Gustavus III (1746-1792) was king of Sweden from 1771 to 1792. He was an enlightened despot and a philosophe.

Born on Jan. 24, 1746, Gustavus III was the eldest son of Adolphus Frederick, an ineffectual king of Sweden, and Louisa Ulrika, the sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia. He was educated by Carl Gustav Tessin and Karl Scheffer, two of Sweden's more eminent statesmen, and by Olof von Dalin, poet and historian. On Nov. 4, 1776, he joined Sophia Magdelena of Denmark in what proved to be an unhappy marriage.

Throughout most of the 18th century Sweden was at the mercy of two selfish factions, the Hats and the Caps, which had made effective government almost impossible. The former wanted revenge on Russia and were subsidized by France, and the latter were subsidized by Russia, whose empress, Catherine the Great, used bribery, corruption, and diplomatic pressure to prevent any reform of the Swedish...