Union and Security Act - The Act

The Act

The Act of Union of Security gave the king the sole power to declare war and make peace instead of sharing this power with the estates and the Privy Council. The estates would lose the ability to initiate legislation, however they would keep the ability to vote on new taxes.

Another provision was that the King was enabled to determine the number of Privy Councillors and this also enabled him to abolish the Council altogether as he determined the number of them to zero. The judicial branch of the Privy Council (in Swedish: Justitierevisionen) was then transferred to a newly established Supreme Court.

Most noble privileges were abolished with the Act, with most offices now available to all regardless of rank. It also made noble lands purchasable by anyone instead of just by nobles.

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