Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden

Biography

The news of Charles XII's death reached her on 5 December 1718. Ulrika Eleonora did not wait for the council to decide: in Uddevalla she had herself proclaimed queen by right of inheritance. The council was taken aback and did not object. After that she moved quickly: she ordered the arrest of the followers of Georg Heinrich von Görtz and annulled the decrees drawn up by him.

She was born on 23 January 1688 in Stockholm Palace, the youngest child of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark. Her mother died in 1693, and the children were looked after by their grandmother, the Queen Dowager Hedwig Eleonora, who plainly favoured her elder granddaughter Hedvig Sophia, the livelier and more talented of the two. The younger sister was described as friendly, modest, unsure of herself and easily reduced to tears; her grandmother called her stubborn. She played the clavier well, and at court concerts accompanied her sister, who sang. She had many suitors: as long as Charles XII remained unmarried and childless, she was considered a likely heir. Plans involving a Danish prince, the future Frederick William I of Prussia, the future George II of Great Britain and the Duke of Saxe-Gotha all came to nothing, and one of them, according to tradition, the king broke off without explanation.

Her family backed the marriage to Frederick of Hesse-Kassel for reasons of their own: her grandmother hoped that the princess would move to Hesse and that the chances of Hedvig Sophia's son to the Swedish throne would improve. The engagement was announced on 23 January 1714, and the wedding took place on 24 March 1715. According to tradition, Charles XII said at the wedding: “Tonight my sister is dancing away the crown.” On Ulrika Eleonora's side, the marriage was a love match.

After Hedvig Sophia died in 1708, she was the only adult member of the royal family in Sweden, apart from her grandmother. At the end of 1712 or the beginning of 1713 Charles XII, who was abroad, thought of making her regent but did not carry the plan through. The council persuaded the princess to attend its meetings; at the first of them, on 2 November 1713, it was decided to convene the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament of the estates. With her brother's consent she signed the council's papers, except those addressed to the king personally, and regarded herself only as his representative. She managed to see her brother just twice: in 1716 at Vadstena, after sixteen years apart, and in 1718 at Kristinehamn.

On 15 December 1718, in summoning the Riksdag, she declared that she renounced Carolinian absolutism. The military leadership demanded that both hereditary right and absolute rule be abolished and that she be elected queen. She had to concede that neither she nor her nephew Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp had any right to the throne. On 23 January 1719 she was elected queen, and on 19 February she signed the Instrument of Government of 1719. The coronation took place in Uppsala Cathedral on 17 March, and on 11 April Stockholm gave her a formal welcome. At the reception of the estates she allowed only the representatives of the nobility to kiss her hand with her glove on, and the others without it.

In the summer of 1719 the Russian fleet approached Stockholm. The queen nonetheless made her courtiers go to a reception at the British ambassador's. In fifteen months she ennobled 181 people, more than any other Swedish monarch. Her relations with the council, however, went badly: Arvid Horn, president of the Chancellery, resigned after a quarrel, and he is the one credited with the remark that nothing better could be expected under “the regiment of a female”. She did not get on with his successor, Gustaf Cronhielm, either. She wanted to share the throne with her husband, as William III and Mary II had in England, but the Riksdag refused. On 29 February 1720 she abdicated in favour of Frederick, on condition that she would return to the throne if he died before her. On 24 March 1720 he was proclaimed king. She later spoke of the abdication as the greatest sacrifice of her life.

From then on she kept away from affairs of state, reading and doing charitable work. In 1731, while Frederick was in Hesse, and in 1738–1739, during his illness, she ruled herself. She had no children: after miscarriages in 1715 and 1718 she still hoped, until 1724, to bear an heir.

The marriage changed. From 1734 the king had an official mistress, Hedvig Taube, and the queen at first hid her hurt but toward the end of her life began to show it openly. In 1741 the clergy in the Riksdag lodged a protest, reminding the king of his oath to respect his wife.

She died on 24 November 1741 in Stockholm.

There were rumours of poison, but at the lying in state the marks of her illness were visible on the body, and the rumours died down. Because she remained heir to the throne, her death opened a succession crisis.