Gustavus IV.

Gustavus IV., king of Sweden, son and successor of Gustavus III., was born 1st November 1778. During the four years of his minority, his uncle, the Duke of Södermanland, acted as regent (1792-96). This king was altogether unfitted to rule a kingdom, owing to his crotchety notions of honour, his obstinate self-will, his exalted ideas of the prerogatives of kingship, and his want of tact and wisdom in the management of public affairs. The ruling principle or motive of his life was hatred of Napoleon. In consequence of this feeling he offended Russia by preferring the alliance with England, lost Stralsund and Rügen to the French, and Finland to the Russians in 1808, made an unsuccessful attack upon Norway, and finally insulted the English by his treatment of an army corps that had been sent to his assistance. In March 1809 the whole of Sweden was in a condition of burning discontent, and a party of nobles, acting in conjunction with the army, dethroned their wholly unpopular sovereign and gave the crown to his uncle, the Duke of Södermanland, who succeeded as Charles XIII. Gustavus spent his last days abroad, chiefly in Switzerland, often in great want, and died at St Gall, 7th February 1837.