by Sten Eirik
Historical background
The historical framework for my book is two-fold: The assassination of the
Swedish monarch Gustav III and the founding of a Swedish colony in the West Indies during the 18th century.
When King Gustav was a boy, all his French tutors were dismissed and taken away. New ones were appointed, true Swedes who would teach him respect for the common man and shield him from the follies of divine right. Voltaire thought of Sweden as the freest nation in the world. And Rousseau looked to the Swedes for a paragon of democracy. To him, the education of a child was a political matter. But King Gustav had a soft spot for French culture and soon established French as a second official language.
In the West Indies, meanwhile, the island of St. Barth was unremarkable and easily overlooked in the plethora of profitable colonies. From the royal thrones of Europe, St. Barth appeared merely as a speck overshadowed by Antigua and Martinique, Barbados and Guadeloupe, from whence came the cotton, tobacco and sugar cane. After the Seven Years’ War, King Louis XV was content to give away the whole of Canada if he could keep his darling Indies. By the 1780’s, having an island in the Indies was simply comme il faut. Everyone ought to have one.
But King Gustav of Sweden was without. He had learned that national wealth was no longer a matter of military might alone, but depended also on trade routes and natural commodities. The Swedes had been ogling the island of Tobago but it wasn’t to be. Tobago was the only redeeming piece from France’s settlement with England, so King Louis was not about to part with it. King Gustav, therefore, must settle for this obscure jut of rock named St. Barth and he decreed that a town be erected forthwith and bearing his name. In 1785, the Swedes opened the port of Gustavia to free trade.
By the 1780's, there was a revolt brewing in Sweden - not as in Paris, fuelled by the masses, but rather by a stealthy elite made up of those with whom King Gustav's governance had fallen out of favour. The King had taxed the aristocracy quite heavily in order to finance his campaign against Russia. Some said the King was a war monger who wanted to outshine his legendary predecessor Karl XII and restore the national glory of the Karolin troops.He was also a champion of culture and beaux arts, turning vikings into fops in the opinion of some. Among the conspirators against the royal throne was Carl Fredrik Pechlin, a baron who had long been one of the King’s chief antagonists in parliament. Pechlin sowed the seeds of insurrection, at his dinners, his firesides, his political salons. He had circulated copies of Thomas Paine’s incendiary political writings. The night before the King’s annual masque at the Royal Opera, the conspirators assembled at Pechlin’s house to fine-tune their plan for the assassination. The following day – March 16, 1792 - King Gustav was shot at close range while greeting his guests at the royal costume ball. But he didn't die until some time had passed, and a few conspirators fled the country. That's where my novel begins.
- eBook £4.99 || $7.99
- Sep 26, 2014. 978-1-78279-571-1.
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- Paperback £10.99 || $18.95
- Sep 26, 2014. 978-1-78279-572-8.
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