now turned furiously upon
the small islands of Laaland, Falster, Moen, and Langeland, which had
offended him by supplying provisions for the city, and subjected them to
all the horrors of invasion by troops to whom every excess of outrage was
allowed. Yet new misfortunes gathered round him, the peninsula of Fyen
being taken by the allies of Denmark, while the Swedish troops near
Nyberg were attacked and taken prisoners, their commander alone escaping
in a small boat.

The intervention offered by the neighboring powers was refused by the
proud Swedish king, who, surrounded by dangers on all sides, now issued a
call for a meeting of the estates of the realm at Gothenburg, while at
the same time preparing to invade Norway as a part of the Danish
dominions. At this interval he was suddenly taken sick and died soon
after reaching Gothenburg. A treaty followed with the widowed queen,
regent of Sweden, and Frederick preserved his realm, though not without
loss of territory.

_CHARLES XII. THE FIREBRAND OF SWEDEN._

On the 27th of June, 1682, was born one of the most extraordinary of men,
the Alexander of modern times, one of those meteors of conquest which
have appeared at rare intervals in the history of the world. Grandson
alike of Charles X. of Sweden and Frederick III. of Denmark, Charles XII.
of Sweden united in himself all the soldierly qualities of his ancestors,
his chief fault being that he possessed them in too intense a degree,
being possessed by a sort of military madness, an overweaning passion for
great exploits and wide-spread conquests. In his career Sweden reached
its greatest height of power, and with his death it fell back into its
original peninsular status.

His daring activity began almost with his birth. At seven years of age he
could manage a horse, and the violent exercises in which he delighted to
indulge gave him the vigorous constitution necessary for the great
fatigues of his later life, while he developed an obstinacy which made
him a terror to his advisers in later years.

Charles was extraordinary in the fact that he performed the most
remarkable of his exploits before he reached the age of manhood, and in a
just sense may be given the name of the boy conqueror. His mother died
when he was eleven years of age and his father when he was fifteen, his
grandmother being appointed regent of the kingdom, with a council of five
nobles for her advisers.

Sweden, when he came to the throne