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.

Historical Women: Kristina of Saxony

Kristina was born on christmas eve 1461 and was the daughter (and oldest child) of the Elector of Sachony Ernst and his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria. In 1477, Kristina was bethrothed to Hans, son of Kristian I, the king of the Kalmar union. I have talked about it in previous entries to this blog, but the union was created by queen Margaret (I normally do not use English versions of Scandinavian names, but in this case Margaret is called Margareta in Sweden, Margrét in Iceland, Margareeta in Finland and Margrete in Denmark and Norway so a more neutral name was in order.) in 1397. She had the idea to build a strong, united Scandinavia ruled by one king. This king was mostly Danish and situated in Copenhagen, which did not really suit the Swedish nobiles all the time.

On 6 September of 1478, Kristina and Hans married in Copenhagen. They came to have five (perhaps six) children: Hans and Ernst born in 1479 and 1480 respectively and died as babies. Kristian born in 1481 who came to rule the Kalmar union under the name Kristian II. Elisabeth was Christina and Hans's only daughter, born in 1485 and in 1497, they got the son Frands.

They might also have had a son named Jakob (born between Kristian and Elisabeth), but there are some critical problems with this. He is only known from a Mexican written source from after he died there in 1566. The text says he is the son of a king who gave up everything to became a Christian missionary monk in Mexico. Erik Petersson is very sceptical to this story in his biography over Kristian II, Furste av Norden (2017), especially since there are no Danish or general Scandinavian sources who mentions Jakob.

At first everything seems to have been good between the spouses and the growing family settled in Nyborg on the Danish island of Funen. In 1481, Kristian I died and Hans inherited the throne. After this he was mostly out travelling or in Copenhagen discussing politics.

There is also a discussion about whether Kristian really was Hans's son. An Italian ambassador was present at the court in Copenhagen in 1480 and Kristina seems to have liked him and he was often seen in her company. He left, but when after a few years, Kristian did not really look like any one of his parents the gossip started to spread. One of the things that could be used against Hans being the biological father is the fact that both he and his wife had blue eyes, while Kristian ended up with brown ones. Genes are not simple or straight forward however and the DNA tombola quite often ends up bringing out hidden genes from past generations, so even though it is uncommon, two blue-eyed parents might end up with a brown-eyed son. In this case the biological paternity really does not matter either because Hans treated Kristian as his own son, raising him to take over the throne no matter what.

In 1497, Hans and Kristina were finally elected king and queen of Sweden too, but the peace did not last long because Sten Sture (the older) started collecting nobiles for a new uprising in the spring of 1501. At the end of the autumn that year, Hans left Kristina in charge of 1000 soldiers at the castle Tre kronor in Stockholm and went home to Copenhagen. The winter would be extremely hard on the people captured in the siege at Tre kronor. The food and drinks were sparse and at the end it was only salted meat left and a lot of the soldiers became ill and died in scurvy. More and more of her men also wanted to give up, but was given a cold sholder from Kristina who really seem to have thought her husband would come save them and Stockholm when the ice thawed on the sea in the spring.

Hans on the other hand, seems to have had everything else in mind but save his wife. At first he got into some other troubles with the Western parts of the union. Akershus in Oslo was taken by the nobilies Knut Alvsson Tre rosor at about the same time as Sten Sture's uprising started in Stockholm and from there he also threatened what is now the Swedish west coast. It all sort of solved itself when Knut suddenly died in August 1502, but Hans still did not send ships to aid Kristina and his men in Stockholm. Instead he thought it more important to arrange a suitable marriage for their daughter Elisabeth. She was soon married off to Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg.

In early May, Kristina had no other choice but to capitulate to Sten Sture and even though she was promised freedom, she was taken as his prisoner at first the Black Friars's Monastery and then the Grey Friars's Monastery in Stockholm before being handed over to the nuns at the Birgitta convent in Vadstena. Only a few days after she gave up the castle Hans's ships finally turned up on the sea. He refused to disembark, turning the ships around and went back to Copenhagen where he had a (married) mistress named Edele Mikkelsdatter Jernskjaeg.

Kristina was to be kept hostage for more than one and a half year before Hans finally bothered to negotiate with Sten for her freedom in the autumn of 1503. There is no prof that she suffered particularly during this time, but she was still not a free person. After getting her freedom, Sten escorted her to Halmstad where she met Kristian who brought her back to Copenhagen. When getting home, she had had enough. Without seeking premisons from the German electors whose land she would travel she almost immediately went on a tour to visit Elisabeth in Brandenburg. This could have turned really ugly for her, but she made it to her daughter where she stayed for awile before returning home to Denmark. She settled at her farm outside of Odense where she lived until her death on 8 Octboer 1521.

In cases like Kristina, you really wish that the Medieval sources for Scandinavia would be more informative. Like with so many women, the posternity has not been kind to her. She is mostly portrayed as a religious fanatic bullied for being a passive hypochondriac. The little we know about her character however and from what can be read through her actions show a brave, politically gifted women with a strong will and it is obvious that Kristian did inherit his temperament and stubborness from her.


References

• Erik Petersson 2017, Furste av Norden, Falun
• Lars-Olof Larsson 2006, Kalmarunionens tid, Falun

Picture was borrowed from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_of_Saxony

Historical Women - Eva Ekeblad

Eva Ekeblad was the daughter of count Magnus Julius de la Gardie and his wife Hedvig Catharina Lilje and born on 10 July 1724. In 1741, when she was 16, she married statesman (riksråd) and count Claes Claesson Ekeblad. The castles Mariedal outside of Götene and Lindholmen outside of Lidköping where her husband also owned the mansion Stola herrgård, all of them in the Swedish province Västergötland. In Stockholm, the family owned Ekebladska huset at Arsenalgatan. Together with her husband, Eva had seven children (one son and six daughters) of which six survived into adulthood. Claes died in 1771. As a stateswoman and a friend of queen Lovisa Ulrika, she was present at the birth of the crown prince Gustav (later Gustav III) in 1778.

Because Claes were so often absent, she had to handle the family properties all by herself and also had to step in for him in the local politics where she is said to have been strict, but fair and often defended the peasantry against abuse from the authorities.

Eva was a scientist and made a lot of experiments on potatoes. It had been brought to Sweden and cultivated in the Botanical Garden in Uppsala by Olof Rudbeck in 1658 and was popularised by Jonas Alströmer who lived in the town Alingsås in Västergötland, not too far from Eva. But Eva discovered that potatoes could be used to make bread, starch and powder. However, it was her realisation that the plant could also be used to make alcohol that had her earning a place in Vetenskapsakademien (Royal Swedish Academy of Science) in 1748. She was the first woman to earn the place there, but there are no indications that she was ever invited to be part of the meetings and the memberships seems to have had more of an honourary status. However, the academy did encourage her and other women to continue with inventions and experiments that would benefit the household.

She died on 15 May 1786

Historical Women - Greta Johansson

The Olympics were held in Stockholm in 1912 and for the first time, women were allowed to compete in swimming and diving. Star of the games was 17-year-old Greta Johansson, but lets take it from the beginning.

Anna Theresa Margareta (Greta) Johansson was born in Stockholm on 9 January 1895, the youngest of four siblings in a working class home. Her father was the janitor at the steam-driven mill Eldkvarn (situated where the Stockholm town hall is today). She got her education in Klara folkskola and is said to have been a pretty good student. When she was not in school, she spent a lot of time at the Stockholm muncipal bath Strömbadet where she learned to both swim and dive. 

She won her first competition in 1908 and went on to compete for Sweden in the Stockholm olympics in 1912 where she won the diving competition. With her victory, she became the first ever female Swedish Olympic gold medallist.

Left: Stockholm City Hall; Upper right: Strömbadet;
Lower right:Eldkvarn

In 1912, she also met the Swedish diver Ernst Brandsten. He had emigrated to the US where he was part of a dare devil diver's team called The Flying Vikings. Greta fell in love with him and would join him in America two years later where they married and started training new swimmers and divers at Standford university in California for some years developing the sports to what they are today. They worked side by side, but of course Ernst was the one gaining most fame. (Even though Greta was the only won out of the two who had won the Olympics. Ernst only came on 6th place in Stockholm in 1912.)

In 1923 they started up their own swimmer's paradise, Searsville Lake Park in Searsville Lake in California, USA. Greta's husband was also appointed to train the American swimming and diving team for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics where they won every medal.

Greta was elected into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1973 and died peacefully in her sleep in 1978.





Photos from Wikipedia and Stockholmskällan.

Historical Women - Elsa Andersson

Today is the birthday of Elsa Andersson, the first Swedish aviatrix, so I thought I should talk about her in my series about Historical Women.

Elsa Teresia Andersson was born in Strövelstorp outside of Ängelholm in Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden on 27 April 1897. She was the daughter of a farmer and her mother Alma died giving birth to her little sister Stina in 1903. Her elder brother Sture later emigrated to America and her other brother Harald became an electrician.

Not far from her home was Ljungbyhed where the military had been practicing since the 17th century (Skåne belonged to Denmark up until 1658 and I have no idea if the place was used before that and that the Swedish army just took over or if it started afterward.). Among other things practiced there was flying which might have woken Elsa's interest in flying. At Ljungbyhed was also Thulins flygarskola (Thulin's flying school) where Elsa was accepted. She graduated in 1920.

After graduation, she wanted to learn how to use a parachute, but the only teacher and expert in Sweden, Raoul Thörnblad, refused to teach her. Because of this, Elsa moved to Berlin in 1921.

Unfortunately, she died in january 1922 at the age of 25 when she had problems releasing her parachute during a jump at Askersund in Sweden. In 1926, Svenska aeroklubben (the Swedish Aero Club) erected a monument to her honour at the site where she died. She was buried at the cementery in Ströveltorp.

In 1996, Swedish writer Jacques Werup wrote the book Den ofullbordade himlen about her life and life was also depicted in the Swedish film Så vit som snö in 2001.





Pictures  were borrowed here and here.

Historical Women - Princess Cecilia Vasa of Sweden

Today is the international women's day and in what better way can I acknowledge this than by writing an entry about my favourite historical woman: Cecilia Vasa.

She was born as a Swedish princess, the daughter of  Swedish king Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) (Traditionally called Gustav Vasa) and his second wife Margareta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud) on 6th November 1540. She had two elder brothers, Erik (who was the son of Gustav and his first wife, Katarina av Sachsen-Lauenburg) and Johan and an older sister named Katarina. She was given the name Cecilia after her paternal grandmother Cecilia Månsdotter (Eka). After Cecilia was born, the family expanded with the daughters Anna, Sofia and Elisabet and the sons Magnus and Karl. Two of her brothers (Sten and Karl) also died within a year after their birth. She is also great niece pf Kristina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna who was the first Historical Woman I wrote about on this blog.

Swedish history books tend to focus on the fact that Gustav Vasa had three sons (Magnus died early) who would win the Swedish throne. The five daughters are in general overlooked. If they are mentioned at all, their roles have been downplayed. Cecilia is the most famous among the daughters, not least because of the so called Vadstenabullret (the Vadstena noice), but more about that later.

Like her brothers, Cecilia and her sisters actually got a pretty good education. Because Sweden was so heavily influenced by Germany at the time, the royal children probably was taught German. When she got older, probably as a result of her oldest brother Erik's wish to marry queen Elizabeth I of England, Cecilia also learnt English.

Cecilia on a contemporary medal

On contrary to, for example the Tudors in England, Gustav Vasa seems to have kept his family close. They moved around between different castles, but most of the time, they did it together. Considering the fact that he seems to have been a harsh, cold-hearted tyrant towards his subjects, it is interesting (I will not go so far to say sweet.) to see how much he seems to have been worried when any of the children were sick. For example when he and queen Margareta were in Norrköping without the children and Erik sent him a letter saying Cecilia had got sick. When Margareta died 26th August 1551, Cecilia was just about to turn 11. At first their ageing great aunt Kristina Gyllenstierna was the one to take care of the royal children, but they soon proved to be too much for her, so the responsibility went to the childrens's aunts Brita and Märta instead. About a year later, their father remarried Brita's daughter Katarina Gustavsdotter (Stenbock) who was only 16 years old at the time (i.e. younger than her oldest stepson). Gustav was 55.

After a lot of delays, Cecilia's older sister Katarina married Count Edzard II of East Frisia in early December 1559. (Edzards mother Anna, just like queen Margareta and Katarina Stenbock, is a very interesting lady who I will probably have reason to make an entry for in the future.) When he travelled to Sweden for the wedding, his younger brother Johan came along. Gustav let Cecilia follow her sister on her way to East Frisia, but not for too long. He also wrote a letter to her when the wedding party had reached Vadstena castle a little before christmas reminding her that she must return to Stockholm. Cecilia ignored the letter completely, forcing Gustav to contact his cousin (son of Kristina Gyllenstierna and uncle to Gustav's children) Svante Sture encouraging him to make Cecilia return. The letter arrived too late however.

Following her sister, Cecilia seems to have been attracted to Edzard's brother Johan. The guards at Vadstena castle soon saw the man sneeking in to her bedroom through the window at night. They allerted Erik who seems to have caught Johan with his trousers down in his sister's bedroom. This episode and what followed is what has been called Vadstenabullret. Of course this turned into a huge scandal and it did not exactly help that Erik handled it in an extremely public way. Gustav was furious not only with Cecilia, but with Erik as well. He sent off his servants to the castle in Västerås to do an inventory of Cecilia's belongings so he could take them away from her. Katarina, however, stepped up for her sister, preventing the servants to take anything away. She and her husband were placed in house arrest in Västerås and where not allowed to travel to East Frisia until 1561, one year after Gustav had died.

Erik became king Erik XIV after their father's death in 1560. He started created instructions for how the royal women should behave, probably as a result of Vadstenabullret. He was especially hard on Cecilia, but she would have none of it and, to put it bluntly, told him multiple times to fuck off.

Even though her brother's wish to marry the English queen was never fulfilled, Cecilia seems to have become good friends with Elizabeth I. In a letter dated January 1563, she is happy that an engagement to a Polish count has been broken due to her brother Johan's marriage to the Polish princess Katarina Jagellonica. Cecilia seems to have been more interested in getting herself an English husband and the Earl of Arundel seems to have gained an interest in the Swedish princess. Erik, however, still wanted her to marry the Polish count. Elizabeth did not give Erik an answer to his proposal, but she did write multiple letters to the Swedish king, asking him to let Cecilia come visit her in England. Cecilia was finally married to Christoph II, margrave of Baden-Rodemachern in 1564 and they got six sons. Cecilia also gave birth to a daughter after she had become a widow in 1575.

The information surrounding Cecilia's marriage is contradictive, but interesting. How come she settled for such a lowly husband? The marriage deal also seems to have been made in haste and a lot of revision were made over the course of the engagement. The Nordic 7 years war was raging the country and because of this Cecilia's dowry would be paid in three partial sums, giving Erik a hold on his sister who he believed to have taken Johan's side in the conflict the brothers had.

After her wedding, she visited Katarina in East Frisia and while there she was invited to Elizabeth I and went to England in september 1565. Many people in the court were curious about the Swedish princess who they had heard so much about already. While in England, she gave birth to her first son, who she called Edvard Fortunatus and Elizabeth became the boy's godmother.

Besides having wanted to make the trip for quite some time, Cecilia was in England to renew the negotiation of a marriage between her brother and Elizabeth, but also there to collect a crew which could fight enemy ships in the Baltic Sea. While in England, Cecilia spent a lot more money on partying than what she earned and it did not take long for the English court to take offence against her.

After her visit to England, Cecilia and her husband's economy was in a terrible state and they went home to Baden-Rodemachern. After Erik was removed from the throne and Johan became king, the couple travelled to Sweden where Cecilia was given forest fiefs in Skinnskatteberg, Fellingsbro and Arboga gaining her the title "Countess of Arboga". She also got a kungsgård (royal farm) and iron fiefs in Lindesberg, Noraskog and Guldsmedshyttan. Other incomst sources were piracy in the Baltic Sea and a brothel in Brussels.

There is a lot more that Cecilia did, but this became a rather long post, so I think I need to end it here. When Cecilia died 27th January 1627 as the last surviving of Gustav Vasa's children, a new little princess had been born into the Vasa family just over a month earlier. Her name was Christina and she would grow up to be queen of Sweden and just as free spirited as her great aunt.

Sources:
Harrison, Dick & Eriksson, Bo 2012. Norstedts Sveriges historia 1350-1600. 
Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa - Landsfader eller tyrann?
Larsson, Lars-Olof 2005. Arvet efter Gustav Vasa. En berättelse om fyra kungar och ett rike 
Tegenborg-Falkdalen, Karin 2010. Vasadöttrarna
Tegenborg-Falkdalen, Karin 2015. Vasadrottningen. En biografi över Katarina Stenbock 1535-1621 
Pictures of what is believed to be Cecilia was borrowed here.

Historical Women - Ecsedi Báthory Erzsébet

Erzsébet

Ecsedi Báthory Erzsébet, or Countess Elizabeth Báthory as she is known in Western tradition, was born in Nyírbátor in Hungary in 1560. We know that her family was wealthy and her uncle and grandfather are said to have been the two of the mightiest men in the country at the time.

Erzsébet learned Latin, German and Greek and had great influence in the contemporary Hungarian nobility. When she was eleven years old, she was betrothed to Ferenc Nádasdy who was the son of a baron. The wedding was held when Erzsébet was 15. Because she was marrying down, she kept her family name and as a wedding present, Ferenc gave her the castle Csejte in the Carpathian Mountains and the 17 villages that belonged to it.

Ferenc went off to war against the Ottoman empire in 1578. This meant that Erzsébet was left in charge of her household, but also for the Hungarian health care. During this period, she not only cared for her family and staff, but for women in precarious situations. What is interesting is that there is nothing from this time period that indicates what is said to have happened after Ferenc died in 1604.

Also based on what is about to come, there is absolutely no reason to accuse Erzsébet of murdering her husband. He seems to have died of an illness he had had for three years. She also seems to have been very happy in her marriage with him. They had five children together. (There are rumours about some bastards too, we do not know for sure.) Ferenc left the responsibility for his family to his friend  György Thurzó.

Already in 1602 there had been rumours that not everything in the castle Csejte was as it should though and a lot of complaints were made to the government between 1602 and 1604 and around 1610, they finally decided to look deeper into them. For two years they collected over 300 witnesses from priests, the nobility and the lower classes which resulted in a horrifying tale if it was all true.

Erzsébet is said to have held her servant girls chained with their hands in the air during the nights so they became blue and bled. She shall have also beaten them so badly that they had to use ash and cinder to shrape the blood of the walls. She is also said to have burnt her servants with metal rods (some of them, she shall have stuck up into the genitals of the victims), glowing keys and coins and burnt their soles. She shall also have stabbed them and poked them with needles in their eyes, tongue and underneath the nails. One also believed her to cut their hands, lips and noses with scissors.

To destroy the genitals of her victims, she is also said to have used needles, knives, candles and her own teeth and she shall also have sown up their mouth with needles and threads. There are also lots of witness accounts proclaiming that she forced her victims to sit in, bathe in nettles and/or that pushed nettles into their shoulders and breasts. Some is also said to have been forced to stand in containers with ice water up unto their shoulders until they frose to death.There is also a story of Erzsébet having daubed a girl in honey and left her outside to have insects sting and eat off of her.

There are also stories about Erzsébet starving her servants one week at a time and forced them to drink their own urine. They shall also have been forced to cook and eat their own flesh or serving it to guests.

In 1610 György Thurzó went to Cstejte with an order from the government to arrest Erzsébet and he is said to have caught her in the act. At the time you were allowed to beat servants, but everyone agreed that Erzsébet had gone way out of line.

She is thought to have killed over 650 young girls. At first from the lower classes, who worked as servants in her castle. No one reacted, however, until she moved on to more higher classes of society. there are testimonies that she kidnapped girls from the 17 villages that belonged to the castle when the lower classs girls stopped coming to her. When György Thurzó came to the castle, he is said to have seen one dead girl, one girl who was dying and a lot others who was locked in cages.

Erzsébet social status meant that she was first sentenced to be forced into a convent without trial, but as the terrifying tale was exposed, the government decided that a trial was needed. There were lot of witnesses and only one of them gave a statement against the accusations. There was also an investigation of the skeletal remains that were considered evidences. Three of the servants who was thought of as Erzsébet's helpers were sentenced to death. Erzsébet's punishment was to spend the rest of her days locked inte on of her castle's tower. She died there four years later.

There are a lot of myths and legends told about Erzsébet. For example a talein which she is supposed to have bathed in the blood of young girls exists too, seems to be several hundred years younger. Before all the rumours started in 1602, she is not portrayed as a monster at all even though she is said to be a very strict employer. The letters and other texts she wrote does not give any indication of her being crazy. Therefore it is hard to know if there are any truth in the stories of what she is supposed to have done to all those girls or if she was just considered dangerous because she was a woman in a powerful position.

Sources: 
I got this story from the user eeriedearie on Twitter. She tweets stories about serial killers in Swedish

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

Historical Women - Merit-Ptah

For this third entry to my Historical Women series I am staying in ancient Egypt, but moving further away in time from Hatshepsut. This woman was called Merit-Ptah and we do not know that much about her other than what can be seen and what is said about her on a tomb in the necropolis close to the step pyramid in Saqqara.

Her name means Beloved of the god Ptah and she was born either during the 2nd or 3rd dynasty in ancient Egypt. Her son was a High Priest and describes her as Cheif Physician which makes her the first woman in history, known by name, that praciticed medicine and she might also be the first known women in science.

She is not to be confused with the wife of Ramose, the Governer of Thebes and Vizier under Akhenaten who shared her name.

Pictures were borrowed here and here. Facts were taken from Wikipedia.

Historical Women - Hatshepsut

Statue of Hatshepsut

I cannot believe I have not done a Historical Women entry since Kristina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna back in May 2016. Or I did talk about two other historical women in my entry about Johanne Hildebrandt's book Sigrid, Sagan om Valhalla. One of the latter two (Cleopatra VII) can also be considered successor of the woman I will devote this entry to: Hatshepsut.

I am reading a book about her at the moment, The Woman who would be king by Egyptologist Kara Cooney which means that I will probably return to Hatshepsut in another entry in the near future. She is just so amazing and not really so well-known as many other (male) pharaohs (Many people even have trouble saying her name!) wherefore I thought she needed a presentation post as well. There are also other aspects of the book I will devote my book entry to. The Egyptian names can be transcribed in a lot of different ways. I have chosen to use the spelling from Cooney's book in this entry.

Hatchepsut's birth name (upper) and throne name
Maatkare (lower) in hieroglyphics

Hatshepsut was the daughter of the king Thutmes I and his so called Great Wife Ahmes. She seems to have had two brothers who probably died before their father. Thutmes I had, like every other ancient Egyptian king, many other wives besides Ahmes which whom he also had children. However, the royal blood in Ancient Egypt was inheritade from the mother, which is why it was the sons of the Great wives (often also the king's sister - an incestuous tradition which was only allowed for the royal family!) which first and foremost inherited the throne. Because her brothers most likely died, the throne went to a minor wife called Mutnofret's son Thutmes II.

To strengthen the royal blood, Hatshepsut was most likely forced to marry Tuthmes II and with him she had one daughter that survived the baby years called Neferure. With a minor wife called Isis (Just to be clear: To me, Isis is a lovely Egyptian goddess and nothing else!), Tuthmes II had the son Thutmes III. He would inherit the throne when his father died.

Hatshepsut's mummy, found in KV60

Hatchepsuts father had been a strong, stabile king, but his heir was not and he died only a few years into his reign, leaving behind a group of toddlers. As The King's Great Wife, Hatshepsut acted as regent to Tuthmes III before proclaiming herself king after two years. Yes, it is important to say that she was king. Not least since we, today, see the title of queen as lesser to the title king, but first and foremost because that was the title she used for herself.

Sometimes the ancient Egyptian royal names and titles can be somewhat confusing. The names most inportant to know is Hatshepsut's birth name (Hatshepsut) meaning Foremost of noble women and her throne name Maatkare meaning The truth is the soul of Re.

Hatchepsut is not the first woman to rule as king in ancient Egypt. The first that researcher cannot totally ignore being Sobeknefru at the end of the 12th dynasty and there might have been others ruling both in their own name and in the name of their sons/stepsons.

Djeser-Djeseru

While the 18th dynasty in ancient Egypt has a lot of martial warriors, Hatshepsut's reign was peaceful with lots of economic growth. She invested a lot in architecture, not least making Thebes the grand capital of Egypt. Her most famous building is Djeser-Djeseru (Holiest among holy). Her murtuary temple in  Deir el-Bahri. While male pharaos bragged in paintings and reliefs of their military expeditions, Hatshepsut bragged about her much more peaceful expeditions to Punt, a land far south in Afrika.

In the art, she let herself be dressed in the traditional (male) royal attributes like the king's crowns and the fake beard. However, she still has some female traits as well. Her facial features are rather feminine and her chest is not always flat, but you can see female breasts lurking underneath like in the photo of the statue of her above.

Tuthmes III became king when Hatshepsut died. They might also have co-regined for a couple of years before her death. This was pretty common and to smooth the transition of power between kings. In the case of Hatshepsut, she has long seen as more or less "the evil stepmother" who took the throne which rightfully belonged to Tuthmes III. Not least, because he started errasing her name from the monument. To me I would think this was simply because he needed to proclaim he had pure royal blood and therefore had to emphasize his own mother as the King's Great Wife.

As Tuthmes II:s queen, she had a tomb built for her in the Valley of the Kings (KV20). It was excavated by Howard Carter (mostly famous for finding Tutankhamun's tomb) in 1903. It is uncertain if it was ever used. Carter found two sarcophagi for Hatshepsut and her father, but no mummies. The mummy of Tuthmes I was found in the royal mummy cache in Deir-el-Bahri together with 39 other royal mummies in 1881, but Hatshepsut remained lost until 2007 where researcher identified her mummy as one of the two female unidentified ones in the tomb KV60. Studies of her mummy showed that suffered osteoporosis, cancer in her left hip, arthritis and perhaps also diabetes. She did not, however, suffer a violent death.



Hieroglyphic names were borrowed here. The picture of the statue of her was found here, of her mummy here and of her temple here.

Historical Women: Kristina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna

Statue of Kristina at the castle in Stockholm

Let me present to you a quite remarkable woman from 16th century Sweden. Her name was Kristina Nilsdotter and she belonged to the noble family Gyllenstierna with roots in Denmark, but she was also the great granddaughter of Swedish King Karl Knutsson (Bonde). She was born in the late 15th century (probably 1494) and the aunt of Gustav Eriksson (Vasa).
Since 1397, all the Nordic countries of today (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland) were united in the so called Kalmar union (which I probably will have reason to come back to in future posts as well).

Queen Margareta was the founder, but really none of the Danish rulers were able to get total control over all of Sweden. The only one to succeed seems to have been queen Filippa. She died suddenly in 1430 and only a few years later Sweden (mostly the peasantry actually) rebelled against the Danes. This rebellion continued throughout the rest of the 15th and begining of the 16th century with Danish kings and Swedish regents taking turns ruling for shorter time periods.

Sten Sture (the younger) was regent of Sweden 1512-1520 and Kristina's husband. They married in 1511 and they got six children. Sten fought with the Swedish archbishop Gustav Trolle and was badly injured in a battle against the Danes at Bogesund in the province Västergötland (today the town is called Ulricehamn). Sten died on the way back to Stockholm.

As Sten Sture's widow, it was Kristina's job to overtake her husbands position as regent of Sweden and leader of the Swedish resistance. Many people from the high nobility turned against her, supporting the Danish king Kristian II instead, but she collected followers among the lower nobility and among the farmers. When the ice melted on the Baltic Sea Kristian arrived and besieged Stockholm. Kristina fought for about five months and probably also lost her youngest child, the son Gustav, who was only one years old during the siege. In september 1520, she was forced to give up. She, however, negotiated with the Danes and she and the people loyal to her and her husband got amnesty.

At first, Kristian seemed to keep his promice and invited everyone to his coronation in November that same year. Unfortunatelly, this turned out to be a trap. 82 men were beheaded (No women were executed, but it Kristina was close to becoming the only one.). Kristian also dug up Sten Sture's and his and Kristina's son's graves and burned their bodies together with the rest of the victims. This incident has been known as the blood bath of Stockholm. Kristina and the rest of the women involved, were spared and put in Danish prison while Kristian and his men continued to make more blood baths across both Sweden and Finland (the latter being a part of Sweden up until 1809).

The fight was not lost however and only a few years later (1523), Kristina's nephew Gustav was coronated king of Sweden. Once she was released from the Danish prison in 1524, Kristina, however, fought for her eldest son Nils's (who she had sent to Poland after her husband's death) right to the throne. Because of this, Gustav forced her to marry Johan Turesson of the noble family Tre Rosor. This meant she was not first and foremost Nils Sture's mother (and Sten Sture's widow) but her husbands wife. Since then, she remained loyal to Gustav throughout the rest of her life. She died in 1559.