ABSTRACT
When Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated the throne in 1654, she left her successor Charles X Gustav a strong position vis-à-vis the aristocracy and the Swedish Riksdag. The offspring of the new King were given hereditary rights, but his other relatives were cut off from the royal family tree. This contribution argues that this was at least partly the result of a conscious effort on the part of the Council and Riksdag to limit the power of the royal family, and that many wished to avoid the bloody internecine feuds of the Vasa family. This contribution investigates the discussions in the Riksdag concerning non-ruling royals in order to further understand the ideological support for, and resistance to, royal power. A new periodisation of Swedish early modern history from a dynastic perspective is also suggested. Theoretically, the contribution relies on prospect theory and the political philosophy of Hobbes in its analyses.
