Instrument of Government (1719) in the context of Age of liberty

In Swedish history, the Age of Liberty (Swedish: Frihetstiden) was a period that saw parliamentary governance, increasing civil rights, and the decline of the Swedish Empire that began with the adoption of the Instrument of Government in 1719 and ended with the Revolution of 1772, Gustav III's self-coup. This shift of power from the monarch to parliament was a direct effect of the Great Northern War.

Suffrage under the parliamentary government was not universal. Although the taxed peasantry was represented in the Parliament, its influence was disproportionately small, and commoners without taxed property had no suffrage at all.