17th Century Bridal Land Part 2

British Immigration Into Sweden and Property

Land was given to British husbands in Swedish land by not only as a dower prizes. These men also received land as inheritance if their wife's father did not have a direct male heir. The Swedish law said that unmarried women could not inherit property if that land had been given as a gift from the crown. Technically, any property that had been given by the Crown was supposed to revert back to the Crown if there was no male heir. However, if the daughter had married a man that was acceptable to the king, that husband could inherit and own the rights so that he could then pass it down his male line. 

According to Ailes, these husbands were not passive in their hope to inherit. They actually petitioned the Crown for inheritance rights while the father-in-law was still living. This was especially important if the British man had married into the Swedish nobility because inheritable "allodial land ... would have more secure landownership rights than donated land."

olmilquetoast.blogspot.com/2007/09/freshly-squeezed.html

1. Mary Ailes. Military Migration and State Formation.  (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.), 88.