Gustav III of Sweden

Shot at a masked ball on 16 March 1792 in Stockholm by Jacob Johan Anckarstrom in a noble conspiracy; he died of his wounds thirteen days later.

Overview

Gustav III had seized power in a bloodless coup of 1772, restoring royal authority, and pursued a flamboyant absolutist program of war with Russia and constitutional intrigue that alienated the nobility. A conspiracy of officers and aristocrats hired the former guard captain Anckarstrom, who shot the king in the back at the opera masquerade, the scene later immortalized by Verdi in Un Ballo in Maschera. Gustav lingered, securing the succession for his son under regency, and died of infection on 29 March. Anckarstrom was flogged and executed; the noble conspirators were punished mildly by European standards. The assassination weakened the crown and, after the regency, the nobles wrote the constitution of 1809 limiting the monarchy after his son deposition.