Gustav III (Stockholm, 24 January [O.S. 13 January] 1746 – Stockholm, 29 March 1792 ) was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, she a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia.
A vocal opponent of, as he saw it, abuses by the nobility of a permissiveness established by parliamentarian reforms that had been worked out since the death of Charles XII, he seized power fro...
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Gustav III (Stockholm, 24 January [O.S. 13 January] 1746 – Stockholm, 29 March 1792 ) was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, she a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia.
A vocal opponent of, as he saw it, abuses by the nobility of a permissiveness established by parliamentarian reforms that had been worked out since the death of Charles XII, he seized power from the government in a coup d'état in 1772, ending the Age of Liberty and venturing into a campaign to restore royal autocracy which was completed by the Union and Security Act in 1789, sweeping away most of the last pretences of Riksdag rule. As a bulwark of enlightened despotism, his expenditure of considerable public funds on cultural ventures contributed to his controversial majesty. Attempts to seize first Norway through Russian aid, then to recapture the Baltic provinces through a war against Russia were unsuccessful, although much of...
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