Oscar II
King of Sweden and Norway
Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905. He inherited the Swedish and Norwegian thrones when his brother died in 1872. Oscar II ruled during a time when both countries were undergoing a period of industrialization and rapid technological progress. His reign also saw the gradual decline of the Union of Sweden and Norway, which culminated in its dissolution in 1905. In 1905, the throne of Norway was transferred to his grandnephew Prince Carl of Denmark under the regnal name Haakon VII. When Oscar died in 1907, he was succeeded in Sweden by his eldest son, Gustaf V. Oscar Fredrik was born in Stockholm on 21 January 1829, the third of four sons of Crown Prince Oscar and Josephine of Leuchtenberg. Upon his birth, he was created Duke of Östergötland. During his childhood he was placed in the care of the royal governess, Countess Christina Ulrika Taube. Prince Oscar entered the Royal Swedish Navy as a midshipman at the age of eleven, and was appointed junior lieutenant in July 1845. Later he studied at Uppsala University, where he distinguished himself in mathematics. In 1859, Prince Oscar became heir-presumptive to the thrones of Sweden and Norway, as his eldest brother King Charles XV of Sweden/Charles IV of Norway was without a legitimate heir, having lost his only son, Prince Carl Oscar, Duke of Södermanland, to pneumonia in 1854. His second elder brother, Prince Gustaf, Duke of Uppland,
had before died of typhoid fever in 1852. Oscar II became King on 18 September 1872, upon the death of his brother, Charles XV who died without an heir. At his accession, he adopted as his motto Brödrafolkens väl / Broderfolkenes Vel ("The Welfare of the Brother Peoples"). While the King, his family and the Royal Court resided mostly in Sweden, Oscar II made the effort of learning to be fluent in Norwegian and from the very beginning realized the essential difficulties in the maintenance of the union between the two countries. His acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns (both his paternal and maternal grandfathers were French military commanders who served under Napoleon I) gave the king considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. He remained a strong supporter of the Navy throughout his life, and frequently visited ships of the fleet. When the coastal defence ship Oscar II was launched, he even signed his name on the vessel's aft main gun tower. His Easter hymn and some other of his poems are familiar throughout the Scandinavian countries. His work on Charles XII of Sweden were translated into English in 1879. In 1881 he founded the world's first open-air museum, at Bygdøy, located next to his summer residence near Oslo (back then known as Christiania). In 1885 he published his Address to the Academy of Music, and a translation of one of his essays on music appeared in Literature in May 1900. He had a valuable collection of printed and manuscript music, which was readily accessible to the historical student of music. Being a theater lover, he commissioned a new opera house to be built by Axel Anderberg for the Royal Swedish Opera which was inaugurated on 19 September 1898. It remains as the home of that institution. Oscar II once told playwright Henrik Ibsen that his Ghosts was "not a good play". As he was dying, he requested that the theatres not be closed on account of his death. His wishes were respected. Oscar was also particularly interested in mathematics. In 1889 he set up a contest, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, for "an important discovery in the realm of higher mathematical analysis". The contest listed four potential areas of research, one of which was the n-body problem in celestial mechanics, relevant to the stability of the solar system. Henri Poincare, a professor at the University of Paris, won by submitting an entry showing that even the 3-body problem was unstable, the seminal result in what is now called chaos theory. King Oscar II was an enthusiast of Arctic exploration. Along with Swedish millionaire Oscar Dickson and Russian magnate Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Sibiryakov, he was the patron of a number of pioneering Arctic expeditions in the 1800s. Among the ventures the king sponsored, the most important are Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld's explorations to the Russian Arctic and Greenland, and Fridtjof Nansen's Polar journey on the Fram. Oscar was also a generous sponsor of the sciences and personally funded the Vega Expedition, which was the first Arctic expedition to navigate through the Northeast Passage, the sea route between Europe and Asia through the Arctic Ocean, and the first voyage to circumnavigate Eurasia.
The Swedish Armed Forces have a long history, dating back to the sixteenth century, and have played an influential role in the history of Sweden. They reached their height in the seventeenth century, during the time of the Swedish Empire, when they participated in a variety of wars; these include the Scanian War, Second Northern War, and Great Northern War, among others. Since the nineteenth century, they have also played an important role in the maintenance of Swedish neutrality. The history of the Swedish Armed Forces dates back to the early sixteenth century, when they were founded by the newly crowned monarch Gustav I Vasa. Since then, they have played an important role in the history of Sweden; they have been engaged in numerous conflicts since their founding. It was in the seventeenth century that the Swedish Armed Forces reached their height, during the time of the Swedish Empire. During this time,
they were among the leaders in military innovation, and engaged in many wars; among the Swedish wars of the seventeenth century were the Thirty Years' War, Second Northern War, Scanian War and Great Northern War. The military of the Swedish Empire was one of the most important institutions in the empire. According to the Treaty of Kiel, the king of Denmark–Norway ceded Norway to the king of Sweden. However, Norwegian resistance led to the restoration of Norwegian independence in 1814. Trying to enforce the provisions of the Kiel treaty, Sweden invaded Norway in July 1814. After two weeks, the superior strength of the Swedish army had forced the Norwegians to conclude the Convention of Moss on 14 August 1814. Norway kept its new constitution and formal independence, but had to accept a personal union with Sweden. The peace with Norway at Moss concluded the last Swedish war.
The House of Bernadotte is the royal family of Sweden, founded there in 1818 by King Charles XIV John of Sweden. It was also the royal family of Norway between 1818 and 1905. Its founder was born in Pau in southern France as Jean Bernadotte. Bernadotte, who had been made a General of Division and Minister of War for his service in the French Army during the French Revolution, and Marshal of the French Empire and Prince of Ponte Corvo under Napoleon, was adopted by the elderly King Charles XIII of Sweden, who had no other heir and whose Holstein-Gottorp branch of the House of Oldenburg thus was soon to be extinct on the Swedish throne. Following the conclusion of the Finnish War in 1809, Sweden lost possession of Finland, which had constituted roughly the eastern half of the Swedish realm for centuries. Resentment towards King Gustav IV Adolf precipitated an abrupt coup d'état. Gustav Adolf (and his son Gustav) was deposed and his uncle Charles XIII was elected King in his place. However,
Charles XIII was 61 years old and prematurely senile. He was also childless; one child had been stillborn and another died after less than a week. It was apparent almost as soon as Charles XIII ascended the throne that the Swedish branch of the House of Holstein-Gottorp would die with him. In 1810 the Riksdag of the Estates, the Swedish parliament, elected a Danish prince, Prince Christian August of Augustenborg, as heir-presumptive to the throne. He took the name Charles August, but died later that same year. At this time, Emperor Napoleon I of France controlled much of continental Europe, and some of his client states were headed by his siblings. The Riksdag decided to choose a king of whom Napoleon would approve. On 21 August 1810, the Riksdag elected Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, a Marshal of France, as heir presumptive to the Swedish throne. The coat of arms of the House of Bernadotte impales the coat of arms of the House of Vasa (heraldic right) and the coat of arms of Bernadotte as Prince of Pontecorvo (heraldic left). It is visible as an inescutcheon in the Greater Coat of Arms of the Realm.
When elected to be Swedish royalty the new heir had been called Prince Bernadotte according to the promotions he received from Emperor Napoleon I, culminating in sovereignty over the Principality of Pontecorvo.
The king is dressed in the uniform of a general of the Swedish Army. He wears the collar and sash of the Royal Order of the Seraphim. On the king's chest there are stars of the five Swedish and Norwegian orders: the Order of the Seraphim, Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav, Royal Order of the Sword, Royal Order of Vasa and Royal Order of Charles XIII.
