Hats

The Hats were a Swedish political faction active during the Age of Liberty (1719–1772). Their name derives from the tricorne hat worn by officers and gentlemen. They vied for power with the opposing Caps party. In 18th century Swedish politics, the Hats represented conservatives, the Caps represented liberals. The Hats, who ruled Sweden from 1738 to 1765, advocated an alliance with France and an assertive foreign policy, especially towards Russia. During their tenure, they involved Sweden in two expensive and disastrous wars, in the 1740s and 1750s. Policy Count Arvid Horn, leader of the Caps, had governed Sweden since 1719. Following Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War, he had reversed the traditional policy of Sweden by keeping France at a distance, drawing near to Great Britain, and making no significant effort to regain Sweden's lost Baltic empire. Those opposed to this peaceful policy derisively nicknamed his adherents "Night-caps", and these epithets became party badges when the estates met in 1738. The Hats routed the government, and Horn was compelled to retire after 33 years in high office. Now in power, the Hats aimed at restoring Sweden to her former position as a great power, and sought to renew the traditional alliance with France. France welcomed the rise of a Swedish government which would uphold French interests in northern Europe, and Versailles generously financed the Hat party for the next two generations. The first sign of weakness in the Hats' government came after the war with Russia, which ended in Swedish defeat. In the Riksdag, an inquiry into the conduct of the war was proposed. The Hats managed to avoid this prospect by obtaining precedence for the succession question. King Frederick I had no legitimate children, and it fell to the Riksdag to elect his successor. Negotiations were opened with the Russian empress, Elizabeth of Russia, who agreed to restore the greater part of Finland to Sweden if her heir's uncle, Adolph Frederick of Holstein, were elected successor to the Swedish crown. The Hats eagerly caught at the opportunity of recovering the grand duchy and their own prestige along with it. By the Treaty of Åbo, on 7 May 1743, the terms of the empress were accepted and only a small part which lay beyond the Kymi river, often called Old Finland, was retained by Russia.