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306 at the head of 200,000 men, shut Peter up on the Pruth; and his affairs seemed utterly ruined when his yet unacknowledged wife, afterward empress as Catharine I., bribed the grand vizier with all her jewels to allow the Russians to escape. That day was decisive of the fall of Charles and the rise of Russia. Charles, who had been greatly aggrieved that to him had not been assigned the chief command of the Turkish army, galloped impatiently into the camp, but too late to prevent the escape of the czar. Frustrated as he was and severely mortified, the king of Sweden still continued year after year, till 1713, to linger at Bender, incessantly employed in endeavoring to awaken the Turkish government to a consciousness of the danger of allowing the Russians to consolidate their rising power, and constantly hoping that he had succeeded, but ever hoping in vain. He effected the overthrow, by the intrigues of the agents whom he employed at Constantinople, of four successive grand viziers, and felt justified in his long delay by the reasonable hopes he entertained of placing himself at the head of a powerful Turkish army. In the mean time Livonia and Esthonia fell a prey to Russia, immediately after the calamity of Poltava. Riga surrendered. Courland became the property of Peter, who caused its duke to marry his niece Anna Petrovna, and then designedly and deliberately drank him to death. Pomerania was next invaded. The Saxons seized the whole of Poland on the flight of Stanislas, who, deserted by all his adherents, joined Charles in Turkey; the allied forces of Saxony and Russia made themselves masters of all Swedish Pomerania, with the exception of Stralsund and Wismar; and after the war had been carried on with the utmost cruelty, Stade, Altona, Garz, and Wolgast being burned to the ground in the dead of winter, and most of their inhabitants perishing of hunger and cold, Prussia was induced to join the anti-Swedish league by the promise of the future possession of Stettin. But about this time events took place in Turkey which nearly altered the whole state of affairs in Europe. The Russian agents having at length persuaded the sultan that the residence of Charles at Bender was dangerous to his safety, as he was plotting, they said, to attack Turkey from Poland should he succeed in establishing Stanislas on that throne, he received intimation that he must leave Bender; and on his positively refusing to do so, orders were issued to the seraskier of that place to bring him, dead or alive, to Adrianople. Refusing to submit, he barricaded his house, and, with the 200 or 300 men who composed his personal retinue, defended it until, the roof taking fire, he was forced to sally out, when his spurs becoming entangled, he fell, and was mastered and made prisoner (Feb. 12, 1713). He was removed to Demotika, near Adrianople, where, obstinate as ever, he remained ten months in bed, feigning sickness, until, becoming satisfied that he

could expect to obtain nothing from the Porte, he sent off a parting embassy to Constantinople, in order to conceal his intentions, and then taking horse, in disguise, by night, travelled through Hungary, Austria, Bavaria, the Palatinate, Westphalia, and Mecklenburg, in order to avoid the Saxons and Prussians, and reached Stralsund during a dark night (Nov. 22, 1714). The moment it was known that Charles was in the city, it was invested by a combined army of Danes, Saxons, Russians, and Prussians. It was defended by Charles with extraordinary skill and talent for nearly a year; but despairing of receiving aid from without, he was forced to abandon it, Dec. 15, 1715, when he retired to Lund in Scania, where he set himself to defend his coasts. For the remainder of his reign the war was carried on for the most part by sea, and generally to the prejudice of the Swedes, though not without Charles at times making dangerous efforts against Norway. At this time his principal friend and adviser was Baron Görtz, the minister of Holstein, who all but succeeded in breaking up the anti-Swedish league, which had just been joined by George I. of England. It was the policy of Görtz to gain over Peter the Great by any concession which might be needful, by his aid or connivance to conquer Norway, and thence, with the aid of a preconcerted Jacobite rising, to land in Scotland, and dethrone George I. in favor of the pretender. A treaty had been agreed upon by which Peter should retain his conquests on the gulf of Finland, Stanislas should be replaced on the throne of Poland, and Charles should be married to Anna Petrovna, the widow of the duke of Courland. Accident dissolved the whole scheme. A Swedish despatch fell into the hands of the Danes. Denmark dreaded the union of Russia and Sweden; Saxony saw that she would lose Poland; Hanover, that her projects upon Bremen and Verden, Prussia that hers on Stettin would fail. Frederick of Hesse would no longer be heir to the crown of Sweden; while the power of Charles by so great a marriage would swell to a height dangerous to the aspirations of the Swedish aristocracy. A small Swedish force under Armfeldt had perished from cold while crossing the mountains which separate Norway from Sweden, and another, commanded by Charles in person, was besieging the fortress of Frederikshald in the south of Norway, when he was shot through the head while standing in the trenches at night exposed to the enemy's fire. It was generally supposed that he was assassinated by an emissary of the party opposed to his projects, and the question of his death gave rise to a discussion continued for many years, and resulting in the publication of more than 200 books and pamphlets. The controversy was finally settled by an inquest held at Stockholm in 1859 by the Swedish government, when the body of Charles was examined by three eminent physicians in the presence of King Charles XV., his ministers, the royal