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policy and nobler intentions, the conquering arms of the North to the Tiber and the Bosphorus [1]. “The
at onc aristocratic and military monarchy,” says Geijer, in the essay already quoted, “now spreads
itself forth glittering to our view under one of the world’s greatest heroes and warriors. Posterity
cannot know, scarce guess, all that to his eagle eye that monarchy was destined to be. The eagle fell,
arrested in its course. But that course had been directed towards the sun. And though war yet
rolled to and fro its bloody tide for many a year over the spot where he fell, the place is sanctified by
the triumph of light, and there is breathed the peace of mankind [2].”
“Then did the great men of Sweden,” he continues, “study to deserve the name. Sweden has not
had Axel Oxenstierna’s match in the council; and in Torstenson beyond all others lived the genius of
his master in the field. Against them and their colleagues but one reproach can justly be made. They
thought that they could establish the state of Sweden, even for the future, upon a war-footing, however
burdensome it might be to the people. Thus war became even after peace a necessity. Christina
evaded it. The hero Charles Gustavus submitted to it not unwillingly, gathering at length in his
victorious course Sweden’s most useful conquests—now all that remain to us.
“We have seen that the Swedish nobility, during the period of conquest, was representative of the
army of Sweden, which again in the world represented the kingdom of Sweden. They had at the head
of this army done good service, without forgetting their own advantage; and under a new weak
regency, after the early death of Charles Gustavus, every one had large opportunities of caring for it.
This led to contentious within the nobility, foreboding division and fall, whilst they were deaf to the
general discontent which was fermenting below them. In the meanwhile, pretensions were for the first
time distinctly asserted, which had heretofore been rather in use than declared, but now sounded
particularly ill in the ears of the people; for instance, the proposition of the nobility in the year 1664,
‘that they could not be outvoted by the other orders at the diets.’ Almost without knowing how,
a government tottering betwixt alliances, and from want of subsidies, plunged the kingdom into a war,
which, owing to degenerate military discipline and deficient resources, was universally unsuccessful,
save where the youthful Charles XI. himself maintained the honour of the Swedish arms.
“He came out of this war with a deep feeling of the deficiencies of the public condition, and with
the determination to found the martial power of Sweden not upon subsidies”—(a resource hitherto
employed among others)—“but upon the country’s own well-husbanded resources. To recover what
the crown had thus lost, an end which was accomplished by means of the Reduction [3], absolute power
was requisite; and it was given by the unnoble orders, who were glad—as the younger nobility were
not sorry—to see the power of the envied grandees now crushed. To render Sweden ready for war,
and the crown absolute and rich, became from 1680 the chief object of Charles XI. during the peaceful
remainder of his reign. Thus Charles XII. felt himself at once unrestrained, and fully equipped.
Conspiring neighbours challenged him. Then marched he forth over the old Swedish battle-fields to others
far distant, whithersoever the hope of victory beckoned him, braving first fortune, then misfortune,
until his country had no more sons to give him; and with the fall of Sweden’s power, a hand from
amongst its ruins was turned against his life.”
With this sovereign another period of historic splendour was still to come for Sweden. In the
struggles against Russia under the princes of the Palatine House, we often find cause to regret a spirit
less well-balanced, and a policy less far-seeing, than in the elder monarchs of Sweden. Onwards from
this date her history perhaps ceases to possess an interest so universal; yet it has aspects which, viewed
in connexion with the recent politics of Europe, lend it enhanced attraction. It would be here out of
place to speculate on the lofty destinies to which Sweden may yet again be called, amidst the changeful
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