Oscar II of Sweden and Norway (1829-1907), King of Sweden and Norway, son of Oscar I, born in Stockholm on the 21st of January 1829. He entered the navy at the age of eleven, and was appointed junior lieutenant in July 1845. Later he studied at the university of Upsala, where he distinguished himself in mathematics. In 1857 he married Princess Sophia Wilhelmina, youngest daughter of Duke William of Nassau. He succeeded his brother Charles XV on the 18th of September 1872. He was largly responsible for the peaceful solution eventually adopted for the separation of the Crown. His acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns gave the King considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. He won many friends in England by his outspoken and generous support of Great Britain at the time of the Boer War (1899-1902), expressed in a declaration printed in The Times on the 2nd of May 1900. Himself a distinguished writer and musical amateur, King Oscar proved a geneous friend of learning and did much to encourage the development of education throughout his dominions. In 1858 a collection of his lyrical and narrative poems, Memorials of the Swedish Fleet, published anonymously, obtained the second prize of the Swedish Academy. His "Contributions to the Military History of Sweden in the Years 1711, 1712, 1713," originally appeared in the Annals of the Academy, and were printed separately in 1865. His book “Memoirs of Charles XII” were translated into English in 1879. His eldest son, Oscar Gustavus Adolphus, Duke of Warmland (b. 1858), succeeded him as King Gustavus V.