Monarchy of Norway
The monarchy of Norway is the system used in Norway by which a hereditary monarch reigns as head of state under a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. The Norwegian monarchy can trace its line back to the reign of Harald Fairhair and the previous petty kingdoms which were united to form Norway; it has been in unions with both Sweden and Denmark for long periods.
The present monarch is King Harald V, who has reigned since 17 January 1991, succeeding his father, Olav V. The heir apparent is his only son, Crown Prince Haakon. The crown prince undertakes various public ceremonial functions, as does the king's wife, Queen Sonja. The crown prince also acts as regent in the king's absence. There are several other members of the royal family, including the king's daughter, grandchildren and sister. Since the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden and the subsequent election of a Danish prince as King Haakon VII in 1905, the reigning royal house of Norway has been a branch of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg branch of the House of Oldenburg; originally from modern-day Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, agnatically the same royal house as the British, Danish and former Greek royal families.
Whilst the Constitution of Norway grants important executive powers to the King, these are almost always exercised by the Council of State in the name of the King. Formally the King appoints the government according to his own judgment, but parliamentary practice has been in place since 1884. Constitutional practice has replaced the meaning of the word King in most articles of the constitution from the king personally to the elected government. The powers vested in the monarch are significant but are treated only as reserve powers and as an important security part of the role of the monarchy.
The King does not, by convention, have direct participation in government. He ratifies laws and royal resolutions, receives and sends envoys from and to foreign countries, and hosts state visits. He has a more tangible influence as the symbol of national unity. The annual New Year's Eve speech is one occasion when the King traditionally raises negative issues. The King is also Supreme Commander of the Norwegian Armed Forces and Grand Master of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav and of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.
The King has no official role in the Church of Norway, but is required by the Constitution to be a member.
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 proposed the abolition of the monarchy during each new session of parliament, though without any likelihood of success. This gives the Norwegian monarchy the unique status of being a popularly elected royal family and receiving regular formal confirmations of support from the Storting.Image:Flateyjarbok Haraldr Halfdan.jpg|thumb|right|250px|King Harald receives Norway out of his father's hands in this illustration from the 14th-century Flateyjarbók.
Germanic kingdom
Prior to and in the early phase of the Viking Age Norway was divided into several smaller kingdoms. These are thought to have followed the same tradition as other Germanic monarchies of the time: the king was usually 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 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 control over the country and assert that Olaf II, alias Saint Olaf, who reigned from 1015 to 1028, was the first king to control the entire country. Olaf is generally held to have been the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. Furthermore, he was in 1031 revered as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, 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.
Middle Ages
In the 12th and 13th centuries the Norwegian kingdom was at its geographical and cultural peak. The kingdom included Norway, 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 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 representative assembly of noblemen. Men eligible for election had to be of royal blood; but the eldest son of the previous 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. However, the most devastating factor for the nobility and the monarchy in Norway was the steep decline in income from their holdings. Many farms were deserted and rents and taxes suffered. This left the Norwegian monarchy weakened in manpower, noble support, defensibility and economic power.
Union with Denmark
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 following centuries the Norwegian monarchs mostly resided abroad. This weakened the monarchical governing structures 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 able 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 maintain the separate Norwegian monarchy. In the 16th century the power 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 increasingly more foreigners were appointed to important positions in Norway.
Image:Frederik 3.jpg|thumb|right|200px|King Frederick III
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 maintain the basic principle of Norway being a separate and extant kingdom. If 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 given in 1274 and 1276 had been the law of Norway. Christian IV's Norwegian law was in effect a translation into Danish of that older law. 1661 also marks the point 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.