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Carl Johan Adlercreutz, Coup, Deposed, Gustaf of Sweden, King Carl XIII of Sweden, King Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden, lieutenant-colonel Georg Adlersparre, Prince of Vasa, Victoria of Baden
Gustaf IV Adolph (November 1, 1778 – February 7, 1837) was King of Sweden from 1792 until he was deposed in a coup in 1809. He was also the last Swedish monarch to be the ruler of Finland.
Gustaf Adolph was born in Stockholm. He was the son of King Gustaf III of Sweden by his wife Princess Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, she was eldest daughter of King Frederik V of Denmark-Norway and his first wife Princess Louise of Great Britain, the youngest surviving daughter of King George II of Great Britain and Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach.
His reign was ill-fated and was to end abruptly. In 1805, he joined the Third Coalition against Napoleon. His campaign went poorly and the French occupied Swedish Pomerania. When his ally, Russia, made peace and concluded an alliance with France at Tilsit in 1807, Sweden and Portugal were left as Great Britain’s only allies on the European continent.
On February 21, 1808, Russia invaded Finland, which was ruled by Sweden, on the pretext of compelling Sweden to join Napoleon’s Continental System. Denmark likewise declared war on Sweden. In just a few months, almost all of Finland was lost to Russia. As a result of the war, on September 17, 1809, in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn, Sweden surrendered the eastern third of Sweden to Russia. Following which the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland was established within Imperial Russia.
Coup d’état and abdication
On March 7, 1809, lieutenant-colonel Georg Adlersparre, commander of a part of the so-called western army stationed in Värmland, triggered the Coup of 1809 by raising the flag of rebellion in Karlstad and starting to march upon Stockholm.
To prevent the King from joining loyal troops in Scania, on March 13, 1809 seven of the conspirators led by Carl Johan Adlercreutz broke into the royal apartments in the palace, seized the king, and imprisoned him and his family in Gripsholm Castle; the king’s uncle, Duke Carl, accepted the leadership of a provisional government, which was proclaimed the same day; and a diet, hastily summoned, solemnly approved of the revolution.
On March 29, King Gustaf IV Adolph, to save the crown for his son, Gustav, Prince of Vasa, he voluntarily abdicated; but on May 10, the Riksdag of the Estates, dominated by the army, declared that not merely Gustav but his whole family had forfeited the throne, perhaps an excuse to exclude his family from succession based on the rumours of his illegitimacy.
A more likely cause, however, is that the revolutionaries feared that Gustaf Adolph’s son, if he inherited the throne, would avenge his father’s deposition when he came of age. On June 5, Gustav Adolf’s uncle was proclaimed King Carl XIII of Sweden after accepting a new liberal constitution, which was ratified by the diet the next day. In December, Gustaf Adolph and his family were transported to Germany. In 1812, he divorced his wife.
In exile Gustaf Adolph used several titles, including Count Gottorp and Duke of Holstein-Eutin, and finally settled at St. Gallen in Switzerland where he lived in a small hotel in great loneliness and indigence, under the name of Colonel Gustafsson. It was there that he suffered a stroke and died. He was buried in Moravia.
At the suggestion of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway his body was finally brought to Sweden and interred in Riddarholm Church.
Gustaf Adolph was a great-grandfather of Princess Victoria of Baden, daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, and Princess Louise of Prussia. Victoria of Baden was named after her aunt by marriage, Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
King Oscar II’s new daughter-in-law at the time and eventually Queen of Sweden as consort to Oscar II’s son Gustaf V.