History of 17 May celebrations..

This started as a brief summary of the history of 17 May celebrations in Norway but ended up getting a little more involved as I delved deeper. It is mostly taken from Wikipedia so if you want to know even more then I refer you to their webpages...

King Haakon V of Norway died in 1319 leaving no male heir to the throne. His daughter had married a Swedish prince and had a son called Magnus Eriksson who inherited both the Swedish and the Norwegian kingdoms. This union with Sweden was only personal to Magnus Eriksson and it was agreed that his two sons would inherit one kingdom each. King Magnus only had one son Haakon and he became king of Norway and co King of Sweden, he then married Margrethe the daughter of a Danish King.

Haakon and Margrethe’s son Olav became the King of Denmark in 1376 and on his father’s deathbed in 1380 also succeeded to the Norwegian throne as King Olav IV. Denmark and Norway were thus united in a personal union under Olav. With brief exception Norway and Denmark were ruled from this date by the same king until 1814.

King Olafs mother (Margrethe) united Denmark and Norway with Sweden in the Kalmar Union (1396 -1523). During this period the Norwegian power was greatly weakened due to large losses in population resulting from the Black Death pandemic. In 1523 Sweden withdrew from the union and Norway was so weakened that it was unable to resist pressures from the Danes. More and more decisions were being taken in Copenhagen and in 1536 the Norwegian council was abolished.

From 1536 until 1814 Norway was in a personal union with Denmark. Whilst the political and economic power emanated from Copenhagen the King maintained Norway’s legal status as a separate hereditary kingdom.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark had at first tried to keep itself neutral so that it could continue to trade with both France and the UK. It entered the League of Armed Neutrality, a policy designed to protect neutral shipping against the British Royal Navy’s wartime policy of unlimited search of neutral shipping for French contraband. The British considered this action to be hostile and attacked Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807 pushing Denmark into an alliance with Napoleon.

Following the defeat of Denmark in the Napoleonic wars in 1814 it was forced to abandon Norway and transfer it to the King of Sweden. Despite the treaty the Norwegians revolted and declared independence on May 17, adopted a constitution and elected the hereditary prince Christian Frederik as king of independent Norway. This marks the day that is still celebrated in Norway as their Independence Day.

Norwegian independence at this time was short lived and later that year they were invaded by Sweden. In the peace negotiations, Christian Frederik agreed to relinquish claims to the Norwegian throne and return to Denmark if Sweden would accept the democratic Norwegian constitution and a loose personal union. The Norwegian parliament (Stortinget) then elected the Swedish king as king of Norway on November 4, 1814.

The Union between Sweden and Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905 and Norway called on a Danish prince to become King Haakon VII, the first king of an independent Norway in 586 years. However, Norway once again lost its independence in 1940 when it was occupied by Nazi Germany.