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...

Stockholm blood bath

Stortorget, Stockholm 7 November 2017

"Tå nw sådana gruffuelighit mord i Stocholm skeedt war" ("A gruesome murder happened in Stockholm")

~ Olaus Petri, En Swensk Cröneka

During the later part of the Middle Ages, all the Nordic countries were united in the Kalmar union. I have talked about it in previous entries on this blog and here comes some more information about it (but also feel free to follow the link above and read all the other entries I have written about it). The most important thing to know for this entry is that all the Nordic countries were united and ruled mostly from Denmark. To say that it's a matter of nationalities fighting is really to simplify it all too much, which will be evident in this entry. It has more to do with "unionists" versus "anti-unionists".

Carl Gustaf Hellqvist's painting of Sten Sture's death

The king during the last few years of the Kalmar union was called Kristian II (1481-1559) but the Swedish Riksråd (Privy Council) was ruled by the Swedish regent Sten Sture the younger (1492-1520). He belonged to the anti-unionist fraction of the Swedish nobility. He was in a power struggle with the union-friendly archbishop Gustav Trolle (1488-1535) and the Riksråd had had him removed from office.

(Gustav Trolle can be said belongs to the category Swedes today normally call "vita, kränkta män"(white, offended men) which will be obvious later on in this entry.)

Kristian II of Michael Sittow

Sten died in early 1520 on his way back to Stockholm after the battle of Bogesund (today Ulricehamn) in the province Västergötland in Sweden.

What did Kristian want then? Well, he saw himself as the rightful king of the entire Kalmar union of course and he had a dream. He wanted to build an economic and political super power in Northern Europe that could challenge the monopoly the "German" Hanseatic League held over the Baltic Sea region. This was well in line with the original plan for the Kalmar union that was made up by Danish king Valdemar Atterdag (1320-1375) and Swedish-Norwegian king Magnus Eriksson (1316-1374) back at the first half of the 14th century even though Margaret Valdemar's daughter (1353-1412), the daughter of Valdemar, was the big political mastermind who implemented the union in 1397.

Statue of Kristina Gyllenstierna, Stockholm

Sweden (which included Finland too!) was important to Kristian's dream, but the Swedes felt overlooked and had been revolting against the Danish rulers since the 1430's and they fought hard against Kristian II. However, when Sten Sture died, the resistance fell apart, even though Sten's widow Kristina Gyllenstierna (1494-1559) (I have written about her in my series about Historical Women.) tried to take up her husband's leadership and also deligate it to others, but barely anyone came to her aid. Kristian promised her and the other people loyal to Sten Sture amnesty and Kristina capitulated in early September 1520.

On 1 November 1520 Kristian marched in triumph into Stockholm and was elected Swedish king as well. He was coronated by Gustav Trolle who had been reinstated as archbishop by Kristian.

Part of the fountain at Stortorget

He invited everyone to a big party that lasted for three days, but on the fourth (7 November 1520) Kristian had the doors locked and started a council where Gustav Trolle accused pretty much everyone present of heresy wherefore the promise of amnesty was not valid anymore

In the next two days (8-9 November 1520) about 100 people were executed at Stortorget (the big square) in Stockholm. It started with the bishops, then the noblemen, then the burgess and then servants working for the men in the former categories (A list of known victims can be found here). The bishops and noblemen were beheaded while the others were hung. The archbishop also had bodies of his dead enemies (among others Sten Sture) dug up from their graves to be burned at the stake on Södermalm together with the executed ones.

No noblewomen were executed even though Kristina came close to being the only one. Instead they were placed in Danish prison where a lot of them died. The rest of them were freed a couple of years later when Gustav Vasa had The houses of the executed stockholmers were plundered and all the riches taken from them. The widows were allowed to stay in the houses however.

On 10 November Kristian's daughter Dorotea (1520-1580) was born and as a last cruel act against the stockholmers, Kristian "invited" (more like forced!) the stockholmers to celebrate her birth only a few days after on the very place where their friends and family had been killed...

The Stockholm blood bath is one of the most famous incidents in Swedish (to not say Scandinavian!) history, but Kristian did not really stop in Stockholm. No, he continued to blood bath himself through pretty much all of Sweden and Finland. At the monastery in Nydala in the province of Småland, he drowned a lot of monks in January/February 1521 when he was heading back to Copenhagen. One of the few surviving monks wrote that "the evil tyrant Kristian" came and killed everyone. After this, Kristian II has been known as "Kristian the tyrant" in Swedish history.

References

• Ericson Wolke, Lars 2006. Stockholms Blodbad, Falun
• Eriksson, Bo 2017. Sturarna. Makten, morden, missdåden, Lettland
• Flemberg, Marie-Louise 2017. Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann, Falun
• Harrison, Dick & Eriksson, Bo 2010. Norstedts Sveriges historia 1350-1600, Värnamo
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa. Landsfader eller tyrann?, Falun
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2006. Kalmarunionens tid, Falun
• Petersson, Erik 2017. Furste av Norden. Kristian tyrann, Falun

The photos from Stortorget and of the statue of Kristina Gyllenstierna are my own, but the painting of the dying Sten Sture the younger was borrowed here and the one of Kristian II was borrowed 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.