Charles XI

Charles XI (born Nov. 24, 1655, Stockholm—died April 5, 1697, Stockholm) was the king of Sweden who expanded royal power at the expense of the higher nobility and the lower estates, establishing an absolutist monarchy that ended only with the death of Charles XII in 1718.

Charles, the only son of Charles X Gustav and Hedvig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, was only five years old when he succeeded his father in 1660. A regency was established under which the higher nobility gained control of the government and blocked the repossession of alienated crown lands. Although Charles came of age in 1672, the regents continued to control foreign policy; they drew Sweden into the Dutch War of 1672–78 at the behest of King Louis XIV of France, with whom they had signed a treaty of alliance. Charles assumed control of the armies and the administration after the Swedish defeat at Fehrbellin by the forces of the electorate of Brandenburg in 1675, which encouraged Denmark to invade its former province of Skåne in Sweden.

Charles XI’s defeat of the Danes in 1678 led to the Treaty of Lund (1679), by which Denmark gave up its claim to Skåne. The alliance of the two nations in opposition to Dutch commercial influence in the Baltic was sealed by Charles XI’s marriage to Ulrika Eleonora (1680), sister of King Christian V of Denmark. By the treaties of Nijmegen (1678–79), which marked the end of the Dutch War, Sweden was able to keep nearly all of its German possessions.

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Charles and his new advisers then determined to keep Sweden free from foreign subsidy treaties. The Riksdag (parliament) of 1680 renewed in full force the repossession of alienated crown lands, and by the end of Charles XI’s reign the crown had increased its holdings in Sweden–Finland from less than 1 percent to more than 30 percent of all lands. The repossession of royal lands in the trans-Baltic provinces accounted for more than half of the increase in the King’s income. The enlarged state income allowed the establishment of a fixed budget that paid for 25,000 hired troops, as well as of a civil administration that also had control over churches and schools, a national army of 40,000 men, and a new navy to compete with Denmark’s. In 1693 Charles was granted unrestricted power by the estates to implement and safeguard his reforms.

In foreign affairs Charles and his principal advisers saw a balance of power among France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, and England as the best protection for Swedish interests. Sweden concluded a treaty with the Dutch (1681) against Louis XIV. Charles also felt threatened by the personal union of England and the United Provinces begun under William III in 1688, and he maintained Sweden’s virtual neutrality during the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97).

Although Denmark and Sweden cooperated during the war to protect their merchant shipping, Charles nearly provoked war with Denmark in 1689 when he supported the claims of the duke of Holstein-Gottorp in Schleswig-Holstein. Shortly before his death Charles arranged for the continuation of his dynastic ties with the House of Holstein-Gottorp and served, though he had little effective power, in his cherished role of mediator at the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697), which concluded the War of the Grand Alliance.