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326 VII. TIME OF FREEDOM AND NEOLOGY.
4. NEW LIFE IN THE CHURCH IN THE SO-CALLED "
TIME
OF FREEDOM." POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE
DEATH OF CHARLES XII. WEAK REIGNS OF
FREDERICK OF HESSE (1718 1751) AND ADOL-
PHUS FREDERICK (1751 1771). NEW LIFE.
SVEN BALTER. JAKOB SERENIUS. ANDERS
NOHRBORG. ANDERS ELFVING IN SK&NE. PER
FjELLSTROM AND PER H6GSTROM IN LAPLAND.
IRREGULARITIES IN ORDINATION BY SUPERINTEN
DENTS AND OTHERS.
The death of the heroic Charles XII. in 1718, at the
early age of thirty-six, made a very great change in the
political situation. Sweden, from being one of the lead
ing powers of Europe, sank back exhausted to take a lower
place. It lost in a short time nearly all its new possessions,
and only retained the southern provinces, which it had re
covered from Denmark, and Swedish Pomerania, which
it kept until i8i5.
15
Finland, an older possession, also
remained in great part Swedish up till 1809, when the
necessity of an alliance with Russia against Napoleon
forced the cession of the Grand Duchy and the island of
Aland, right opposite Stockholm, to that powerful neigh
bour.
The death of Charles not only left Sweden without a
king and leader, it left it without a proper heir to the
throne. This was an opportunity for the nobility, or
rather the Council of State, to regain something of the
power of which Charles XL had deprived them. They
made a compact with the younger sister of Charles XII.,
Ulrica Eleonora, the younger, that she and then her hus
band, a Hessian prince, should reign in the place of the
dead elder sister s (Hedvig Sophia s) son, another German
16
Cp. Betydelsen for Sveriges utveckling af i6oo-talets
Krigspolitik af Ellen Fries, Fil. Dr., in Heimdal s Folkskrifter,
1898. This is an interesting sketch which I wish I had room
to quote.
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