Charles XII of Sweden Charles XII also Carl of Sweden , , Latinized to Carolus Rex ( ' Charles the King ' ) ( 17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 ) was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718 . Charles was the only surviving son of King Charles XI of Sweden and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder . He assumed power , after a seven - month caretaker government , at the age of fifteen . In 1700 , a triple alliance of Denmark – Norway , Saxony – Poland – Lithuania and Russia launched a threefold attack on the Swedish protectorate of Swedish Holstein - Gottorp and provinces of Livonia and Ingria , aiming to draw advantage as Sweden was unaligned and ruled by a young and inexperienced king , thus initiating the Great Northern War . Leading the formidable Swedish army against the alliance , Charles had by 1706 forced to submission all of his foes except Russia . Charles ' subsequent march on Moscow ended with the dismemberment of the Swedish army at Poltava and Perevolochna , and he spent the following years in exile in the Ottoman Empire before returning to lead an assault on Norway , trying to evict the Danish king from the war once more in order to aim all his forces at the Russians . Two failed campaigns concluded with his death at the Siege of Fredriksten in 1718 . At the time , most of the Swedish Empire was under foreign military occupation , though Sweden itself was still free . This situation was later formalized , albeit moderated in the subsequent Treaty of Nystad . The close would see not only the end of the Swedish Empire but also of its effectively organized absolute monarchy and war machine , commencing a parliamentarian government unique for continental Europe , which would last for half a century until royal autocracy was restored by Gustav III . Charles was an exceptionally skilled military leader and tactician as well as an able politician , credited with introducing important tax and legal reforms . As for his famous reluctance towards peace efforts he is quoted by Voltaire as saying , upon the outbreak of the war ; " I have resolved never to start an unjust war but never to end a legitimate one except by defeating my enemies . " With the war consuming more than half his life and nearly all his reign , he never married and fathered no children , and was succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora , who in turn was coerced to hand over all substantial powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and opted to surrender the throne to her husband , who became King Frederick I of Sweden . Royal title . Charles , like all kings , was styled by a royal title , which combined all his titles into one single phrase . This was : " We Charles , by the Grace of God King of Sweden , the Goths and the Vends , Grand Prince of Finland , Duke of Scania , Estonia , Livonia and Karelia , Lord of Ingria , Duke of Bremen , Verden and Pomerania , Prince of Rügen and Lord of Wismar , and also Count Palatine by the Rhine , Duke of Bavaria , Count of Zweibrücken – Kleeburg , as well as Duke of Jülich , Cleve and Berg , Count of Veldenz , Spanheim and Ravensberg and Lord of Ravenstein " . The fact that Charles was crowned as Charles XII does not mean that he was the 12th king of Sweden by that name . Swedish kings Erik XIV ( 1560 – 1568 ) and Charles IX ( 1604 – 1611 ) gave themselves numerals after studying a mythological history of Sweden . He was actually the 6th King Charles . The non - mathematic numbering tradition continues with the current King of Sweden , Carl XVI Gustaf , being counted as the equivalent of " Charles XVI " . Great Northern War . Early campaigns . Around 1700 , the kings of Denmark – Norway , Saxony ( ruled by elector August II of Poland , who was also the king of Poland - Lithuania ) and Russia united in an alliance against Sweden , largely through the efforts of Johann Reinhold Patkul , a Livonian nobleman gone traitor through the " great reduction " of Charles XI stripping much of the nobility of lands and properties . In late 1699 Charles sent a minor detachment to reinforce his brother - in - law Frederick IV of Holstein - Gottorp , who was attacked by Danish forces the following year . A Saxon army simultaneously invaded Swedish Livonia and initiated a siege on Riga , the most populated city of the Swedish Empire . Russia also declared war , but stopped short of an attack on Swedish Ingria until the late summer . Charles ' s first campaign was against Denmark – Norway , ruled by his cousin Frederick IV of Denmark , For this campaign Charles secured the support of England and the Netherlands , both maritime powers concerned about Denmark ' s threats to close the Sound . Leading a force of 8 , 000 and 43 ships in an invasion of Zealand , Charles rapidly compelled the Danes to submit to the Peace of Travendal in August 1700 , which indemnified Holstein . Having forced Denmark – Norway to peace within months , King Charles turned his attention upon the two other powerful neighbors , King August II ( cousin to both Charles XII and Frederick IV of Denmark – Norway ) and Peter the Great of Russia , who also had entered the war against him , ironically on the same day that Denmark came to terms . Russia had opened their part of the war by invading the Swedish - held territories of Livonia and Estonia . Charles countered this by attacking the Russian besiegers at the Battle of Narva . The Swedish army of ten thousand men was outnumbered almost four to one by the Russians . Charles attacked under cover of a blizzard , effectively split the Russian army in two and won the battle . Many of Peter ' s troops that fled the battlefield drowned in the Narva River , and the total number of Russian fatalities reached about 10 , 000 at the end of the battle , while the Swedish troop lost 667 men . 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 August as king of the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth , Charles XII put Stanisław Leszczyński , largely a puppet of Charles , on the throne . Russian resurgence . While Charles won several decisive battles in the Commonwealth and ultimately secured the coronation of his ally Stanisław Leszczyński and the surrender of Saxony , the Russian Tsar Peter the Great embarked on a military reform plan that improved the Russian army , using the effectively organized Swedes and other European standards for role model . Russian forces managed to penetrate Ingria and established a new city , Saint Petersburg , there . Charles planned an invasion of the Russian heartland , allying himself with Ivan Mazepa , Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks . The size of the invading Swedish army was peeled off as Charles left Leszczyński with some 24 , 000 German and Polish troops , departing eastwards from Saxony in late 1707 with some 35 , 000 men , adding a further 12 , 500 under Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt marching from Livonia . Charles left the homeland with a defense of approximately 28 , 800 men , with a further 14 , 000 in Swedish Finland as well as further garrisons in the Baltic and German provinces . After securing his " favorite " victory in the Battle of Holowczyn , despite being outnumbered over one to three against the new Russian army , Charles opted to march eastwards on Moscow rather than try to seize Saint Petersburg , founded from the Swedish town of Nyenskans five years earlier . Peter the Great managed , however , to ambush Lewenhaupt ' s army at Lesnaya before Charles could combine his forces , thus losing valuable supplies , artillery and half of Lewenhaupt ' s men . Charles ' Polish ally , Stanisław Leszczyński , was facing internal problems of his own . Charles expected the support of a massive Cossack rebellion led by Mazepa in Ukraine , with estimates suggesting Mazepa of being able to muster some 40 , 000 troops , but the Russians subjugated the rebellion and destroyed its capital Baturin before the arrival of the Swedish troops . The harsh climate took its toll as well , as Charles marched his troops for winter camp in Ukraine . By the time of the decisive Battle of Poltava , Charles had been wounded , one - third of his infantry was dead , and his supply train was destroyed . The king was incapacitated by a coma resulting from his injuries and was unable to lead the Swedish forces . With the numbers of Charles ' army reduced to some 23 , 000 , with several wounded and handling the siege of Poltava , his general Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld had a clearly inferior force to face the fortified and modernized army of Tsar Peter , some 45 , 000 . The Swedish assault ended in disaster , and the king fled with a small entourage south to the Ottoman Empire , where he set up camp at Bender with some 1 , 000 of his " Caroleans " ( " Karoliner " in Swedish ) . The Swedish defeat at Poltava is considered by some historians to be the point where the downfall of the Swedish Empire was consummated and the Russian Empire was founded . The remainder of the army surrendered days later at Perevolochna under Lewenhaupt ' s command , most of them ( including Lewenhaupt himself ) spending the rest of their days in Russian captivity . Exile in the Ottoman Empire . The Turks initially welcomed the Swedish king , who managed to provoke a war between the Ottomans and the Russians . His expenses during his long stay in the Ottoman Empire were covered from the Ottoman state budget , as part of the fixed assets ( " Demirbaş " in Turkish ) , hence his nickname " Demirbaş Şarl " ( Fixed Asset Charles ) in Turkey . " Demirbaş " , the Turkish word for fixed asset , is literally " ironhead " ( " demir " = iron , " baş " = head ) , which is the reason why this nickname has often been translated as " Ironhead Charles " . Eventually a small village named Karlstad had to be built near Bender to accommodate the ever growing Swedish population there . Sultan Ahmet III , as gesture to the King , had bought some of the Swedish women and children put up for sale by the Russians and turned them over to the Swedes , thus further strengthening the growing community of Caroleans . However , the sultan Ahmed III ' s subjects in the empire eventually got tired of Charles ' scheming . His entourage also ended by accumulating huge amounts of debt to Bender merchants . Eventually " crowds " of townpeople attacked the Swedish colony at Bender and Charles had to defend himself against the mobs and the Ottoman Janissaries involved . This uprising was called " kalabalik " ( crowd ) which after this event found a place in Swedish lexicon as " kalabalik " referring to a ruckus . The Janissaries did not shoot Charles during the skirmish at Bender , but captured him and put him under house - arrest at Dimetoka ( nowadays Didimoticho ) and Constantinople . During his semi - imprisonment the King played chess and studied the Ottoman Navy and the naval architecture of the Ottoman galleons . His sketches and designs eventually led to the famous Swedish war ships Jarramas ( Yaramaz ) and Jilderim ( Yıldırım ) . Meanwhile , Russia and Poland regained and expanded their borders . Great Britain , an adversary of Sweden , defected from its alliance obligations while Prussia attacked Swedish holdings in Germany . Russia occupied Finland ( the Greater Wrath 1713 - 1721 ) . After defeats of the Swedish army consisting mainly Finnish troops in Pälkäne 1713 and Storkyro 1714 the military , administration and clergymen escaped from Finland which fell under Russian military regime . Augustus II regained the Polish throne . Pomerania and Norway . Charles agreed to leave Constantinople and returned to Swedish Pomerania . Charles made the journey on horseback , riding across Europe in just fifteen days . He travelled across the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary to Vienna and arrived at Stralsund . A medal with Charles on horseback , his long hair flaring in the wind , was struck in 1714 to commemorate the speedy ride . It reads " Was sorget Ihr doch ? Gott und Ich leben noch . ( What sorries you so ? God and I live still . ) " . After 14 years away , Charles arrived in Sweden to find his homeland at war with Russia , Saxony , Hannover , England and Denmark . Sweden ' s western enemies attacked southern and western Sweden while Russian forces traveled across Finland to attack the Stockholm district . For the first time , Sweden found itself in a defensive war . Charles ' plan was to attack Denmark by striking at her possessions in Norway . It was hoped that by cutting Denmark ' s Norwegian supply lines the Danes would be compeled to withdraw their forces from Swedish Scania . Charles invaded Norway in 1716 with a combined force of 7 , 000 men . He occupied the capital of Christiania , ( modern Oslo ) , and laid siege to the Akershus fortress there . Due to a lack of heavy siege cannons he was unable to dislodge the Norwegian forces inside . After suffering significant losses of men and material , Charles was forced to retreat from the capital on 29 April . In mid - May following , Charles invaded again , this time striking the border town of Fredrikshald , now Halden in an attempt to capture the fortress of Fredriksten . The attacking Swedes came under heavy cannon fire from the fortress and were forced to withdraw when the Norwegians set the town of Fredrikshald on fire . Swedish casualties in Fredrikshald were estimated to be 500 men . While the siege at Fredrikshald was underway the Swedish supply fleet was attacked and defeated by Tordenskjold at the Battle of Dynekilen . In 1718 Charles once more invaded Norway . With a main force of 40 , 000 men , he again laid siege to the fortress of Fredriksten overlooking the town of Fredrikshald . While inspecting trenches close to the perimeter of the fortress on 11 December ( 30 November Old Style ) , 1718 , Charles was struck in the head by a projectile and killed . The shot struck the left side of his skull and exited out of the right , creating a fatal woound . The invasion was abandoned , and Charles ' body was returned to Sweden . A second force under Carl Gustaf Armfeldt marched against Trondheim with 10 , 000 men , but was forced to retreat . In the march that ensued , many of the 5 , 800 remaining men perished in a severe winter storm . Through a series of wars fought in the century following the king ' s death , Russia gained all of Finland from Sweden . The death of Charles XII . The exact circumstances around Charles ' death are unclear . Despite multiple investigations of the battlefield , Charles ' skull and his clothes , it is not known where he was hit exactly , and whether the shot came from the ranks of the enemy or from his own men . A popular but unproven theory is that the murder was an act of conspiracy made by his sister ' s ( Ulrika Eleonora ) husband , Fredrik , who was crowned Fredrik I . It is believed that the murder was committed by Fredrik ’ s aide - de - camp , André Sicre , who confessed to the murder during a state of delirium brought about by a fever and later recanted the statement . There are several theories as to how Charles died , though none can be given with any certainty . Although there were many people around the king at the time of his death , there were no witnesses at the actual moment he was struck . The most likely theory is that Charles was killed by the Danes , as he was within easy reach of the Danish guns . Other possibilities exist and are more sinister . One claim is that the killer was one of his Swedish compatriots , and asserts that the enemy guns were not firing at the time Charles was struck . Suspects in this claim range from a nearby soldier tired of the siege who desired to put an end to the war , to Charles ' own brother - in - law , who profited by the event by taking the throne as Frederick I of Sweden . It is also suspected that a plot to kill Charles may have been put into place by a group of wealthy Swedes who would benefit from the blocking of a 17 % wealth tax that Charles intended to introduce . Another odd account of Charles ' death comes from Finnish writer Carl Nordling , who states that the king ' s surgeon , Melchior Neumann , dreamed that the king had told him that he was not shot from the fortress but from " one who came creeping " . The most far - fetched explanation of Charles ' death comes from a folklorist Barbro Klein , who put together a thoroughly researched paper on her hypothesis in 1971 , " The Testimony of the Button " . The theory all starts with a fragment of metal that was brought to the Halland Museum of Cultural History at Varberg in May 1932 by a master smith named Carl Andersson . Anderson handed over a " two half - spheres of brass filled with lead and soldered together into a ball , with a protruding loop that testified to its former use as a button " and it had been found in a gravel pit near his home in Öxnered 1924 . One side looked to have been flattened by an impact with something hard . According to Klein , this fits perfectly with the Swedish folklore that Charles ' magical protection , ( in contemporary times , he was rumoured to be of such strong breed and character that he was bulletproof ) had been broken by a killer who shot him with the king ' s own coat button . Furthermore , a soldier was said to have found the bullet , brought it home and bragged about it to a local priest , who warned him that the killers might come after him . He threw it into the gravel pit in which Andersson found it a century later . The ' kulknappen ' or bullet - button story is further corroborated by other evidence ; the soldier who found the bullet and brought it home was called " Nordstierna " , which really was the name of a veteran of the Northern War who worked in a farm at Deragard where the bullet was recovered from the gravel pit . The second piece of evidence is that this bullet is a very close match to the size of the bullet hole in Charles ' hat . The third and most compelling piece of evidence is the fact that traces of DNA on the bullet came from someone with a DNA sequence possessed by only 1 % of the Swedish population . An analysis of the blood sample from Charles ' gloves puts him in that 1 % bracket . The body has been exhumed on three occasions to ascertain the cause of death ; in 1746 , 1859 and 1917 . The 1859 exhumation found that the wound was in accordance with a shot from the Norwegian fort while the other two analyses found that he had been murdered . Charles was succeeded to the Swedish throne by his sister , Ulrika Eleonora . As Palatinate - Zweibrücken required a male heir , Charles was succeeded as ruler there by his cousin Gustav Leopold . Georg Heinrich von Görtz , Charles ' minister , was beheaded in 1719 . Legacy . Exceptional for abstaining from alcohol and women , he felt most comfortable during warfare . Contemporaries report of his seemingly inhuman tolerance for pain and his utter lack of emotion . His brilliant campaigning and startling victories brought his country to the pinnacle of her prestige and power , posthumously earning him the epithet " last of the Vikings , " although the Great Northern War resulted in Sweden ' s defeat and the end of her empire within years of his own death . 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 . 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 the righteous man struggling with iniquity " ( Roberts ) . 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 . Examples for the romantic heroization of Charles XII in several genres are Esaias Tegnér ' s song " Kung Karl , den unge hjälte " ( 1818 ) , Johan Peter Molin ' s statue in Stockholm ' s Kungsträdgården ( unveiled on 30 November 1868 , the 150th anniversary of Charles ' death ) and Gustaf Cederström ' s painting " Karl XII : s likfärd " ( " Funeral procession of Charles XII " , 1878 ) . The date of Charles ' death was also chosen by a student association in Lund for annual torch marches starting in 1853 . In 1901 , August Strindberg in his play " Karl XII " broke with the heroization practice , showing an introvert late Charles XII in conflict with his impoverished subjects . In the so - called Strindberg feud ( 1910 – 1912 ) , his response to the " Swedish cult of Charles XII " ( Steene ) was that Charles had been " Sweden ' s ruin , the great offender , a ruffian , the rowdies ' idol , a counterfeiter . " 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 ) . In the 1930s , the Swedish Nazis held celebrations on the date of Charles XII ' s death , and shortly before the outbreak of World War II , Adolf Hitler received from Sweden a sculpture of the king at his birthday . In the late 20th century , Swedish nationalists and neo - Nazis had again used 30 November as a date for their ceremonies , however these were regularly interrupted by larger counter - manifestations and were therefore abandoned . A number of Russian writers for the state coupled Charles XII with Napoleon and Hitler as foreign invaders who all came to grief when trying to invade the Russian heartland . Scientific contributions . Apart from being a monarch , the King ' s interests included mathematics , and anything that would be beneficial to his warlike purposes . He is attributed as having invented an octal numeral system , which he considered more suitable for war purposes because all the boxes used for materials such as gunpowder were cubic . According to a report by contemporary scientist Emanuel Swedenborg , the King had sketched down a model of his thought on a piece of paper and handed it to him at their meeting in Lund in 1716 . The paper was reportedly still in existence a hundred years later , but has since been lost . Several historians of science suspect that either the multi - talented Emanuel Swedenborg or the brilliant inventor Christopher Polhem – also present at the meeting in Lund – may have been the true inventor behind this feat , or at least a main contributor . Literature . Charles fascinated many in his time . Voltaire , who could be very sardonic , stopped in front of Charles and took off his hat . Samuel Johnson , a devoted anti - militarian , wrote in his poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes " : Swedish author Frans G . Bengtsson and Professor Ragnhild Hatton have written biographies of Charles XII of Sweden , as did Voltaire in 1731 . Charles XII figures quite prominently in Robert Massie ' s magnum opus " Peter the Great " . In popular culture . A character based on Charles XII plays a major role in " The Age of Unreason " , a series of four alternate history novels written by American science fiction and fantasy author Gregory Keyes . A number of albums started by Ultima Thule , later including other artists were named " Carolus Rex " . In May 2012 the Swedish power metal band Sabaton released an album named “ Carolus Rex ” . Al Stewart ' s song " The Coldest Winter in Memory " deals primarily with Charles ' s military campaign and defeat by Peter the Great . The song is on the out of print 1996 album " Seemed Like a Good idea at the Time " and the live 2010 album " Uncorked " . References . Ragnhild Hatton , " Charles XII " . London , 1968 .