oung Prince Gustavus, was bestowed upon the eldest brother of
Gustavus III., who, under the name of Charles XIII., was proclaimed
June 5. On the same day the Riksdag ratified formally an elaborate
_regerings-formen_, or fundamental law, which, amended from time to
time, has been preserved to the present day as the constitution of the
kingdom.[805]

[Footnote 805: See p. 589. Bain, Scandinavia, Chap.
14; Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale, VII.,
Chap. 23; VIII., Chap. 23.]

*631. Constitutional Development of Norway to 1814.*--During more than
four centuries, from the Union of Kalmar, in 1397, to the Treaty of
Kiel, January 14, 1814, Norway was continuously subordinated more or
less completely to Denmark. The political history and constitutional
development of the nation, therefore, had little opportunity to move
in normal channels. Prior to the Union the royal power was
considerable, and at times virtually absolute, although an ever
present obstacle to the consolidation of the monarchy was the
independent spirit of the nobility. By the fourteenth century,
however, the old landed aristocracy, decimated by civil war and
impoverished by the loss of the fur trade to Russia, had been so
weakened that it no longer endangered in any degree the royal
supremacy. From the end of the thirteenth century we hear of a
_palliment_, or parliament, which was summoned occasionally at the
pleasure of the king. But at no time had this gathering assumed the
character of an established national legislative body.

From the point of view of political status the history of Norway under
the Union falls into four fairly clearly marked periods. The first,
extending from 1397 to the accession of Christian I. in 1450,
culminated in an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the Norwegians to
throw off the Danish yoke. The second, extending from 1450 to the
recognition of Frederick I. as king in Norway in 1524, was marked (p. 573)
by a still closer union between the two kingdoms. The third, beginning
with the accession of Frederick and closing with the Danish revolution
of 1660, was a period in which, largely in consequence of the
Protestant Revolt, Norway was reduced virtually to the level of a
subjugated province. The fourth, inaugurated by the rehabilitation of
the monarchy in Denmark in 1660, witnessed the raising of Norway from
the status of subjection to the rank of a sovereign, heredi