The three piece suits and the interest in modern history

Jack Robinson in Miss Fisher's
Murder Mysteries

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

~ L.P. Hartley

When I tell people I am an archaeologist, I usually get an entusiastic answer that they have an interest in history too. This is always wonderful to hear and I start to elaborate about my interest in the Vikings and the Vasa era. Then, however, almost everyone start to retract their answer a bit, saying they meant that they are only really interested in the latest 200 or so years.

This has for a long time made me extremely confused since I do not see any differences between modern history and earlier ones. In fact, I have longed find the 20th century quite boring. It was not until I got into imperialism and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries that I found something that actually interested me in the 19th and 20th century.

Because there are so much talk about fashion in the fandom of the latter, I thought they would enjoy seeing the Sture costumes (photo below), which are the only more or less completely preserved male renaissance costumes in the world today. However, the ones I have shown, have almost always said that they are not the least bit interested, because the perfect male clothing is the three piece suits. They claim that it's the only male clothing that enhance the male body.

There is nothing wrong with liking a modern male suit of course, but I cannot help but thinking there is a clue to people's preferences towards modern history in there.

The Sture costumes

Professionally, I work a lot with postcolonial theory in relation to Vikings as well as colonial narratives of history. There are a lot of things one can say about those theories and I can well understand the criticism that has been raised towards them, but at the same time, I also think they are thoughtprovoking in what they have to say.

Postcolonialism is really an umbrella term for theoretical standpoints based on colonial issues and the most important of the postcolonial theories for this blogpost is the thoughts about the creation of "The Other" that Edward Said deals with in his famous book Orientalism from 1978.

Said's thoughts deals with how the Western world tends to create stereotypes about the area in Asia and Northern Africa which usually goes by the name the Orient and that these stereotypes are created from a Western world view. This means that one has been very biased and onesided in portrayals of the societies and cultures of the Oriend, not least to legitimize imperialism. This has also created a hierarchy of cultures where the Western world has always been on the highest level and seen as the measurement for all other societies.

There is a clear tendency to view the Enlightenment as a breaking-point in history. A time where the modern society was created for real and then it became truely modern with the industrialism. Modernism is also very much based in the here and now and tend to have a small interest in the past. Can this be why we have a harder time to related to earlier history? From a Swedish perspective, there are Vikings of course, but the "real" history is often said to start with the king Gustav Vasa in what is known as the Early modern period (or the Premodern Period). The name of the period itself is quite interesting in this case too since it seems to depart in modernism and is often more or less seen as a long runway towards the Enlightenment.

This sort of shallow view of time is evident in Swedish ethnologists's interest too. Inger Lövkrona does not even go as far as Gustav Vasa in the 16th century and instead claim that the the premodern timeperiod starts with the Swedish Empire Era (Stormaktstid) in the 17th century. She also describes the premodern time as being qualitatively and structuraly different than the modern one in her article Hierarki och makt - den förmoderna familjen som genusrelation (1999:20).

I love ethnology and anthropology's perspective of societies and cultures, but for an archaeologist, the shallow time frame appears very strange and evolutionistic. Lövkrona's description of premodern cultures however is interesting in that it claims that our own society appears (suddenly from what it seems) from the industrialisation. That means it is not until then we can relate to people in the past.

I started this blog post with a quote from L.P. Hartley about historical individuals being different in the same way that foreign cultures are for us today. This has been paraphrased by Douglas Adams who said that people in the past is living in a foreign country since they act like us. I think they are both right and I think it is really important for us to realize that people in the past are both like us and not like us at the same time. Just as people of different cultures are for us today and I think one can learn a lot about this similarities and differences among living people of today, but studying them in the past. In the global world we live in, we need to be able to feel empathy and connections to people differnt from ourselves as well as for those similar to us. And it is not so easy to dismiss the more distant past. Quick breakups in history are seldom as quick when studied more closely and it all has to do with ones perspective. Modernity (and the Enlightenment) wanted to see itself as the beginning of something new and totally different and the older past was therefore viewed as less valued and an "Other" was created about it. A perspective we still seem to have today.

Children's scribbles?

I recently found what looks like children's scribbles in Kristina Gyllenstierna's Book of Hours from the 16th century (collage to the left) and I could not feel more delighted. They lived 500 years ago in a completely different world than myself, but I feel such a strange connection to them and the fact that some behaviours are really timeless.

But what about the three piece suits then? Is that not a matter of different taste? Well, taste is also quite a lot connected to culture even though we do not think about it so much. The three piece suit is not only a piece of clothing either. It is, and has been since the industrialisation, a symbol of power and status.

And the Sture costumes can also show a lot of their owners's figures. Svante Sture's for example indicate that he was a short and stout little man. His story is a bit tragic because he lost most of his family due to the wars between Denmark and Sweden and spent his early childhood in Danish prison where a lot of his family and friends died. This has me wondering if he was not malnourished which often results in children ending up shorter than they should otherwise. He might also have had an eating disorder because malnourishment in children often ends up with them getting a disrupted sense of food. Despite all this, I cannot help wondering if there ever has been a piece of fashion enhancing "masculinity" as well as the codpiece...

• Lövkrona, Inger 1999. Hierarki och makt - den förmoderna familjen som genusrelation, i: Familj och kön. Etnologiska perspektiv. red: B. Meurling, B. Lundgren & I. Lövenkrona, Lund, s19-39

Ebba L. Lewenhaupt - Kung Märta

In 1960 was a novel called Kung Märta published. It was written by Ebba L. Lewenhaupt and tells the story of Märta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud). The title Kung Märta (King Märta) is the nickname she was given by the public for how she handled the Sture family estate businesses.

The book is not at all well-known even though it was mentioned on Märta's Wikipedia page and I borrowed it at the Stockholm Public Library.

The book follows the life of Märta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud), but also her husband Svante Sture and to a lesser extent her sister Margareta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud). Much of it is devoted to the supposed love triangle between the three of them. I have talked about it both in my entry about Märta and my entry about Margareta before.

Märta's sister Margareta

Like I said then, I seriously doubt that it is true and that it more serves to antagonize the Vasa and the Sture families which is and has been since the 16th century very common. Lewenhaupt also antagonizes Märta and Margareta and also puts Märta against her mother Ebba Eriksdotter (Vasa). Lewenhaupts Märta is described as jealous of her perfect sister and hated by her mother for being "a child of sorrow" though she was born one month after her father was executed in The Stockholm Bloodbath. Based on the historical source material however, it seems like Märta was a beloved daughter and sister and she seems to have been pretty close to both.

About the engagement Svante and Margareta, I think that even if their parents had talked about it (because that sort of things happened), I do not think either of them would remember much of it. Svante was only three and Margareta four at the time of the bloodbath and after that Svante was out of the country pretty much the rest of the time up until Margareta married Gustav Vasa.

Svante is also very different from what I think he was like. He's quite macho, but kind and years after Margareta  all the time wherefore Märta never is totally comfortable in their marriage. She also seems more or less unaffected by the Sture Murders, which really feels odd to me considering the contents of the historical sources both during and after the murders.

Märta's son Nils

Even though the template images is a bit hard to read through 60 years later, especially when you have some knowledge about the historical sources, Kung Märta is very entrancing and it is surprisingly easy to read through. It tells the story of Märta's life chronologically but episodically with lots of small or big jumps in time. This creates a lack of flow in the narrative and affects all the characters's development. It also mainly takes an interest in big events like Dackefejden, the Sture murders or when Margareta dies and it is hard to grasp for example Märta's marriage or her relations to any of her other family members, friends or subordinates.

There is a somewhat proto-feministic tone to Märta's character. She is very active and enterprising in a way that I can see her being myself. At the same time Lewenhaupt also vilifies her. Märta i depicted as being "a child of sorrow" (because her father died before she was born) with flamy red hair (coloured by the blood of the bloodbath), a freckled, oblong face, dark eyes and a lanky body. This is put in sharp contrast with her older sister who is portrayed as blonde with a more or less perfect look and personlity.

Märta's husband Svante

Svante is also depicted as blonde and like you can see on his portrait to the left, I do not really think his hair colour could be considered blonde.

From what I have gathered, no portrait from the time period has been identified as Märta, but if you go by the appearance of her blood relatives's (Margareta and Märta and Svante's three children Nils, Erik and Kristina) portraits she might have been the blonde one. Her dead father-in-law, Sten Sture the younger, seems to have been blonde, but Svante was not.

Märta and Svante's son Nils has a very light hair colour, while Erik is a bit darker. Kristina's hair is covered in both portraits that have been identified as her. All Sture children also seems to have bright, green eyes while Svante's are dark. This has me thinking this is a trait, they inherited from Märta also. Kristina and Erik also have rounder faces than Svante and Nils, which might derive from Märta as well.

Märta's son Erik

Lewenhaupt describes Märta as having a sharp tongue which is something I can totally see. I do not see her as gangly, but very petite. This might be because I want to contrast it to the seemly larger-than-life personality I imagine she had though.

I am very ambivalent about my feelings towards this book. In fact I do not know if I have been this ambivalent towards one since I read Terry Hayes's book I am Pilgrim. I mean it is so filled with clichés, it is not really based in historical facts, but more in storytelling of historical individuals and events which are more or less mythical and  both Märta and the other characters are seriously lacking development and Märta's feelings and reactions are often strange and not based on the historical sources either. It is also evident that it was published almost 60 years ago.

Märta's daughter Kristina

However, there is something about this book that I cannot help liking and I think it has all to do with who it is about. Märta is one of my absolute favourite of any historical women and not only Vasa women. She is totally amazing. She is not at all well-known and it always breaks my heart a little whenever I am met with faces looking like big question marks when I mention her name. I just think she deserves so much more and I am glad that someone besides me has cared enough about her that they wrote a book about her. It warms my heart so very much.






All the paintings were borrowed from wikimedia commons.

Thoughts about Death at Victoria Dock

This episode is about Phryne helping a friend of aunt Prudence when his daughter goes missing. His dock workers are striking and while Phryne is at the dock, a young Latvian man is shot to death and dies in front of Phryne. Of course she gets involved in the investigation of his death and crosses path with anarchists and Jack. Even though he seemed to soften towards her in Green Mill Murder, he is most reluctant to do so now. Can it be out of fear that she will be killed? The anarchists tries to do so a few times during the episode after all.

I know people want to see Phryne as this "larger than life superhero" and of course I love that aspect of her too, but I love even more when she is human. When she allows herself to stop her otherwise hectic tempo and reflect and react with emotions to the things happening around her.

This episode is one of those times. She is deeply affected by the death of Yourka and I love to see here. She might not spend so much time reflecting over things and she does not look back towards her past, but she has emotions and she does care about others. She has a lot of empathy and I so very much love her for it.

"It'd be a tactical error to think you had me pegged just yet, Miss Fisher"

~ Jack Robinson, Death at Victoria Dock

Like I said above, Jack still tries to avoid working with Phryne in this episode and he is frustrated that she has constable Hugh Collins totally wrapped around her fingers. But in the end he tells her not to judge him yet, a sign that he is slowly accepting her more and more. He also acknowledge that he is aware of how he has treated her and that he deep down wants her to stick around no matter how ambivalent his feelings are towards her.

Thoughts about The Green Mill Murder

In The Green Mill Murder, Leonard Stevens is murdered in the jazz club The Green Mill which Phryne and her friend Charles Freeman visit. It turns out that Leonard has made a lot of enemies by blackmailing them about their biggest secrets. Among them is Charles and he is the first one to be suspected of murder since he flees the crime scene.

"As far as I'm concerned, everybody should be allowed to marry whomever they choose. Though personally, I'm not the marrying kind."

~Phryne Fisher

Like in Cocaine Blues this episode partly deals with issues regarding sexuality that was (and still is in some countries) regulated by laws and how this can be used to give some people a hold on others. Charles is homosexual and Leonard Stevens is blackmailing him and his lover Robert Sullivan after having found out. The episode also portrays an interracial marriage between Noreen and Ben Rogers. The former is also blackmailed by Leonard.

The camera turn into Jack as he is excusing himself through
the crowd at the Green Mill

I like this episode despite the fact that the method of murder is a bit unbelievable. I think that there are just too many factors that need to be right for it to work. This is also addressed more in the book as far as I remember. The book also looks more thorough into the First World War and how it still effects society and its members ten years later. Charles's brother Victor is still living alone and in secret far away from his family, but his PTSD (called shell shock at the time) plays a much more prominent role in the book.

I love Phryne's flapper outfit and how the camera turns into Jack as he excuses his way through the crowd at the Green Mill to get to Phryne and the dead body. He is still a bit standoffish, but particularly at the end of the episode, we get a glimpse that he likes and is far more interested in her than he lets anyone (and perhaps himself) know.

Phryne takes a small interest in Tintagel Stone, the band leader of the Green Mill and I think he, together with Lindsay Thompson from Murder on the Ballarat Train are the sleaziest of the men she seems to at least want to have sex with. I am all for her being sexually liberated and I do not want to judge her, but those two men in particular would not be my own first choice because of their sleeziness.

Thoughts about Murder on the Ballarat Train

The second episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries finds Phryne and Dot boardering a train to Ballarat where they are going to pick up Phryne's new car. On the way there, Mrs Henderson is murdered. Phryne also moves into her new house and hires Mr Butler and buys a new taxi car for Bert and Cec. This is also the episode in which we are introduced to Jane who is sneaking aboard the train, comes across Mrs Henderson's jewels and gets accused of murder before Phryne, of course, sorts it all out again.

I really enjoy this episode. The plot holds up pretty well and I like it how the "family" is united more in this one than in the first (even though Mac and aunt Prudence are missing).

After reading the book, one thing I like less about the episode is that they have sort of degraded Eunice Henderson, daughter of the murdered woman, to a woman dependent on both her mother and her boyfriend. Book-Eunice is much more independant and the one who provides for herself and her mother so the latter can continue to live a more glamorous life-style despite having lost her money due to bad investement.

Another thing that I find less good about the episode is that it is the only time we see Ruth, who Phryne adopts besides Jane in the books. It seems odd based on how close she and Jane are. I wonder why she could not be one of the flower-maidens in Queen of the flowers.

There is a big Hottie-momen in this episode when they meet in the hallway of the train. That is one of my favourite with those too loveable characters. Looking at these early episodes, you can really see how much Dot develops.

Jack is still quite grumpy in this episode. He is not used to Phryne and her ways yet. But we get our first Phrack-moment with the scene in the murdered woman's compartment on the train and this episode also has the first night-cap between them.

Thoughts about Cocaine Blues

All throughout January and in the first few days of February did I have my own rewatch of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries from Cocaine Blues to Death do us part. I watched one episode a day, but when I was done I realised I should have taken the opportunity to discuss them a bit on this blog too. Therefore I will be doing it now and also involve my Lego project. I will not be doing one episode a day, but I will try to at least do one episode a week and see how it goes. First up is of course Cocaine Blues. This was the first one I saw (almost two years go on 22 February 2016) and one of the episodes I have discussed the most in the past.

I did find the show through Essie Davis. I had become a fan of her after watching the Babadook back in December 2015 and started looking up what more she had done. Basically I was hooked from the very beginning. I loved Phryne Fisher from the moment she stepped onto that gangway and met Mac at the harbour in Melbourne.

The plot is about the honourable Phryne Fisher who gets back to Melbourne after some years abroad. She is met with her best friend Dr. Elizabeth “Mac” MacMillan who becomes her most trusted confidant throughout the first episode. The audience soon learn about Murdoch Foyle kidnapping Phryne’s sister Jane when they were kids and that Phryne’s main reason for returning to Australia is to make sure he will not get out of prison. Phryne is also invited to a luncheon at her old friend Lydia Andrew’s house, but Lydia’s husband has been murdered.

At the Andrews’s house, Phryne encounters some of the people who will be more and more important as the show goes on: Dot Williams, Jack Robinson and Hugh Collins. We are also introduced to Phryne’s aunt, Prudence Stanley. When Phryne gets there, Dot comes out of the house telling her that John Andrews has passed away and Phryne immediately gets interested. During a visit to the bathroom where he was found, she meets Jack for the first time. I have talked about their meeting before and I stand by what I said back then. 

Jack is easy to misjudge during this first episode. He is a bit arrogant and stand offish and I first saw him like a typical “cop” having troubles with the lady detective, but there is a twist to him and he grew on me as the series progressed. 

Dot is hired as Phryne’s companion and will also become very important to her. She is certainly the character who grows the most throughout the series. In my blog entry discussing Ruddy Gore I compared her to the invisible child Ninni who is brought to the Moomin family in Tove Jansson’s book with the same name.

Like with Jack it is so easy to misjudge her and she is timid and afraid of everything (especially electricity!), but under Phryne’s care, she grows into a strong, confident young woman over the first two seasons. In the third season she sort of regresses somewhat, but I will get into that more when we get to those episodes.

Through the Andrews’s other maid Alice who has been dismissed after John Andrews got her pregnant, Phryne also gets to know Bert and Cec and the social theme of the episode: illegal abortions. The episode shows that abortions will always happen no matter what the law says and if it is illegal, it can end up severely hurting women while no one will be able to charge the ones carrying them out so the women are often used and might even die. 

In one scene, Bert says that Lenin made abortion legal in the Soviet Union in 1920 and I thought I really had to look it up. It turned out to be true and one of the strangest things I have looked up. I really never thought it was a subject I would look into, but at the same time I am glad I did.

Even though dealing with the past is my profession, I have never really had an interest in the 20^th century. I more or less live by the motto: The older the better. I have always thought you should enhance the holocaust and the Second World War because it is really important that we never forget how horrible that was, but Phryne has given me a real interest in the century in a totally different way. It showed me that there are still stories that needs to be told and I am glad I found it.

Marie-Louise Flemberg - Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann

I have talked about Kristina Nilsdotter (Gyllenstierna) before. She was the first of the women who was given an entry in my Historical Women series and is one of my absolute favourites among Vasa women.

Kristina is known throughout history as Kristina Gyllenstierna (Just as her nephew is known as Gustav Vasa.) but to call her this is a bit anacronistic. The tradition at the time was to use patronyms, which means that it was much more important to state that she was Nils's daughter (Nilsdotter) than that she was born into the noble family Gyllenstierna.

Kristina married Sten Svantesson (Natt och dag), son of the regent of Sweden Svante Nilsson (Natt och dag) in 1512. Her father-in-law died only a few month after the wedding (He is said to be one of the first known cases of syphilis in Scandinavia.) and a power struggle breaks out between Sten and another noble man named Erik Trolle. As a regent, Sten took the name Sture to appeal to the popularity of former regent Sten Sture (called the older in Swedish history books today). Neither of these were kings in the formal sense because Sweden was still part of the Kalmar union with the other Nordic countries which was ruled by the Danes. In Kristina's time it was first Hans and then his son Kristian II who held the throne.

Painting from the 19th century by Carl Gustaf Hellqvist
of Sten Sture the younger's death.

Today (19 January) marks the 598th anniversary of the battle on the ice of the lake Åsunden outside of the town then known as Bogesund, that today goes by the name Ulricehamn in the province Västergötland. Sten was badly injured and died on the way back to Stockholm on 3 February 1520.


After this the supporters of Sten were split up and no one wanted to take up the leadership of the resistance beside Kristina who lead the defence from the castle Tre kronor in Stockholm. Last year, Marie-Louise Flemberg published a biography about her:  Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Even though I had her life story was known to me, there were some informations that I did not know. Among other things that Kristina was pregnant when Sten died and that she gave birth during the siege of Stockholm. A child that other historians say was less than a year when his father died and that the boy died during the siege. Wikipedia says that the boy was named Gustav like Kristina's youngest son from her second marriage.

The child is supposed to have been dug up together with Sten's dead body and burned at the stakes with the other victims of the Stockholm bloodbath. One source claim that the child was a week old, which would indicate that Flemberg is right about the pregnancy. I would not really be surprised if it was one of those "details" that have gone over male historians's heads (or at least been written of as meaningless).

Statue of Kristina from the Royal Palace in
Stockholm made av Johan Theodor Lundberg
in 1912.

One problem with the book is that Flemberg from time to time mixes up the relations between characters. For example, Gustav Vasa's mother Cecilia Månsdotter (Eka) is the daughter of Sigrid Eskilsdotter (Banér) and not her sister, which makes Kristina Gustav's aunt and Sigrid his grandmother. 

Gustav's attack on Kalmar castle and Berend von Melen is likewise called Kalmar bloodbath which I do not think is correct. I know of two events in the history of the town that is called so (one with the union king Hans executing the burgess of the town in 1505 and one with Swedish king Karl IX who executed those faithful to his nephew Sigismund in 1599.

As a biography over Kristina it also seems a bit strange because she is absent for most of the book that is more focused on the stories of her husband and older son Nils. Flemming is convinced that the latter really was the teenaged boy Gustav Vasa nicknamed Dalajunkern who rebelled against him. Perhaps this is because of lack of sources and because of the chaos that is the 1520's in Swedish history. However, because the book is said to be a biography about Kristina, I would have liked to to hear more about her second marriage to Johan Turesson (Tre rosor). Even though she did not meddle in the politics to the same extent after she married Johan, I do not really think her life would be uninteresting. The time period indicates otherwise...

Historical Women: Margareta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud

"Vi eder till känne att vi aktar i den helige trefaldighets namn giva oss i rätt äktenskap med ärlig, välbördig jungfru Margareta Eriksdotter, på söndagen efter Mikaelis näst kommande uti vår stad Uppsala." ("We want to inform you that we will, in the name of the holy trinity, give ourself into marriage with the honest, well-born virgin Margareta Eriksdotter on Sunday after Mikaelis next in our town Uppsala.")

- Invitation from Gustav Vasa about his wedding to Margareta.

(Quoted in Tegenborg Falkdalen 2016)

I am starting this year similar to how I ended the former, with an entry about one of the Vasa women. The one in the portrait to the right is Margareta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud and she is the older sister of Märta and the mother of Cecilia.

Like with the entry about Märta, this is an entry made in the celebration of Margareta's birthday which is said to be 1 January 1516. She is the daughter of nobleman Erik Abrahamsson (Leijonhufvud) and his wife Ebba Eriksdotter (Vasa) who was second cousin of Margareta's husband Gustav Vasa. She also had six siblings. Märta is the youngest out of them, born about 1½ month after their father was executed in the Stockholm bloodbath in 1520. The others were the sisters: Birgitta (Brita) born in 1514; Anna born in 1515 (She fell down the stairs at Örebro castle and died when she was just about a year or so old.) and a second Anna born in 1517. Margareta also had two brothers: Abraham born either in 1512 or 1513 and Sten born in 1518.

Very little about her childhood is known, but on contrary to many of the other wives and children of the men executed in the bloodbath Ebba and her children was not imprisoned by Kristian II. Erik had put them in the convent in Västerås and after the bloodbath, they could return to their family estates like before. She was most likely raised like any of the other noblewomen at the time.

Gustav Vasa

Her husband, Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) first married the daughter of duke Magnus I of Saxe-Lauenburg, Katarina in 1531 and she gave birth to Erik (XIV) in 1533. It is possible that the 15 year old Margareta was part of her court, but nothing is certain. Katarina died already in 1535 after having fallen while dancing at one of the balls at the castle. Rumours had it that Gustav had hit her with a hammer, but there are no evidences for the modern opening of the Vasa grave in Uppsala cathedral and her brother-in-law, the Danish king Kristian III writes that he saw her fall. the rumours however were hard to lay to rest and Gustav became a persona non grata in the other European courts and he decided to strengthen his relation to the Swedish higher nobility and chose Margareta as his wife.

There is a story about Margareta first being betrothed to Svante Sture and that Gustav had come into her chambers finding him on his knees in front of her. Margareta is said to have then told her new husband that Svante was there because he wanted to marry Märta.

To be honest I have some serious doubts about this particular story. Mostly because it does not really fit into Svante's background. It happened that parents decided on the marriage of their children early, but Svante was only three and Margareta was four at the time he was imprisoned together with his mother Kristina Gyllenstierna and siblings in 1520. The family was also removed to Denmark the next year and while his mother and older brother Nils came back to Sweden in 1524, Svante remained in Denmark to be schooled by the bishop of Århus, Ove Bille at least until 1532. After that, he also spent a couple of years at the court of Gustav's father-in-law duke Magnus I before he was (according to himself) lured to Lübeck where he was offered the Swedish crown. When he refused the offer, he was held prisoner before returning to Sweden in 1536. This would be the same year Margareta and Gustav married and even if there had been an agreement about an engagement between Svante and Margareta before 1520, I doubt they would have been big enough to have developed any real feelings towards one another that is supposed to have prompted Svante to go to Margareta and proclaim his love for her. I also wonder how much the story was made up just to strengthen the antagonization between the Vasa and the Sture family.

Margareta was 20 years old and Gustav 40 at the time of the wedding at Uppsala cathedral on 1 October 1536. The age difference might seem strange to us, but was not really unusual at the time. The couple actually seems to have been very happy together and even though Margareta could not be involved in the meetings of Riksrådet, she seems to often have followed him on his travels through the country either with or without children. Their marriage also connected her siblings and brother-in-laws (including Svante Sture) to the king's inner circle.

There are 16 letters left of the correspondence between Margareta and Märta from the years 1544 to 1551. According to Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen (2016) this is to be considered a substantial amount of letters from the earlier half of the 16th century. The letters give an insight into the women's every day lives. The sisters Leijonhufvud discussed economics and domestic affairs mixed with discussions of illnesses and remedies. They also seem to have missed each other when they were apart, so they must have been close. Based on the contents Svante also seems to have used his wife's correspondence with her sister to give messages to the king. That people went through Margareta to give messages to her husband was actually pretty common and is a practice you can see in regards to Kristina Gyllenstierna and Sten Sture the younger too.

Cecilia Vasa

Margareta gave birth to ten children: Johan (III) in 1537, Katarina in 1539, Cecilia in 1540, Magnus in 1542, Anna in 1545, Sofia in 1547, Elisabet in 1549 and Karl (IX) in 1550. She and Gustav also had two sons Karl (born in 1544) and Sten (born in 1546) who died before they turned one. All the children were very well cared for and Gustav seems to have been a very caring father with lots of opinions about how the two (later three) nannies would raise them. Kristina Gyllenstierna (who was Gustav's aunt), Margareta's mother Ebba and her sisters Märta and Brita seem to have been there when the royal couple needed an extra hand too. The letters to Märta also tell us that Margareta sent her nannies to her younger sister whenever she needed an extra caretaker.

The royals traveled throughout Sweden and Finland a lot and the parliament met at different cities. From the 1540's however, the royal family mostly spent time in the castle in Stockholm and at Gripsholm's castle. Both of which were renovated and modernized. The family also visited the castles and estates in Kungsör, Västerås, Tynnelsö, Uppsala and Svartsjö. As their economy stablised, their lifestyle got more and more exclusive as seen in the bookkeepings.

Margareta on the sarcophagus
in the Vasa choir in cathedral
in Uppsala.

In the late 1540's Margareta seems to have been sick a lot and according to their letters so was Märta. The sisters discussed their illnesses and remedies in the correspondence. It is unclear what illnesses they suffered from, but Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen (2016) thinks it is their many pregnancies that preyed on them and I think it is totally reasonable to think so as well. Both women got better, but in August 1551 she became ill again and Gustav wrote to Kristina Gyllenstierna and Märta and Svante to hurry to Tynnelsö where the family was. This time, her life could not be saved and she died on 26 August 1551 between 2 and 3 PM. Gustav's nephew, Per Brahe wrote that "the sun lost its shine" at that time. She was first burried at Storkyrkan in Stockholm were her predecessor Katarina had also been laid to rest. In 1560, when Gustav died, they were both removed to the cathedral in Uppsala were all three of them were put to a final rest in the Vasa choir.

Burial crowns of Margareta and Katarina of Saxe-Lauenburg
at the Cathedral Museum in Uppsala

References

• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa - landsfader eller tyrann?, Falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2010. Vasadöttrarna, Falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2016. Margareta Regina - vid kung Gustav Vasas sida. En biografi över Margareta Leijonhufvud (1516-1551), Lithuania

The portrait of Margareta was borrowed from her Wikipedia page and the ones of Gustav and Cecilia were borrowed from here and here.

Historical Women: Märta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud

I have not been able to find any
portray of Märta and I'm not sure
there are any known ones of her.
This is her family crest however.

“Beside every good man is a good woman, and she must always be ready to step in front"

~ Phryne Fisher, 

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: 

Deadweight

Today is the 497th birthday of one of my absolute favourite historical women: Märta Eriksdotter Leijonhuvud. She was born 24 December 1520 at the family estate Ekeby in Lillkyrka parish in the Swedish province Närke.

She's the daughter-in-law of Kristina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna and the aunt of Cecilia Vasa who have featured before in my Historical Women series and the youngest child of Erik Abrahamsson Leijonhufvud and his wife Ebba Eriksdotter Vasa. Märta never got to meet her father though. He was executed in Stockholm's bloodbath about 1½ month before she was born. She also had five (Or six if you count the first sister called Anna who died at the age of one or two falling down the stairs at Örebro castle.) older siblings: Abraham (1512/1513-1556), Birgitta (Brita) (1514-1572), Margareta (1516-1551), Anna (1517-1540) and Sten (1518-1568). To protect his family, Erik sent them to the convent in Västerås, which probably saved them from going to prison in Denmark. After the bloodbath, Ebba returned to the family estate where she probably also gave birth to Märta.

Svante Sture

At the age of 18, Märta married Kristina Gyllenstierna's son Svante Sture who was three years older than herself and from what you can get out of the available sources, it seems like they were quite happy.

I do not agree with the Swedish historians claiming Svante to be a boring character. On the contrary, I find him appealing and interesting. He did not have such an easy childhood. He lost his father, the Swedish regent Sten Sture the younger and was imprisoned by king Krisian II at the age of three. Even though it is said that Kristian's wife, queen Elisabeth, had him and his brother fostered out to a noble family in Kalundborg, Denmark where the Swedish noble women and children who had been captured at the bloodbath were imprisoned.

In 1534 he went to the Hanseatic town Lübeck (according to himself, he was tricked to come there) where he was offered the Swedish crown. The town had helped Gustav Vasa break free from the Kalmar union a few years earlier and Gustav refused to pay them. They had also got involved in the Danish civil war called The Count's Feud (1534-1536). Svante however refused the offer and was therefore held prisoner for some time afterwards. It was not the last time, people tried to use him in their rebelling against Gustav. During the so called Dacke War, he and Märta were offered to become king and queen of Sweden by the rebels from the province Småland, but they refused.

Historians (mainly male ones!) often says this is a survival strategy Svante stuck to. The Stures and Kristina Gyllenstierna were popular among the Swedish people who had not yet forgot their time ruling Sweden. Svante's older brother Nils was most likely also the young rebel who Gustav Vasa labelled as "Dalajunkern" who was executed in Rostock in 1527. I, however, see him in a slightly different light. Of course his background matter. However, I also think he had more or less the opposite personality as his older brother. While the difficult circumstances of their childhood made Nils Sture into a unruly teenager, I think it made Svante turn inwards into himself. I see him as a man who was not really interested in power. I think he had the societal position he had mostly because of his DNA and I also think he would be labelled as a geek if he had lived today. Historians, who are interested in power structures, often describes him as "boring" and Märta is said to be the more feisty character out of the two and I do not think it is really fair. Based on their letter exchange, Märta was also very close to her sister, queen Margareta, which probably did not make her too keen to take over the throne.

There is a story that Svante was first betrothed to Märta's older sister Margareta and that he rushed to see her when he learned that she had married Gustav Vasa and that Gustav had found him on his knees in front of her and Margareta had told her husband that Svante had come to ask for Märta's hand in marriage. I have not really decided what I think about this. It certainly is an interesting story, but it might just be that too: a story. Before he married, Svante spent a lot of time outside of Sweden and he did not return until 1536 when Margareta and Gustav married. However, they did not marry until 1 October and depending on when Svante got back to Sweden it might be true. What is true is that he married Märta and it seems like it was both a beneficial and a happy match.

The Sture burial choir in the
Uppsala cathedral

Svante was made one of the first counts in Sweden in 1561 so technically Märta became a countess. She did not however use the title until she after had been made widow.

ÅÅren effter Christi födilsse mdxxxviij emillen mondagen och tisdagen tå xi slog , wartt jomfrv Sigriidtt, Swantis och frv Märtis dotter, födh, i i j:e daga för nysdag, Gudi tiill loff, heder och ære. Amen.
(The years after Christ's birth 1538 between Monday and Tuesday when the clock hit 11, maid Sigrid, Svante's and Märta's daughter [unclear]. To God's honour.)

~ Märta's mother-in-law, Kristina's note when Märta's 

and Svante's first child was born in 1538.

(Quoted in Flemberg 2017.)

Märta and Svante got fifteen children in twenty-two years. Ten of them lived into adulthood. Among other's they had three sons named Nils, Sten and Erik. Sten died in the Action of 7 July 1565. Nils, Erik and also Svante were killed by king Erik XIV on 24 May 1567 in the event that is known in history as the Sture Murders.

For Märta, the murders was a great tragedy. The letters she writes during her sons's and husband's get more and more angst-filled and desperate as time progressed and she gets less and less answer. Four letters have survived, but there might have been many more.

The Sture costumes

16th century letters from the royal and noble families are filled with rhetoric and titles but in those letter, Märta puts more and more of that aside and bares her true feelings and pours her angst and desperation into the letters the more precarious her situation gets. What is so tragic about the last one of them is that, her husband and sons were most likely already dead inside Uppsala castle without her knowing it.

Days later the queen dowager and Märta's niece (Margareta died already in 1551 and Gustav Vasa then married her and Märta's niece.) Katarina Stenbock is said to have broken the news to her. Katarina then rushed to Stockholm to meet Erik XIV who had run away from the castle in Uppsala in the middle of the event. He was found a couple of days later in Odensala. He sends her to Märta and the other relations of the other victims (Abraham Stenbock and Ivar Liljeörn) her as compensation for the lives of her husband and sons.

The arranged the funerals of the victims. Svante, Nils and Erik were laid to rest in the Sture family grave inside Uppsala cathedral. Märta was also given silver bricks which she called: "Ett olyckligt förbannat silver, som mig ett så dyrt värde kostat" ("An unfortunate cursed silver, that has cost me so dearly").

Märta had always held a prominent position in the Swedish nobility and because her husband was often away, she was the one to handle the family estates and fiefs. For this she gained the nickname Kung Märta (King Märta). In a way, this was the beginning of a new life for Märta. As widow she gained authority and she used it very well. When Erik gained back his health after his mental collapse in connection to the Sture murders, he wanted the silver back, but Märta refused. Instead she used "the blood bricks" which she called them to support Erik's brothers rebellion. When Johan got the throne, he repaid her by giving her back her husband's county which was also expanded. Together with her sister Brita and sister-in-law Ebba Lilliehöök she was one of the greatest fief-holders in Sweden at the time. However, she did no longer have direct access to the Council of the Realm, but to get her opinion known she used her two remaining sons Mauritz and Karl (15 and 12 at the time of the murders) and her son-in-laws.

Märta's chest

To make sure people did not forgot what had happend, Märta put her husband and sons's clothes that they had worn during their murders in a chest and placed it on their grave. This clothes have survived and are, together with the chest, on display in the Uppsala cathedral museum. They are known as The Sture Costumes today.

The lock of Märta's chest, I find it totally mesmerizing

Märta herself died in 1584 and was buried alongside her husband and children in the Sture grave in Uppsala cathedral.




References

• Ericson, Lars 2004. Johan III. En biografi, Riga
• Eriksson, Bo 2017. Sturarna. Makten, morden, missdåden, Latvia
• Flemberg, Marie-Louise 2017. Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann, Falun
• von Konow, Jan 2003. Sturemorden 1567. Ett drama i kampen mellan kungamakt och högadel, Karlskrona
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa - landsfader eller tyrann?, Falun
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2005. Arvet efter Gustav Vasa. En berättelse om fyra kungar och ett rike, Falun
• Petersson, Erik 2008. Den skoningslöse. En biografi över Karl IX, Falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2010. Vasadöttrarna, falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2015. Vasadrottningen. En biografi över Katarina Stenbock 1535-1621, Lithuania
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2016. Margareta Regina - vid kung Gustav Vasas sida. En biografi över Margareta Leijonhufvud (1516-1551), Lithuania
• https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=34643
• https://sok.riksarkivet.se/Sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=11172

The portrait of Svante Sture was borrowed from his Wikipedia page and the one of the Leijonhufvud family crest was borrowed from Märta's own.