Swedish Act of Succession

The Act of Succession of 1810 is one of the four Fundamental Laws that together make up the Swedish Constitution, alongside the Instrument of Government, the Freedom of the Press Act and the Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression. Adopted by the Riksdag of the Estates at Orebro on 26 September 1810, it governs the line of succession to the Swedish throne and lays down conditions that members of the royal family must meet to remain eligible to inherit it. The Act followed the Riksdag's election of the French marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte as crown prince under the childless King Charles XIII, a choice made amid the political upheaval that followed Sweden's loss of Finland to Russia the previous year and the overthrow of King Gustav IV Adolf. For part of the nineteenth century, while Sweden and Norway shared a monarch under the union between the two crowns, the Act's succession rules also extended to the Norwegian throne. It remains in force today as amended, most significantly by the 1980 change that introduced absolute cognatic primogeniture.