It was widely
read and vigorously discussed, both in Scandinavia and abroad; and
while, on the one hand, it brought upon Bjornson the most
scurrilous abuse and the harshest criticism from his political
opponents, on the other hand a prominent compatriot of his (whose
opinion was worth having) gave it as his verdict, at a political
meeting held soon after the play's publication, that "the most
notable thing that has happened in Norway of late--or at any rate,
one of the most notable--in my opinion is this last book of
Bjornson's--_The King_."
The idea of a "democratic monarchy"--a kind of reformed
constitutional monarchy, that should be a half-way house on the
road to republicanism--was not entirely new; Bjornson's success was
in presenting the problem as seen from the _inside_--that is to
say, from the king's point of view. His opponents, of course,
branded him as a red-hot republican, which he was not. In a preface
he wrote for a later edition of the play, he says that he did not
intend the play mainly as an argument in favour of republicanism,
but "to extend the boundaries of free discussion"; but that, at
the same time, he believed the republic to be the ultimate form of
government, and all European states to be proceeding at varying
rates of speed towards it.
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