Gustav III 1746-92
King of Sweden

Born in Stockholm, he was the son of King Adolf Fredrik and Louisa Ulrika, sister of King Frederick II, the Great of Prussia. A brilliant and captivating figure, when he ascended the throne in 1771 he was determined to break the power of the oligarchy of nobles. He arrested the council, declared a new form of government (1772), purged the bureaucracy, and encouraged agriculture, commerce and science. He granted religious toleration, but also created a secret police system and introduced censorship. He was a patron of the arts, and wrote plays. His court became a northern Versailles, with the foundation of the Royal Opera House (1782), the Swedish Academy (1786) after the French pattern, and the Royal Dramatic Theatre (1788). With poor harvests and a failing economy creating discontent, as a diversion he launched into a war against Russia (1788-90) that proved unpopular and inconclusive, and in 1789 he assumed new royal prerogatives as absolute monarch. At the beginning of the French Revolution he encouraged Count Hans Axel von Fersen to rescue the French royal family in the abortive Flight to Varennes (1791), and planned to use his army to help Louis XVI, but in 1792 he was shot by a former army officer, Johan Jakob Anckarstr�m, and later died. Married to Sofia Magdalena of Denmark, he was succeeded by his young son, Gustav IV Adolf.