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.

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.

The Sture costumes

The Sture costumes

I showed you this photo already in my entry about the Sture murders, but they are just so awsome that they deserve to be talked about on their own.

What is the Sture costumes? They are the clothes that were worn by Svante Sture and his two sons Nils and Erik on 24 May 1567. They are said to be the only completely preserved male costumes from the renaissance. I am not sure if this is true, but it is certainly rare to have clothes in general left from that time and even more rare to have them come complete with stabbing wounds and blood stains.

The chest Märta put the clothes in
Photo: Lennart Engström, Upplandsmuseet

After the murder Svante's widow and Nils and Erik's mother Märta Leijonhufvud took care of their clothes and put them in a chest that was placed on top of their grave in the Sture choir in Uppsala cathedral. The chest and some of the clothes can be seen at the exhibition in the Uppsala cathedral's museum in Uppsala. It once contained, among other things the clothes of Svante, Nils and Erik that is now in the museum and a hat that belonged to Svante's and Märta's son Sten who died in a sea battle two years prior to the murders. Two years after the murder, Märta also put down the release protocol for Svante, Nils and Erik.

Svante Sture

The clothes are influenced by Spanish as well as German contemporary fashion.

Svante's costume (the one to the left in the photo above) is of a little older model than the ones belonging to his sons. Based on the form of the clothes, he also seems to have been shorter and a bit more robust than both of his sons who, based on their clothes must have been quite tall and slender.

Svante's jacket is made of black velvet with greyish green decorations and the pluderhosen is of taffeta. Mainly on the right side of the jacket, you can see blood stains.

Nils Sture

Nils Sture's costume (in the middle in the photo above) is a  typical travelling outfit for noble men of the time. The jacket is made in chamois leather and traces show it was originally painted black. In a list of inventory from the Uppsala cathedral from 1780 it is noted that the jacket had 19 silver buttons. Of those, only one is still there today. The stab wounds are evident.

The pluderhosen he wore is of black woollen. The fact that Nils wears a travel costume is not really strange. He was emprisoned as soon as he returned from a trip to Alsace-Lorraine where he proposed to a princess on the Erik XIV's behalf. It is said that the king wanted him to fail so he would get a reason to affront him. In the portrait to the right, Nils wears an earring in his left ear. This might be something he picked up on his trip to England where he also was ordered by Erik XIV to propose to queen Elizabeth I.

Erik Sture

Erik Sture's costume (to the right in the photo above) seems to be the one he is wearing in the portrait to the left. The jacket is made of black velvet with thin yellow braids as ornament. The pluderhosen is in taffeta like his father's and they might have once been purple in colour and not brown like today. Purple was a colour only the royals and higher nobility were allowed to wear at the time. (Disney seems to taken this to their heart in Frozen. They let Elsa throw away her purple cloak in the Let it go sequence after all.)

I do love the Sture costumes. They are prof of what I discussed a little in my entry about the exhibition Göteborgs födelse at Göteborg City Museum. Materialities tend to overbridge time gap and make history and historical people get closer. They also evoke thoughts and feelings inside of us. Märta also seems to have understood how they could be used in general memory. She saved the clothes just to have people remember her husband and sons. Unfortunately, most Swedes have today.

The Sture costume is particularly thought provoking since they actually show you real physical evidence on what seem to be quite gruesome murders. Reconstructions have been made comparing the clothes's stab wounds to the account of the murders from the written sources and they seem to match up quite well. What got me to react the most in this case is that the blood stains have actually rusted. I knew very well that there is iron in blood, but I have never thought that blood stains could rust before.

References:
Rangström, Lena (ed) 2002. Modelejon. Manligt mode, 1500-tal, 1600-tal, 1700-tal

The Sture Murders

The Sture costumes in the cathedral museum in Uppsala.
From left: Svante, Nils and Erik

Allow me to introduce to you Swedish earl, Lord High Constable of Sweden (riksmarsk) and member of the Swedish counsil (riksråd) Svante Sture (1517-1567) and two of his sons Nils (1543-1567) and Erik (1546-1567). They were quite brutaly murdered on this day in 1567 by the Swedish king Erik XIV. But lets not get ahead of ourselves and start looking at what actually happened.

Erik XIV was the oldest son of Gustav Vasa and the only child of Gustav's first wife Katarina av Sachsen-Lauenburg. His mother died when he was only two years old and he got lots of half-siblings from Gustav's second marriage with Margareta Leijonhufvud. One of them was Cecilia Vasa another Duke Johan of Finland who Erik had imprisoned at Gripsholms castle. Margareta also died and Gustav remarried her niece (the daughter of Margareta's sister Brita) Katarina Stenbock. She came to play an important role in this particular event. Gustav died in 1560, leaving the throne to Erik.

Margareta also had another sister named Märta. She was married to Svante Sture. He was the son of Kristina Gyllenstierna and former regent of Sweden Sten Sture the Younger who both fought to get Sweden out of the Kalmar Union in the beginning of the 16th century (The latter part of the Kalmar Union era is in Sweden sometimes called The Sture era). In the end Kristina's nephew Gustav Vasa freed Sweden and took the crown for himself. However, the Vasas from time to time considered the Stures as a threat. Not least Erik XIV who had heard rumours about "Sturen på tronen" (The Sture on the throne) and after interrogating the noble man Gustav Ribbing who had served as a page at the Stures's home, he took Svante, Nils and Erik Sture to his special supreme court Höga nämnden together with a couple of other noble men, Abraham Stenbock, Ivar Liljeörn, Sten Leijonhufuvd and Sten Banér charged with conspiracy and treason. Höga nämnden found them guilty on 19 May and they were first imprisoned at Svartsjö castle on Färingsö in Mälaren outside of Stockholm and was later brought to Uppsala castle where Erik XIV had called for the parliament to gather. Nils Sture had been sent to Alsace-Lorraine to propose to a princess on Erik XIV's behalf and was not imprisoned until he returned home on 21 May.

What happened at Uppsala castle on 24 May 1567 is quite grusome. It started with Erik XIV visiting Svante Sture in his prison cell. He fell to his knees begging Svante to forgive him for what he had done to Nils a year prior when he had insulted him after mistakes made during the Northern-seven-years-war Sweden fought against Denmark. Svante seems to have forgiven him and the king leaves.

Erik XIV

What happened next is hard to understand in lights of this. Erik XIV brought his drabants to Nils's prison and stabbed him in the arm. Later on Märta Leijonhufvud claimed that he also pushed the knife into Nils's eye and up through his skull, but that has never been confirmed. Nils, on the other hand, is said to have pulled the knife out of his arm and apologised to the king, but in vane. Erik and his drabants stabbed Nils to death. On the way from Nils's prison, they met Erik's old teacher Dionysios Bureus. In some sources it is said that he tried to calm down the raging king, but this is not sure. What is sure is that he became the next victim of Erik and his mob of soldiers. They stabbed him to death before Erik ordered the soldiers to kill everyone except "Herr Sten" (Mr Sten). The king then ran out of the castle and was not to be found until three days later at Odensala a bit south of Uppsala.

The drabants followed the orders and Svante and Erik Sture as well as Abraham Stenbock and Ivar Liljeörn were all stabbed to death. And pretty nasty too. Lots of stabs and cuts and prolonged beatings until they died. The soldiers did spare Sten Leijonhufvud and Sten Banér though. But only because they did not know who the "Herr Sten" that the king wished to save was. For three days the castle is completely locked and no one gets in or out. The king had disapperad and no one really knew what had happened. Svante's wife Märta Leijonhufuvd worried. She tried to talk to the king's mistress Karin Månsdotter (who he later married and made queen) and his bastard daughter (by one of his other mistresses) Virginia who told her everything would be fine. Märta then sent up food and clean clothes to her husband and sons without knowing they all lay dead in the basement of the castle.

Katarina Stenbock

On the third day, Gustav Vasa's widow (and Erik XIV's stepmother) Katarina Stenbock had had enough. Together with noble man Per Brahe the older, she went to Uppsala castle demanding to be let in. Inside she found her brother (Abraham Stenbock), her uncle (Svante Sture), two of her cousins (Nils and Erik Sture) and Ivar Liljöhök killed. Their bodies had just been left were they had died three days earlier. (Poor old Dionysios was actually left for eight days until someone took care of him.) Despite of what must have been a pretty terrifying sight for the dowager queen, she decided resolutely that she needed to inform her aunt about what happened.

Both Katarina Stenbock and Märta Leijonhufvud deserve blog entries in my Historical Women and my Meet the Vasa Women series. Therefore I will not tell you all about them here. What I must say is that it seems like Katarina was the one who told Märta about the murders of her husband and sons. Märta was heartbroken and like she opens up about her worries in her correspondence with Karin Månsdotter, she does so in letters she sent in the years to come. Personally I do actually love when you get to read letters and other personal notes where historical characters has really opened up. Time differences from time to time can only give us a little insight into personal traits and emotions, but this really is a wife and mother who first worries immensely about her husband and sons and then is struk with grief when told about their murders. This over-bridge the time gap and make them more human and close.

Katarina returned to Stockholm to meet the newly found king. He fell to his knees before her, begging her to forgive him for what he has done. With one foot among the royals and one among the mobility, Katarina was seen as the ultimate mediator by both sides.

It has been speculated a lot about what happened to Erik XIV and why he went berserk that day in May 1567. What is obvious is that he had some form of mental collapse. He was not considered fit to rule for a few months afterwards. On 13 July he married Karin Månsdotter and made her queen. This together with the Sture murders led to his brothers Johan, Magnus and Karl together with the noble families (not least Märta) removed him from the Swedish throne in 1568. He was put in prison where Johan is said to have killed him in 1577, according to the legend by giving him pea soup spiced with arsenic.

Märta took her husband and sons's clothes (The ones you can see in the first photo.) and put them into a chest that was to rest upon their graves in the Sture choir in Uppsala cathedral, where hers and Svante's other son Sten was waiting after having died in a sea battle against the Danish navy two years prior. Two years later, she opened the chest to put down the document from the parliament, saying they were free from all accusations.

References:
Eriksson, Bo 2017. Sturarna. Makten, morden, missdåden
Eriksson, Bo & Harrison, Dick 2010. Sveriges historia 1350-1600
Larsson, Lars-Olof 2005. Arvet efter Gustav Vasa
Rangström, Lena (ed) 2002. Modelejon. Manligt mode, 1500-tal, 1600-tal, 1700-tal
Tegenborg-Falkdalen, Karin 2015. Vasadrottningen. En biografi över Katarina Stenbock 1535-1621

The pictures of Erik XIV and Katarina Stenbock was borrowed from Wikipedia. The photo of the Sture clothes was taken by me during a visit to the cathedral museum in Uppsala.

Dead People's Society - "Helge"

The stern of Vasa

Sunday 10th August 1628 did the brand new Swedish warship Vasa set sail for its first journey. Swedish king Gustav II Adolf (nephew of Cecilia Vasa) had had it built. It did not end well. The ship sank barely having left the harbour in Stockholm, but was salvaged in 1961 and can today be seen at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. (I really recommend that museum if you go to Stockholm. It is one of my absolute favourites. Not just in said town.)

On board and around Vasa were the remains of at least 16 individuals found and I thought I should talk about one of those. Since we do not know any names of the individuals found on Vasa, they have got name based on the Swedish spelling alphabet (with the exception of the two women Beata and Ylva). This particular man has been called Helge, so that is what I will call him in this entry.

Helge's skeleton is very fragmentary, around 2 770 fragments were found together on the port side of lower gun deck. This is quite a lot considering a "normal" body of an adult human being contains 206 bones. A lot of the fragments (c. 2 100) are however too small to estimate which particular bone they have been a part of, but 671 of them could be pieced together.

Vasa

When Vasa keeled over, Helge had the unfortunate faith of being crushed underneath one of the gun carriages and when osteologist Nils-Gustaf Gejvall did the first study of the skeletons from Vasa in 1963, he said that the skeleton was in very bad condition. It was affected by the iron parts of the gun carriage. The skeletons found at Vasa were reburied in 1963, but taken up again in 1989 for a more thorough analysis and can today be seen at the Vasa museum. The years in the ground has further increased the decay and Helge's bones have mildewed.

Together with the skeletons given the names Filip and Gustav, Helge has the most complete skeleton out of all the Vasa skeletons. He however, misses parts of his hands and feet and the skull was broken into pieces. His sex is estimated as "typical male" based on features from remaining skull fragments and his age 33+3 years based on age markers on the femur, humerus and skull seams. Chemical analysis show that he ate a lot of meat.

Besides the bones, the archaeologists also found preserved hair, nails and brain tissue.

Sources
During, Ebba 1994. De dog på Vasa. Skelettfynden och vad de berättar, Vasastudier 16

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: 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.