thumb|Portrait, 1700s
Johann Reinhold Patkul (27 July 1660 – 10 October 1707) was a Livonian nobleman, politician and agitator of Baltic German extraction. Born as a subject to the Swedish Crown, he protested against the manner of King Charles XI of Sweden's reduction in Livonia, enraging the king, who had him arrested and sentenced to mutilation and death (1694). Patkul fled from the Swedish Empire to continental Europe, and played a key role in the secret diplomacy (1698–1699) allying Peter I of Russia, Augustus II the Strong of Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth - as well as Christian V and his successor Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway - against Charles XII of Sweden, triggering the Great Northern War of 1700–1721.
Patkul was close friends with the Danish Privy Councillor Knud Thott, who had been driven away from his home province Scania during the Scanian War. During the 1690s and early 1700s the two of them worked actively for Danish intervention against Sweden so that Livonia and Scania might be freed from Swedish overlordship. During the first war years, Patkul retained a key role in the communication between the allies and other European courts, holding positions at king Augustus's court first in Augustus's interests (1698–1700), then in tsar Peter's service. In late 1705 Patkul fell from Augustus's favor and was arrested and charged with high treason. Throughout the following year he was detained first in Sonnenstein, then in Königstein (both in Saxony), before Charles XII forced Augustus to extradite him by the Treaty of Altranstädt in late 1706. Patkul spent another year in Swedish detention before Charles XII had him broken on the wheel and decapitated.
Youth
Patkul was born in prison at Stockholm, where his father had been imprisoned under suspicion of treason. He entered the Swedish Army at an early age and was subsequently promoted captain.
Dispute over reduction
In 1689, at the head of a deputation of Livonian gentry, he went to Stockholm to protest against the rigour with which the land-recovery project of Charles XI of Sweden was being carried out in his native province. His eloquence impressed Charles XI, but his representations were disregarded. When he submitted another petition in more offensive language to the king three years later, his renewed complaints involved him in a government prosecution. To save himself from the penalties of high treason, Patkul fled from Stockholm to Switzerland, and was condemned in absentia to lose his right hand and his head. His estates were at the same time confiscated. (English translation in 1761 under the title Anecdotes concerning the famous John Reinhold Patkul). Another account of Patkul's execution is a 1708 leaflet of unknown origin titled Kurtze Beschreibung der merck- und denckwürdigen Execution Des tapffern und Welt-bekanten General Patkuls, Wie selbiger den 10. October. 1707. zu Casimir in Pohlen erbärmlich hingerichtet worden [in English: Short description of the notable and memorable execution of the brave and world-famous general Patkul, how the same on 10 October 1707 in Casimir in Poland was executed miserably]. Differing slightly, the accounts agree that Patkul, after a prolonged process of breaking his bones with the wheel, begged for his decapitation (crying "Kopf ab!") and rolled to the block on his own; the following decapitation did however not succeed until after several strikes.