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to be responsible for whatever Norway would not pay. This
attitude of the Storthing nearly occasioned a fresh interference of
the Powers, such as they had previously indicated. In order to
avoid any such intervention, Carl Johan determined to set about
military preparations; but at the same time he made a declaration
to the Continent that he would manage the affair himself. The
Storthing had also in other ways aroused the anxiety of the foreign
ambassadors in Stockholm. At the Storthings of 1815 and 1818,
it had been resolved that the nobility in Norway should be abolished;
but the king had refused his sanction to the measure. It was now
passed for the third time. As the king had gathered a number of
Swedish and Norwegian troops in camp outside Kristiania, at the
time the matter was to be finally discussed, his action was regarded
as a menace to the Storthing and the constitution. Tt appears that
in certain quarters plans were really being formed, whose object
was nothing less than an amalgamation of the two kingdoms in
accordance with the most ultra interpretation of the provisions
of the Treaty of Kiel. But the storm passed over, as the Storthing,
influenced by the king, and on the representation of one of its
members, C. M. Falsen, who had rendered great services to the
constitution at Eidsvold, approved in the main of the settlement.
An understanding having been come to between the king and the
Norwegian people, the law abolishing the nobility was sanctioned.
This collision, however, only opened the way for fresh
antagonism between the Storthing and the king.
A few days after the question of the debt was settled, Carl
Johan despatched a note, in which, referring to the plans for
amalgamation, he declared that he would never agree to them.
On the other hand, he wished to propose a series of constitutional
changes, which were to remove from the Norwegian constitution
all that was at variance with the monarchical form of government.
The changes he thus proposed were 13 in number. The most
important were absolute veto, the king’s right to appoint presidents
and vice-presidents in the Storthing and its sections, to
dissolve the Storthing after a three months’ session and call for a
new election, and to dismiss without legal form any public officer
except a judge. Moreover, various public officers in high authority
were to take their seats, as a matter of course, in the «Rigsret» (the
supreme court for political offences) and a new hereditary nobility
was to be founded. Certain changes in the constitution which the
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