Table of Contents

Principal Family Trees (Modern Era) 7

Introduction 11

Acknowledgements 21

Part 1 Beginnings

1 The Rise and Fall of the Hanseatic League 24

2 Poland's Rise to Power 46

Part 2 From The Middle Ages

3 Denmark's First Oldenburg Kings 58

4 Sweden's Vasa Dynasty 77

5 The Vasa Kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 100

6 The Last Years of Sweden's Baltic Empire 110

Part 3 Absolutism and Autocracy

7 Denmark's First Absolute Rulers 124

8 The Early Romanovs to the Founding of St Petersburg 136

9 Karl XII of Sweden: Triumph to Disaster 166

10 Russia's Years of Transition 184

Part 4 Enlightenment

11 The Early Hohenzollerns to Frederick the Great 200

12 Catherine the Great: German Princess to Empress of Russia 224

13 Poland's Last Years of Decline 250

14 Denmark: Success, Scandal and Survival 269

15 Sweden: A Century of Revolution 290

Part 5 Modernity, Change and Revolution

16 The Nineteenth-century Romanov Rulers 308

17 Prussia's Path to Empire 339

18 Maria Feodorovna: Russia's Danish Empress 358

Postscript: Into a New Era 388

Timeline 408

Notes 422

Bibliography 429

Index 437