64 DENMARK.. 



priated to its support. This constitution had many evident advanta- 

 ges : but, unfortunately, the balance of this government was never 

 properly adjusted ; so that the nobles very soon assumed a dictate-* 

 rial power, and greatly oppressed the people, as the national assem- 

 blies were not regularly held to redress their grievances ; and when 

 the Roman Catholic clergy came to have a share in the civil govern- 

 ment, they far surpassed the nobility in pride and ambition. The 

 representatives of the people had neither power, credit, nor talents, 

 to counteract the efforts of the other two orders, who forced the crown 

 to give up its prerogatives, and to oppress and tyrannise over the 

 people. Christian the Second, by endeavouring in an imprudent 

 manner to stem the torrent of their oppression, lost his crown and his 

 liberty ; but Christian the Third, by uniting with the nobles and the 

 senate, destroyed the power of the clergy, though the oppression of 

 the common people by the nobility still remained. At length, in the 

 reign of Frederic the Third, when the nation had been exhausted by 

 a war with Sweden, the people, exasperated by the arrogance and 

 oppressions of the nobility, who claimed as their privilege an exemp- 

 tion from all taxes, determined to render the king despotic to free 

 themselves from their tyranny. In consequence of this resolution in 

 a meeting of the states, deputies from the clergy and the commons 

 .were appointed to make the king a solemn tender of their liberties 

 and services. The monarch accepted their offer, promising them 

 relief and protection : the nobility, taken by surprise, were obliged to 

 submit ; and, on the 10th of January, 1661, the three orders of nobili- 

 ty, clergy, and people, signed each a separate act, by which they con- 

 sented that the crown should be hereditary in the royal family, as well 

 in the female as in the male line, and invested the king with absolute 

 power, giving him the right to regulate the succession, and the re- 

 gency, in case of a minority. This renunciation of their right, sub- 

 scribed by the first nobility, is still preserved as a precious relic among 

 the archives of the royal family. 



After this extraordinai'y revolution in the government, the king of 

 Denmark deprived the nobility of many of the privileges which they 

 had before enjoyed ; but he took no method to relieve those poor 

 people who had been the instruments of investing him with the 

 sovereign power, but left them in the same state. of slavery in which 

 they were before, and in which they have remained to the present 



a g e - 



Laws. ...The king unites in his person all the rights of sovereign 



power ; but in affairs of importance he for the most part decides in 

 his council, the members of which are named and displaced at his 

 will. In this council, the laws are proposed, discussed, and receive 

 the sanction of the royal authority, and all great changes or establish- 

 ments are proposed, and approved or rejected, by the king. Here 

 likewise, or in the cabinet, he grants privileges, and decides upon the 

 explication of laws, their extension, or restriction, and upon all the 

 most important affairs of state. 



The supreme court of judicature for the kingdom of Denmark 

 is holden in the royal palace of Copenhagen, of which the king is 

 the nominal president. What are called the German provinces have 

 likewise their supreme tribunal; which, for the duchy of.Holstein, is 

 holden at Gluckstadt ; and for the duchy of Sleswick, in the town of 

 that name. 



la this kingdom} as in many others; the king is supposed to be' 



