In the first post about Katarina Jagellonica, we got to know her as a Polish princess. In 1562 she married duke Johan of Finland, brother to the Swedish king Erik XIV. They had a dangerous…
After Erik XIV and Karin Månsdotter had been driven from the throne, Erik’s brother Johan was proclaimed king in January 1569. In July of the same year, he and his wife Katarina were crowned king…
In the first post about Karin Månsdotter, we learned how the bar maid was secretly married to the king, Erik XIV while pregnant with their second child. Let’s continue: As Karins stomach grew, so did…
When Gustav Vasa died on september 29 1560, the crown passed to his eldest son, Erik. To inherit the throne was something new in Sweden, where the king traditionally had been elected. To cement his…
When queen Margareta Leijonhufvud died the king, Gustav Vasa, was 55 years old. He had a chronic inflammation in one leg and the few teeth he had left were inflamed. He must have been in…
Only a year after the death of his first wife, Gustav Vasa remarried. Not to a foreign princess this time, but to a young woman from a prominent noble family – Margareta Leijonhufvud. Margareta was…
The new Swedish king Gustav Vasa had trouble finding a wife. Not many foreign royals or nobles wanted to give their daugther to a king with such weak claim to the throne. But eventually a…
History is full of men. Especially kings. And who – at least in Scandinavia – hasn’t heard of the Vasa Kings, with their bad temper, family-feuds and madness? But what about the women? The queens…