took the management of affairs, and sent a deputation to the king at the Hague, with a statement of their grievances, demanding redress. The king saw it was too late to temporise; he had either to accede to the revolutionists, or put down by force of arms the incipient rebellion; and he preferred the peril which must attend the latter attempt, to abandonment of his rights as sovereign of the Netherlands. At this critical moment, his sons, the prince of Orange and prince Frederic, at the head of a strong detachment of Dutch troops, were marching towards Brussels. When they reached Vilvorde, about five miles from the city, the citizens, in firm but respectful terms, informed the princes of their determination not to ad:nit the soldiers; and not a moment was lost in unpaving the streets, cutting down trees to form barricades, and otherwise placing Brussels in the best state of defence in their power. Desirous that no blood should be spilt, and anxious to bring this emeute to a favorable issue, the prince of Orange rode into the city; but no cordial greeting welcomed him, and it was with some difficulty that he reached the palace, where he remained until the deputation returned from the Hague with the king's answer.

Meantime the revolt had spread throughout the Belgic provinces, and the acts of the insurgents at Liege, Namur, and other towns, showed that the spirit of discontent was not to be easily repressed. From among the citizens of Brussels was formed an executive government, under the title of the committee of public safety; but their councils were thought too moderate by the turbulent multitude, who refused to submit to their authority. On this being communicated to the king, Prince Frederic, as commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, received his majesty's orders to take immediate steps for enforcing obedience, on which he issued a proclamation, stating that if the people laid down their arms and returned peaceably to their allegiance, a general pardon would be granted, but not otherwise. This brought matters to an issue. A determined resistance on the part of the insurgents was resolved on, and a scene resembling that of the revolution in Paris followed; the fighting, like that, continued for three days. On the 27th of September the Dutch troops quitted Brussels, and the provisional government issued a proclamation declaring the independence of Belgium. Up to this period the citizens of Antwerp had taken no part in the revolution; but they now admitted a body of Belgic soldiers into the town, and, uniting with them, compelled the Dutch troops to take shelter within the citadel, which, after some smart cannonading that did considerable damage to the houses, they were allowed to keep possession of; the Belgian auxiliaries being prevailed upon to leave the citizens to defend themselves in the best manner they could. It was now fully evident that the king of Holland had not the power to retain, or rather to regain, the sovereignty of the southern provinces; and as the four great powers, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and England, had been the means of effecting the union, envoys from the three foreign courts were sent to London to settle the terms upon which the kingdom of the Netherlands should be separated. The council of Brussels appeared to be in favour of a con stitutional monarchy, and they offered the crown to the duke of Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe of France. The prince, however, declined the offer, and they then fixed on Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who, after some hesitation, consented to become king of the Belgians, and was proclaimed on the 4th of July, by the title of Leopold the First.

The ambassadors who had met in London to settle the terms of separation, agreed that, while the negotiations were pending, all hostilities should cease between the Belgians and Dutch, and that the troops of both parties should retire within the limits of their respective countries, ac cording to their former boundaries. But this arrangement was opposed by the king of Holland, because it would compel him to surrender the cit adel of Antwerp and also some forts on the Scheldt. Austria, Russia and

Prussia declined to interfere in the matter; but Great Britain and France forseeing that no final settlement could be effected while the Dutch held these important places, took a decided part in insisting on their immediate evacuation. The citadel of Antwerp was one of the strongest in Europe, and its garrison of five thousand men was commanded by General Chasse an intrepid and skilful veteran. An English fleet was sent to blockade the mouth of the Scheldt, while a French army of sixty thousand men, under Marshal Gerard, laid siege to the citadel of Antwerp; but before the siege commenced, the two generals came to an understanding that the town should not be injured by either party, and that the inhabitants should take no part in the contest. As far as possible this arrangement was observed, but during ten days of almost incessant cannonading, the loss of life on each side was great, and the citadel was literally battered to pieces. At length the old general offered to capitulate, on condition that he and his men might be allowed to retire to Holland; this, however, Marshal Ge. rard refused, unless two of the forts on the Scheldt were given up; but as they were not under the command of General Chasse, and the king refused to sanction their surrender, the brave defender of the citadel, and the surviving remnant of the garrison, were marched into France as prisoners of war. There were still some minor points of dispute left untouched, particularly the appropriation of the provinces of Limburg and Luxemburg; but the siege of Antwerp was the last event of a hostile nature that occurred. The direct interference of England and France had terminated as must have been expected; and though there was much contention respecting the possession of the two provinces just mentioned, it was eventually arranged, through the mediation of the British government, that they should be divided between the two kingdoms, the king of Holland retaining Luxemburg, with the title of grand duke.

King William I. being nearly seventy years of age, and wishing to retire from the cares of public life, in 1840 abdicated in favour of his son, the hereditary prince of Orange, who was proclaimed king on the 8th of October. No man can be more generally esteemed by his subjects than the new sovereign, or more entitled to their esteem; and, indeed, it may with truth be said, that William II. of Holland, and Leopold I. of Belgium, are both well calculated to promote the prosperity of their respective countries and the well-being of those over whom they have been destined to sway the regal sceptre. On the 12th of December, 1843, the ex-king of Holland died, suddenly, at Berlin, having been seized with apoplexy.

THE HISTORY OF

SWEDEN, DENMARK, AND NORWAY

SWEDEN.

THE early history of Sweden is no less involved in fables than that of most other nations; but as it is famous for being the native country of the fierce and warlike Goths, whose emigrations effected the most singular and rapid revolutions on the European continent that history records, we shall in the first place consider who were the earliest inhabitants of those

rugged coasts and mountainous regions, whence issued the bold and barbarous Northmen, whose devastations and cruelties rendered them terrible as the invaders of more peaceful and sunnier lands.

The ancient name of the region now comprehending the three northern kingdoms, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, was Scandinavia; but the inhabitants were at that time known to the nations of the south of Europe only by vague rumours. About A. D. 250, commence the fabulous accounts of Odin, or Woden. Till the middle of the ninth century Scandinavia was little known; but the bold expeditions of the natives into the southern and western parts of Europe, and the diffusion of Christianity among them, about the year 1000, shed light on this region. The kingdom of the Swedes was separated from that of the Goths till the twelfth century; but in 1132 both nations, with their several dependencies, were united under Suercher, king of the Ostrogoths, who was proclaimed king of the Swedes and Goths. It was afterwards agreed by both nations, that the Swedish and Gothic princes should hold the sovereignty alternately; but this occasioned many bloody intestine wars.

Magnus Smeck added Schonen and the adjacent territories to the kingdom; but at length, by his mal-administration, he deprived both himself and his family of the throne; for after Albert, duke of Mecklenburg, his sister's son, had been elected king, Margaret, who was heiress to the crowns of Denmark and Norway, compelled him to give up the kingdom of Sweden to her; and by the union of Calmar, in the year 1397, the same princess united the three northern kingdoms under one head. This union excited in the Swedes the greatest indignation; and in 1448, the Swedes and Norwegians elected a separate king, Karl Knutsen, or Charles, the son of Canute, and formally renounced the union. After the death of Charles, several of the family of Charles reigned in succession, with the title of presidents, though with regal authority, until, in 1520, Christian II. of Denmark, was acknowledged king of Sweden. But his tyranny disgusted the people. Even during the ceremony of the coronation, notwithstanding his promises of amnesty, he ordered ninety-four Swedish noblemen to be beheaded in the market-place of Stockholm, and perpetrated similar acts of cruelty in the provinces. At length, by the assistance of a Swedish nobleman, named Gustavus Erickson von Vasa, they shook off the Danish yoke. The brave Gustavus Vasa, who rendered himself extremely popular by the conduct and intrepidity he showed in rescuing Sweden from the oppression of the Danes, was elected king, and not only became a founder of a line of monarchs of his family, but ad. vanced the royal authority to a very great height.

The crown of Sweden had hitherto been elective; but the Swedes had been deprived of this right under the Danish kings: according to the laws of Sweden, the royal authority was so limited that the king could neither make war nor peace, levy money nor troops, without the consent of the states; he could neither erect a fortress, introduce foreign troops, nor put any strong place into the hands of a foreigner. The revenue of the crown then solely arose from some inconsiderable domains about Ursal, a small poll-tax on the peasants, and from fines and forfeitures which fell to the crown in criminal proceedings. The government of castles, fiefs, or manors, which were at first granted by the crown only for a term of years, or at most for life, were insensibly changed into hereditary posses. sions, which the nobility held by force, without paying the rents that had been reserved out of them. This was done by the bishops and clergy who possessed such estates, on pretence that the lands of the church ought to be exempted from all duties; and by these encroachments the royal revenue was so reduced, that the king could scarcely maintain more than five hundred horse. He was considered only as a kind of captain general during a war, and as president of the senate in time of peace

The prelates and nobility fortified their castles, and rendered them the seats of so many independent states; and arming their vassals, frequently made war on each other, and sometimes on their sovereign; they neither sought nor expected redress from the king's courts, when they thought themselves injured: but proceeded by force of arms to avenge their own cause. The kingdoms of Norway and Denmark were under the like form of government; both were elective, and had their respective senates, without whose concurrence or that of the states assembled in their diet, the king could transact nothing of importance.

But to return to Gustavus Vasa, who found the kingdom in this situa tion; the states, to express their ardent gratitude to their deliverer, passed a solemn decree, by which they obliged themselves to approve whatsoever that patriot should think fit to enact for the preservation of his dig. nity, against any pretender set up in opposition to him. They, in particular, impowered him to make peace and war, and resolved that his enemies should be accounted the enemies of the nation. This happened at the time that the doctrines of the reformation began to prevail in Sweden: and the Romish clergy, Gustavus' greatest enemies, being in possession of one half of the lands and revenues of the kingdom, also holding many royal castles and domains, the new king, in order to resun.e these possessions, embraced the doctrines of Luther, procured an act to be passed, by which it was ordained, that the bishops should immediately surrender their castles to the king, and disband their troops; that their pretended rights to fines and forfeited estates, which originally belonged to the crown, should be abrogated that all the superfluous plate and bells belonging to the churches should be sold to pay the public debts; that all the grants of estates to the clergy, since the year 1445, should be revoked, and the lands re-united to the crown; that two-thirds of the tithes, generally possessed by the bishops and abbots, should be sequestered, for maintaining the army in the time of war, and for erecting and endowing public schools and hospitals in time of peace; and that all the privileges of the clergy should be entirely at the king's disposal. Vasa having thus obtained a constitutional title to the revenues of the church, marched through great part of his dominions, at the head of a body of horse, to see the act put into execution, attended by Olaus Petri, and the Lutheran doctors, whom he ordered to preach before him in the principal churches. Wherever he came, he commanded the titles and grants by which the clergy held their lands to be brought before him, and either reunited them to the crown, or restored them to the heirs of the ancient proprietors; by which means he recovered from the secular and regular clergy above two-thirds of their revenues, and seized upon near thirteen thousand considerable farms. He also caused the superfluous church plate to be melted down and carried into the public treasury. This, indeed, occasioned some conspiracies and insurrections; but they were easily quelled. Having now succeeded so happily in suppressing his greatest enemies, he obliged the nobility and gentry who held the crown lands, which they had kept as their own, to resign their fiefs or to pay the rents that were originally due to the crown. Upon this they were obliged to compound with the king, and agree to pay him annually a cer tain sum for all their fiefs and manors. The crown was next rendered hereditary to the issue of the reigning prince by the free consent of the states, and it has accordingly been enjoyed by his descendants to the present century. Gustavus Vasa died in 1650; but the division of the kingdom among his children, the mal-administration of his son John, together with the propensity of Erick, John's brother, and of Sigismund, king of Poland, the son of John, to popery, threw the kingdom into great disorder which it required all the energy and prudence of Charles IX. and his son Gustavus Adolphus, to suppress.

Under the atter prince, who began his reign in 1611, the importance of Sweden ose to its greatest height: his armies supported the protes tant interest in Europe, whilst his domestic policy established good order in his kingdom. He reduced the greatest part of Livonia, and penetrated so far into Germany as to become formidable to the emperor; but in the year 1634, he lost his life at the battle of Lutzen, dying in the arms of victory. This prince was one of those rare mortals that join to the abili ties of a great warrior and statesman the virtues that refine and exalt humanity. In his life and death he gained the noblest reward that worth like his could crave. His daughter Christina succeeded to the throne in 1633, when only six years of age. She wrested from Norway and Denmark the territories of Jemptland and Harjedalen, with the islands of Gothland and Oeland, and in 1648 added Upper Pomerania, Bremen, Verden, and Wismar, to the Swedish dominions. She was no less remarkable for her learning and capacity, than for her singularities of conduct. In the year 1654, that princess solemnly resigned the crown of Sweden, and was very instrumental in advancing to the throne her cousin Charles Gustavus, prince palatine of Deux-Ponts, son of John Casimir, prince palatine of the Rhine, by Catharine, daughter of Charles IX. and sister to Gustavus Adolphus, whom her subjects had wished her to have made her husband. Charles, who coveted a crown rather than a marriage with his cousin, in 1658 added Schonen, Halland, and other places to the Swcdish dominions. His son Charles XI. re-assumed all the alienated crown lands, and rendered himself an absolute monarch.

Charles XI. dying in 1697, in the forty-second year of his age, and the thirty-seventh of his reign, was succeeded by his only son Charles XII., who being under fifteen years of age, a regency was appointed; but the uncommon talents of this young prince soon procured for him the govern ment; and through his mediation the peace of Ryswick was concluded, before he had completed his 16th year. In the year 1700, the Poles, Danes, and Russians, taking advantage of the king's youth, endeavoured to recover the dominions of which their ancestors had been deprived The English and Dutch sent a fleet into the Baltic to his assistance, and compelled the Danes to conclude a peace with him. This young prince then marched against the Russians and Poles, whom at the beginning of the war he defeated in almost every engagement, with numbers far infe rior to those of his enemies, though he had well-disciplined veteran troops of Saxons to contend with, as well as Russians and Poles.

In the year 1703, the glory of Sweden rose to an unparalleled height. Its king then held the balance of Europe, and might have dictated to all its powers; but the superior address of the duke of Marlborough, whose abilities as a statesman and negotiator were equal to those which he possessed as a general, caused the force of Sweden to be directed against the Russians, which might otherwise have turned the fortune of the war then waging against France. The czar Peter the Great, improving by his former miscarriages, at length formed his troops to conquest: Charles was defeated at Pultowa, in June, 1709; his whole army, consisting of 30,000 men, entirely cut off, or made prisoners, except three or four hundred horse, with whom the king escaped to Bender, in Turkey. He there gave signal proofs of desperate intrepidity, as incapable of fear as void of discretion, having with a handful of men performed prodigies of personal valour against the whole force of the Turks: but he was at length made prisoner.

The numerous enemies of Sweden availed themselves of this reverse of fortune. Frederic IV., then king of Denmark, declared war, but could not obtain the object for which he contended. Augustus, the deposed king of Poland, was more successful. The Russians overran the most valuable territories held by the Swedes on the eastern shores of the