Carl Gustaf Wrangel's surviving carousel equipment
The armoury of Carl Gustaf Wrangel at Skokloster Castle contains a collection of carousel equipment from the mid-17th century - costumes, boots, helmets, shields, lances and rings which are the oldest extant of their kind in Sweden. Wrangel was a field marshal, admiral of the realm and Swedish governor-general in Pomerania, and the greater part of his life was spent abroad. When living in Sweden, however, he was a frequent participant in ballets, "Wirthschaft" events and tilting at the ring organised at the royal court. Silk, taffeta and brocades for pageant and masquerade costumes are frequently mentioned in the surviving accounts. One also finds money being paid at regular intervals for new carousel lances and points, which were disposable material. The accounts record wages paid to drummers and trumpeters who played "when His Excellency won the prize for tilting at the ring" and also to "the fellow who hung up the ring in the lists".
Between the coronation of Queen Kristina in 1650 and her abdication and the coronation and wedding of her cousin, Karl Gustav, four years later, there was a spate of entertainments at court. At no other time were so many tilting events organised in the capital. It was during this period that Wrangel, now 39 years old, returned home to Stockholm, which he had hardly seen since he was a teenager. He was an obvious and immediate participant in the festivities surrounding the young Queen. For her birthday in 1652, Wrangel organised a pageant with tilting at the ring, in which he himself led a troop disguised as Turks.
The costumes now at Skokloster are probably connected with the carousel arranged in 1654. On 6th June that year the Queen abdicated in Uppsala, and the coronation of Karl X Gustav (Charles X) took place later the same day. A costly tilting event took place on 31st May in honour of the departing Queen, with four different "parties" competing between five and eight o'clock in the evening in the lists, which were decorated with spruce twigs. Karl Gustav, the heir apparent, headed the first competing group, the Indians, les chevaliers de la gloire (the knights of honour). Next time the Persians, led by Wrangel under the motto les chevaliers de la fidelité (the knights of fidelity), which was painted on a large blue banner. The other competition were Moors and Romans, les chevaliers de la renommé (the knights of fame) and les chevaliers de la felicité (the knights of felicity).
At the head of Wrangel's group of competitors, lancers, drummers and trumpeters, rode his sex-year-old son Carl Philip, dressed in Persian costume and holding a battle-axe. One of the Skokloster costumes tallies closely with the fabrics purchased for the coronation pageant. In November that year the new King married Hedvig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp. Wrangel was a competitor in the two tilting events then organised by Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie and by the Master of Horse, Robert Douglas. In one of them he took first prize, a gold chain worth 500 ducats, and in the other he came second, which earned him a diamond ring. As very customary, the tilting events were preceded by parades of fantasy figures.
De la Gardie's pageant was described by one witness, the courtier Johan Ekeblad, as "altogether splendid and beautiful with moving mountains and decorations". It took place to an accompaniment of sleet and torchlight. The show was stolen by "a flock of white birds which came down from the sky and greatly discomfited those riding in the procession, for they turned into water where they fell, causing them much cold".
In Count Douglas' pageant a few days later, the ancient Geats competed with a group of Switzers. The other Skokloster costumes could fit in very well with this event. Count Wrangel took part as one of the seven Geat champions. The seven costumes now at Skokloster are in classical Roman style, but in the Swedish national colours of blue and yellow - perfect attire, in the fashion of the time, for the ancient, victorious Goths.