Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/774



Constitution.—Sweden is a limited monarchy. Its constitution, like that of England, rests on an historical development of several centuries. From the earliest times the people governed themselves through elected trustees, made laws and levied taxes, while the king was little more than their leader in war. By and by the power of the king was extended, and alongside of it there arose a class of great men, who certainly lessened the legal rights of the lower orders, but who never succeeded in completely subduing them. Through Engelbrecht the burghers and yeomen regained their influence on the development of the state, and their deputies were summoned to the riksdag (1435). Gustavus Vasa and his son Charles IX. stripped the nobility of the high authority they had exercised during the latter part of the mediæval period, and which had been dangerous both to the power of the king and to the people, and so saved the work of Engelbrecht. The right of the lower classes to be members of the riksdag was confirmed by the first “Riksdagsordning” (“law for regulating the riksdag or parliament”) of Sweden (1617),