We’re just days away from the first run of big celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. The King has already made a series of Jubilee visits throughout Sweden but as the country’s National Day approaches, the festivities will ramp up and culminate on September 15th 2023, the 50th anniversary of his rule. But despite this being the third major Jubilee that the longest reigning king in Europe has celebrated, it’s actually the first to stick to the rules of these royal celebrations.
It all goes back to the Bible. For Jubilees are first described in the Book of Leviticus and they mark a very specific period. In Leviticus, a system involving seven year cycles is laid out. Seven of these seven year cycles are to be completed before a total change. The Book of Leviticus states that after seven lots of seven, that being forty nine, the fiftieth year shall be a ‘Jubilee year’. In that special time, everyone enjoys the fruits of past labour, eating the food already grown and putting down their tools. Debts are written off, people return to their family’s ancient homes and land is returned to its rightful owners. Once that year is done, the work starts again.
So a Jubilee actually starts at the end of the forty ninth year and ends as the fiftieth anniversary is reached. Which means, as of September 15th 2022, Carl Gustaf was a Jubilee king. However, his decision to celebrate across the summer of 2023, culminating on the 50th anniversary of his rule on September 15th 2023, ties in with a more modern regal tradition. Royal Jubilees now mark the completion of a round number. However, when they started, the Biblical rules were adhered to. The very first major royal jubilee, that of King George III, took place on October 25th 1809, the forty ninth anniversary of his reign and the beginning of his fiftieth year as British monarch.
In fact, Jubilees are only meant to mark a fifty year period. It’s why George III was the first monarch to have one – life expectations as well as more frequent battles to keep crowns in earlier centuries meant that completing five decades of rule was rare. The concept of Silver Jubilees didn’t really appear until the end of the 19th century. One of the first to mark one was King Oscar II of Sweden who celebrated a quarter of a century rule in 1897, the same year that Queen Victoria created another type of Jubilee, the Diamond celebrations for 60 years. Despite having made up a party all of her own, the queen was far from amused with the silver party in Stockholm, writing dismissively in her diary of ”the King of Sweden’s 25 Jubilee.”
A century and a quarter later, that King of Sweden’s great, great grandson (who also happens to be a great, great grandson of Queen Victoria) is about to become the first monarch in his country’s history to mark an actual, bona fide and as nature intended Jubilee. King Carl XVI Gustaf is already the longest reigning monarch in Swedish history and is now officially the first to celebrate a Golden Jubilee.
A History of British Royal Jubilees, by June Woolerton, is published by Pen and Sword Books.
