Following the conclusion of the
Finnish War in 1809, Sweden lost possession of
Finland, which had constituted roughly the eastern half of the Swedish realm for centuries. Resentment towards King
Gustav IV Adolf precipitated an abrupt ''
coup d'état''. Gustav Adolf (and his son
Gustav) was deposed and his uncle
Charles XIII was elected King in his place. However, Charles XIII was 61 years old and prematurely senile. He was also childless; one child had been stillborn and another died after less than a week. It was apparent almost as soon as Charles XIII ascended the throne that the Swedish branch of the House of Holstein-Gottorp would die with him. In 1810 the
Riksdag of the Estates, the Swedish parliament, elected a
Danish prince, Prince Christian August of Augustenborg, as heir-presumptive to the throne. He took the name
Charles August, but died later that same year. At this time,
Emperor Napoleon of
France controlled much of continental Europe, and some of his
client states were headed by his siblings. The Riksdag decided to choose a king of whom Napoleon would approve. On 21 August 1810, the Riksdag elected Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, a
Marshal of France, as
heir presumptive to the Swedish throne. , born Jean Bernadotte, King of Sweden and Norway 1818–1844Portrait by
Fredric Westin. The
coat of arms of the House of Bernadotte
impales the coat of arms of the
House of Vasa (
heraldic right) and the coat of arms of Bernadotte as
Prince of Pontecorvo (
heraldic left; which has the
Eagle of Zeus, that shares with the
House of Bonaparte). It is visible as an
inescutcheon in the
Greater Coat of Arms of the Realm. When elected to be Swedish royalty the new heir had been called
Prince Bernadotte according to the promotions he received from Emperor Napoleon I, culminating in sovereignty over the
Principality of Pontecorvo. Some Swedish experts have asserted that all of his male heirs have had the right to use that Italian title, since the Swedish government never made payments promised Charles John to get him to give up his position in Pontecorvo. Some members of the house who lost their royal status and Swedish titles due to unapproved marriages have also been given the titles Prince Bernadotte and
Count of Wisborg in the
nobility of other countries.
Bernadotte Bernadotte, born in the town of
Pau, in the province of
Béarn, France, had risen to the rank of general during the
French Revolution. In 1798, he married
Désirée Clary, whose sister was married to
Joseph, Napoleon's elder brother. In 1804, Napoleon promoted Bernadotte to a Marshal of France. Napoleon also granted him the title "Prince of
Pontecorvo". As the
Crown Prince of Sweden, he assumed the name Charles John () and acted as regent for the remainder of Charles XIII's reign. In 1813, he broke with Napoleon and led Sweden into the
anti-Napoleon alliance. When Norway was awarded to Sweden by the
Treaty of Kiel, Norway resisted and declared independence, triggering a
brief war between Sweden and Norway. The war ended when Bernadotte persuaded Norway to enter into a
personal union with Sweden. Instead of being merely a Swedish province, Norway remained an independent kingdom, though sharing a common monarch and foreign policy. Bernadotte reigned as
Charles XIV John of Sweden and Charles III John of Norway from 5 February 1818 until his death on 8 March 1844. The House of Bernadotte reigned in both countries until the
dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. Prince Carl of Denmark was then elected as King
Haakon VII of Norway. Carl was a grandson of King
Charles XV of Sweden and a great-great-grandson of Charles XIV.
French origins King
Charles John's first known paternal ancestor was Joandou du Poey, who was a shepherd. He married Germaine de Bernadotte in 1615 in the southern French city of
Pau and began using her
surname. Through her the couple owned a building there called
de Bernadotte, the surname theoretically meaning
Young woman of Béarn in local dialect. His son Henri Bernadotte (1711–1780) married Jeanne de Saint-Jean (1728–1809) and with her was the father of the future Swedish–Norwegian king. Henri was a local
prosecutor, from a family of
artisans, who had once been imprisoned for debt. This was a modest family which occupied only one floor of the house in a cross street in a popular and peripheral district of Pau. Two branches of the French Bernadotte family survive. The elder descends from Andrew (
André) Bernadotte, an older granduncle of Carl John's, with descendants today in the general population of France. The younger branch divided in two, one branch descending from the king's older brother John (
Jean Évangéliste) Bernadotte (1754–1813), the heads of which were French
barons as of 1810 with
Louvie Palace in the south of Pau as their seat (branch extinct with the death of Baron Henri Bernadotte in 1966), and the other branch being the Swedish Royal House. == Kings of Sweden ==