Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A57454
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An account of Sueden together with an extract of the history of that kingdom.
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Robinson, John, 1650-1723.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing R1690; ESTC R12230
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47,457
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212
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ordinary offices of their Sex put to Plow and Thrash to Row in Boats and bear Burthens at the Building of Houses and on other occasions Domestick Quarrels rarely happen and more seldom become Publick the Husbands being as apt to keep the Authority in their own hands as the Wives by Nature Custom or Necessity are inclin'd to be Obedient Divorces and other Separations between Man and Wife scarce ever happen but among the Inferior sort when the Innocent Party is allowed to marry again Cousin-Germans may not Marry without the King's Dispensation which is more frequently granted than refused In Wedding Entertainments they have ever affected Pomp and Superfluity beyond the proportion of their Abilities for by the Excess of one Day oft-times many of them involve themselves in such inconveniences as they feel many Years The same is observable in their Funeral Solemnities which are usually accompanied with more Jollity and Feasting than befits the Occasion and to gain time to make their Preparations they commonly Transport their Dead to Vaults within or adjoyning to their Churches where they remain unburied some Months and sometimes several Years but of late these and other unnecessary Expences begin by degrees to be laid aside as well in conformity to the Frugality of the Court as in compliance with their present Fortunes which are narrower now than they have formerly been CHAP. VIII Of the Royal Family and Court of Sueden CHARLES XI the present King of Sueden was born November the 25th 1655. Two years after his Father Charles Gustave X. of the House of Deux Ponts was advanced to the Crown up on the Abdication of Queen Christina whose Cousin-German he was being the Son of Iohn Casimir Prince Palatine of the Rhine and Catherine of Sueden Daughter to Charles IX and Sister to Gustavus Adolphus Queen Christina's Father This Kings Mother Princess Hediwing Eleonora of the House of Holstein and Sister to the present Duke had no other Child and upon the Decease of the King her Husband in the year 1660. was made Regent of the Kingdom together with the five Great Officers of the Crown and held that Post till the Year 1672. when the King her Son was declared Major and took the Government His Majesties Education in his Minority by his own Genius and the Indulgence of his Mother if not by the contrivance of the Principal Ministers was mostly in order to a Military Life in which Exercises such as Fencing and Riding the Great Horse he took more pleasure and made better proficiency than in such Studies as required more intention of the mind Besides the Suedish and High-Dutch Languages which his Majesty learned in his Infancy and speaks both equally well he was not perfected in any other having only a smattering of French to which he hath so great an Aversion that he will neither own nor be brought to speak so much of it as he understands which want concurring with if not causing in him a reserved Temper and backwardness to Conversation with Strangers makes it more difficult for Foreign Ministers to entertain his Majesty and himself uneasy upon their Addresses None ever better conquered this Difficulty than Mr. Warwick who having learned a little High-Dutch with which he entertain'd his Majesty in ordinary Discourse without much mixture of business he thereby became the Favourite Foreign Minister and had the Honour to be singled out by his Majesty on all occasions In the year 1674. his Majesty was Crowned and presently after engaged in a War that gain'd him an eminent degree both of Experience and Honour having never lost a Battle in which he was Personally present At the Conclusion of the War Anno 1680. he married the Princess Ulrica Eleonora Sister to the King of Denmark a Lady as Eminent for Piety Virtue Wisdom and all other Qualities truly Great and Noble as for her Birth and Extraction These with her great Charity to the Poor and Liberality to all have gain'd her the Hearts of the whole Nation and surmounted the Aversion they naturally have to those of her Country By her his Majesty hath already had Seven Children five Princes four of which are Dead and two Princesses and has fair hopes of a more numerous Issue The King is of a Middle Stature and well-set his Hair brown of a healthful and vigorous Constitution and Sanguine Complexion never attacqued with any Violent Sickness but what has been occasion'd by some outward Accidents of which two especially have endangered his Life one was in the War when his Majesty riding on the Ice it brake and he fell into the Water which brought him into a Fever that he narrowly escaped The other happened by the fall off his Horse when he broke his Leg and was so ill treated by his Surgeons that besides the danger of his Life then the effects of their miscarriage are still seen in his Majesties halting There have happened to him two Accidents more which have impaired his Strength and it 's fear'd may shorten his Days One was That at Hunting Monsieur Wachmaster being in danger to be kill'd by a Bear the King was so eager to rescue him that he broke a Vein and was then like to have bled to Death and since hath been subject to bleeding upon any motion The other was That his Majesty hath formerly accustomed himself to ride Post such long Stages and with so great speed that he hath often been near suffocated by the heat the expence of his Spirits and the Agitation of his Blood whereof the effects are still observed and feared by those about him He possesses many Excellent and Princely Qualities an Exemplary Piety and Religious Disposition that shews its self in all his Actions and invincible Courage that has oft exposed his Person to great dangers not only in his Wars but in his Divertisements His Chastity and Temperance are very regular at least if there be any Instances of his failing in the latter upon any extraordinary Occasion or Entertainment he hath never been known or scarce suspected to violate the former Frugality is practised by his Majesty in a high degree and his Parsimonious Temper appears on all Occasions that if his Subjects think him too pressing for Money they have the Satisfaction to see and believe that it is laid either out or up for their Good not expended in profuse Liberalities or vain Divertisements to which his Majesty is a perfect Stranger neither delighted with Plays Gaming or any other Recreations besides Riding Fencing and Hunting His peaceable Demeanour may perhaps more justly be ascribed to the State of his Affairs than his own Nature which more powerfully inclines him to the Fatigue of a Camp than the Ease of a Court and suits better with a Martial Familiarity than the shews of Grandeur and the Solemnities of State The Cholerick Temper that hath been incident to all his Ancestors hath sometimes carried him to low Expressions of his Anger as well towards the greater as meaner sort of his
Subjects but the fit is usually soon over and is recompenced by his placability and readiness to forgive those that have offended him His Respect to his Mother seems to equal if not exceed his Kindness to his Consort who hath the Satisfaction of his Constancy but little share in his Secrets and not very much of his Conversation which he frequently bestows on the Queen-Mother and usually eats in her Apartment His Majesty's most diligent Inspection into all the Affairs of his Kingdom besides that it makes all his Ministers more circumspect hath gain'd him a great stock of Experience The smallest matters are not below his notice and nothing of any moment is concluded before he hath been consulted this is the Employment of all his time scarce any hour of the Day passing from five in the Morning when he constantly rises in which business of one nature or other is not before him The Frugality of his Majesties Temper is every where visible in his Court in which there is little regard had to Splendor and Magnificence either in Furniture Tables or Attendants or other things of that Nature The Principal Officer of the Court is the Upper Marshal formerly called the Marshal of the Kingdom which Office is now held by Count Iohn Steenbeck next to him are the Marshal and Intendant of the Court with about eight or ten that are stiled Gentlemen of the Court who wait at the King's Table That which makes the best Appearance is the Foot-Guards which consist of 2200 Men of which one Company is always in the Castle and the other in the other parts of the City The Collonel of the Guards is next the King's Person in all Publick Solemnities and the Captain that has the Watch lies in the Room next to his Majesty's Bedchamber There is another Guard of 250 Men of which about ten at a time wait on Foot with Halberts and on Horseback when the King travels in Ceremony Next to the King the Queen-Mother is ranked both in the Addresses of Foreign Ministers and on all other occasions She is a Princess of great Virtue and Goodness and would be more esteemed if she were not diverted from the Exercise of Liberality by the Inclination she has to Building which she has gratified in the Structure of a very Magnificent House about six Miles from Stockholm it has one Front towards a great Lake and the other looks upon a Garden of a Thousand Yards long adorned with very fine and choice Statues the Spoils of Germany and Denmark and a great number of Cascades that are supplied with very good Water from an Eminence about a Mile distant Her Court and Revenue is governed by Count Charles Gyldenstern and next to him is the Marshal of her Court and other Officers as also a Governess of the Maids of Honour who are six with other inferior Servants The Queen Consort besides what has already been said of her is a great lover of Reading and together with the Northern Languages speaks French perfectly well she is of a Melancholy Disposition and lives very retired seldom stirring out of her own Apartment and that of the Prince and Princesses The Elder Princess was born in the Year 1681. And the Prince in the Year following both of a delicate Constitution of great hopes and Educated with much care The Younger Princess was born Anno 1688. CHAP. IX Of his MAJESTY'S Government HIS Majesty was no sooner Crowned but he found himself engaged in the War then on foot and espoused the French Interest in Consideration of a Subsidy of 200000 l. a Year in which the first Blow was the Defeat of Feldt Marshal Wrangel and his Army in Germany a Disaster so little foreseen or provided for that it made a more easy way for all the Miseries that ensued upon it and gave the King more eminent Occasions of shewing his Courage in defence of his Kingdoms and People for as the Success of that Action turned the Byass of the Danish Councels and presented the favourable opportunity they expected to engage in the War which they began with the surprizal of Holstein and the Taking of Wismar and thence translated it into Schonen so that when the King was called into those Parts to make Head against the Danes he found the effects of his Ministers Deficiency in making due Preparations Four of the Six Fortified Places of that Province being already in the Enemies hands and the Inhabitants at liberty to express their Affections for Denmark To encounter these Difficulties and a more Potent Enemy assisted by more Powerful Confederates the King at first had but a Handful of Men and empty Magazines the Forces of the Kingdom being scatter'd into Germany and Leifland the Borders of Norway and the Sea-Service from all which places his Majesty received nothing but accounts of Losses and Misfortunes so that the Fortune of Sueden and all its Ancient Glory seem'd to be confin'd to his Majesty's Person and his little Army with which in the compass of One Year he won Three Pitch'd Battels and in one of them he is said to have Charged Thirteen times at the Head of a Brigade and yet which is very remarkable doth value himself for not having drawn the Blood of any one man In the course of this War the King gain'd a great Stock of Military Experience without any Tincture of those Vices that commonly prevail in a Camp and was so indefatigable and perpetually employed that he scarce had his Boots off in Three Years time The Streights he was often reduced to taught him many excellent Lessons especially the Necessity of putting the Kingdom into a better Posture of Defence than he found it Besides his Officers with the chief Ministers about him Baron Iohn Guldenstiern made it their business to possess his Majesty with an ill opinion of the Senate and discovered the Malversations that the Ruling Lords had been guilty of in his Minority which sunk so deep with him that as his displeasure fell upon some of those Lords during the War and a Slight upon them all neither communicating his Counsels nor acquainting them with the Success of his Actions which they were left to learn from Passengers and Masters of Ships so after the Conclusion of the Peace and his return to Stockholm in the year 1680 his Majesty call'd together the States of the Kingdom and gave them a Summary Account of the State of Affairs during the War and the Issue of it and proposed to them to inspect the Occasions of the great Losses the Kingdom had sustain'd to find out means to deliver the Government from the Streights or rather States it laboured under and to consult for its further Security The Odium of all the Losses and Misfortunes of the War was easily fix'd upon the Ministers that had managed Affairs in the King's Minority and therefore a Committee was chosen out of the several Bodies of the States to enquire into the Miscarriages and Evil Counsels of those