Following the defeat of Napoleon's troops at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Treaty of Kiel of January 1814 ceded Norway to Sweden.

In response, the Crown Prince of Denmark–Norway and resident viceroy in Norway, Christian Frederik, started a Norwegian independence movement.

The authors, Christian Magnus Falsen and Johan Gunder Adler, were also influenced by the Spanish Constitution of 1812.

Importing republicanism was seen as an attempt to emulate the French and Americans directly, something the lawmakers at Eidsvoll sought to avoid.

The principle of separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches was directly inspired by radical ideas from the US and French systems.

The retention of a king, a constitutional church, defined as Evangelical-Lutheran, and the banning of Jesuits, monastic orders, and Jews, which latter were not allowed to travel to Norway, in the face of Republicanism was a traditionalist move; however, the king's power was severely curtailed, and the church very much under the control of the elected body.

[citation needed] The young king and Norwegian officials tried to find international backing for their bid for Norway as a sovereign state throughout spring and early summer of 1814.

However, while badly trained and equipped, the Norwegian Army put up a determined fight, holding the Swedes back at Kongsvinger and securing a tactical victory at the battle of Langnes.

This enabled the King to avoid an unconditional surrender as he was forced into negotiations with the Swedes, leading to the Convention of Moss.

Putting the strategic situation and his own abdication to good use, he persuaded the Swedish crown prince Carl Johan (the former Marshal Bernadotte of France) to let the Norwegians keep their constitution.

The Swedish crown prince could have named his terms to Norway, but wanted to appease the Norwegians and avoid a bloody continuation of the war.

Realizing that a forced union with himself as ruler of a conquered and hostile country would be very uneasy, he accepted the Norwegian proposition.

He insisted that he would accept the crown only if the Norwegian people expressed their will for monarchy by referendum and if the parliament then elected him king.

On 13 November, the Norwegian votes decided on monarchy with a 78.9 percent majority, and Carl was elected King by the Storting, taking the regnal name Haakon VII.

In 1942, the national socialist Minister President Vidkun Quisling, reintroduced the Jew clause,[7] but the change was reverted after the war.

After World War II and the restoration of peace and constitutional rule, there was much debate on how to handle the events of the previous five years.

For example, the executive power, which in the constitution is consistently attributed to the King, came increasingly to rest in his Council of State (statsråd).

With the establishment of parliamentarism in 1884, the council was effectively chosen by general election, in that the King appointed only members of the party or coalition having a majority in the Storting.

This last happened in March 2000, when the governing coalition refused introduction of electrical power stations based on natural gas on environmental grounds, which a majority of the Storting supported.

The Norwegian High Court of the Realm is warranted by the constitution and was frequently used by the Storting as a political tool to control the government during the 19th century, but no impeachments had been made since 1927.

A parliamentary report and a proposition for constitutional amendment was presented in 2004 to change the legal basis of the High Court of the Realm and reduce its political bias.

[15] In 2014, 200 years after the constitution was written, a chapter on human rights was added as well as being rewritten into modern Bokmål and Nynorsk.

[citation needed] The current two official varieties of written Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk (until 1929 called Riksmål and Landsmål respectively), were not developed until the late 19th century.

[citation needed] Different approaches to revise the language throughout the document were suggested:[citation needed] In 2014, when the language in the constitution was officially revised they went with the first approach, which produced an updated Bokmål version and a completely new modern Nynorsk version.

In the capital Oslo, the parade passes the Royal Palace where thousands of schoolchildren wave to the King and Queen.

After the session is opened and a secretary and president are elected for the period, the King addresses the representatives with the Trontale ('Speech from the Throne') in his capacity as formal head of state.

Executive power is vested in the King, but the government is conducted in his name by a Council of State, and all of his decisions must be counter-signed by an official.

However the right to vote may be qualified by law in the case of citizens who are resident overseas, mentally ill or in "a reduced level of consciousness," and the right to vote may be lost by convicted criminals (in circumstances prescribed by law) and by citizens who serve in a foreign government without the Norwegian government's consent.

The Storting shall meet in the capital every year on the first weekday of October, unless the King designates another town due to an emergency.

Article 85 states that "Any person who obeys an order the purpose of which is to disturb the liberty and security of the Storting is thereby guilty of treason against the country.