermanland (Vesternorrland) and Elfsborg.

The inhabitants of the skerry-islands and of the coast-lands are mostly fishermen. Herring and sprats are caught off the southern coast; salmon, eels, flounders, mackerel, haddock, and cod are taken off the east coast. The fisheries are worth nearly half a million sterling annually.

Sweden possesses a commercial marine of 1400 vessels of half a million tons burden. The foreign trade of the country averages annually £18,206,000 for imports and £14,291,000 for exports; the corresponding totals in 1870 were £7,500,000 and £5,000,000. The imports from Great Britain average £5,152,600, and the exports to the same country £7,071,000, though both amounts increase at a rapid rate. The most important articles of import are textiles (£5,739,800 in 1889), groceries (£3,331,600), minerals and metals (£2,731,000), machinery (£1,843,000), grain and flour (£1,628,000), hair, hides, horn, &c. (£1,207,500), and animals and animal foods (£880,000). Of the exports timber is by a long way the most important: in 1889 it was valued at £7,462,000. Next come minerals and metals, chiefly iron and steel (£2,442,400 in 1889); animal foods and animals (£2,270,326), more than one-half of the total for butter; grain and flour (£998,000), paper (£911,700), and textiles. Great Britain takes nearly half the minerals, nearly all the butter, and one-half of the grain and flour, and sends back coal (£906,000), iron, machinery, and textiles.

Government.-The executive power is vested in the hereditary king. He is advised by a council of ten members, who are responsible to the parliament. Seven of these preside one each over seven public departments (justice, foreign affairs, interior, finance, war, navy, and ecclesiastical affairs). The king shares the legislative power with the parliament (riksdag), though he possesses the right of initiative and of veto. There are two houses, which enjoy equal powers, but as a rule sit and vote separately. The members of the first house

(147) are elected by the provincial councils and the municipal councils of certain large towns, one for every 30,000 inhabitants; they sit for nine years, and receive no salary. The members of the second house (228) are returned, by direct or indirect ballot as the electors themselves determine, one for every rural district that has less than 40,000 inhabitants, two for every rural district whose population exceeds that number, and one for every 10,000 in the towns; they are paid £66 each for each session. Every elector is eligible to sit in the second house of parliament. The twenty-four provinces and the city of Stockholm are each administered by a governor and a provincial council. The communes (parishes and towns) enjoy a liberal measure of self-government through their own local councils.

Justice is administered in the towns by the municipal magistrates and in each rural district by a judge appointed by the king acting with seven to twelve (elected) local assessors, whose verdict, if unanimous, overturns the decision of the judge. Press offences alone are tried by jury. There are three courts of appeal, in Stockholm, Jönköping, and Kristianstad, besides the Royal Supreme Court of Stockholm, with sixteen judges appointed by the king.

The military forces include a standing army and a militia. The former consists of (1) men who are enlisted and remain with the colours two to six years, and (2) a class (indelta) who receive a free cottage and annual pay, but are under arms for only about one month in the year. The militia embraces all the males who are liable to conscription; they serve from their twenty-first to their thirty-third year, but are only called up for exercise for some three weeks in autumn. The militia of Gothland may not be employed out of that island. The regular army numbers about 40,000 men, the militia 173,600. In addition there are 17,000 men enrolled in free volunteer or rifle societies. The navy is made up of sixteen ironclads and gunboats, forty unarmoured steam-vessels and torpedo boats, and six training (sailing) vessels. The naval service employs 50,000 men in all.

Finance.-The national accounts were balanced at £5,275,000 in 1891; and in the same year the national debt, incurred almost wholly for railways, reached the aggregate of £14,417,000.

The weights and measures and the coinage are the same as those of Norway (q. v.).

See A. Hammar, Historiskt, geografiskt, och statistiskt Lexicon ofver Sverige (8 vols. 1859-70); Hojer, Konungariket Sverige (1875-83); Statistiskt Tidskrift (1890 and 1891). In English see W. W. Thomas, Sweden and the Swedes (1892), and books of travel by Du Chaillu and Vincent, quoted under NORWAY.

History. The earliest inhabitants of Sweden were in all probability Lapps or kindred Finnish tribes. The ancestors of the modern Swedes seem to have crossed over to the southern parts of Sweden during the stone age, according to Montelius some time before 1500 B.C. They drove the aborigines before them into the forests of the north and settled in their lands. At the dawn of the historic period Sweden was occupied by two Teutonic races, the Goths in the extreme south (Gothland) and the Swedes (Svea) in the lake-region (Svealand). Their manners and customs were the same; they spoke dialects almost identical; and their kings, elected by the freemen of the tribes, recognised as their common supreme head the priest-king of the great temple of Wodan at Sigtuna on Lake Mälar (but at Upsala from the tenth year of the Christian era. These priest-kings ruled for more than one thousand years from the Christian era. The first dynasty was that of the Ynglings; the last king of which, Ingjald Illrede (died 623), perished

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amid efforts to reduce the minor kings to the position of vassal princes. The next dynasty, that of the Skjoldungs, was founded by Ivar Vidfadme (died 647), a mighty conqueror. The most memorable of his successors were the famous Viking kings Harald Hildetand (died 735), Ragnar Lodbrok (794) Björn Jernsida (804), and Olaf Skatkonung (1026). During this long period the Swedes were in the countries round the Baltic what the Danes and Norsemen were on the shores of the North Sea (see NORTHMEN). In the 9th century, however, Scania was conquered by the Danes; and, except for certain short periods, it remained Danish down to the 17th century. Christianity was first preached in Sweden by Ansgar (q. v.) in the 9th century. From the middle of the ensuing century, for fully two hundred years, the Swedes, who clung fanatically to their heathen faith, and the Goths, who, nominally at least, professed Christianity, were generally arrayed in hostile camps. And this in spite of the fact, or rather in great part because of the fact, that an arrangement was come to by which each race should alternately elect the supreme pontiff-king at Upsala. Nor did the enmity cease after the Swedes became converted to Christianity under St Erik (IX.), whose religious zeal spurred him on to conquer great part of Finland (1155-60), a country that remained an appanage of the Swedish crown for 650 years. For the next century the Goths and Swedes had separate kings; and the clergy turned the ceaseless strife that ensued to their own account. Earl Birger, a man of great ability and conqueror of the rest of Finland, was the real ruler of the country during the reign of Erik XI. (died 1250), the last prince of the Swedish dynasty, as well as during the reign of his own son Waldemar, who was elected the first of the Folkung kings-to succeed Erik. From the accession of Waldemar the animosities of the Swedes and Goths began to subside, and they gradually melted into one nation.

In the meantime, however, a new source of internal discord had grown up: the incessant wars had fostered the growth of a strong and ambitious nobility, who, with their natural allies, the higher ecclesiastics, not only treated the peasantry with great oppression, and even cruelty, but often either warred upon their king or made him little better than a puppet in their hands. King Magnus I. (1279-90), after deposing and imprisoning his incapable brother Waldemar, governed vigorously, and on the whole justly; he promoted the interests of all classes of his subjects and taught them to respect the law. As his son Birger (1290-1319) was only eleven years of age when he was placed on the throne, the reins of government fell into the wise and able hands of Torkel Knutsson, who added considerably to the territory of Finland and at home simplified the laws. But at length the king, instigated thereto by his brothers, committed a judicial murder upon Knutsson, and began to act arbitrarily. The patriotic party rallied round Mats Ketilmundsson, who guided his country to prosperity through the remaining year or two of Birger's reign and down to his own death in the seventeenth year of the reign of Birger's nephew Magnus II. (1319-63). This sovereign suffered himself to be influenced by unworthy favourites, who involved him in profitless wars abroad and led him into odious tyranny at home. In the end his subjects deposed him and conferred the crown upon his nephew Albert of Mecklenburg (1363–97). But Albert was equally unfitted to govern the turbulent nobles of Sweden; he surrounded himself with German courtiers and soldiers, and in order to support them raised revenues by unjust means, till at length the men whose ambitions he slighted offered the crown (1389) to Margaret (q. v.) of

Denmark, wife of Haco of Norway. This caused strife again; but by the union of Calmar (1397) and the accession of Margaret's grandnephew Eric XIII. the crowns of the three Scandinavian kingdoms became united on one royal head.

During the greater part of the 13th and 14th centuries Sweden was torn by almost constant internal conflicts. Her kings were grasping of power, sometimes incapable, generally tyrannical, and often cruel. Her nobles and ecclesiastics were fierce, turbulent, and unrefined; her people ignorant and rude. Agriculture was much neglected; industry there was none; trade was monopolised by the Hanseatic merchants; literature, learning, and culture scarcely existed at all.

The Swedes' acquiescence in the union of Calmar was, however, little more than a matter of form. In their hearts all were hostile to it, and they could only be kept tolerably quiet so long as they were governed by native viceroys. Even them they frequently forced to take up arms against the Danes, and many_bloody_battles were fought; for the king of Denmark had a strong party amongst the Swedish nobles and higher ecclesiastics, whilst the people (peasantry) and certain of the nobles were enthusiastically national. The chief events of the long contest, which lasted until 1524, may be summarily related. In 1434 the peasants of Dalecarlia, the most patriotic and liberty-loving in the country, rose in revolt under a clever mine-owner, Engelbrechtsson. They were quieted by the appointment of Karl Knud son, a Swedish noble, as viceroy of Sweden, to govern in co-operation with Engelbrechtsson. On the death of King Erik's successor (Christopher), in 1448, Knudson was crowned king as Charles VIII. After reigning nine years he was driven out of the country by Christian I. of Denmark, assisted by Archbishop Bengtsson; but he returned in 1467 and reigned till his death in 1470. During the next thirty-three years Sweden was ruled, in an able and enlightened manner, by Knudson's nephew Sten Sture (q. v.). He was succeeded by his nephew Svante Sture (1503-12), and Svante by his son Sten Sture the Younger (1512-20). This ruler, as patriotic and able as his predecessors, was mortally wounded in battle with Christian II. of Denmark. That savage monarch, on 8th November 1520, for the purpose of striking terror into the hearts of the Swedish people, caused ninety-four persons, mostly of noble rank, to be massacred at Stockholm (the Blood-bath'), and followed up this atrocity by doing to death throughout the country fully five hundred more of the influential among the national party. These deeds roused the Dalecarlians to action putting themselves under the leadership of Gustavus (q. v.) Vasa, they drove the hated oppressors out of the country, crowned Gustavus king (1523), and tore (1524) to shreds the union of Calmar. The most momentous event in the reign of this the ablest prince who had yet ruled over the Swedes was the adoption of the Reformed doctrines, principally through the exertions of Olaus and Laurentius Petri (q. v.) and the deliberate policy of Gustavus, who in reforming the church took care that the clergy did not make themselves too powerful.

Gustavus so endeared himself to his subjects that they declared (1544) that the throne, instead of being elective as hitherto, should be hereditary in the House of Vasa. Accordingly on his death the crown was given to his son Eric XIV. (1560). In a reign of eight years this prince did many foolish things, and even some arbitrary and cruel acts; he was at length deposed by his brother John III. John, without openly breaking with the Protestant Church, warmly countenanced the

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Jesuits in their attempts to recover Sweden for the Roman see. His son Sigismund, who had been chosen king of Poland in 1587, and assumed the Swedish crown in 1592, pursued the same policy, but in a more undisguised and resolute manner. The Protestant party, however, rallying round Sigismund's uncle, made (1600) him King Charles IX. in his nephew's stead. Charles re-established the Lutheran creed, curtailed the privileges of the nobility, fostered mining, laid out seaports, and made the weight of his influence felt in Russia and Germany. His successor was his illustrious son Gustavus (q. v.) Adolphus (1611-32). After his heroic death at Lützen the crown passed to his daughter Christina (q. v.), though for some time the real ruler was the great Oxenstierna (q. v.). By the acquisition, through the treaty of Westphalia (1648), of the ecclesiastical domains of Bremen and Verden, and the greater part of Pomerania, Sweden became a member of the empire. Further, a war with Denmark brought to the Swedish crown certain of the Baltic islands and the three southern provinces of Sweden (Scania). But in 1654 Christina resigned the crown to her cousin Charles (X.), Palgrave of Zweibrücken. Having crushed his Polish rival of the House of Sigismund in a terrible battle near Warsaw (1656), this king finally expelled the Danes from the Swedish continent. cession of his youthful son Charles XI. in 1660 was signalised by an agreement with the Polish branch, who not only abandoned their claim to the Swedish crown, but gave up Livonia and Esthonia. In the course of an ill-advised war against Denmark and Brandenburg combined the Swedes suffered several military disasters (notably at Fehrbellin in 1675). The king, concluding peace in 1679, set himself energetically to remove the causes of this national humiliation and weakness, and at his death (1697) left his country once more prosperous and powerful. But the ancient foes of Sweden -Denmark, Poland, and Russia-deeming the accession of the youthful Charles XII. (q. v.) a favourable opportunity to recover what they had lost, made common cause against him. As Charles left no heir the nobles conferred the crown upon his sister, Ulrica Eleonore (1718-20), but utilised the opportunity to wrest much of the royal prerogative from her. The new council of state which the nobility chose from their own order made peace with the enemies of Sweden by selling to them the provinces beyond sea, e.g. Bremen and Verden to Hanover, Hither Pomerania to Prussia, and Livonia, Esthonia, Ingermanland, and Karelia to Russia. Thus Sweden fell from the rank of a first-rate power which she had held for about a century. All through the reign of Ulrica and her consort, Frederick of Hesse (crowned king in 1720), as well as throughout the long reign of the weak-kneed Adolphus Frederick (1751-71), the kingdom was dominated by the nobles, who, however, were divided into two parties, the Caps, advocates of peace and opponents of royal absolutism, and the Hats, the war party, who were infected with French ideas. Gustavus III. (q. v.), shortly after his accession, abolished the council of state and restored the constitution that had been in force before Ulrica's accession. But neither he nor his son Gustavus IV. (q. v.), in spite of all they did for Sweden, can be called a wise and successful king.

The principal figure in the reign of the next sovereign, Charles XIII. (1809-18), was the French general Bernadotte, who was adopted as heir to the Swedish crown in 1810, and the principal event the acquisition of Norway (1814). Bernadotte succeeded as Charles XIV. (q. v.) in 1818, and in a reign of twenty-six years directed his energies to such schemes as the making of roads and canals, the cultivation of barren tracts of country, the improve

ment of the finances, and the furtherance of education. An agitation for a constitutional reform, which purposed to replace the old diet of four estates by a directly elected parliament, was begun in this reign. But it was not carried until after Oscar I. (1844-59) had ceased to be king and Charles XV. (1859-72) had sat on the throne for seven years. The era of commercial and industrial activity set in in Sweden about the middle of the 19th century; and the national representatives into whose hands power passed with the new constitution the peasantry and bourgeoisie-have confined their attention to such matters as railway construction, the discussion of free trade and protection, army reform, national insurance for working-men, and so forth. Sweden has enjoyed uninterrupted peace since 1814, although she approached the brink of war with Prussia (on behalf of Denmark) in 1848, with Russia at the time of the Crimean war and again during the Polish rising of 1863, and with Prussia and Austria in 1864. Of late years, especially since 1891, some internal difficulties have arisen through the Norwegians insisting on greater independence for Norway in the foreign policy of the two kingdoms.

See Montelius, Civilisation of Sweden in Ancient Times (Eng. trans. 1888); the histories (in Swedish) by Strinnholm, Geijer, Fryxell, and Carlsson. English readers may consult Otté, Scandinavian History (Lond. 1875), and Dunham, History of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway (Lardner's Cyclopædia, 1834-35).

Literature.-Setting aside what was written in the Old Norse tongue (see ICELAND; DENMARK,

758; and RUNES), there is very little Swedish literature to record prior to the Reformation, except a few provincial law-codes, translations of French romances, folk-songs, chronicles (in Swedish and in Latin), the Visions of St Bridget, a popular work On the Conduct of Kings and Princes, and translations of parts of the Bible.

The forerunners of the national literature were Olaus and Laurentius Petri (q.v.), who brought the Reformation doctrines into Sweden, translated the Bible into good Swedish, and manifested an enlightened regard for their mother-tongue. For several years the principal books were theological and historical, such as the sermons of Matthiä (1592-1670) and Svedberg (1653-1735), which are still read. King Gustavus Adolphus founded the library at Upsala and gave direct encouragement to historical research, as by employing Schroderus (died c. 1650) to translate foreign historical works. Messenius (1579-1637) wrote an ambitious history of Sweden in Latin, and illustrated it by a series of historical plays in Swedish, that stood in high repute for more than a century. Political pamphlets and newspapers began to appear about the time of the Thirty Years' War. Bure or Buræus (1568-1652), besides constructing a fantastic scheme of universal knowledge, did sound work in Swedish mythology and language (runes).

But the title of Father of Swedish Literature' is usually accorded to Stjernhjelm (1598–1672), who composed didactic and humorous poems in the style of the classic epics. Baron Rosenhane (1619–84), in sonnets (Venerid), songs, and lyrics, composed in the manner of the French and Italian Renaissance writers, and 'Eurelius' or Dahlstjerna (1658-1709), in a patriotic epic (The King's Poet), and in heroic songs, strove to improve the current standards of literature. The Finlander Frese (1691-1728), who wrote very fair poetry, and Sweden's first satirist, Triewald (died 1743), who attacked the older writers, carry us on to Dalin (1708-63), who used his mother-tongue with an elegance and ease never previously attained. The Argus was conducted by him in the style of Addison's Spectator, and of his other works may be mentioned the witty allegories

9

Swedish Freedom and Saga about a Horse. Hedvig Nordenflycht (1718-63) won great fame by her Sorrowing Turtle-Dove, a collection of in memoriam lyrics. After Dalin's death the leading poets were Count Creutz (1729-85), a Finlander, whose pastoral idyll Atis and Camilla was long admired, and Count G. F. Gyllenborg (1731-1808), though none of his books take very high rank. In prose the most notable writers were Mörk (died 1763), author of a didactic romance in the French style, Adalrik and Göthilda; Wallenberg (1746-78), who wrote an original work of travel (My Son at the Galleys), and the best tragedy (Susanna) in the pseudo-classic style since Dalin; and Count von Höpken (1712-89), composer of elegant éloges and rhetorical addresses.

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But the strength of Swedish intellect in the 18th century seems to have been chiefly expended in the departments of science, as the following names conclusively attest-the Elder Rudbeck (1630-1702), man of universal scientific attainments and author of Atland or Manheim (in both Swedish and Latin), a book, learned, bold, imaginative, written to prove the identity of Sweden with the Paradise of the Bible as well as with the Atlantis of Plato; the Younger Rudbeck (16601740), a botanist; Celsius (1701-44), whose name is perpetuated in the thermometric scale; the traveller Forskål (1732-6); Rosén or Rosenstein (1706-73), the founder of Swedish medicine; the great Linnæus (1707-78); the chemists Bergmann (1735-84) and Scheele (1742-86); and Ihre (170780), who compiled the first Swedish dictionary. The mystic Swedenborg (1689-1772), who, however, wrote in Latin, also belongs to this period.

The golden age of Swedish literature is coincident with the reigns of Gustavus III. and IV. (1771– 1809). On its threshold stands Bellman (1740-95), an improvisatore of the highest genius. His finest work is Fredman's Epistles, songs that for gay humour and witty observation are unmatched in the language. Gustavus III., besides the direct and substantial encouragement he gave to the best literary talent amongst his subjects, founded the Swedish Academy (1786), and tried his royal hand at the drama. The foremost littérateur of his reign was Kellgren (1751-95), who made the Stockholm Post the supreme organ of literary taste in Sweden. In its pages a memorable feud was fought out between the writers of the old (Lutheran) school and the champions of revolutionary views borrowed in great part from the French encyclopædists. With this, however, a purely literary conflict was intertwined, carried on between the partisans of the pseudo-classic standards and the advocates of nature and romanticism. Kellgren, who adhered to the pseudo-classic (French) models, excelled in satiric and lyric poems: his New Creation is esteemed one of the finest poems in the language; and in conjunction with the king he composed two lyric dramas, Gustaf Vasa and Christina. Kellgren's ablest ally was Leopold (17561829), a master of polished prose, an excellent critic, and formidable and unsparing satirist, who wrote also in verse- -odes, narrative and didactic poems, and weak pseudo-classic dramas. Their principal opponent was Thorild (1759-1808), who urged his contemporaries to cultivate something besides mere form, to emancipate themselves from the trammels of rule and law, and draw inspiration_directly from nature. Nevertheless the standards of his rivals, although somewhat modified, continued for many years, chiefly through the Academy, to govern the taste of Swedish writers. Besides the three principal contestants the following participated in the fray: Rosenstein (17521824), who wrote on æsthetic and popular philosophic themes; Adlerbeth (1751-1818), author of

Denmark, wife of Haco of Norway. This caused strife again; but by the union of Calmar (1397) and the accession of Margaret's grandnephew Eric XIII. the crowns of the three Scandinavian kingdoms became united on one royal head.

During the greater part of the 13th and 14th centuries Sweden was torn by almost constant internal conflicts. Her kings were grasping of power, sometimes incapable, generally tyrannical, and often cruel. Her nobles and ecclesiastics were fierce, turbulent, and unrefined; her people ignorant and rude. Agriculture was much neglected; industry there was none; trade was monopolised by the Hanseatic merchants; literature, learning, and culture scarcely existed at all.

The Swedes' acquiescence in the union of Calmar was, however, little more than a matter of form. In their hearts all were hostile to it, and they could only be kept tolerably quiet so long as they were governed by native viceroys. Even them they frequently forced to take up arms against the Danes, and many bloody battles were fought; for the king of Denmark had a strong party amongst the Swedish nobles and higher ecclesiastics, whilst the people (peasantry) and certain of the nobles were enthusiastically national. The chief events of the long contest, which lasted until 1524, may be summarily related. In 1434 the peasants of Dalecarlia, the most patriotic and liberty-loving in the country, rose in revolt under a clever mine-owner, Engelbrechtsson. They were quieted by the appointment of Karl Knudson, a Swedish noble, as viceroy of Sweden, to govern in co-operation with Engelbrechtsson. On the death of King Erik's successor (Christopher), in 1448, Knudson was crowned king as Charles VIII. After reigning nine years he was driven out of the country by Christian I. of Denmark, assisted by Archbishop Bengtsson; but he returned in 1467 and reigned till his death in 1470. During the next thirty-three years Sweden was ruled, in an able and enlightened manner, by Knudson's nephew Sten Sture (q. v.). He was succeeded by his nephew Svante Sture (1503-12), and Svante by his son Sten Sture the Younger (1512-20). This ruler, as patriotic and able as his predecessors, was mortally wounded in battle with Christian II. of Denmark. That savage monarch, on 8th November 1520, for the purpose of striking terror into the hearts of the Swedish people, caused ninety-four persons, mostly of noble rank, to be massacred at Stockholm (the Blood-bath'), and followed up this atrocity by doing to death throughout the country fully five hundred more of the influential among the national party. These deeds roused the Dalecarlians to action putting themselves under the leadership of Gustavus (q. v.) Vasa, they drove the hated oppressors out of the country, crowned Gustavus king (1523), and tore (1524) to shreds the union of Calmar. The most momentous event in the reign of this the ablest prince who had yet ruled over the Swedes was the adoption of the Reformed doctrines, principally through the exertions of Olaus and Laurentius Petri (q. v.) and the deliberate policy of Gustavus, who in reforming the church took care that the clergy did not make themselves too powerful.

:

Gustavus so endeared himself to his subjects that they declared (1544) that the throne, instead of being elective as hitherto, should be hereditary in the House of Vasa. Accordingly on his death the crown was given to his son Eric XIV. (1560). In a reign of eight years this prince did many foolish things, and even some arbitrary and cruel acts; he was at length deposed by his brother John III. John, without openly breaking with the Protestant Church, warmly countenanced the

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Jesuits in their attempts to recover Sweden for the Roman see. His son Sigismund, who had been chosen king of Poland in 1587, and assumed the Swedish crown in 1592, pursued the same policy, but in a more undisguised and resolute manner. The Protestant party, however, rallying round Sigismund's uncle, made (1600) him King Charles IX. in his nephew's stead. Charles re-established the Lutheran creed, curtailed the privileges of the nobility, fostered mining, laid out seaports, and made the weight of his influence felt in Russia and Germany. His successor was his illustrious son Gustavus (q. v.) Adolphus (1611-32). After his heroic death at Lützen the crown passed to his daughter Christina (q. v.), though for some time the real ruler was the great Oxenstierna (q. v.). By the acquisition, through the treaty of Westphalia (1648), of the ecclesiastical domains of Bremen and Verden, and the greater part of Pomerania, Sweden became a member of the empire. Further, a war with Denmark brought to the Swedish crown certain of the Baltic islands and the three southern provinces of Sweden (Scania). But in 1654 Christina resigned the crown to her cousin Charles (X.), Palgrave of Zweibrücken. Having crushed his Polish rival of the House of Sigismund in a terrible battle near Warsaw (1656), this king finally expelled the Danes from the Swedish continent. cession of his youthful son Charles XI. in 1660 was signalised by an agreement with the Polish branch, who not only abandoned their claim to the Swedish crown, but gave up Livonia and Esthonia. In the course of an ill-advised war against Denmark and Brandenburg combined the Swedes suffered several military disasters (notably at Fehrbellin in 1675). The king, concluding peace in 1679, set himself energetically to remove the causes of this national humiliation and weakness, and at his death (1697) left his country once more prosperous and powerful. But the ancient foes of Sweden -Denmark, Poland, and Russia — deeming the accession of the youthful Charles XII. (q. v.) a favourable opportunity to recover what they had lost, made common cause against him. As Charles left no heir the nobles conferred the crown upon his sister, Ulrica Eleonore (1718-20), but utilised the opportunity to wrest much of the royal prerogative from her. The new council of state which the nobility chose from their own order made peace with the enemies of Sweden by selling to them the provinces beyond sea, e.g. Bremen and Verden to Hanover, Hither Pomerania to Prussia, and Livonia, Esthonia, Ingermanland, and Karelia to Russia. Thus Sweden fell from the rank of a first-rate power which she had held for about a century. All through the reign of Ulrica and her consort, Frederick of Hesse (crowned king in 1720), as well as throughout the long reign of the weak-kneed Adolphus Frederick (1751-71), the kingdom was dominated by the nobles, who, however, were divided into two parties, the Caps, advocates of peace and opponents of royal absolutism, and the Hats, the war party, who were infected with French ideas. Gustavus III. (q. v.), shortly after his accession, abolished the council of state and restored the constitution that had been in force before Ulrica's accession. But neither he nor his son Gustavus IV. (q. v.), in spite of all they did for Sweden, can be called a wise and successful king.

The principal figure in the reign of the next sovereign, Charles XIII. (1809-18), was the French general Bernadotte, who was adopted as heir to the Swedish crown in 1810, and the principal event the acquisition of Norway (1814). Bernadotte succeeded as Charles XIV. (q. v.) in 1818, and in a reign of twenty-six years directed his energies to such schemes as the making of roads and canals, the cultivation of barren tracts of country, the improve