Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What years did King Charles XII reign in Sweden?
Charles XII, sometimes Carl (Swedish: Karl XII) or Latinized to Carolus Rex (17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 O.S.[1]), was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach. Charles was the only surviving son of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder. He assumed power, after a seven-month caretaker government, at the age of fifteen.[2]
During the early years of Charles' reign the Neapolitan court was engaged in a dispute with the Holy See. The Kingdom of Naples was an ancient fief of the Papal States. For this reason, Pope Clement XII considered himself the only one entitled to invest the king of Naples. He did not recognise Charles of Bourbon as a legitimate sovereign. Through the apostolic nuncio, the Pope let Charles know he did not consider valid the nomination received by him from Charles' father, the King of Spain. In response, a committee headed by the Tuscan lawyer Bernardo Tanucci in Naples concluded that papal investiture was not necessary because the crowning of a king could not be considered a sacrament. Tanucci also implemented a policy of substantially limiting the privileges of the clergy, whose vast possessions enjoyed tax exemption and their own jurisdiction. However, the Neapolitan government also made conciliatory gestures, such as forbidding the return home of the exiled historian Pietro Giannone, unwelcome to the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Russia, Saxony–Poland, and Denmark–Norway pooled their power in 1700 and attacked the Swedish empire. Although the young Swedish King Charles XII (1682–1718; reigned 1697–1718) won spectacular victories in the early years of the Great Northern War, most notably in the stunning success against the Russians at the Battle of Narva (1700), his plan to attack Moscow and force Russia into peace proved too ambitious.
History of Charles XII (""Histoire de Charles XII"") is a historical work by the French historian, philosopher, and writer Voltaire about Charles XII, king of Sweden. It was first published in 1731.
Johann Reinhold Patkul (27 July 1660 – 10 October 1707) was a Livonian nobleman, politician and agitator of Baltic German extraction. Born as a subject to the Swedish Crown, he protested against the manner of King Charles XI of Sweden's reduction in Livonia, enraging the king, who had him arrested and sentenced to mutilation and death (1694). Patkul fled from the Swedish Empire to continental Europe, and played a key role in the secret diplomacy (1698-1699) allying Peter I of Russia, Augustus II the Strong of Saxony and the Poland–Lithuania - as well as Christian V and his successor Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway - against Charles XII of Sweden, triggering the Great Northern War of 1700-1721. During the first war years, Patkul retained a key role in the communication between the allies and other European courts, holding positions at king Augustus's court first in Augustus's interests (1698-1700), then in tsar Peter's service (1702- ). In late 1705 Patkul fell from Augustus's favor and was arrested and charged with high treason. Throughout the following year he was detained first in Sonnenstein, then in Königstein (both in Saxony), before Charles XII forced Augustus to extradite him by the Treaty of Altranstädt in late 1706. Patkul spent another year in Swedish detention before Charles XII had him broken on the wheel and decapitated.
Charles' death marked the end of autocratic kingship in Sweden, and the subsequent Age of Liberty saw a shift of power from the monarch to the parliament of the estates.[38] Historians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries viewed Charles' death as the result of an aristocratic plot, and Gustav IV Adolf, the king who refused to settle with Napoleon Bonaparte, "identified himself with Charles as a type of righteous man struggling with iniquity" (Roberts).[39] Throughout the 19th century's romantic nationalism Charles XII was viewed as a national hero. He was idealized as a heroic, virtuous young warrior king, and his fight against Peter the Great was associated with the contemporary Swedish-Russian enmity.[40] Examples of the romantic hero idolatry of Charles XII in several genres are Esaias Tegnér's song Kung Karl, den unge hjälte (1818), Johan Peter Molin's statue[40] in Stockholm's Kungsträdgården (unveiled on 30 November 1868, the 150th anniversary of Charles' death)[41] and Gustaf Cederström's painting Karl XII:s likfärd ("Funeral procession of Charles XII", 1878).[42] The date of Charles' death was chosen by a student association in Lund for annual torch marches beginning in 1853.[43]
In 1618, during the reign of Gustav II Adolf, a revised version of the Gustav Vasa Bible was published, and the Charles XII Bible was a modernised version of this Bible, including corrections and revised spellings. It remained the official Swedish Bible translation until 1917, and it was used in readings and sermons in the Church of Sweden.
Hans Wachtmeister, Count of Johannishus, ( – ) was admiral general of the Swedish Navy and advisor to King Charles XI of Sweden and King Charles XII of Sweden. He served in the Scanian War of 1675–1679 and during the following twenty years of peace worked to build up the Swedish Navy. When the Great Northern War began in 1700 he was able to take his fleet to sea in good condition.
In 1715 Swedenborg returned to Sweden, where he devoted himself to natural science and engineering projects for the next two decades. A first step was his meeting with King Charles XII of Sweden in the city of Lund, in 1716. The Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem, who became a close friend of Swedenborg, was also present. Swedenborg's purpose was to persuade the king to fund an observatory in northern Sweden. However, the warlike king did not consider this project important enough, but did appoint Swedenborg to be assessor-extraordinary on the Swedish Board of Mines ("Bergskollegium") in Stockholm.
Charles did not pursue the Russian army. Instead, he turned against Poland-Lithuania, which was formally neutral at this point, thereby disregarding Polish negotiation proposals supported by the Swedish parliament. Charles defeated the Polish king Augustus II and his Saxon allies at the Battle of Kliszow in 1702 and captured many cities of the Commonwealth. After the deposition of Augustus as king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Charles XII put Stanisław Leszczyński as his puppet on the Polish throne (1704).[11]
On 12 November 1712, he was appointed grand vizier. The main diplomatic problem during his office term was the fate of the King Charles XII of Sweden, who was residing in Ottoman lands after his defeat by the Russian forces in the Battle of Poltava (1709). When Charles XII refused to return to his country Sweden, Süleyman Pasha moved his residence from Bender in Ottoman Moldova to Didymoteicho in Ottoman Greece. But Ottoman Sultan Ahmet III (reigned 1703–1730) did not approve this policy towards a guest of the Empire.
Charles fascinated many in his time. In 1731, Voltaire wrote a biography of Charles XII, History of Charles XII. Voltaire portrays the Swedish king in a positive light, against the brutal nature of Peter the Great.[50] Samuel Johnson, a devoted anti-militarian, wrote in his poem "The Vanity of Human Wishes":
The 1925 Swedish film Charles XII was a silent epic portraying his reign. In 2007, Oleg Ryaskov again portrayed Charles XII (Eduard Flerov) in the Russian drama The Sovereign's Servant.
Pylyp Orlyk was after 1709 chosen as a Hetman in exile by the cossacks and the Swedish king Charles XII. While in Bender Orlyk wrote one of the first state constitutions in Europe. This Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk was confirmed by Charles XII and it also names him as "the protector of Ukraine". After 1714 Orlyk now together with several other cossacks followed the Swedish king Charles XII to Sweden. Orlyk with his family and about 40 other Cossacks arrived in Ystad, Sweden in late November 1715. After some months in Ystad they lived in the city of Kristianstad for some years. Orlyk wrote numerous proclamations and essays about Ukraine including the 1710 Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk.
Though known as King Charles XIII in Sweden, he was actually the seventh Swedish king by that name, as Charles IX (reigned 1604–1611) had adopted his numeral after studying a fictitious history of Sweden.
Charles Frederick was born in Sweden, the son of Frederick IV of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and his consort, Hedvig Sophia, daughter of King Charles XI of Sweden. He became reigning duke in infancy, upon his father's death in 1702, co-ruling, however under guardianship till 1717, with his father's cousin King Frederick IV of Denmark in the Duchy of Holstein, a Holy Roman imperial fief, and the Duchy of Schleswig, a Danish fief, there as a vassal to the Danish king. All his life was a legitimate claimant to the throne of Sweden, as "pro forma" heir to Charles XII, who was his maternal uncle. 
Early in the Great Northern War, Charles XII of Sweden campaigned in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, was king since 1697. Aimed at dethroning his adversary, Charles XII managed to have his candidate Stanisław Leszczyński elected king of Poland on 12 July 1704. Augustus' ally Peter the Great, tsar of Russia, was reluctant to engage Charles XII in a major battle as a consequence of the decisive defeat his army had suffered at Narva in 1700. A faction of the Polish and Lithuanian nobles did not accept Leszczyński's election, which had been imposed in neglect of the commonwealth's customs, and organized in the Sandomir or Sandomierz Confederation in support of Augustus. They declared the election illegal, outlawed Leszczyński's supporters who were organized in the Warsaw Confederation, declared war on Sweden and allied with Russia in the Treaty of Narva.
The new system was put to the test for the first time in 1700, when Sweden, under the reign of Charles XII, was attacked by a coalition of its neighbours Russia, Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland in the Great Northern War. The mobilization of the soldiers worked well thanks to the new system, with Sweden mobilizing 43,000 men in allotted regiments, and another 33,000 men from various enlisted regiments. The army was one of the largest in Europe at the time, having modern equipment and being very well-trained and organized. However, three enemies were too much, even though Charles XII forced Denmark to leave the war the same year it started, and forced Saxony to leave the war in 1706. After these successful blows to the coalition, Charles XII had the opportunity to sign a peace with the remaining opponent, Russia. He did not, and this decision would have immense effects on the population. Russia's vast plains did not give Charles XII the possibility to beat his enemy with his superior army; instead, he was forced into a war of attrition, a war he could not win.
The Siege of Fredriksten ("Beleiringen av Fredriksten festning") was an attack on the Norwegian fortress of Fredriksten in the city of Fredrikshald,
(now Halden) by King Charles XII of Sweden. While inspecting his troops' lines, Charles XII was killed by a projectile. The Swedes broke the siege off, and the Norwegians held the fortress. Alongside with the Treaty of Nystad three years later, the death of Charles XII marked the end of the imperial era in Sweden, and the beginning of the Age of Liberty (Swedish: "Frihetstiden") in that country.
During the Great Northern War Sweden and Hetman Ivan Mazepa formed an alliance in 1708 against Peter I of Russia. But after the defeat at Poltava on 28 June 1709, parts of the Swedish army under king Charles XII and Hetman Ivan Mazepa together with his loyal cossacks had to flee to Bender in Ottoman Turkey where Mazepa soon died. Pylyp Orlyk was then chosen as a Hetman in exile by the cossacks and the Swedish king Charles XII. While in Bender Pylyp Orlyk wrote one of the first state constitutions in Europe. This constitutions was confirmed by Charles XII and it also names him as "the protector of Ukraine".
In 1901, August Strindberg in his play Karl XII broke with the heroization practice, showing an introverted Charles XII in conflict with his impoverished subjects.[44] In the so-called Strindberg feud (1910–1912), his response to the "Swedish cult of Charles XII" (Steene)[45] was that Charles had been "Sweden's ruin, the great offender, a ruffian, the rowdies' idol, a counterfeiter."[46] Verner von Heidenstam however, one of his opponents in the feud, in his book Karolinerna instead "emphasized the heroic steadfastness of the Swedish people in the somber years of trial during the long-drawn-out campaigns of Karl XII" (Scott).[47]
Charles XV & IV also Carl ("Carl Ludvig Eugen"); Swedish: "Karl XV" and Norwegian: "Karl IV" (3 May 1826 – 18 September 1872) was King of Sweden ("Charles XV") and Norway ("Charles IV") from 1859 until his death. Though known as King Charles XV in Sweden (and also on contemporary Norwegian coins), he was actually the ninth Swedish king by that name, as his predecessor Charles IX (reigned 1604–1611) had adopted a numeral according to a fictitious history of Sweden.
He was the only son of King Charles X Gustav of Sweden and Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp. His father died when he was five years old, so Charles was educated by his governors until his coronation at the age of seventeen. Soon afterward, he was forced out on military expeditions to secure the recently acquired dominions from Danish troops in the Scanian War. Having successfully fought off the Danes, he returned to Stockholm and engaged in correcting the country's neglected political, financial and economic situation. He managed to sustain peace during the remaining 20 years of his reign. Changes in finance, commerce, national maritime and land armaments, judicial procedure, church government and education emerged during this period. Charles XI was succeeded by his only son Charles XII, who made use of the well-trained army in battles throughout Europe.
In Roy Andersson's 2014 film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, a young Swedish king appears in several scenes while an army in the background sings a song about Charles XII. In one scene, the king has all the women driven out of a bar before he enters, orders mineral water rather than beer, and takes interest in the young male bar assistant, which accords with popular depictions of Charles XII, as a bachelor and teetotaler.
The two buildings were built in 1699-1702 to accommodate the 200 bodyguards of King Charles XII. They were built to the design of Nicodemus Tessin the Younger using bricks from several palaces, in Ekolsund, Gripsholm, Nyköping, Eskilstuna, and Svartsjö. As Charles spent most of his reign on the battlefields, however, neither building was used for the original purpose, serving instead to house the poor and homeless. Poor and homeless people of Stockholm emerged in great numbers following Sweden's defeat at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, but were considerably decimated by the Black Death, which hit the city the following year. As Sweden started to create its fleet of galleys in 1715, these two buildings were gradually transformed from hospitals into offices and workshops for the fleet.