Karl X Gustav 1622-60
King of Sweden

The son of John Casimir of Zweibr�cken, Count Palatine, and of Catherine, daughter of Karl IX and sister of Gustav II Adolf, he was born at Nyk�ping Castle, and trained at the military academy in Sor�, Denmark. Decisive, energetic and ruthless, he took part in the Thirty Years War as generalissimo of the Swedish forces in Germany (1648). He was appointed Crown Prince (1650), and succeeded to the throne in 1654 on the abdication of his cousin Queen Kristina, whom he failed in his efforts to marry. He overran Poland in 1655, forcing the Elector of Brandenburg to acknowledge his lordship over Prussia, and crushed the Polish forces at Warsaw (1656). In war with the Danes (1657-58), he crossed the Little and Great Belt on the ice, seized Jutland and Zealand, and extorted from the Danes through the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) the southern parts of the Scandinavian peninsula, which they had held for centuries. Under him Sweden reached the limit of her territorial expansion. At home he imposed a policy of repossessing Crown lands from the nobles (Reduktion) in 1655. Dying suddenly, he was succeeded by his four-year-old son, Karl XI.