by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2020

On March 16, 1792, 46-year-old King Gustav III of Sweden was shot at a masked ball at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, Sweden. He died thirteen days later. Giuseppe Verdi’s 1859 opera Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) is based on King Gustav III’s assassination and death.

King Gustav III of Sweden

Born in 1746, King Gustav III was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederik of Sweden and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, daughter of King George I of Great Britain. He was the first cousin of Empress Catherine II (the Great) of Russia and the nephew of King Friedrich II of Prussia (the Great). In 1766, Gustav married Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, the eldest daughter of King Frederik V of Denmark and his first wife Louisa of Great Britain, daughter of King George II of Great Britain. Gustav and Sophia Magdalena had two sons but only the future King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden survived infancy.

In 1771, King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died and Gustav succeeded his father as King Gustav III of Sweden. In 1772, Gustav arranged for a coup d’état known as the Revolution of 1772 or Coup of Gustav III. The coup d’état reinstated an absolute monarchy and ended parliamentary rule. Gustav imprisoned opposition leaders and established a new regime with extensive power for the king.

For more information, see Unofficial Royalty: King Gustav III of Sweden.

The Assassination

The Russo-Sweden War and the implementation of the Union and Security Act in 1789, which gave the king more power and abolished many of the privileges of the nobility, contributed to the increasing hatred of King Gustav III, which had existed among the nobility since the 1772 coup. In the winter of 1791-1792, a conspiracy was formed within the nobility to kill the king and reform the government. The conspirators were:

• Jacob Johan Anckarström, a Swedish military officer, from a noble family
• Johan Ture Bielke, member of the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament)
• Jacob von Engeström, former cabinet secretary and governor of Uppsala County
• Johan von Engeström, member of the Riksdag
• Count Claes Fredrik Horn, major in the Swedish Army, former court chamberlain
• Carl Pontus Lilliehorn, colonel of the Svea Life Guards
• Baron Carl Fredrik Pechlin, a former major general in the Swedish army and a member of the Riksdag
• Count Adolph Ribbing, member of the Riksdag

The assassination was scheduled to take place on March 16, 1792, during a masked ball at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm. On that day, members of the conspiracy gathered at the home of Baron Carl Fredrik Pechlin to plan what would happen with the government once the king was dead. Jacob Johan Anckarström, Count Claes Fredrik Horn, and Count Adolph Ribbing met that afternoon and agreed that all three would go to the masked ball dressed in black robes and white masks. Anckarström then went to his home, where he loaded two pistols with bullets, furniture tacks, and bits of lead clippings and sharpened a butcher’s knife. Anckarström and Horn went to the opera house together and Ribbing met them there.

King Gustav III and his friends ate a light supper at the opera house before the masked ball. Towards the end of the supper, a letter arrived for Gustav. At the last moment, one of the conspirators, Carl Pontus Lilliehorn, regretted his part in the conspiracy and sent an anonymous letter to Gustav warning him of the murder plans. Gustav’s friend Count Hans Henric von Essen begged him not to go to the masked ball. However, Gustav had received many threatening letters and ignored the warning.

King Gustav III, wearing a mask, a triangular hat, a Venetian cape, and the star of the Royal Order of the Seraphim, walked arm in arm with Count Hans Henric von Essen around the theatre once and then into the foyer where they met Captain Carl Fredrik Pollet. King Gustav, von Essen, and Pollet continued through the foyer towards the masked ball. Due to the crowd, Pollet receded behind the king, who then turned backward to talk to Pollet. Gustav was easily recognized because of the Royal Order of the Seraphim and was soon surrounded by conspirators Jacob Johan Anckarström, Count Claes Fredrik Horn, and Count Adolph Ribbing. One of the conspirators said to him in French: “Bonjour, beau masque” (“Good day, fine masked man.”). Anckarström edged himself behind Gustav, took out a pistol from his left inner pocket, and pulled the trigger. Because the king turned back to talk to Pollet, the shot went in at an angle left of the third lumbar vertebrae towards the left hip region.

King Gustav twitched but did not fall. Anckarström then lost courage because he thought that the king would immediately fall. He dropped the pistol and knife on the floor, took a few steps, and shouted fire. Then he quickly moved towards the door but von Essen had ordered the doors to be closed. Anckarström’s intention had been to shoot himself with the second pistol but instead, he hid the second pistol and mixed with the crowd. The police had everyone unmasked and recorded their names.

What happened to King Gustav III?

Immediately after being shot, King Gustav III looked pale as his friend Count Hans Henric von Essen and several army officers escorted him away. As they passed a chair, Gustav said, “I’m hurt – stop here.” von Essen extinguished the king’s clothes which had begun to burn because of the gunshot. After a while, Gustav, who did not lose consciousness, said, “I feel weak, bring me to my room.” He was then taken up to the room where he had supper to rest. Eventually, Gustav was brought back to the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

King Gustav III had not been shot dead as the conspirators had hoped and continued functioning as the head of state while he recovered. However, suddenly he weakened and, as often happened in the days before antibiotics, his wound became infected, and sepsis, a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs, developed. On March 29, 1792, King Gustav III of Sweden died at the age of 46. He was succeeded by his 13-year-old son King Gustav IV Adolf.

On May 14, 1792, King Gustav III was given a magnificent funeral at Riddarholmen Church, a former 13th-century abbey in Stockholm, Sweden, the burial site for Swedish monarchs until 1950. A castrum doloris, a structure with decorations that enclosed the catafalque (raised box or a similar platform to support the casket) was built. The castrum doloris was built in the shape of an Old Norse burial mound that was used from the Neolithic Age to the Viking Age. On the top was a bust of King Gustav III by Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel. Over the king’s bust hung a shining North Star (Polaris). Beneath the king’s bust was a grieving Mother Svea, a female national personification for Sweden, usually portrayed as a shield-maiden (in Scandinavian folklore and mythology, a female warrior) with one or two lions. The arched opening of the castrum doloris led to the stairs to the royal crypt where Gustav was buried.

King Gustav’s coffin, draped in purple velvet with ermine edges, was placed beneath the castrum doloris. Adjacent to the coffin were the royal regalia on the right and the orders which had been bestowed upon the king on the left. On the right of the coffin was the Riksbaneret, the Swedish national banner used at various royal ceremonies, such as christenings, weddings, and funerals. Two runestones, which described what the king had accomplished during his reign, were on either side of the castrum doloris. All of what is described can be seen in the painting above.

Joseph Martin Kraus, the royal chapel music master, considered the “Swedish Mozart,” composed and conducted a dramatic funeral cantata that was performed by a large orchestra, choir, and four vocal soloists. After the funeral, Gustav was buried in the crypt of Riddarholmen Church.

What happened to the conspirators?

Jacob Johan Anckarström had left his two guns and his knife at the opera house and the next morning the guns were brought to several gunsmiths. A gunsmith who had repaired the guns for Anckarström recognized them and identified him as their owner. Anckarström was arrested the same morning and immediately confessed to the murder but initially denied that there was a conspiracy. Eventually, he implicated Count Claes Fredrik Horn and Count Adolph Ribbing.

A baker’s boy who had delivered Carl Pontus Lilliehorn’s letter to Gustav III at the opera house led the investigators to Lilliehorn. The deeply repentant Lilliehorn spilled the beans about the conspiracy and his fellow conspirators. It was decided that a limited number of the conspirators would be charged and that Anckarström would be the scapegoat. Anckarström’s principal accomplices Horn and Ribbing were sentenced to death and deprived of their nobility but were then pardoned and exiled from Sweden. Horn settled in Denmark, changed his name to Fredrik Claesson, and wrote for a newspaper. Ribbing changed his name to Adolphe de Leuven and lived in France. He was a writer, married, and had a son. Carl Pontus Lilliehorn was also sent into exile. He settled in Germany where he changed his name to Berg von Bergheim, became a teacher, and later married a wealthy woman.

The fate of the other conspirators:

• Johan Ture Bielke – died by suicide with poison six days after the assassination
• Jacob von Engeström – sentenced to life imprisonment and deprived of his nobility but the sentence was reduced to three years in prison
• Johan von Engeström – a year’s suspension from his service
• Baron Carl Fredrik Pechlin – died after four years in prison

Anckarström was sentenced on April 16, 1972. He was deprived of his estates and nobility privileges, sentenced to be chained in irons for three days, and publicly flogged and then executed. On his execution day, April 27, 1792, Anckarström’s right hand was cut off, he was beheaded, and then his corpse was quartered.

Anckarström had been married and his wife, born Gustaviana von Löwen, and four of their children were living at the time of his execution. After Anckarström’s execution, his family adopted the name Löwenström with royal permission. The new surname was a combination of Löwen, the birth surname of Anckarström’s wife, and – ström, the end of Anckarström’s name.

Un Ballo in Maschera – The Masked Ball, opera by Guiseppe Verdi

The plot of Italian composer Guiseppe Verdi‘s 1859 opera Un Ballo in Maschera is based on the assassination and death of King Gustav III of Sweden. Although the subject of the assassination had been used by other composers, Verdi ran into frustrating censorship issues. Originally, the opera was entitled Gustavo III but Verdi’s librettist Antonio Somma was told that the censors in Naples refused to allow the depiction of an actual monarch on the stage, and certainly not the monarch’s murder. Changes were then made to the setting (Stockholm to Stettin, then in the Kingdom of Prussia) and the main character (King Gustav III to the fictional Duke of Pomerania). However, an assassination attempt in 1858 of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, led to further censorship issues. Censors demanded the setting not be in Europe. With the basic plot still remaining the assassination of King Gustav III, the setting was moved to Boston during the British colonial period, and the leading character became Riccardo, Earl of Warwick and governor of Boston.

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Works Cited

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