Monarchy of Sweden
The monarchy of Sweden is centred on the monarchical head of state of Sweden, by law a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. There have been kings in what now is the Kingdom of Sweden for more than a millennium. Originally an elective monarchy, it became a hereditary monarchy in the 16th century during the reign of Gustav Vasa, though virtually all monarchs before that belonged to a limited and small number of political families which are considered to be the royal dynasties of Sweden.
The official continuous count usually begins with the kings who ruled both Svealand and Götaland as one kingdom. Sweden's monarchy is amongst the oldest in the world, with a regnal list stretching back to the tenth century, starting with Eric the Victorious; the Swedish monarchy has, for the past thousand years, undergone cycles of decline and strengthening, culminating in the modern constitutional monarchy.
The Swedish monarchy has been one of the key features in the development of Swedish culture, having for centuries patronized the arts and sciences. Several of Sweden's most prestigious academies and cultural institutions are under Swedish royal protection. This historical role politically, militarily and culturally, in spite of the country's otherwise liberal leanings, has resulted in the Swedish monarchy being popular. In recent years, however, some of the most serious criticism ever published has taken place about the way his monarchy has developed under the current king's fifty-year reign.
Sweden in the present day is a representative democracy in a parliamentary system based on popular sovereignty, as defined in the current Instrument of Government. The monarch and the members of the royal family undertake a variety of official, unofficial and other representational duties within Sweden and abroad. The current king of Sweden is Carl XVI Gustaf, while his heir is Crown Princess Victoria.
The Swedish monarch has numerous residences, primarily state-owned but some privately owned; their official residence and workplace is Stockholm Palace, while Drottningholm Palace serves as the monarchy's private residence. Other notable residences include Gripsholm Castle and Ulriksdal Palace, as well as others throughout Sweden. Several large palaces and a considerable section of the Swedish capital of Stockholm have been at the disposal of the monarch since 1809.
History
Pre-16th century
Scandinavian peoples have had kings since prehistoric times. As early as the 1st century CE, Tacitus wrote that the Suiones had a king, but the order of Swedish regnal succession up until King Eric the Victorious, is known almost exclusively through accounts in historically controversial Norse sagas.Originally, the Swedish king had combined powers limited to that of a war chief, a judge and a priest at the Temple at Uppsala. However, there are thousands of runestones commemorating commoners, but no known chronicle about the Swedish kings prior to the 14th century, and there is a relatively small number of runestones that are thought to mention kings: Gs 11, U 11 and U 861.
About 1000 A.D., the first king known to rule both Svealand and Götaland was Olof Skötkonung, but further history for the next two centuries is obscure, with many kings whose tenures and actual influence/power remains unclear. The Royal Court of Sweden, however, does count Olof's father, Eric the Victorious, as Sweden's first king. The power of the king was greatly strengthened by the introduction of Christianity during the 11th century, and the following centuries saw a process of consolidation of power into the hands of the king. The Swedes traditionally elected a king from a favored dynasty at the Stones of Mora, and the people had the right to elect the king as well as to depose him. The ceremonial stones were destroyed around 1515.
In the 12th century, the consolidation of Sweden was still affected by dynastic struggles between the Erik and Sverker clans, which ended when a third clan married into the Erik clan and the House of Bjälbo was established on the throne. That dynasty formed pre-Kalmar Union Sweden into a strong state, and finally King Magnus Eriksson even ruled Norway and Scania. Following the Black Death, the union weakened, and Scania was captured by Denmark.
In 1397, after the Black Death and domestic power struggles, Queen Margaret I of Denmark united Sweden, Denmark and Norway in the Union of Kalmar with the approval of the Swedish nobility. Continual tension within each country and the union led to open conflict between the Swedes and the Danes in the 15th century. The union's final disintegration in the early 16th century led to prolonged rivalry between Denmark-Norway and Sweden for centuries to come.
16th- and 17th-century changes
Catholic bishops had supported the King of Denmark, Christian II, but he was overthrown in a rebellion led by nobleman Gustav Vasa, whose father had been executed at the Stockholm bloodbath. Gustav Vasa was elected King of Sweden by the estates of the realm, assembled in Strängnäs on 6 June 1523.Inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther, Gustav I used the Protestant Reformation to curb the power of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1527 he persuaded the estates of the realm, assembled in the city of Västerås, to confiscate church lands, which comprised 21% of the country's farmland. At the same time, he broke with the papacy and established a reformed state church: the Church of Sweden. Throughout his reign, Gustav I suppressed both aristocratic and peasant opposition to his ecclesiastical policies and efforts at centralisation, which to some extent laid the foundation for the modern Swedish unitary state. Legally Sweden has only been a hereditary monarchy since 1544 when the Riksdag of the Estates, through Västerås arvförening, designated the sons of King Gustav I as the heirs to the Throne.
Tax reforms took place in 1538 and 1558, whereby multiple complex taxes on independent farmers were simplified and standardised throughout the district and tax assessments per farm were adjusted to reflect ability to pay. Crown tax revenues increased, but more importantly the new system was perceived as fairer. A war with Lübeck in 1535 resulted in the expulsion of the Hanseatic traders, who previously had had a monopoly on foreign trade. With its own burghers in charge, Sweden's economic strength grew rapidly, and by 1544 Gustav controlled 60% of the farmlands in all of Sweden. Sweden now built the first modern army in Europe, supported by a sophisticated tax system and an efficient bureaucracy.
At the death of King Gustav I in 1560, he was succeeded by his oldest son Eric XIV. His reign was marked by Sweden's entrance into the Livonian War and the Northern Seven Years' War. The combination of Eric's developing mental disorder and his opposition to the aristocracy led to the Sture Murders in 1567 and the imprisonment of his brother John, who was married to Catherine Jagiellon, sister of King Sigismund II of Poland. In 1568 Eric was dethroned and succeeded by John III. In domestic politics John III showed clear Catholic sympathies, inspired by his queen, creating friction with the Swedish clergy and nobility. He reintroduced several Catholic traditions previously abolished, and his foreign policy was affected by his family connection to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where his eldest son had been made King Sigismund III in 1587. Following the death of his father, Sigismund tried to rule Sweden from Poland, leaving Sweden under the control of a regent – his paternal uncle Charles – but was unable to defend his Swedish throne against the ambitions of his uncle. In 1598 Sigismund and his Swedish-Polish army were defeated at the Battle of Stångebro by the forces of Charles, and he was declared deposed by the Estates in 1599.
File:Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle at Breitenfeld.jpg|thumb|upright|The Lion of the North: King Gustavus Adolphus depicted at the turning point of the Battle of Breitenfeld against the forces of Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly
In 1604, the Estates finally recognized the regent and de facto ruler as King Charles IX. His short reign was one of uninterrupted warfare. The hostility of Poland and the breakup of Russia involved him in overseas contests for the possession of Livonia and Ingria, the Polish–Swedish War and the Ingrian War, while his pretensions to claim Lapland brought on a war with Denmark in the last year of his reign.
Gustavus Adolphus inherited three wars from his father when he ascended to the throne. From 1612, when Count Axel Oxenstierna was appointed Lord High Chancellor, which he remained until Gustavus Adolphus's death, the two men struck a long and successful partnership and complemented each other well: In Oxenstierna's own words, his "cool" balanced the King's "heat". The war against Russia ended in 1617 with the Treaty of Stolbovo, which excluded Russia from the Baltic Sea. The final inherited war, the war against Poland, ended in 1629 with the Truce of Altmark, which transferred the large province of Livonia to Sweden and freed the Swedish forces for subsequent intervention in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, where Swedish forces had already established a bridgehead in 1628. Brandenburg was torn apart by a quarrel between the Protestants and the Catholics. When Gustavus Adolphus began his push into northern Germany in June–July 1630, he had just 4,000 soldiers. But he was soon able to consolidate the Protestant position in the north, using reinforcements from Sweden and money supplied by France at the Treaty of Bärwalde. Gustavus Adolphus was killed at the 1632 Battle of Lützen. Queen Maria Eleonora and the king's ministers took over the government of the Realm on behalf of Gustavus Adolphus' underage daughter Christina, until she reached the age of majority. Gustavus Adolphus is often regarded by military historians as one of the greatest military commanders of all time, with innovative use of combined arms.
Christina succeeded her father aged six. A regency government ruled in her name until she turned 18 years of age. During the regency, Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna wrote the 1634 Instrument of Government, which although never approved by any monarch, continued to have an important normative role in the state administration. Christina early on showed an interest in literature and the sciences and famously brought René Descartes to Sweden. Sweden continued to be involved in the Thirty Years' War during reign of Christina and that conflict was settled at the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, and the Swedish monarch received representation at the Imperial Diet due to the German conquests that were made. Having decided not to marry, Christina abdicated the throne on 5 June 1654 in favor of her cousin Charles X Gustav, went abroad, and converted to Roman Catholicism.
File:Charles XI of Sweden.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Charles XI at the Battle of Lund in 1676. Painting by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl.
The Estates elected Charles X Gustav as their new King, and his short reign is best characterized by foreign wars: first a lengthy campaign within Poland and then with Denmark. In the latter case, the risky 1658 March across the Belts which resulted in the Treaty of Roskilde, would prove to be the largest permanent territorial gain Sweden ever had: Skåne, Blekinge and Bohuslän now became Swedish provinces and have remained so ever since. Charles X Gustav was not satisfied, as he wanted to crush Denmark once and for all, but the 1659 Assault on Copenhagen did not prove successful for the Swedes, largely due to the Dutch naval intervention to the aid of the Danes.
Charles X Gustav died in Gothenburg in 1660 and as the Crown passed to his five-year-old son Charles XI, a new regency government would assume the responsibilities of the state. The regency government, composed of aristocrats and led by Chancellor Count Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, was more interested in feathering their own nests rather than working in the interest of the country at large. When Charles XI came of age in 1672, the effectiveness of the armed forces had seriously deteriorated and the country was ill-prepared as the King of Denmark, Christian V, invaded to settle old scores. The Danes were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts, and Charles XI undertook several measures to prevent what had just almost happened from occurring again: reducing the influence of the aristocracy by nationalizing estates and properties which had been handed out to them by his predecessors, introducing the Allotment system which would form the basis of the armed forces until the 20th century, and with the support of the Estates he was declared in 1680 an absolute monarch.
Charles XI was succeeded by his son, Charles XII, who would prove to be an extremely able military commander, defeating far larger enemies with the small but highly professional Swedish army. His defeat of the Russians at Narva when just 18 years old was to be his greatest victory. However his campaigning at the head of his army during the Great Northern War would ultimately lead to catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Poltava after which he spent several years in Turkey. Some years later he was killed at the Siege of Fredriksten during an attempt to invade Norway. The Swedish Age of Greatness had ended.