The House of Holstein-Gottorp, a branch of the Oldenburg dynasty, rose to the Swedish throne with King Adolf Frederick in 1751. He was elected crown prince on June 23, 1743 as a Swedish concession to the Russian Tsar, a strategy for achieving an acceptable peace after the disastrous war of the same year. A descendant of the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp, Adolf Frederick was closely related to several members of the Russian Imperial Family, and later his niece Catherine the Great would even become Empress and founder of the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov.
Adolf Frederick's grandson Gustav IV Adolf was deposed in 1809 following the loss of Finland, and the remaining parts of the dynasty became extinct with the death of his uncle Charles XIII in 1818. In 1810, French Marshal Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte was elected crown prince, and became the founder of the next and current Swedish dynasty, Bernadotte.
Kings of Sweden
King of Norway
