Charles XV of Sweden

Karl XV (Karl Ludvig Eugen) (May 3, 1826 – September 18, 1872) was King of Sweden and Norway (where he was known as Karl IV) from 1859 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Oscar I and Josephine of Leuchtenberg. On June 19, 1850 he married Louise of the Netherlands, granddaughter of William I of the Netherlands.

Biography

He was born in Stockholm and created Duke of Scania at birth. The Crown Prince was Viceroy of Norway briefly in 1856 and 1857. He became Regent on September 25, 1857, and king on the death of his father on July 8, 1859. As son of Josephine of Leuchtenberg, he was a descendant of Gustav I of Sweden and of a sister of Charles X of Sweden, whose blood returned on the throne after being lost in 1818 when Charles XIII of Sweden died.

As Crown Prince, Charles' brusque and downright manners had led many to regard his future accession with some apprehension, yet he proved to be one of the most popular of Scandinavian kings and a constitutional ruler in the best sense of the word. His reign was remarkable for its manifold and far-reaching reforms. Sweden's existing communal law (1862), ecclesiastical law (1863) and criminal law (1864) were enacted appropriately enough under the direction of a king whose motto was: Land skall med lag byggas - "With law shall the land be built". Charles also remarkably assisted Louis De Geer to carry through his memorable reform of the Riksdag in 1866.

Charles was a warm advocate of Scandinavianism and the political solidarity of the three northern kingdoms, and his warm friendship for Frederick VII of Denmark, it is said, led him to give half promises of help to Denmark on the eve of the war of 1864, which, in the circumstances, were perhaps misleading and unjustifiable. In view, however, of the unpreparedness of the Swedish army and the difficulties of the situation, Charles was forced to observe a strict neutrality. He died in Malmö on September 18, 1872.

Charles XV was highly gifted in many directions. He attained to some eminence as a painter, and his poems show him to have been a true poet. He was followed on the both thrones of Norway and Sweden by his brother Oscar II.

A few weeks before Charles' death, his daughter Louise (then the Crown Princess of Denmark) gave birth to her second son. The young Prince of Denmark became christened as grandfather Charles' namesake, and in 1905 this grandson, Prince Carl of Denmark, ascended the throne of Norway, becoming thus his maternal grandfather's successor in that country, and assumed the reign name Haakon VII. The present king, Harald V of Norway, is Charles' great-great-grandson, through his father and mother.

No subsequent king of Sweden to this day is Charles' direct descendant. However, his descendants are or have been on the thrones of Denmark, Luxembourg, Greece, Belgium and Norway.

Ancestry

Family

1. Princess Louise, later Queen of Denmark (1851-1926)
2. Prince Carl Oscar, Duke of Sudermannia (1852-1854)

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