Charles IX of Sweden - Coloured Legacy

Coloured Legacy

Four and a half years later Charles IX died at Nyköping, 30 October 1611 when he was succeeded by his seventeen year old son Gustavus the Great, who'd participated in the wars. As a ruler, he is the link between his great father and his still greater son. He consolidated the work of Gustav I, the creation of a great Protestant state; he prepared the way for the erection of the Protestant empire of Gustavus Adolphus.

Swedish historians have been excusably indulgent to the father of their greatest ruler. Indisputably Charles was cruel, ungenerous and vindictive; yet he seems, at all hazards, strenuously to have endeavoured to do his duty during a period of political and religious transition, and, despite his violence and brutality, possessed many of the qualities of a wise and courageous statesman.