The Scandinavian History Podcast

110 Hats and Caps

After the death of Karl XII, Swedish monarchs lost almost all their power. Instead, the Riksdag asserted itself as the most influential body in Swedish political life. Among bribes, personal vendettas and dreams of reestablishing the empire, two political parties emerged.

111 The War of the Hats

In 1741, the Hats finally got the war against Russia that they’d been working so hard to achieve. Finally, they’d be able to recapture the territory lost during the Great Northern War and restore Sweden’s honor. Unfortunately, it soon turned out that even though they had spent years trying to start the war, they had done little to make sure that the army in Finland would be ready for it.

112 The Last Dalacarlian Revolt

When the result of the War of the Hats became known in Sweden, it was met with dismay. Not only did the Russians take even more territory, but they also wanted to decide who’d be the next king of Sweden. In Dalarna, people weren’t having any of it.

113 Science and Industry

The Age of Liberty wasn’t only corruption, palace intrigues and failed wars. Thanks to a policy encouraging science and industry, significant progress was made, and some of the discoveries and inventions from those days are still with us today.

114 Gray Eminences

If your system of government puts all the power in the hands of one man, you’d better hope the man holding all that power knows what he’s doing. If he doesn’t, things can quickly turn ugly. Unless, of course, there’s someone else standing in the wings discreetly guiding the power-holding hand to avoid disaster.

115 The Swedish Sun King

King Adolf Fredrik and queen Louisa Ulrika never managed to wrest power away from the Riksdag during the Age of Liberty. But Louisa Ulrika had high hopes that their son, Gustav, would follow in their footsteps and reassert royal authority–despite the best efforts of the politicians to train him to be a docile and powerless monarch.

116 Wag the Dog

A few years after his coup, the opposition against Gustav III was growing. In an attempt to improve his popularity–and to reclaim some of the land lost in the War of the Hats–he decided to start a war against Russia. Unfortunately for the king, he wasn’t allowed to start wars, but Gustav wasn’t going to let minor details like that stop him.

117 Assassins!

His war against Russia had shown Gustav III that the Swedish aristocracy was a real threat to his reign. He thought he could eliminate the threat by forcing a new set of laws through the riksdag, strengthening the crown and limiting the power of the nobility. But instead of rolling over and capitulating, the aristocrats decided to fight back.