Riksdag of the Estates

• Nobility
• Clergy
• Burghers
• Peasants

  Important assemblies

• The actual first meeting is likely the one that took place at Uppsala in 1436 after the death of rebel leader Engelbrekt.
• At the Riksdag in 1517, regent Sten Sture the Younger and the Privy Council deposed archbishop Gustav Trolle.
• At Västerås in 1527 Lutheranism was adopted as the new state religion instead of Roman Catholicism.
• At Arboga in 1561, the term Riksdag was used for the first time.
• At Söderköping in 1595, duke Charles was elected regent of Sweden instead of king Sigismund, who was a Catholic and the king of both Sweden and Poland.
• In 1612 the Riksdag gave the nobility the privilege and right to hold all higher offices of government, after successful lobbying by Axel Oxenstierna.
• The first open conflict between the different estates happened in 1650.
• At the Riksdag in 1680 a large scale reduction was enacted, and Sweden became an absolute monarchy.
• In 1719, the Riksdag elected Ulrika Eleonora as heir in place of her older sister's son, and Ulrika Eleonora accepted a new constitution restoring the powers of the Riksdag.
• In 1771–1772, when Gustavus III after his Revolution of 1772 introduced a new Instrument of Government.
• In 1789, the Riksdag accepted an addition to the instrument of government from 1772. This new law, the Union and Security Act, abolished most noble privileges and commoners, regardless of rank, could hold virtually any office Sweden.
• In 1809, the Riksdag elected Charles XIII king after his nephew Gustav IV Adolf had been deposed, and after the new king had accepted a new constitution that ended Sweden's second Autocracy.
• At the sessions in 1634, 1719, 1720, 1772 and 1809 new constitutions were adopted.

  Replaced by the new Riksdag

Riksdag in Finland