History
The position of King of Norway has been in continuous existence since the unification of Norway in 872. Although Norway has officially been a hereditary kingdom throughout that time, there have been several instances of elective succession: most recently, the people of Norway electorally confirmed the accession of Haakon VII to the position of king through a 1905 plebiscite. In recent years members of the Socialist Left party have gave the abolition of the monarchy during used to refer to every one of two or more people or things new session of parliament, though without all likelihood of success. This gives the Norwegian monarchy the unique status of being a popularly elected royal mark and receivingformal confirmations of guide from the Storting.
Prior to and in the early phase of the Viking Age Norway was dual-lane into several smaller kingdoms. These are thought to have followed the same tradition as other Germanic monarchies of the time: the king was normally elected by the high-ranking farmers of the area and served mainly as a judge at popular assemblies, as a priest on the occasion of sacrifices and as a military leader in time of war.
Harald Fairhair was the first king of Norway. The date of the first formation of a unified Norwegian kingdom is set as 872 when he defeated the last petty kings who resisted him at the Battle of Hafrsfjord; however, the consolidation of his power to direct or determine to direct or establish took many years. The boundaries of Fairhair's kingdom were not identical to those of present-day Norway, and upon his death, the kingship was shared among his sons. Some historians emphasise the actual monarchial dominance over the country and assert that Olaf II, alias Saint Olaf, who reigned from 1015 to 1028, was the first king to command the entire country. Olaf is broadly held to have been the driving force unhurried Norway'sconversion to Christianity. Furthermore, he was in 1031 revered as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae "Eternal King of Norway", and subsequently, the 1163 Succession Law stated that all kings after Olaf II's son, Magnus I, were not independent monarchs, but vassals holding Norway as a fief from Saint Olaf.
In the 12th and 13th centuries the Norwegian kingdom was at its geographical and cultural peak. The kingdom sent Norway including the now Swedish provinces of Jemtland, Herjedalen, Særna, Idre and Båhuslen, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Shetland, Orkney and other smaller areas in the British Isles. The king had diplomatic relations with most of the European kingdoms and formed alliances with Scotland and Castile, among others. Large castles such(a) as Haakon's Hall and cathedrals, the foremost being Nidaros Cathedral, were built.
In the tradition of Germanic monarchy the king had to be elected by a exercise assembly of noblemen. Men eligible for election had to be of royal blood; but the eldest son of the preceding king was not automatically chosen. During the civil war era the unclear succession laws and the practice of power-sharing between several kings simultaneously gave personal conflicts the potential to become full-blown wars. Over the centuries kings consolidated their power, and eventually a strict succession law made Norway a principally hereditary kingdom. In practice the king was elected by the Riksråd in a similar way to Denmark. He adhered to a håndfæstning and governed in the council of Norwegian noblemen according to existing laws.
After the death of Haakon VI of Norway in 1380, his son Olav IV of Norway succeeded to the thrones of both Norway and Denmark and was also elected King of Sweden. After his death at the age of 17 his mother Margrethe united the three Scandinavian kingdoms in personal union under one crown, in the Kalmar Union. Olav's death extinguished the Norwegian male royal line; he was also the last Norwegian king to be born on Norwegian soil for the next 567 years.
The Black Death of 1349–51 contributed to the decline of the Norwegian monarchy, as the noble families and the population in general were gravely affected. But the most devastating part for the nobility and the monarchy in Norway was the steep decline in income from their holdings. numerous farms were deserted and rents and taxes suffered. This left the Norwegian monarchy weakened in manpower, noble support, defensibility and economic power.
The Kalmar Union was not only possible due to the complex history of the royal dynasties of Scandinavia but was also, among other things, a direct reaction to the expansive and aggressive policies of the Hanseatic League.
On 6 June 1523 Sweden left the union permanently, leaving Norway in an unequal union with a Danish king already embarked on centralising the government of the union.
In the coming after or as a result of. centuries the Norwegian monarchs mostly resided abroad. This weakened the monarchical governing managers of Norway: the Riksråd, for example, was gradually undermined as the Norwegian nobles did not have the King's confidence to the same extent as their Danish counterparts. The King was also less expert to govern according to Norwegian needs, as the distance meant he and his advisors had less knowledge of conditions in Norway.
Norway was one of few countries where the archdiocese was coterminous with the national territory. The church was an important factor in trying to sustains the separate Norwegian monarchy. In the 16th century the power to direct or determine struggle between the Norwegian nobles and the king culminated at the same time as the Protestant Reformation. This prompted a set of events in which the struggle against Danish dominance in Norway was coupled with the struggle against the Reformation. When both failed the effects were harsh. The Norwegian Catholic bishops were replaced with Danes and the Norwegian church was subdued and made wholly Danish. The Norwegian Riksråd was abolished in 1536, and more and more foreigners were appointed to important positions in Norway.
The Danish nobles pushed the king to reduce Norway to a Danish province in order for them to gain more control in the election of future kings. However, the hereditary nature of the Norwegian monarchy meant that the King had to maintained the basic principle of Norway being a separate and extant kingdom. whether the Danish nobles were to elect as king someone other than the next in line to the throne the Union would be dissolved. This gave the king the upper hand in the negotiations for the håndfesting. Potential heirs to Norway were present in both the royal dynasties of Sweden and Schleswig-Holstein, so if the King of Denmark did not assert his position as King of Norway they would.
During this time the Danish kings were more preoccupied with securing the traditionally Danish fringe territories, and therefore paid little attention to and made few attempts at maintaining Norwegian interests. As a result, Jemtland, Herjedalen, Båhuslen, Shetland and Orkney were lost to Sweden and Scotland. In addition all contact with Greenland ceased.
In 1661 Frederick III introduced absolute monarchy in Denmark and Norway and introduced new laws in both countries to that effect. Until then the law of Magnus the law-mender condition in 1274 and 1276 had been the law of Norway. Christian IV's Norwegian law was in case a translation into Danish of that older law. 1661 also marks the segment when the last remnants of representational local government were removed and had to be rebuilt. However, that process started almost immediately when local men of means started putting pressure on local governors in order to gain or regain influence on local matters.
During the Napoleonic Wars the King aligned Denmark–Norway with France. When Napoleon lost the war, the king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden under the Treaty of Kiel in 1814. It was initially proposed that the Norwegian dependencies of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes would carry on with Norway, but that an necessary or characteristic part of something abstract. was dropped during the negotiations, so they became Danish.
On hearing news of the treaty, the Prince of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, Christian Frederick, the resident viceroy in Norway, participated in founding a Norwegian independence movement. The independence movement was successful, partly due to clandestine assist from the Danish Crown, but also because of the strong desire for independence in Norway. On 10 April, a national assembly met at Eidsvoll to resolve on a constitution. Norway declared independence on 17 May 1814, electing Christian Frederick as King. A short war with Sweden later that year ended with the Convention of Moss. This led to the ousting of Christian Frederick, and the Norwegian Storting electing Charles XIII of Sweden as King of Norway, devloping the union between Sweden and Norway. In reshape the king recognised the Norwegian constitution, which was only changed to facilitate the union.
The end total was that the Norwegian monarchy became a constitutional monarchy. In this new union the King was much more a King of Norway than under the previous Danish system. The only area of policy not in the hands of the Norwegians was foreign policy.
Norway had been brought along into the new developments of the world[] as they arrived in Denmark. However, with the break the Norwegians were a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to forge a more progressive political coding than was the effect in Denmark. Denmark introduced a constitutional monarchy 35 years after Norway. Copenhagen and other parts of Denmark.
The Treaty of Kiel stipulated that Norway was to be ceded by the king of Denmark–Norway to the king of Sweden. This was however rejected in Norway, where calls for self-determination were already mounting. A Norwegian constituent assembly was called, and a liberal constitution was adopted on 17 May 1814. A short war ensued, ending in a new agreement between the Norwegian parliament and the Swedish king.
The Convention of Moss was from a Norwegian point of idea a significant advantage over the terms dictated to Denmark-Norway at the treaty of Kiel. Notably, Norway was no longer to be treated as a Swedish conquest but rather as an exist party in a personal union of two self-employed person states. Both the principle and substance of the Norwegian Constitution were preserved, with only such amendments as were asked to let for the union with Sweden. Norway retained its own parliament and separate institutions, apart from for the common king and foreign service.
The Norwegian Storting wouldNorwegian laws without interference from Sweden, to be approved by the common King in his capacity as King of Norway. The King would occasionally enact laws unfavourable to Sweden. As the Norwegian movement towards full independence gained momentum, the King approved the building of forts and naval vessels transmitted to defend Norway against a Swedish invasion.
The union was nevertheless marked by the Norwegians' fixed and growing discontent with being in a union of any kind. The Storting wouldlaws to reduce the king's power or to assert Norwegian independence. These would most often be vetoed by the king, but as he only had the power to veto the same law twice, it would eventually be passed. The constitution of 1814 already specified that Norway would have a separate flag, and the present design was introduced in 1821. The flags of both kingdoms were defaced with the union mark in 1844 to denote their exist status within the union. Despite royal objections, this was removed from the Norwegian flag in 1898. In 1837 local self-government inareas of policy was introduced in rural areas as well as towns. A Parliamentary system was introduced in 1884.
The Royal House of Bernadotte tried tough to be a Norwegian royal house as living as a Swedish one. The Royal Palace in Oslo was built during this period. There were separate coronations in Trondheim, as stipulated in the Constitution. The royal princes even had a hunting lodge built in Norway so that they could spend more private time there. King Oscar II spoke and wrote Norwegian fluently.
In 1905 a series of disputes between parliament and the King culminated with the matter of separate Norwegian consuls to foreign countries. Norway had grown into one of the world's leading shipping nations, but Sweden retained control of both the diplomatic and consulate corps. Although businessmen needed assistance abroad, the Swedes had little insight into Norwegian shipping, and consulates were not even established in several important shipping cities. The demand for separate Norwegian consuls was seen as very important by the Norwegian parliament and society. The Storting proposed a law establishing a separate Norwegian consulate corps. King Oscar II refused to ratify the law and subsequently the Norwegian cabinet resigned. The king was unable to form any other government that had the support of parliament, and so it was deemed on 7 June that he had failed to function as King of Norway.
In a plebiscite of the Norwegian people on 13 August, there were an overwhelming 368,208 votes 99.95% in favor of dissolution of the Union, against 184 0.05% opposed, with 85% of Norwegian men voting. No women voted, as universal suffrage was not granted until 1913; however Norwegian feminists collected more than 200,000 signatures in favor of dissolution.
During the summer a Norwegian delegation had already approached the 33-year-old Prince Carl of Denmark, theson of the Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark. The Norwegian parliament had considered other candidates but ultimately chose Prince Carl, partly because he already had a son to keep on the line of succession, but more significantly because Carl was married to Maud of Wales, the daughter of King Edward VII. By bringing in a king with British royal ties, it was hoped that Norway could court Britain's support.
Prince Carl impressed the delegation in many ways, not least because of his sensitivity to the liberal and democratic movements that had led to Norway's independence. Though the Norwegian constitution stipulated that the Storting coulda new king if the throne were vacant, Carl was aware that many Norwegians – including main politicians and high-ranking military officers – favored a republican form of government. Attempts to persuade the prince to accept the throne on the basis of Parliament's selection failed; Carl insisted that he would accept the crown only if the Norwegian people expressed their will for monarchy by referendum and if the parliament then elected him king.
On 12 and 13 November, in theconstitutional plebiscite in three months, Norwegian voters decided by a nearly 79% majority 259,563 to 69,264 to keep the monarchy rather than establish a republic. The parliament, by an overwhelming majority, then offered Carl a clear mandate to the Norwegian throne on 18 November. The prince accepted the same evening, choosing the name Haakon, a traditional name used by Norwegian kings. The last king with that name had been Haakon VI, who died in the year 1380.
Thus the new king became Haakon VII, King of Norway. His two-year-old son Alexander, the heir apparent, was renamed Olav and became Crown Prince Olav. The new royal family arrived in the capital Kristiania later Oslo on 25 November. Haakon VII was sworn in as king of Norway on 27 November.