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I. The Great Northern States
Baltic Sea
- a. Baltic Sea important to lands
- i. Sweden broke ties with Denmarkà independent state
- Still in constant rivalry over territory
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I. The Great Northern States
Denmark
- i. Christian IV
- 1. Little success for expansion
- a. System of electing monarchs forced kings to share power with Danish nobility, who exercised strict control over the peasants who wrked their lands
- b. Danish ambitions for ruling the Baltic were severely curtailed by looses they sustained in Thirty Years War and later in Northern War with Sweden
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I. The Great Northern States
Denmark--> Military Losses
- 1. Military lossesà constitutional crisis in which a meeting of Demark’s Estates brought to pass a bloodless revolutionin 1660
- a. Nobility’s power was curtailed and a hereditary monarchy was reestablished, and a new absolutist constitution was proclaimed in 1665
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I. The Great Northern States
Christian V
1. Centralized administration was instituted with the nobility as the chief officeholders
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I. The Great Northern States
Sweden
- i. Poor and weak economy
- ii. Monarchy vs. powerful Swedish nobility
- 1. Gustavus Adolphus was persuaded by Axel Oxenstierna, his chief minister, to adopt a new policy in which the nobility formed a “first Estate” occupying the bureaucratic positions of an expanded central government
- a. Created a stable monarchy and freed the king to raise a formidable army and participate in the Thirty Years War, hwere he was killed
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I. The Great Northern States
Political crisis
- i. Political crisis after death of Adolphus
- 1. Daughter Christina more interestend in philosophy and religion than ruling
- a. Favored interests of nobilityà other estates of Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament—the burghers, clergy, and peasants—protested
- i. Tired of ruling and wanting to become Catholic (forbidden there), she abdicated in favor of cousinà King Charles Xà peasant revolt against nobility
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I. The Great Northern States
Charles X and Charles XI
- i. Charles X
- 1. Reestablished domestic order
- ii. Charles XI
- 1. Moved Swedish monarchy towards absolutism
- a. Retook control of crown lands and revenues attached to them from nobilityà he weakened independent power of the nobles
- 2. Built up bureaucracy, subdued both the Riksdag and the church, improved the army and navy, and left son Charles XII, a well organized Swedish state that dominated northern Europe
- 3. 1693: He and his heirs were acclaimed as absolute sovereign kings
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I. The Great Northern States
Charles XII
- 1. Interested in military affairs and brilliant general with great plans and strategies (Sweden in conflict with Poland, Denmark, and Russiaà Sweden’s undoing
- 2. Death in 1718: much of Sweden’s northern empire to Russia lost and status as first-class northern power ended
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