Tournaments and hastiludes

Ekolsund 1776
The first of Gustav III's hastiludes was organised in 1776 at the royal country residence of Ekolsund. It occupied three days at the end of August and was preceded by intensive preparations all through the spring and summer. The young men of the court rose at 2 in the morning to practise riding. All the old tournament and weaponry books were got out and eagerly studied. The King's sister-in-law, Duchess Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta, records in her diary how the court, the King included, was busy embroidering standars with the knights' coats of arms. Gustav III himself devised the ceremonial for the tournament, the antiquated phraseology of which made the reader feel as if he had been transported back to the days of the medieval King Waldemar.

Just in time for the first day of the tournament, a fever epidemic broke out, and the Duchess writes that the whole of Ekolsund looked like a hospital. Several knights were confined to bed while others persevered in the saddle for nine hours at a stretch, so terribly racked with fever inside their armour "that their teeth chattered and their accoutrements rattled". The King's brother, Duke Karl, who was to have led one of the quadrilles, was also indisposed, but the situation was saved by an "unknown knight" who entered the lists and took up the King's challenge in the Duke's stead.

Adolf Fredriks Torg 1777
The Ekolsund tournament is best described as a dress rehearsal for the great hastiludes organised the following year at Adolf Fredriks Torg (present-day Mariatorget, Stockholm) which lasted for four days in the summer. The knights rode into the lists preceded by pages carrying their lances, shields and banners. In front of them went a solemn procession of drummers, trumpeters, heralds, umpires and the Marshal General of the tournament with his retinue - all in expensive liveries and historicised Burgundian costumes.

The combatants were divided into two quadrilles of twelve knights and one leader each. The King, who led the challengers, les tenants, had declared in his letter of challenge that he wished to defend the thesis - That just as honour is the sole object of a true knight, so is a glimpse of beauty its supreme reward. Duke Karl, leading the defenders, les assaillants, fought for the thesis that Honour being the true desire of a knight, he fights in the reversible resolution to win or die for her alone, without regard for any other reward. The first day was devoted to tourneying. The participants appeared in armour and fought with clubs, javelots, swords and pistols. On the second day they exchanged their armour for Burgundian costumes.

The King's quadrille was dressed in blue and gold, the Duke's in yellow and black. This time they rode at papier-maché Turks' heads which were caught with lances or javelots and shot at with pistols. On the third day they competed with each other in tilting at the ring, wearing the same costumes as the previous day.

But on the final day the knights once more appeared in armour, to tilt at the quintain and to fight in mêlée in honour of the ladies. After the tournament was over, the participants went in procession to the Throne Room at the Palace, where prizes were presented by the Queen. The foremost prize, a gold ring, went to Sofia Magdalena's Master of the Horse, Claes Rålamb.

Drottningholm 1781
Another tournament of this kind was arranged at Drottningholm in 1781, when three quadrilles competed every Wednesday and Friday in the course of three weeks. This time the King, leading six knights, challenged both his brothers, heading three knights each.