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Gustav IV Adolf or Gustav IV Adolph was King of Sweden from 1792 until his abdication in 1809. He was the son of Gustav III of Sweden and his queen consort Sophia Magdalena, eldest daughter of Frederick V of Denmark and his first wife Louise of Great Britain. He was the last Swedish ruler of Finland, the occupation of which by Russian Czar Alexander I in 1808-09 was the immediate cause of his violent downfall. After an army revolt, the king was seized by officers and forced to relinquish the throne on behalf of his family on March 29, the anniversary of his father's death (due to gunshot wound, in 1792). The Instrument of Government subsequently written was adopted on June 6, the current National Day of Sweden, and was in effect until replaced in 1974. The crown (now with strictly limited powers) passed to his childless uncle, Charles XIII, whose want of heirs set into motion an intense quest for a successor who was found the following year in the person of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who assumed the throne in 1818, commencing the present House of Bernadotte. |
