Count Adolf Fredrik Munck af Fulkila
Encyclopedia
Rantasalmi
Rantasalmi is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Southern Savonia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, 28 April 1749 – Massa-Carrara, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, 13 July 1831) was a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Finnish noble
Swedish nobility
The Swedish nobility were historically a legally and/or socially privileged class in Sweden, part of the so-called frälse . Today, the nobility is still very much a part of Swedish society but they do not maintain many of their former privileges...
alleged to have been the biological father of King Gustaf IV Adolf
Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden
Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden also Gustav Adolph was King of Sweden from 1792 until his abdication in 1809. He was the son of Gustav III of Sweden and his queen consort Sophia Magdalena, eldest daughter of Frederick V of Denmark and his first wife Louise of Great Britain. He was the last Swedish...
.
Biography
Adolf Fredrik Munck was born to Anders Erik Munck af Fulkila (1720 Skaraborg - 4 September 1779) and Hedvig Juliana Wright (1729 - LojoLohja
Lohja , is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Uusimaa region. The town has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water...
30 December 1808), whom he had wed at St. Michel
Mikkeli
Mikkeli is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located in what used to be the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Southern Savonia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...
's then country church at 15 November 1747.
He entered the Swedish royal court
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
, where he became a close friend of the king, Gustaf III. Munck became notorious for his love affairs
Affair
Affair may refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity of a temporary duration, as in family affair, a private affair, or a romantic affair.-Political affair:...
. Among his lovers were Anna Sofia Ramström
Anna Sofia Ramström
Anna Sofia Ramström was the chamber lady of the Queen of Sweden, Sophie Magdalena of Denmark. She was known for her involvement in the famous affair of the consummation of the marriage between the royal couple....
, an employee of the queen
. In 1775, hired by the king to assist him in the consummation
Consummation
Consummation is the initial sexual act made within a marriage.Consummation can also refer to:* Consummation , 1970 recordingSee also:* Consummation of days, event predicted in Daniel Chapter 12, verses 1-4...
of his marriage with Queen Sophie Magdalena; he was to act as sexual instructor for the couple. The King, claiming to be sexually inexperienced
called upon Munck to help him with a reconciliation with his spouse and instruct the couple in the ways of sexual intercourse and to physically show them how to consummate their marriage. Munck, a Finnish nobleman and at the time a stable master was at that point the lover of Anna Sofia Ramström
Anna Sofia Ramström
Anna Sofia Ramström was the chamber lady of the Queen of Sweden, Sophie Magdalena of Denmark. She was known for her involvement in the famous affair of the consummation of the marriage between the royal couple....
the Queen's chamber maid. Munck and Ramström were to be present in a room close to the bedchamber, ready to be of assistance when needed, and he was at some points called in to the bedchamber. Munck himself writes in his written account, which is preserved at the National Archives of Sweden, that in order to succeed, he was obliged to touch them both physically.
This "aid" resulted in the birth of the future King Gustaf IV Adolf in 1778. These favors resulted in a great scandal
Scandal
A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed...
when they became known. Munck was widely spoken of as the lover of the king and the queen. When it became known that Munck participated in the reconciliation between the royal couple, there were rumours that he was the father of Sophia Magdalena's firstborn.
These became the subject of accusations from the political opposition, as late as in 1786 and 1789,
where it was claimed that the whole nation was aware of the rumour that the King had asked Munck to make the Queen pregnant.
Pamphlets to that end were posted on street corners all over Stockholm.
There were also a rumour of a secret marriage between Munck and the queen. The story about the secret marriage was described by the king's sister-in-law Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp and reads as follows: in 1775, when the marriage between the king's brother and sister-in-law did not lead to the birth of any issue, the king asked the queen to take a lover to provide the throne with an heir When she refused this suggestion, he asked for a reconciliation and selected Munck as a mediator with the thought that the queen would find Munck attractive, as she seemed to like his company and he was similar to her in his appearance. When Munck revealed the King's true wish and asked her to give in for the sake of the state and she again declined, the king divorced the queen in secret and had her married to Munck in a secret ceremony conducted by Johan Wingård The only witnesses to this marriage except Munck, the king and the queen, was Wingård, who were appointed bishop of Gothenburg to general amasement despite his youth and Anna Sofia Ramström
Anna Sofia Ramström
Anna Sofia Ramström was the chamber lady of the Queen of Sweden, Sophie Magdalena of Denmark. She was known for her involvement in the famous affair of the consummation of the marriage between the royal couple....
, who was fired from her position at court and was later poisoned, though the circumstances behind her death were never confirmed. It was widely rumoured at the time that Ramström had been forced to resign in 1779 because of the queen's jealousy and that she had been given a pension on condition that she be silent about the relationship between Munck and the queen
Munck was believed to have been rewarded by both the king and the queen for his support. He received a portrait of the queen by herself set in diamonds. He was appointed Master of the Horse (Riksstallmästare), knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
and governor of the Royal Order of the Seraphim. He was created Baron (Friherre
Freiherr
The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...
) Munck af Fulkila on 27 December 1778 (introduced in registry of the nobility in 1788, under nr
Numero sign
The numero sign or numero symbol is a typographic abbreviation of the word number indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles...
309), and finally Count Greve
Graf
Graf is a historical German noble title equal in rank to a count or a British earl...
Munck af Fulkila on 4 July 1788 (introduced 16 May 1789 under nr 103). In 1787, Sophia Magdalena deposited a sum of 50.000 riksdaler
Swedish riksdaler
The riksdaler was the name of a Swedish coin first minted in 1604. Between 1777 and 1873, it was the currency of Sweden. The daler, like the dollar, was named after the German Thaler. The similarly named Reichsthaler, rijksdaalder, and rigsdaler were used in Germany and Austria-Hungary, the...
in an account for Munck, which was generally rumoured to be a "farewell gift".
At this point, Munck had started an affair with the ballerina
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
Giovanna Bassi
Giovanna Bassi
Giovanna Bassi was an Italian ballerina who spent the majority of her career in Sweden. She was regarded as the prima donna of the Swedish Ballet during the Gustavian age.- Biography :...
, to whom Sophia Magdalena showed great dislike.
The King was terrified when he heard that the queen had made that deposit, and he tried to prevent the transaction from becoming public knowledge, which, however, did not succeed.
A child of Giovanna Bassi's, rumoured to be the child of Munck, bore a strong likeness to the Crown Prince.
These allegations had long going consequences: after Gustaf IV Adolf was deposed in 1809, the Gustavian party tried to get his son Gustavus, Crown Prince of Sweden accepted as crown prince
Crown Prince
A crown prince or crown princess is the heir or heiress apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The wife of a crown prince is also titled crown princess....
in 1809 and 1810, but were unsuccessful. The Swedish princess Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, queen in 1809, was one of the leading people of the Gustavian party. She often visited ex-queen Frederica in her house arrest and worked for prince Gustav to be acknowledged as heir to the throne. She wrote of this issue in her diaries: during a dinner, General Georg Adlersparre told her, that Jean Baptiste Bernadotte had asked whether she had any issue, and was interested when he found she had not. She said that the throne already had an heir in the deposed King's son. Adlersparre became upset and expressed the opinion of his party, that no one of the instigators of the coup would accept this, as they feared that the boy would revenge against them when he became King, and that they would go as far as take up the old rumour that the deposed King was in fact illegitimate and the son of Queen Sophia Magdalena and Count Adolf Fredrik Munck af Fulkila to prevent this. The affair was also inspired literature: it was part of the plot in Carl Jonas Love Almquist's Drottningens juvelsmycke
Drottningens juvelsmycke
The Queen's Tiara is a classic Swedish novel by Carl Jonas Love Almquist.It is the fourth instalment in the series of novels known as Törnrosens bok and was published in 1834...
, the first historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
written in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
.
In 1791, he was discovered creating forged notes on Drottningholm Palace
Drottningholm Palace
The Drottningholm Palace is the private residence of the Swedish royal family. It is located in Drottningholm. It is built on the island Lovön , and is one of Sweden's Royal Palaces. It was originally built in the late 16th century. It served as a residence of the Swedish royal court for most of...
, abetting
Abettor
Abettor , is a legal term implying one who instigates, encourages or assists another to commit an offence.An abettor differs from an accessory in that he must be present at the commission of the crime; all abettors Abettor (from to abet, Old French abeter, á and beter, to bait, urge dogs upon any...
Charles Appelkvist. In 1791, the king was to have contemplated to divorce the queen by exposing her alleged secret marriage to Munck After the death of the king in 1792, Count Munck af Fulkila was forced to leave Sweden. Before his departure, the regent, duke Charles, demanded that he turn over certain documents which could scandalize the royal house if they became known In 1795, he asked for permission to return to Sweden, and when denied, he reportedly threatened to expose the marriage certificate between himself and the queen
He was ennobled as a Count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
in the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1816.