Kalmar Union

Rare card · No. 40865

The Kalmar Union was a personal union in Scandinavia, agreed upon at Kalmar in Sweden as designed by Queen Margaret I of Denmark. From 1397 to 1523, it joined under a single monarch the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden (then including much of present-day Finland), and Norway, together with Norway's maritime colonies (then including Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland). The union was not continuous. The countries retained separate legal and administrative systems, and in particular in Sweden, the union was from the middle of the fifteenth century often nominal, with actual power instead in the hands of the nobility. Gustav Vasa's election as King of Sweden on 6 June 1523, and his triumphant entry into Stockholm 11 days later, marked Sweden's final secession from the Kalmar Union. Frederick I formally renounced his claim to Sweden in 1524 at the Treaty of Malmö.

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