Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden

Gustav II Adolf widely known in English by his Latinised name Gustavus Adolphus or as Gustav II Adolph, or as Gustavus Adolphus the Great was the King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632 and is credited as the founder of Sweden as a Great Power . He led Sweden to military supremacy during the Thirty Years War, helping to determine the political as well as the religious balance of power in Europe.

Gustavus Adolphus was born in Stockholm as the oldest son of Duke Charles of the Vasa dynasty and his second wife, Christina of HolsteinGottorp. At the time, the King of Sweden was Gustavus Adolphus cousin Sigismund. The staunch Protestant Duke Charles forced the Catholic Sigismund to let go of the throne of Sweden in 1599, a part of the preliminary religious strife before the Thirty Years War, and reigned as regent before taking the throne as Charles IX of Sweden in 1604. Crown Prince Gustav Adolph had GagnefFloda in Dalecarlia as a duchy from 1610. Upon his fathers death in October 1611, a sixteenyearold Gustavus inherited the throne , as well as an ongoing succession of occasionally belligerent dynastic disputes with his Polish cousin. Sigismund III wanted to regain the throne of Sweden and tried to force Gustavus Adolphus to renounce the title.

Source: Wikipedia