nly overtook him on the night of the 13th of February 1660,
in his thirty-eighth year. The abrupt cessation of such an inexhaustible
fount of enterprise and energy was a distinct loss to Sweden; and signs
are not wanting that, in his latter years, Charles had begun to feel the
need and value of repose. Had he lived long enough to overcome his
martial ardour, and develop and organize the empire he helped to create,
Sweden might perhaps have remained a great power to this day. Even so
she owes her natural frontiers in the Scandinavian peninsula to Charles
X.

See Martin Veibull, _Sveriges Storhedstid_ (Stockholm, 1881);
Frederick Ferdinand Carlson, _Sveriges Historia under Konungarne af
Pfalziska Huset_ (Stockholm, 1883-1885); E. Haumant, _La Guerre du
nord et la paix d'Oliva_ (Paris, 1893); Robert Nisbet Bain,
_Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905); G. Jones, _The Diplomatic Relations
between Cromwell and Charles X._ (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1897).
(R. N. B.)

CHARLES XI. (1655-1697), king of Sweden, the only son of Charles X., and
Hedwig Leonora of Holstein-Gottorp, was born in the palace at Stockholm,
on the 24th of November 1655. His father, who died when the child was in
his fourth year, left the care of his education to the regents whom he
had appointed. So shamefully did they neglect their duty that when, at
the age of seventeen, Charles XI. attained his majority, he was ignorant
of the very rudiments of state-craft and almost illiterate. Yet those
nearest to him had great hopes of him. He was known to be truthful,
upright and God-fearing; if he had neglected his studies it was to
devote himself to manly sports and exercises; and in the pursuit of his
favourite pastime, bear-hunting, he had already given proofs of the most
splendid courage. It was the general disaster produced by the
speculative policy of his former guardians which first called forth his
sterling qualities and hardened him into a premature manhood. With
indefatigable energy he at once attempted to grapple with the
difficulties of the situation, waging an almost desperate struggle with
sloth, corruption and incompetence. Amidst universal anarchy, the young
king, barely twenty years of age, inexperienced, ill-served, snatching
at every expedient, worked day and night in his newly-formed camp in
Scania (Skane) to arm the nation for its mortal struggle. The victory of
Fyllebro (Aug. 17, 1676), when Charles and his commander-in-chief S.G.