page_title: Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie
section_title: Reduction and absolutism: The fall of De la Gardie
hierarchical_section_title: Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie / Biography / Career / 1672–1686: Under Charles XI / Reduction and absolutism: The fall of De la Gardie
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Venngarns slott, Sigtuna kommun. English: Castle Venngarn, Sigtuna Municipality, Sweden. Deutsch: Schloss Venngarn, Gemeinde Sigtuna, Schweden.
context_page_description: Count Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie was a Swedish statesman and military man. He became a member of the Swedish Privy Council in 1647 and came to be the holder of three of the five offices counted as the Great Officers of the Realm, namely Lord High Treasurer, Lord High Chancellor and Lord High Steward. He also served as Governor-General in the Swedish dominion of Livonia.
context_section_description: The harsh conditions in the latter half of the 1670s, with the war as the main cause, could be attributed to the treaty with France, for which De la Gardie had been a spokesman. The hard times came to lead to the upheavals in 1680. The financial crisis in Sweden, made King Charles XI assemble the Riksdag of the Estates in October 1680. Here, the king finally pushed through the reduction ordeal, something that had been discussed in the Riksdag since 1650. It meant that any land or object previously owned by the crown and lent or given away — including counties, baronies and lordships - could be recovered. In principal, the entire Swedish elite of nobles was demolished.
  Another important decision made during the assembly was that concerning the Privy Council. Since 1634, it had been mandatory for the king to take the advice from this council. During the Scanian War, the members of the council had internal feuds, and the king more or less ruled without listening to their advice. At the 1680 assembly, he asked the estates whether he was still bound to the council, to which the estates gave him his desired reply: "he was not bound by anyone other than himself", and thereby the absolute monarchy was formally established in Sweden. De la Gardie had tried to rally the members of the Privy Council to withstand the development leading to absolutism, but in vain.
  Prior to the Riksdag, De la Gardie had been removed from the Lord High Chancellor office and instead been made Lord High Steward. Thus, De la Gardie lost influence in general and on the country's foreign policy in particular.
  Perhaps no other man was as negatively affected by the reduction as De la Gardie. He was judged owing the state a huge sum (352,159 daler silvermynt) and lost his whole fortune through the recoveries made by the Crown. For example, his Läckö estate was recovered in one and a half days.  The only estates he could keep were Venngarn and Höjentorp. In 1675 a special commission was appointed to inquire into the doings of De la Gardie and his high aristocratic colleagues, and on 27 May 1682 it decided that the regents and the senate were solely responsible for dilapidations of the realm, the compensation due by them to the crown being assessed at 4,000,000 riksdaler. De la Gardie was treated with relative leniency, but he "received permission to retire to his estates for the rest of his life". Spending his final days on Venngarn, he could not understand what crimes he had committed. Desperately, he concluded that "what I have acquired during 38 years, and my father and ancestors during 40 years, is gone". Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie died at Venngarn on 26 April 1686.
  De la Gardie had been partly responsible for the treaty with France and had worked hard to increase the young King Charles's power. It might seem ironic that the treaty helped moving Sweden into a deep crisis financially, which, together with the level of power Charles had attained, in turn led to the reduction. Thus, De la Gardie contributions came to be a large factor behind his own fall from power and richness.
caption: Venngarn Castle
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