Ankarström

Ankarström, JOHN JACOB, the assassin of Gustavus III. of Sweden, born in 1762. The son of an officer of rank, he came very early to court as a page, and next entered the royal body-guard, but retired as early as 1783, and settled in the country. Being opposed to the measures taken by the king for curtailing the power of the senate and of the nobles, he became involved in certain intrigues in the island of Gothland, and was tried for treason, but released for want of positive evidence. Soon after he formed a plot with a ring of discontented nobles to murder Gustavus, and the lot to commit the dastardly deed having fallen on Ankarström, the old life-guardman wounded the king mortally with a pistol-bullet at a masked ball on the 15th March 1792. Ankarström was executed on the 27th April, after having been publicly flogged for three successive days.