Identifier: medivalmodernh00myer (find matches)
Title: Mediæval and modern history
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Myers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness), 1846-1937
Subjects: Middle Ages History, Modern World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: Boston, New York (etc.) Ginn and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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lphuscast a halo about the Swedish throne. The ideal of this greatsovereign had been the creation of a state embracing all the landsbordering upon the Baltic. In a certain measure this magnificentideal had been realized. The Baltic was virtually a Swedishlake,— the Mediterranean of an empire which aspired to be themistress of the North. But unfortunately Sweden could not maintain such a sea empirewithout hemming in and cramping in their normal development,territorial or commercial, various neighboring states,—in particu-lar, Russia, Poland, and Denmark. In this situation lay hiddenthe germ of the long and obstinate so-named Swedish Wars, whichwere essentially a struggle for the control of the Baltic. 1 The government of Sweden had now become an absolute autocracy. In 1693the Riksdag, or Diet, had proclaimed the Swedish monarch to be an all-commandingsovereign-king responsible for his actions to none on earth, but with authority as aChristian king to rule as it seemeth to him best.
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§463) THE BATTLE OF NARVA 407 The accession to the throne of the young and inexperiencedCharles offered to the jealous enemies and watchful rivals ofSweden seemingly too good an opportunity to be lost for pushingher back into the northern peninsula. Accordingly three sover-eigns, Frederick IV of Denmark, Augustus the Strong, Elector ofSaxony and King of Poland, and Peter the Great of Russia,leagued against him for the purpose of appropriating such por-tions of his dominions as they severally coveted. 463. The Battle of Narva (1700). But the conspirators hadformed a wrong estimate of the young Swedish monarch. Not-withstanding the insane follies in which he was accustomed toindulge, he possessed talent; especially had he a remarkableaptitude for military affairs, though lacking many of the qualitiesof a great commander. With a well-trained force—a veteran army that had not yetforgotten the discipline of the hero Gustavus Adolphus—Charlesnow threw himself first upon the Danes,, and

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