own terms. Five years later (Sept. 24, 1706) he did, indeed, conclude the Polish War by the peace of Altranstädt, but as this treaty brought no advantage to Sweden, not even compensation for the expenses of six years of warfare, it was politically condemnable. Moreover, two of Sweden's Baltic provinces, Esthonia and Ingria, had been seized by the tsar, and a third, Livonia, had been well-nigh ruined. Yet even now Charles, by a stroke of the pen, could have recovered nearly everything he had lost. In 1707 Peter was ready to retrocede everything except St Petersburg and the line of the Neva, and again Charles preferred risking the whole to saving the greater part of his Baltic possessions (for details see Charles XII.; Peter the Great). When at last, after the catastrophe of Poltava (June 1709) and the flight into Turkey, he condescended to use diplomatic methods, it was solely to prolong, not to terminate, the war. Even now he could have made honourable terms with his numerous enemies. The resources of Sweden were still very far from being exhausted, and, during 1710 and 1711, the gallant Magnus Stenbock (q.v.) upheld her military supremacy in the north. But all the efforts of the Swedish government were wrecked on the determination of Charles XII. to surrender nothing. Thus he rejected advantageous offers of mediation and alliance made to him, during 1712, by the maritime powers and by Prussia; and, in 1714, he scouted the friendly overtures of Louis XIV. and the emperor, so that when peace was finally concluded between France and the Empire, at the congress of Baden, Swedish affairs were, by common consent, left out of consideration. When, on the 14th of September 1714, he suddenly returned to his dominions, Stralsund and Wismar were all that remained to him of his continental possessions; while by the end of 1715 Sweden, now fast approaching the last stage of exhaustion, was at open war with England, Hanover, Russia, Prussia, Saxony and Denmark, who had formed a coalition to partition her continental territory between them. Nevertheless, at this the eleventh hour of her opportunities, Sweden might still have saved something from the wreck of her empire if Charles had behaved like a reasonable being (see Charles XII.; Peter the Great; Görtz, Georg Heinrich von; Osterman, Andrei); but he would only consent to play off Russia against England, and his sudden death before Fredrikshald (Dec. 11, 1718) left Sweden practically at the end beginning of her resources and at the mercy of her enemies. At the Treaties of Stockholm and Frederiksborg, 1719 and 1720 beginning of 1719 pacific overtures were made to England, Hanover, Prussia and Denmark. By the treaties of Stockholm (Feb. 20, 1719, and Feb. 1, 1720) Hanover obtained the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden for herself and Stettin for her confederate Prussia. By the treaty of Frederiksborg or Copenhagen (July 3, 1720) peace was also signed between Denmark and Sweden, Denmark retroceding Rügen. Further Pomerania as far as the Peene, and Wismar to Sweden, in exchange for an indemnity of 600,000 rix-dollars, while Sweden relinquished her exemption from the Sound tolls and her protectorate over Holstein-Gottorp. The prospect of coercing Russia by means of the British fleet had alone induced Sweden to consent to such sacrifices; but when the last demands of England and her allies had been complied with, Sweden Peace of Nystad, 1721. Loss of the Baltic Provinces. was left to come to terms as best she could with the tsar. Negotiations were reopened with Russia at Nystad, in May 1720, but peace was not concluded till the 30th of August 1721, and then only under the direst pressure. By the peace of Nystad Sweden ceded to Russia Ingria and Esthonia, Livonia, the Finnish province of Kexholm and the fortress of Viborg. Finland west of Viborg and north of Kexholm was restored to Sweden. She also received an indemnity of two millions of thalers and a solemn undertaking of non-interference in her domestic affairs.
It was not the least of Sweden's misfortunes after the Great Northern War that the new constitution, which was to compensate her for all her past sacrifices, should contain within it the elements of many of her future calamities. Early in 1720 Charles XII.'s sister, Ulrica Leonora, who had been elected queen of Sweden immediately after his death, was permitted to abdicate in favour of her husband the prince of Hesse, who was elected king Frederick I., 1720-1751. The Limited Monarchy. under the title of Frederick I.; and Sweden was, at the same time, converted into the most limited of monarchies. All power was vested in the people as represented by the Riksdag, consisting, as before, of four distinct estates, nobles, priests, burgesses and peasants, sitting and deliberating apart. The conflicting interests and mutual jealousies of these four independent assemblies made the work of legislation exceptionally difficult. No measure could now become law till it had obtained the assent of three at least of the four estates; but this provision, which seems to have been designed to protect the lower orders against the nobility, produced evils far greater than those which it professed to cure. Thus, measures might be passed by a bare majority in three estates, when a real and substantial majority of all four estates in congress might be actually against it. Or, again, a dominant action in any three of the estates might enact laws highly detrimental to the interests of the remaining estate—a danger the more to be apprehended as in no other country in Europe were class distinctions so sharply defined as in Sweden.
Each estate was ruled by its talman, or speaker, who was now elected at the beginning of each Diet, but the archbishop was, ex officio, the talman of the clergy. The landtmarskalk, or speaker of the House of Nobles, presided Constitution of the Estates.; when the estates met in congress, and also, by virtue of his office, in the hemliga utskott, or secret committee. This famous body, which consisted of 50 nobles, 25 priests, 25 burgesses, and, very exceptionally, 25 peasants, possessed during the session of the Riksdag not only the supreme executive but also the surpeme judicial and legislative functions. It prepared all bills for the Riksdag, created and deposed all ministries, controlled the foreign policy of the nation, and claimed and often exercised the right of superseding the ordinary courts of justice. During the parliamentary recess, however, the executive remained in the hands of the rad, or senate, which was responsible to the Riksdag alone.
It will be obvious that there was no room in this republican constitution for a constitutional monarch in the modern sense of the word. The crowned puppet who possessed a casting vote in the råd, of which he was the nominal president, and who was allowed to create peers once in his life (at his coronation), was rather a state decoration than a sovereignty.
At first this cumbrous and complicated instrument of government worked tolerably well under the firm but cautious control of the chancellor, Count Arvid Beernhard Horn (q.v.). In his anxiety to avoid embroiling his country Political Parties. Hats and Caps. abroad, Horn reversed the traditional policy of Sweden by keeping France at a distance and drawing near to Great Britain, for whose liberal institutions he professed the highest admiration. Thus a twenty years' war was succeeded by a twenty years' peace, during which the nation recovered so rapidly from its wounds that it began to forget them. A new race of politicians was springing up. Since 1719, when the influence of the few great territorial families had been merged in a multitude of needy gentlemen, the first estate had become the nursery and afterwards the stronghold of an opposition at once noble and democratic which found its natural leaders in such men as Count Carl Gyllenborg and Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (q.v.). These men and their followers were never weary of ridiculing the timid caution of the aged statesman who sacrificed everything to perpetuate an inglorious peace and derisively nicknamed his adherents “Night-caps” (a term subsequently softened into “Caps”), themselves adopting the sobriquet “Hats,” from the three-cornered hat worn by officers and gentlemen, which was considered happily to hit off the manly self-assertion of the opposition. These epithets instantly caught the public fancy and had already become party badges when the estates met in 1738. This Riksdag was to mark another turning-point in Swedish
