Généalogie John Muijsers » Karl xii van Zweden (1682-1718)

Données personnelles Karl xii van Zweden 

• Il est né le 17 juin 1682.
• Profession: koning van Zweden.
• Il est décédé le 30 novembre 1718, il avait 36 ans.
• Un enfant de Karl xi van Zweden et Ulrike Eleonora van Denemarken

Famille de Karl xii van Zweden

Notes par Karl xii van Zweden

Charles XII, also Carl (Swedish: Karl XII; 17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 O.S.[1]), Latinized to Carolus Rex, was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach. Charles was the only surviving son of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder. He assumed power, after a seven-month caretaker government, at the age of fifteen.[2]

In 1700, a triple alliance of Denmark–Norway, Saxony–Poland–Lithuania and Russia launched a threefold attack on the Swedish protectorate of Swedish Holstein-Gottorp and provinces of Livonia and Ingria, aiming to draw advantage as Sweden was unaligned and ruled by a young and inexperienced king, thus initiating the Great Northern War. Leading the Swedish army against the alliance Charles won multiple victories despite being usually significantly outnumbered. A major victory over a Russian army some three times the size in 1700 at the Battle of Narva compelled Peter the Great to sue for peace which Charles then rejected. By 1706 Charles, now 24 years old, had forced all of his foes into submission including, in that year, a decisively devastating victory by Swedish forces under general Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld over a combined army of Saxony and Russia at the Battle of Fraustadt. Russia was now the sole remaining hostile power.

Charles' subsequent march on Moscow met with initial success as victory followed victory, the most significant of which was the Battle of Holowczyn where the smaller Swedish army routed a Russian army twice the size. The campaign ended with disaster when the Swedish army suffered heavy losses to a Russian force more than twice its size at Poltava. Charles had been incapacitated by a wound prior to the battle, rendering him unable to take command. The defeat was followed by the Surrender at Perevolochna. Charles spent the following years in exile in the Ottoman Empire before returning to lead an assault on Norway, trying to evict the Danish king from the war once more in order to aim all his forces at the Russians. Two campaigns met with frustration and ultimate failure, concluding with his death at the Siege of Fredriksten in 1718. At the time, most of the Swedish Empire was under foreign military occupation, though Sweden itself was still free. This situation was later formalized, albeit moderated in the subsequent Treaty of Nystad. The result was the end of the Swedish Empire, and also of its effectively organized absolute monarchy and war machine, commencing a parliamentarian government unique for continental Europe, which would last for half a century until royal autocracy was restored by Gustav III.[3]

Charles was an exceptionally skilled military leader and tactician as well as an able politician, credited with introducing important tax and legal reforms. As for his famous reluctance towards peace efforts, he is quoted by Voltaire as saying upon the outbreak of the war; "I have resolved never to start an unjust war but never to end a legitimate one except by defeating my enemies". With the war consuming more than half his life and nearly all his reign, he never married and fathered no children. He was succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora, who in turn was coerced to hand over all substantial powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and opted to surrender the throne to her husband, who became King Frederick I of Sweden.

While inspecting trenches close to the perimeter of the fortress on 11 December (30 November Old Style), 1718, Charles was struck in the head by a projectile and killed. The shot struck the left side of his skull and exited from the right.[24]

The definitive circumstances around Charles's death are unclear however. Despite multiple investigations of the battlefield, Charles' skull and his clothes, it is not known where he was when he was hit, or whether the shot came from the ranks of the enemy or from his own men.[25] There are several hypotheses as to how Charles died, though none can be given with any certainty. Although there were many people around the king at the time of his death, there were no witnesses to the actual moment he was struck. The most likely explanation is that Charles was killed by the Dano-Norwegians as he was within easy reach of their guns.[26] There are two possibilities that are usually cited: that he was killed by a musket shot, or that he was killed by grapeshot from the nearby fortress.

More sinister theories claim he was murdered: One claim is that the killer was a Swedish compatriot and asserts that enemy guns were not firing at the time Charles was struck.[26] Suspects in this claim range from a nearby soldier tired of the siege who wanted to put an end to the war, to a murderer sent by Charles's own brother-in-law, who profited by the event by subsequently taking the throne as Frederick I of Sweden. Another possible murderer was Frederick's aide-de-camp, André Sicre, who confessed during a state of delirium brought on by fever but later recanted.[26] It is also suspected that a plot to kill Charles may have been put in place by a group of wealthy Swedes who would benefit from the blocking of a 17% wealth tax that Charles intended to introduce.[26] In the Varberg Fortress museum there is a display with a lead filled brass button - Swedish - that is claimed by some to be the projectile that killed the king.

Another odd account of Charles' death comes from Finnish writer Carl Nordling, who states that the king's surgeon, Melchior Neumann, dreamed the king had told him that he was not shot from the fortress but from "one who came creeping".[26]

Charles's body has been exhumed on three occasions to ascertain the cause of death; in 1746, 1859 and 1917.[26] The 1859 exhumation found that the wound was in accordance with a shot from the Norwegian fort. In 1917, his head was photographed. Peter Englund asserted in his essay "On the death of Charles XII and other murders[27]" that the mortal wound sustained by the King, with a smaller exit wound than entry wound, could only be consistent with being hit by a bullet with a speed not exceeding 150 m/s. A bullet fired by a nearby assassin would have hit him with a much higher speed, so the conclusion is that the King was killed by a stray grapeshot from the nearby fortress. "The death, which he had toyed with for so long, finally caught up with him" writes Englund, deciding that the king was not assassinated.

Charles was succeeded to the Swedish throne by his sister, Ulrika Eleonora. As his duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken required a male heir, Charles was succeeded as ruler there by his cousin Gustav Leopold. Georg Heinrich von Görtz, Charles' minister, was beheaded in 1719.

Charles never married and fathered no children of whom historians are aware. In his youth he was particularly encouraged to find a suitable spouse in order to secure the succession, but he would frequently avoid the subject of sex and marriage. Possible candidates included Princess Sophia Hedwig of Denmark and Princess Maria Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp – but of the latter he pleaded that he could never wed someone “as ugly as Satan and with such a devilish big mouth”.[28] Instead he made it clear that he would marry only someone of his own choice, and for love rather than dynastic pressures. His lack of mistresses may have been due to a strong religious faith.[29] Charles himself suggested in conversation with Axel Löwen that he actively resisted any match until peace could be secured[30] and was in some sense “married” to the military life.[31][32] But that he was “chaste” occasioned speculation in his lifetime. Rumours that he was a hermaphrodite were quelled in 1917 when his coffin was opened and he was shown to have suffered no physical irregularities.[33]

In his conversations with Löwen, he also stated that he did not lack taste for beautiful women, but that he held in his sexual desires for fear that they would get out of control if unchecked, and that if he committed to something like that, it would be forever.[30][34] Some historians suggest that he resisted a marriage with Denmark which could have caused a family rift between those who dynastically favoured Holstein-Gottorp.[35] Historians such as Blanning and Montefiore believe he was in fact homosexual,[36][37] Certainly a letter from Reuterholm suggested that Charles had indicated a closeness to the Elector Prince of Saxony, Maximilian Emanuel of Württemberg-Winnental, whom Charles described as "very pretty". But writing in the 1960s, Hatton argues that Wurttemberg was very much heterosexual and the relationship is just as likely to have been that of teacher-pupil – suggesting instead that Charles simply had an interest in the opposite sex never consummated

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