the battle of Leipzig, he advanced against Denmark, and King Frederick soon saw himself compelled to accede to the cession of Norway, which had long been the aspiration of the Swedes, especially after the loss of Finland in 1809. In the treaty of Kiel Frederick VI. absolved the Norwegians from their oath of allegiance, and called upon them to become the loyal subjects of the Swedish king. But the Norwegians, who had not been consulted in the matter, refused to acknowledge the treaty, declaring that, while the Danish king might renounce his right to the Norwegian crown, it was contrary to international law to dispose of an entire kingdom without the consent of its people. A meeting of delegates was convened at Eidsvold, not far from the Norwegian capital, where, on the 17th of May 1814, a constitution, framed upon the constitutions of America, of France (1791), and of Spain (1812), was adopted. Among its most important features are that the Storthing, or National Assembly, is a single-chamber institution, and that the king is not given an absolute veto, or the right to dissolve the Storthing. The Danish governor of Norway, Prince Christian Frederick, was unanimously elected king. Soon afterwards the Swedes, under the crown prince, invaded Norway. The hostilities lasted only a fortnight, when Bernadotte opened negotiations with the Norwegians. A convention was held at Moss, where it was proposed that the Norwegians should accept the Swedish king as their sovereign, on the condition that their constitution of the 17th of May should remain intact, except with such alterations as the union might render necessary. An extraordinary Storthing was then summoned at Christiania, and on the 4th of November 1814 Norway was declared to be “a free, independent, and indivisible kingdom, united with Sweden under one king.” A month previously Prince Christian Frederick had laid down his crown and left the country.
The union was more fully defined by the “Act of Union,” which was accepted by the national assemblies of both countries in the following year. In the preamble to the act it is clearly stated that the union between the two peoples was accomplished “not by force of arms, but by free conviction,” and the Swedish foreign minister declared to the European Powers, on behalf of Sweden, that the treaty of Kiel had been abandoned, and that it was not to this treaty, but to the confidence of the Norwegian people in the Swedish, that the latter owed the union with Norway. The constitution framed at Eidsvold was retained, and formed the Grundlov, or fundamental law of the kingdom. The union thus concluded between the two countries was really an offensive and defensive alliance under a common king, each country retaining its own government, parliament, army, navy and customs.
In Sweden the people received only an imperfect and erroneous insight into the nature of the union, and for a long time believed it to be an achievement of the Swedish arms. They had hoped to make Norway a province of Sweden, and now they had entered into a union in which both countries were equally independent. During the first fifteen years the king was represented in Norway by a Swedish Viceroy, while the government was, of course, composed only of Norwegians. Count Wedel Jarlsberg was the first to be entrusted with the important office of head of the Norwegian government, while several of Prince Christian Frederick’s councillors of state were retained, or replaced by others holding their political views. The Swedish Count von Essen was appointed the first viceroy of Norway, and was succeeded two years afterwards by his countryman Count von Mörner, over both of whom Count Wedel exercised considerable influence.
During the first years of the union the country suffered from poverty and depression of trade, and the finances were in a deplorable condition. The first Storthing was chiefly occupied with financial and other practical measures. In order to improve the finances of the country a bank of Norway was founded, and the army was reduced to Strained relations between king and Storthing. one half. The paid-up capital of the bank was procured by an extraordinary tax, and this, together with the growing discontent among the peasantry, brought about a rising in Hedemarken, the object of which was to dissolve the Storthing and to obtain a reduction in the taxation. The rising, however, soon subsided, and the bountiful harvest of 1819 brought more prosperous times to the peasantry. Meanwhile, however, the financial position of the country had nearly endangered its independence. The settlement with Denmark with regard to Norway’s share of the national debt common to both, assumed threatening proportions. In the interest of Denmark, the allied powers asked for a speedy settlement, and in order to escape their collective intervention, Bernadotte, who had now succeeded to the throne of Sweden and Norway, on the death (February 5, 1818) of the old king Carl XIII., accepted England’s mediation, and was enabled in September 1819 to conclude a convention with Denmark, according to which Norway was held liable for only 3,000,000 specie dollars (nearly £700,000). But the Norwegians considered that this was still too much, and the attitude of the Storthing in 1821 nearly occasioned a fresh interference of the powers. The Storthing, however, yielded at last, and agreed to raise a loan and pay the amount stipulated in the convention, but the king evidently had his doubts as to whether the Norwegians really intended to fulfil their obligations. As his relations with the Storthing had already become strained, and as he was occupied at that time with plans, which it is now known meant nothing less than a coup d’état in connexion with the revision of the Norwegian constitution, he decided to adopt military preparations, and in July 1821 he collected a force of 3000 Swedish and 3000 Norwegian troops in the neighbourhood of Christiania, ostensibly for the mere purpose of holding some manœuvres. In a circular note (June 1) to the European powers, signed by the Swedish foreign minister, Engström—but it is not difficult to recognize the hand of the king as the real author—the minister complained bitterly of the treatment the king had met with at the hands of the Storthing, and represented the Norwegians in anything but a favourable light to the powers, the intention being to obtain their sympathy for any attempt that might be made to revise the Norwegian constitution. About this time another important question had to be settled by the Storthing. The Storthings of 1815 and 1818 had already passed a bill for the abolition of nobility, but the king had on both occasions refused his sanction. The Norwegians maintained that the few counts and barons still to be found in Norway were all Danish and of very recent origin, while the really true and ancient nobility of the country were the Norwegian peasants, descendants of the old jarls and chieftains. According to the constitution, any bill which has been passed by three successively elected Storthings, elections being held every third year, becomes law without the king’s sanction. When the third reading of the bill came on, the king did everything in his power to obstruct it, but in spite of his opposition the bill was eventually carried and became law.
In 1822 Count Wedel Jarlsberg retired from the government. He had become unpopular through his financial policy, and was also at issue with the king on vital matters. In 1821 he had been impeached before the Rigsret, the supreme court of the realm, for having caused the state considerable losses. Jonas Collett (1772–1851) was Royal proposals for constitutional revision. appointed as his successor to the post of minister of finance. The king had by this time apparently abandoned his plan of a coup d’état, for in the following August he submitted to the Storthing several proposals for fundamental changes in the constitution, all of which aimed at removing all that was at variance with a monarchical form of government. The changes, in fact, were the same as he had suggested in his circular note to the Powers, and which he knew would be hailed with approval by his Swedish subjects. When the Storthing met again in 1824 the royal proposals for the constitutional changes came on for discussion. The Storthing unanimously rejected not only the king’s proposals, but also several others by private members for changes in the constitution. The king submitted his proposals again in the following session of the Storthing, and again later on, but they were always unanimously rejected. In 1830 they were discussed for the last time, with the same result.
