to be chosen by
the landed proprietors for a term of six years, and they were to meet
biennially for the discussion of laws and taxes and the drawing up of
petitions. A few landowners, professors, and ecclesiastics were to be
appointed to membership by the crown. The function of each of the four
bodies was purely consultative.

[Footnote 781: The ordinance establishing the
provincial assemblies was promulgated May 28, 1831,
but the assemblies did not come into existence
until after the supplementary decrees of May 15,
1834. In 1843 Iceland was granted "home rule," with
the right to maintain an independent legislature.]

*611. Royal Opposition to Reform.*--From the point of view of the
Liberals, whose aim was the institution of a national parliamentary
system, the king's concession was too meager to comprise more than a
bare beginning. Throughout the remainder of the reign agitation was
kept up, although at the hand of a sovereign whose fundamental
political principle was the divine right of kings, little that was
more substantial was to be expected. Christian VIII., who succeeded
Frederick in December, 1839, brought with him to the throne a
reputation for enlightened and progressive views. Further, however,
than to pledge himself to certain administrative reforms the new
sovereign displayed scant willingness to go. One liberal project after
another was repelled, and press prosecutions and other coercive
measures were brought to bear to discourage propaganda. It was in this
period, however, that there arose a preponderating issue whose
settlement was destined eventually to exert a powerful influence in
the establishment of constitutional government in Denmark, i.e., the
question of the policy to be pursued in respect to the affiliated
duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg.[782] During the (p. 557)
later years of the reign successive ministries grappled vainly with
this problem, and the political forces of the kingdom came to be
divided with unprecedented sharpness by the conflict between the
separatist tendency and the demand for immediate and complete
incorporation. The king himself was brought eventually to consent to
the framing of a constitution for the whole of his dominions, as a
means of holding the realm together; but he died, January 20, 1848,
before the task had been completed.