What is the first name of the King who wrote that "some of our sea officers have shown such cowardly and careless behavior [that they] have placed the safety, welfare and defense of the kingdom at great peril"?
According to the artillery officer Anders Gyllenspak, only 40 men, including himself, survived the sinking: Major Johan Klerk, 2 trumpeters, 14 sailors and 22 soldiers, which means that more than 800 had perished. Among them were half a dozen navy and army officers as well as the chief physician of the Admiralty and the fleet apothecary. Altogether around 1,400 men died when Kronan and Svärdet were lost, and in the days following the battle, hundreds of corpses were washed up on the east coast of Öland. According to the vicar of Långlöt parish, 183 men were taken from the beaches and buried at Hulterstad and Stenåsa graveyards. Lorentz Creutz's body was identified and shipped to his estate Sarvlax near the town of Loviisa, Finland, where it was buried. The losses were even worse since Kronan was the flagship and was manned with the best sailors and gunners in the fleet. When Kronan and Svärdet went down, they took with them the navy's entire stock of 30- and 36-pounder guns. Altogether over 300 tonnes of bronze guns worth nearly 250,000 silver dalers went down with the ships, a sum that was slightly higher than the value of the ships themselves.Within a week, the news of the failure at Bornholm and the disaster at Öland reached King Charles, who immediately ordered that a commission be set up to investigate the fiasco. Charles wanted to know if Bär and other officers were guilty of cowardice or incompetence. On 13 June the King wrote that "some of our sea officers have shown such cowardly and careless behavior [that they] have placed the safety, welfare and defense of the kingdom at great peril", and that "such a great crime should be sternly punished". The commission began its work on 7 June 1676 and finished in October 1677, without passing any sentences. Admiral Johan Bär of Nyckeln and Lieutenant Admiral Christer Boije, who ran aground with Äpplet, were never again given a navy command. One of the accused, Hans Clerck of Solen, was promoted to full admiral by the King even before the commission presented its findings.
Charles