Charles IX

(1550 –1611), was King of Sweden from 1604 until his death. He was the youngest son of King Gustav I. Actually he was the third Swedish king called Charles. With his brother’s death in November 1592, the throne of Sweden went to his nephew and Habsburg ally, Sigismund of Poland and Sweden. During these tense political times, Charles viewed the inheritance of the throne of Protestant Sweden by his devout Roman Catholic nephew with alarm. Thus, several years of religious controversy and discord followed. He came into the throne by championing the Protestant cause during the increasingly tense times of religious strife between competing sects of Christianity. In just over a decade, these would break out as the Thirty Years’ War. These conflicts had already caused the dynastic squabble rooted in religious freedom that deposed his nephew and brought him to rule as king of Sweden. As a ruler, he is the link between his great father and his still greater son. He consolidated the work of Gustav I, the creation of a great Protestant state; he prepared the way for the erection of the Protestant empire of Gustavus Adolphus.