1809 Instrument of Government

The Instrument of Government (Swedish: 1809 års regeringsform) adopted on 6 June 1809 by the Riksdag of the Estates was one of the fundamental laws that made up the constitution of Sweden from 1809 to 1974. It came about after the Coup of 1809, when the disastrous outcome in the Finnish War led Swedish nobles and parts of the army to revolt, forcing King Gustav IV Adolf to abdicate, and to go into exile.

For half a century, starting with the Instrument of Government (1719), often referred to as the Age of Liberty, Sweden had enjoyed parliamentary rule under the Riksdag of the Estates, but in 1772 that was ended by a coup d'état perpetrated by Gustav III: the Revolution of 1772. The coup enabled Gustav III to rule as an enlightened despot. Gustav III's son, Gustav IV Adolf, succeeded him but proved a less charismatic ruler, and the change of sides of Russia in the Napoleonic wars prompted the disastrous Finnish War and the loss of Finland, settled in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn. This provided momentum for the Swedish nobility and other forces to depose the king and restore political power to the Estates.

The aged and childless brother of Gustav III, Charles XIII was made king in 1809, but he was a mere puppet in the hands of the Estates and the question of his successor had to be solved. The election, by the Riksdag of the Estates, of the French Marshal and Prince of Ponte Corvo Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte in 1810, provided not only a successor, but also a vital regent and a new dynasty. The rights of Bernadotte's successors to accede to the Swedish throne were codified in an amendment to the constitution in the form of the Act of Succession (1810).

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