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December 18, 1626: Birth of Christina, Queen of Sweden. Part I.

18 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Regent, Royal Castles & Palaces, Royal Genealogy, Royal House, Royal Succession, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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Axel Oxenstierna, Eric XIV of Sweden, House of Vasa, King Carl IX of Sweden, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, Privy Council, Queen Christina of Sweden, Regent, Sigismund III of Poland, Tre Kronor

Christina (December 18, 1626 – April 19, 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden in her own right from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death at the Battle of Lützen in 1632, but began ruling the Swedish Empire when she reached the age of eighteen in 1644.

Christina was born in the royal castle Tre Kronor on December 18, 1626. Her parents were King Gustaf II Adolph and his wife, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, a daughter of Johann Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Anna, Duchess of Prussia, daughter of Albrecht Friedrich, Duke of Prussia and Marie Eleonore of Cleves

King Gustaf II Adolph shared his wife Maria’s interest in architecture and her love of music. They had already had three children: two daughters (a stillborn princess in 1621, then the first Princess Christina, who was born in 1623 and died the following year) and a stillborn son in May 1625.

Excited expectations surrounded Maria Eleonora’s fourth pregnancy in 1626. When the baby was born, it was first thought to be a boy as it was “hairy” and screamed “with a strong, hoarse voice.” She later wrote in her autobiography that, “Deep embarrassment spread among the women when they discovered their mistake.” The king, though, was very happy, stating, “She’ll be clever, she has made fools of us all!”

The Crown of Sweden was hereditary in the House of Vasa, but from King Carl IX’s time onward (reigned 1604–11), it excluded Vasa princes descended from a deposed brother (Eric XIV of Sweden) and a deposed nephew (Sigismund III of Poland). Gustaf II Adolph’s legitimate younger brothers, Prince Louis and Prince Gustaf had died years earlier.

The one legitimate female left, his half-sister Catharine, came to be excluded in 1615 when she married Johann Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg a non-Lutheran.

So Christina became the undisputed heir presumptive. From Christina’s birth, King Gustaf II Adolph recognized her eligibility even as a female heir, and although called “queen”, the official title she held as of her coronation by the Riksdag in February 1633 was King.

After King Gustaf II Adolph died on November 6, 1632 on the battlefield, Maria Eleonora returned to Sweden with the embalmed body of her husband. The 7-year-old Queen Christina came in solemn procession to Nyköping to receive her mother.

Maria Eleonora declared that the burial should not take place during her lifetime – she often spoke of shortening her life – or at least should be postponed as long as possible. She also demanded that the coffin be kept open, and went to see it regularly, patting it and taking no notice of the putrefaction. They tried to persuade Maria not to visit the corpse so often. Axel Oxenstierna managed to have the corpse interred in Riddarholmen Church on June 22, 1634, but had to post guards after she tried to dig it up. The grief suggests mental instability.

Maria Eleanora had been indifferent to her daughter but now, belatedly, Christina became the center of her mother’s attention. Gustaf II Adolph had decided that in the event of his death, his daughter should be cared for by his half-sister, Catherine of Sweden and half-brother Carl Gyllenhielm as regent.

This solution did not suit Maria Eleonora, who had her sister-in-law banned from the castle. In 1634, the Instrument of Government, a new constitution, was introduced by Axel Oxenstierna. The constitution stipulated that the “King” must have a Privy Council, which was headed by Oxenstierna himself.

The relation between Maria Eleonora and her daughter was considered very difficult, and in 1636 Maria Eleonora lost her parental rights to her daughter. The Riksråd motivated its decision by asserting that she neglected Christina and her upbringing, and that she had a bad influence on her daughter.

Chancellor Oxenstierna saw no other solution than to exile the widow to Gripsholm castle, while the governing regency council would decide when she was allowed to see her daughter. For the subsequent years, Christina thrived in the company of her aunt Catherine and her family.

Archduchess Anne of Austria, Queen of Poland and Sweden. Conclusion

17 Wednesday Aug 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in coronation, Featured Monarch, Featured Royal, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Death, Royal Succession

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Archduchess Anne of Austria, House of Habsburg, House of Vasa, Protestant, Queen of Poland and Sweden, Roman Catholic, Sigismund III of Poland and Sweden

Queen

Anna was described as attractive and intelligent. She acquired the confidence and love of the introvert Sigismund, and their relationship was described as a happy one, with her functioning as his support during the many trials of the politically unstable 1590s.

Sigismund became King of Sweden as well in 1592, and the king and queen were required to go to Sweden to be crowned. The Poles did not want Sigismund to leave Poland, and demanded that Anna remain in Poland as a hostage. Sigismund rejected this condition, and they departed for Sweden in 1593.

The voyage to Sweden was difficult, and Anne was pregnant. Anne did not like Sweden, nor did she make a good impression on the Swedes: raised as a fervent Catholic, she strongly disapproved of the Protestant Swedes, whom she regarded as heretics, and could not tolerate the Lutheran clergy.

She became involved in a conflict with the Protestant Dowager Queen Gunilla Bielke, whom she accused of having stolen valuables from the Royal Palace. She felt a strong mistrust toward her husband’s Swedish Protestant uncle, Duke Charles. She was crowned as the Queen of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral on February 19, 1594, but because the ceremony was a Protestant one, she viewed it as an empty ceremony of no consequence.

Her political influence as the confidant of Sigismund was noted, and Anne and her Jesuit confessor Sigismund Ehrenhöffer acted as a channel between the king and the Papal envoy Germanico Malaspina, to whom they gave information about the king’s policy.

In April 1594 in Stockholm, she gave birth to daughter, Catherine, whose baptism was elaborately celebrated at the Swedish court, but the child died soon after.

The Poles had demanded that she leave her daughter Anna Maria behind her as hostage in Poland during their stay in Sweden. She had also been afraid that the Swedes would demand to keep her daughter Catherine (born in Sweden) when she returned to Poland.

On her departure from Sweden in July 1594, she was granted the towns of Linköping, Söderköping, and Stegeborg as personal domains on the condition that she respect the Protestant belief within these fiefs.

Upon their return to Poland, Anne acted as the confidant of Sigismund. She advised him on navigating between the Polish noble factions, on the League against the Ottoman Empire, and especially on the relationship between Poland and the Habsburg dynasty.

She had however no interest in maintaining the personal union between Catholic Poland and Protestant Sweden, and used her influence to oppose the plan to have her son Wladislaus succeed Sweden by sending him there to be brought up a Protestant.

Anne died on February 10, 1598 in Warsaw as a result of haemorrhage during the birth of her last child, who also died then. Sigismund III then married her sister Archduchess Constance Renate of Austria.

August 16, 1573: Archduchess Anne of Austria, Queen of Poland and Sweden. Part I.

17 Wednesday Aug 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Featured Royal, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal House, This Day in Royal History

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Archduchess Anne of Austria, Archduke Charles II Franz of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, House of Habsburg, House of Vasa, Kingdom of Poland, Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria, Sigismund III of Poland and Sweden

Archduchess Anne of Austria (August 16, 1573 – February 10, 1598) was Queen of Poland and Sweden as the first consort of King Sigismund III Vasa.

Archduchess Anne was a daughter of Archduke Charles II Franz of Austria and ruler of Inner Austria (Styria, Carniola, Carinthia and Gorizia) from 1564. He was a member of the House of Habsburg. He was the third son of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Anne of Bohemia and Hungary, daughter of King Vladislaus II of Hungary and his wife Anne of Foix-Candale.

Archduchess Anne’s mother was Maria Anna of Bavaria the daughter of Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria and Archduchess Anna of Austria, the third of fifteen children of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564) from his marriage with the Jagiellonian Princess Anna of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547).

Archduchess Anne’s mother was an important supporter of the Counter-Reformation in Inner Austria, who gave her children an upbringing focused on Catholicism.

The siblings were made to attend church from the age of one, their first words were to be Jesus and Mary, they were tutored by Catholic priests, and Latin was to be a priority before their native German language. As a child, Anna was called “Andle”, and she was taught to translate Ribadeneyra’s Vita Ignatii Loyolæ from Latin to German. Outside of Latin and Catholicism, she was mainly tutored in household tasks such as sewing and cooking.

Marriage

In 1577, the Papal envoy to Sweden, Possevino, suggested that the children of King Johan III of Sweden be married to children of the Habsburg dynasty. This was in a period when Sweden was close to a Counter-Reformation under Johan III and his Polish queen Catherine Jagiellon.

The Pope gave his approval to the idea of a marriage alliance between Habsburg and Sweden in the persons of Anne and Sigismund, as did the Polish king and queen, and when visiting Graz in 1578, Possevino acquired a portrait of Anne to bring with him on his next visit to the Swedish court.

Soon after, however, a new proposal was made to arrange a marriage between Anne and Henri of Lorraine to prevent French expansion in Lorraine, and for a while, these plans were given priority. In 1585, Anne accompanied her parents to the Imperial court in Vienna and Prague, unofficially to investigate a possible marriage to her cousin the Emperor, but those plans did not come to fruition either.

In 1586-1587, when Prince Sigismund of Sweden was elected King of Poland, his maternal aunt, Queen Anna Jagiellon, resummed the old plans of a marriage between Sigismund and Anne. Anne’s parents, however, still preferred the match with Henri of Lorraine, especially because of the political instability in Poland, the opposition of chancellor Jan Zamoisky and Archbishop Maximilian’s desire for the Polish crown.

In 1589, the Polish court opted for Maria Anna of Bavaria instead. In 1591, however, the Emperor finally decided that a marriage to Sigismund would be the match for Anne which would best benefit the Habsburg dynasty. Count Gustaf Brahe was sent as an envoy to Graz, other formalities were negotiated by Sigismund’s favorite cardinal Georg Radziwil, and Anne, who was personally unwilling, was told to obey the Emperor’s command.

In April 1592, the betrothal was formally celebrated in the Imperial Court in Vienna; on May 4, a proxy wedding was celebrated, after which Anna and her mother departed for the wedding in Krakow. Anne became the first wife of King Sigismund of Poland on May 31, 1592. This marriage was opposed by many szlachta (nobles) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, who were opposed to the alliance with the Austrian Habsburgs that Sigismund pursued.

When Sigismund sent Cardinal Radziwill to Prague for his bride, the anti-Habsburg party with chancellor Jan Zamoyski guarded the borders to prevent the Archduchess from entering the country. Anne evaded the guards, arrived in Kraków, and was crowned in May 1592 by Primas Karnkowski as the Queen of Poland. Later, during her lifetime, the capital of the Commonwealth was moved from Kraków to Warsaw.

June 20, 1566: Birth of Sigismund III, King of Poland, King of Sweden, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Grand Duke of Finland

20 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Grand Duke/Grand Duchy of Europe, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Archduchess Anne of Austria, Archduchess Constance of Austria, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Grand Duke of Finland, House of Vasa, King Carl IX of Sweden, King Johan III of Sweden, King of Poland, King of Sweden, Sigismund III

Sigismund III (June 20, 1566 – April 30, 1632) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund III, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to 1599. He was the first Polish sovereign from the House of Vasa.

A religious zealot, he imposed Roman Catholic doctrine across the vast realm, and his crusades against neighbouring states marked Poland’s largest territorial expansion. As an enlightened despot, he presided over an era of prosperity and achievement, further distinguished by the transfer of the country’s capital from Kraków to Warsaw.

Born on June 20, 1566 at Gripsholm Castle, Sigismund was the second child and only son of Catherine Jagiellon and Grand Duke Johan of Finland (future King Johan III of Sweden) who was the son of King Gustaf I of Sweden and his second wife Margaret Leijonhufvud.

Johan and Catherine were held prisoner at Gripsholm since 1563 when Johan staged a failed rebellion against his deranged brother Eric XIV of Sweden.

Although Protestant Christians were a growing political wing in Poland at the time, Sigismund was raised as a Roman Catholic. His mother Catherine was the daughter of Polish king, Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza of Milan, all of whom where practicing Catholics.

Sigismund I the Old was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 until his death in 1548. He was nicknamed “the Old” in later historiography to distinguish him from his son and successor, Sigismund II of Poland.

Sigismund’s older sister Isabella died aged two in 1566. His younger sister Anna was a Lutheran, but the close relationship between the two siblings remained unchanged until her death in 1625.

In October 1567 Sigismund and his parents were released from prison at the request of his uncle Carl. In January 1569, Eric XIV was deposed and Sigismund’s father ascended the throne of Sweden as King Johan III.

Sigismund maintained good relations with his father despite Johan’s second marriage to Gunilla Bielke, a Protestant noble lady of lower status and Catherine’s former maid of honour. In 1589, Sigismund’s half-brother Johan, the future Duke of Östergötland, was born.

As a child, Sigismund was tutored in both Polish and Swedish, thus making him bilingual. He was also proficient in German, Italian, and Latin. Catherine ensured that her son was educated in the spirit of Catholicism and Polish patriotism; the young prince was made aware of his blood connection to the Jagiellonian dynasty which ruled Poland in its finest period for two hundred years.

In 1587 Sigismund stood for election to the Polish throne after the death of Stephen Báthory. His candidacy was secured by Queen Dowager Anna and several elite magnates who considered him a native candidate as a descendant of the Jagiellons, though the election was openly questioned and opposed by the nobles politically associated with the Zborowski family.

With the blessing of primate Stanisław Karnkowski and strong support from other people of influence he was duly elected ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on August 19, 1587. His official name and title became “by the grace of God, Sigismund III King of Poland, grand duke of Lithuania, ruler of Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Livonia and also hereditary king of the Swedes, Goths and Wends”; the latter titles being a reference to the fact that he was already the Crown Prince of Sweden, and thus would lawfully succeed to the throne of Sweden upon the death of his father.

When his father died, Sigismund was granted permission by the Polish Diet to claim the Swedish crown, which he had inherited from his father. The Swedes, who previously declared Johan III a Catholic conspirator and traitor, became lenient when the new monarch pledged to respect Lutheranism as the country’s new state religion.

On 31 May 1592 Sigismund married his first wife Anne of Austria (1573–1598), daughter of Archduke Charles II of Austria and his wife Maria Anna of Bavaria. She was well received in Poland, despite being a Habsburg. Certain leading magnates were initially opposed to the marriage.

Queen Anne died from a puerperal fever at childbirth along with the baby boy on February 10, 1598 in Warsaw. Following her death, Sigismund was in deep mourning; he expressed sorrow in private letters to his mother-in-law Maria Anna of Bavaria, and isolated himself from subjects.

Sigismund was expected to marry Anna of Tyrol in 1603, however Emperor Rudolf II did not give his consent. Instead, on December 11, 1605 he wedded Constance of Austria (1588–1631), Anne’s younger sister. The match was condemned by nobles and clerics who previously opposed Anne and the Habsburg alliance; the match was savagely described as “incestuous” since he married his dead wife’s sister.

Sigismund was crowned at Uppsala on February 19, 1594, As King Sigismund (no ordinal number) of Sweden but his promise to uphold the Protestant faith in Sweden began on shaky ground, as demonstrated by the presence of a papal nuncio in the royal procession. Tensions grew following his coronation.

Sigismund remained a devout Roman Catholic and left Sweden abruptly, which made the Swedes sceptical of their new ruler.

Sigismund attempted to hold absolute power in all his dominions and frequently undermined parliament. He suppressed internal opposition, strengthened Catholic influence and granted privileges to the Jesuits, whom he employed as advisors and spies during the Counter-Reformation.

On August 4, 1594 Sigismund decreed that the Swedish parliament (riksdag) had no right to function without royal consent. Despite this, Carl summoned a parliament at Söderköping in autumn of 1595, at which he declared himself regent and head of government, who would govern Sweden reciprocally with the Privy Council during the king’s absence from the realm.

Sigismund actively interfered in the affairs of neighbouring countries; his invasion of Russia during the Time of Troubles resulted in brief control over Moscow and seizure of Smolensk.

After a lengthy Civil War in Sweden King Sigismund was officially deposed from the throne of Sweden by a riksdag held in Stockholm on July 24,1599. He was given six (or twelve depending on source) months to send his son, Prince Ladislaus (Władysław) Vasa, to Sweden as his successor, under the condition that the boy would be brought up in the Protestant faith.

In February 1600, Duke Carl summoned the Estates of the Realm to Linköping. Since Sigismund had not provided a reply, the Estates elected Duke Carl as king apparent, however he would not become Carl IX until his coronation four years later. During the winter and spring of 1600, Carl also occupied the Swedish part of Estonia, as the castle commanders had shown sympathies towards Sigismund.

Sigismund’s army also defeated the Ottoman forces in southeastern Europe, which hastened the downfall of Sultan Osman II. However, the Polish–Swedish conflict had a less favourable outcome. After a series of skirmishes ending in a truce, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden (his first cousin and the son and successor of his uncle King Carl IX of Sweden) launched a campaign against the Commonwealth and annexed parts of Polish Livonia.

Towards the end of his reign, Sigismund withdrew altogether from politics and devoted himself exclusively to family matters and his interests in performing arts.

Little is known about the king’s wellbeing at the time suggesting that he was in good health. However, in his last days he became bedridden due to gout and joint pain, an affliction which was likely inherited from his grandfather Sigismund the Old. His uncle, Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, also suffered from long-term arthritis.

Shortly after the unexpected death of his second wife, Constance, Sigismund fell dangerously ill and experienced mental problems, notably he was struck with severe depression.

The king sensed that death is near and ordered an immediate assembly of nobles, which convened on 1 April. The so-called ‘extraordinary parliament’ (sejm ekstraordynaryjny) secured the candidacy and election of his son, Ladislaus, to the throne. On Easter Sunday he participated in final prayers, whilst being supported by his sons to prevent him from collapsing.

At eight in the morning on April 25, Kasper Doenhoff, a courtier in charge of opening curtains in the royal bedchamber and greeting the monarch, did not hear a response. Unable to see at a distance he approached Sigismund whose face was paralyzed from a stroke. Hours later he briefly recovered his speech and murmured “there is no cure against the will [power] of death”.

On April 28, Sigismund’s bed was surrounded by his courtiers and the Jesuit priests, who performed exorcism-like prayers. It was his wish that the court be witness to his demise, as interpreted in the words “vanitas vanitatis”, Latin for ‘all is vanity’.

After days of suffering, Sigismund passed away at Warsaw’s Royal Castle at approximately 2:45 am (02:45) on April 30, 1632.

Sigismund remains a controversial figure in Poland. One of the country’s most recognisable monarchs, his long reign coincided with the Polish Golden Age, the apex in the prestige, power and economic influence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

June 6, 1654: Abdication of Queen Christina of Sweden. Part I

06 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Abdication, Bishop of Rome and the Catholic Church, Empire of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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Abdication, Holy Roman Empire, House of Hohenzollern, House of Vasa, House of Wittelsbach, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, Maria Eleonora of Prussia, Queen Christina of Sweden, Thirty Years War

Christina (December 18, 1626 – April 19, 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustaf II Adolph upon his death at the Battle of Lützen in 1632, but began ruling the Swedish Empire when she reached the age of eighteen in 1644.

Christina was born in the royal castle Tre Kronor. Her parents were the Swedish king Gustaf II Adolph and his German wife, Maria Eleonorana of the House of Hohenzollern and a daughter of Johann Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Anna, Duchess of Prussia, daughter of Albrecht Friedrich, Duke of Prussia.

In 1620, Maria Eleonora married Gustaf II Adolph with her mother’s consent, but against the will of her brother Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg.

They had already had three children: two daughters (a stillborn princess in 1621, then the first Princess Christina, who was born in 1623 and died the following year) and a stilborn son in May 1625.

Excited expectations surrounded Maria Eleonora’s fourth pregnancy in 1626. When the baby was born, it was first thought to be a boy as it was “hairy” and screamed “with a strong, hoarse voice.”

She later wrote in her autobiography that, “Deep embarrassment spread among the women when they discovered their mistake.” The king, though, was very happy, stating, “She’ll be clever, she has made fools of us all!” From most accounts, Gustaf II Adolph appears to have been closely attached to his daughter, and she appears to have admired him greatly.

The Crown of Sweden was hereditary in the House of Vasa, but from King Carl IX’s time onward (reigned 1604–11), it excluded Vasa princes descended from a deposed brother (Eric XIV of Sweden) and a deposed nephew (Sigismund III of Poland). Gusta II Adolph’s legitimate younger brothers had died years earlier.

The one legitimate female left, his half-sister Catharine, came to be excluded in 1615 when she married a non-Lutheran. So Christina became the undisputed heir presumptive. From Christina’s birth, King Gustaf II Adolph recognized her eligibility even as a female heir, and although called “queen”, the official title she held as of her coronation by the Riksdag in February 1633 was king.

Before Gustaf II Adolph left for the Holy Roman Empire to defend Protestantism in the Thirty Years’ War, he secured his daughter’s right to inherit the throne, in case he never returned, and gave orders to Axel Gustafsson Banér, his marshal, that Christina should receive an education of the type normally only afforded to boys.

Christina was educated as a royal male would have been. The theologian Johannes Matthiae Gothus became her tutor; he gave her lessons in religion, philosophy, Greek and Latin. Chancellor Oxenstierna taught her politics and discussed Tacitus with her. Oxenstierna wrote proudly of the 14-year-old girl that, “She is not at all like a female” and that she had “a bright intelligence”. Christina seemed happy to study ten hours a day. Besides Swedish she learned at least seven other languages: German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Arabic and Hebrew.

Already at the age of nine Christina was impressed by the Catholic religion and the merits of celibacy. She read a biography on the virgin queen Elizabeth I of England with interest. Christina understood that it was expected of her to provide an heir to the Swedish throne.

Her first cousin Carl Gustaf of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg was infatuated with her, and they became secretly engaged before he left in 1642 to serve in the Swedish army in the Holy Roman Empire for three years.

Carl Gustaf was the son of the Johann Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg of the Bavarian Wittelsbach family and Catherine of Sweden. Catherine of Sweden was the daughter of King Cark IX of Sweden and his first spouse Maria of the Palatinate-Simmern (also a member of the Wittelsbach family).

Christina revealed in her autobiography that she felt “an insurmountable distaste for marriage” and “for all the things that females talked about and did.” She once stated, “It takes more courage to marry than to go to war.

On February 26, 1649, Christina announced that she had decided not to marry and instead wanted her first cousin Carl to be heir to the throne. While the nobility objected to this, the three other estates – clergy, burghers, and peasants – accepted it. The coronation took place on October 22, 1650.

January 20, 1423: King Christian II of Denmark and Norway is deposed

20 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Archduke Philipp the Handsome of Austria, Christian II of Denmark and Norway, Christian III of Denmark and Norway, Frederik I of Denmark and Norway, Gustaf Vasa, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, House of Vasa, Infanta Joanna the Mad of Aragon, King of Sweden. Archduchess Isabella of Austria, Union of Kalamar

Christian II (July 1, 1481 – January 25, 1559) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union who reigned as King of Denmark and Norway, from 1513 until 1523, and Sweden from 1520 until 1521. From 1513 to 1523, he was concurrently Duke of Schleswig and Holstein in joint rule with his uncle Frederik.

Christian was born at Nyborg Castle in 1481 as the son of Hans, King of Denmark and his wife, Christina of Saxony. Christian descended, through Valdemar I of Sweden, from the House of Eric, and from Catherine, daughter of Inge I of Sweden, as well as from Ingrid Ylva, granddaughter of Sverker I of Sweden.

His rival Gustaf I of Sweden descended only from Sverker II of Sweden and the House of Sverker.Christian took part in his father’s conquest of Sweden in 1497 and in the fighting of 1501 when Sweden revolted. He was appointed viceroy of Norway in 1506, and succeeded in maintaining control of this country.

During his administration in Norway, he attempted to deprive the Norwegian nobility of its traditional influence exercised through the Rigsraadet privy council, leading to controversy with the latter.In 1513, he succeeded his father as King Christian II of Denmark and Norway.

Christian’s succession to the throne of Denmark was confirmed at the Herredag assembly of notables from the three northern kingdoms, which met at Copenhagen in 1513.The Swedish delegates said, “We have the choice between peace at home and strife here, or peace here and civil war at home, and we prefer the former.”

A decision as to the Swedish succession was therefore postponed. Christian’s corronation as king of Denmark and Norway took place in 1514.Whilst visiting Bergen in 1507 or 1509, Christian fell in love with a Norwegian girl of Dutch heritage, named Dyveke Sigbritsdatter. She became his mistress and remained with him until Dyveke’s death.

Their relationship was not interrupted by Christian’s marriage to Archduchess Isabella of Austria, third child of Archduke Philipp the Handsome of Austria, ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands and Infanta Joanna the Mad of Aragon, heiress to the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.

Archduchess Isabella’s father was the son of the reigning Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and his deceased consort Mary of Burgundy, while her mother was the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs Fernando II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

They married by proxy on June 11, 1514 in Bruxelles. Isabella was brought to Copenhagen a year later, and the marriage was ratified on August 12, 1515 at Copenhagen Castle, in a ceremony conducted by Birger Gunnersen, Archbishop of Lund.Dyveke died in 1517, and Christian was led to believe that the magnate Torben Oxe had poisoned her.

Oxe’s status meant that he should have been tried by the Council of State, but instead he was brought to trial by a common jury at Solbjerg outside Copenhagen. He was found guilty and executed in November 1517.This act precipitated the division between the king and aristocracy that ultimately led to Christian’s deposition.Christian’s chief counsellor was Dyveke’s mother, Sigbrit Willoms.

Christian appointed her controller of the Sound Dues of Øresund, and took her advice on all financial matters.A bourgeoise herself, she acted to extend the influence of the middle classes, and formed an inner council, which competed with the Rigsraadet for power. Her influence was resented by the aristocracy, who blamed her for the king’s favouring the working classes.

As king, Christian tried to maintain the Kalmar Union between the Scandinavian countries which brought him to war with Sweden, lasting between 1518 and 1523. Though he captured the country in 1520, the subsequent slaughter of leading Swedish nobility, churchmen, and others, known as the Stockholm Bloodbath, caused the Swedes to rise against his rule.

The remaining Swedish nobility, appalled by the bloodbath, rose against Christian and the Swedish Diet elected Gustaf Vasa regent and subsequently King of Sweden. On account of the massacre Christian II is remembered in Sweden as Christian the Tyrant (Kristian Tyrann).

In June 1521, the Danish king paid a visit to Emperor Charles V in the Netherlands, where he remained for some months. He visited most of the large cities, made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Dürer, and met Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Protestant Reformation.Directly upon his return to Denmark in September 1521 Christian issued two bodies of laws – the Town Law and the Land Law – which governed respectively trade and the behaviour of the clergy.

The Town Law strengthened the rights of tradesmen and peasants at the expense of the nobility. Trade was reorganised and was to be conducted solely through market towns, which were to be governed by officials appointed by the king. Trading in peasants was forbidden, and peasants were given the right to negotiate the terms of their tenure with the nobility.

The Land Law permitted clergy to marry, and gave some control of the church over to the state. The new laws were radical, progressive, and perceived by the nobility and bishops as an existential threat.By 1522, Christian was running out of allies. In an attempt to set up a Danish-centered trading company in direct competition with the Hanseatic League, Christian had raised the sound tolls, which affected trade between Sweden and the Hanseatic towns.

As a consequence, Lübeck and Danzig joined the newly independent Sweden in war against Denmark.Domestic rebellion against Christian started in Jutland. On January 20, 1523, the herredag at Viborg offered the Danish crown to Christian’s uncle, Duke Frederik of Holstein.

Frederik’s army gained control over most of Denmark during the spring, and in April 1523 Christian left Denmark to seek help abroad. On May 1, he landed at Veere in Zeeland.

Exile and imprisonment

In exile Christian led a humble life in the city of Lier in the Netherlands (now in Belgium), waiting for military help from his brother-in-law Charles V. Christian corresponded with Martin Luther and he became a Lutheran for some time; he even commissioned a translation of the New Testament into Danish.

Queen Isabella died in January 1526, and Christian’s children were taken by her family so as not to be raised as heretics. Popular agitation against Frederik I in Denmark centered on Søren Norby, who gathered an army of peasants in Scania, but was defeated in 1525.By 1531, Christian had reverted to Catholicism and reconciled with the Emperor.

Çhristian II took a fleet to Norway, and landed in Oslo to popular acclaim in November 1531. Christian failed to subdue the fortresses of northern Norway, however, and accepted a promise of safe conduct from Frederik I.Frederik did not keep his promise, and Christian was kept prisoner for the next 27 years, first in Sønderborg Castle until 1549, and afterwards at the castle of Kalundborg.

Stories of solitary confinement in small dark chambers are inaccurate; King Christian was treated like a nobleman, particularly in his old age, and he was allowed to host parties, go hunting, and wander freely as long as he did not go beyond the Kalundborg town boundaries.

Frederik I died in April 1533, and the Danish Council of State was at first unable to choose a successor. The mayor of Lübeck, Jürgen Wullenwever, took advantage of the resulting interregnum to conspire for the restoration of Christian II to the throne of Denmark.

He formed an alliance with two prominent nobles, Ambrosius Bogbinder and Jørgen Kock, mayor of Malmö.With Christopher, Count of Oldenburg as his military commander he succeeded in seizing Scania and Zeeland in the name of Christian II in a conflict known as the Count’s Feud.

However, Frederik’s eldest son, also named Christian, raised an army in Holstein which, lead by Johann Rantzau, took in turn Holstein, Jutland and Zeeland in a series of brilliant military manoeuvers. He formed an alliance with Gustaf Vasa, who subdued Scania, and took the throne as Christian III of Denmark. Christian II remained in prison in Kalundborg.

Christian II died in January 1559, a few days after Christian III. The new king, Frederik II, ordered that a royal funeral be held in his memory.Christian II buried in Odense next to his wife, parents, and son John, who died in the summer of 1532.

This date in history: December 18, 1626, birth of Queen Christina of Sweden

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Anna of Prussia, Brandenburg, Charles I of England, Charles II of England and Scotland, Elector of Brandenburg Holy Roman Empire, House of Vasa, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, Kingdom of Sweden, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, Queen Christina of Sweden, Sigismund III of Poland

Christina (December 18, 1626 – April 19, 1689), the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, reigned as Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654.

Queen Christina of Sweden’s ancestry.

Her mother was Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (1599-1655) who was was the daughter of Johann Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Anna, Duchess of Prussia,

Maternal grandparents: John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg was the son Joachim III Friedrich, Elector of Brandenburg, and his first wife Catherine of Brandenburg-Küstrin.

Anna, Duchess of Prussia was the daughter of Albert Friedrich Duke of Prussia and Marie Eleonore of Cleves.

Her father was King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden (1594-1632) the son of King Carl IX of Sweden and and his second wife, Christina of Holstein-Gottorp.

Paternal grandparents: King Carl IX of Sweden was the youngest son of King Gustaf I of Sweden and his second wife, Margaret Leijonhufvud.

Christina of Holstein-Gottorp was the daughter of Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Christine of Hesse.

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King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden

In 1616, the 22-year-old Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden started looking for a Protestant bride. He had since 1613 tried to get his mother’s permission to marry the noblewoman Ebba Brahe, but this was not allowed, and he had to give up his wishes to marry her, though he continued to be in love with her. He received reports with the most flattering descriptions of the physical and mental qualities of the beautiful 17-year-old princess Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg was favorably inclined towards the Swedish king, but he had become very infirm after an apoplectic stroke in the autumn of 1617.

Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg’s determined Prussian wife, wife Catherine of Brandenburg-Küstrin, showed a strong dislike for this Swedish suitor, because Prussia was a Polish fief and the Polish King Sigismund III Vasa still resented his loss of Sweden to Gustaf II Adolph’s father Carl IX.

Maria Eleonora had additional suitors in the young Willem II, Prince of Orange, Wladislaw Vasa of Poland, Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg and even the future Charles I of England. Maria Eleonora’s brother Elector Georg Wilhelm was flattered by the offer of the British Prince of Wales and proposed their younger sister Catherine (1602–1644) as a more suitable wife for the Swedish king.

Maria Eleonora, however, seems to have had a preference for Gustaf Adolph. For Gustaf Adolph it was a matter of honour to acquire the hand of Maria Eleonora and none other. He had the rooms of his castle in Stockholm redecorated and started making preparations to leave for Berlin to press his suit in person, when a letter arrived from Maria Eleonora’s mother to his mother.

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Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg

The Electress Anna demanded in no uncertain terms that the Queen Dowager Christina should prevent her son’s journey, as “being prejudicial to Brandenburg’s interests in view of the state of war existing between Sweden and Poland”. Her husband, she wrote, was “so enfeebled in will by illness that he could be persuaded to agree to anything, even if it tended to the destruction of the country”. It was a rebuff that verged on an insult.

The Elector Johann Sigismund, Maria Eleonora’s father, died on December 23, 1619, and the prospect of a Swedish marriage seemed gone with him. In the spring of 1620, however, stubborn Gustaf Adolph arrived in Berlin. The Electress Dowager maintained an attitude of reserve and even refused to grant the Swedish king a personal meeting with Maria Eleonora. All those who were present, however, noticed the princess’s interest in the young king.

Afterwards, Gustaf Adolph made a round of other Protestant German courts with the professed intention of inspecting a few matrimonial alternatives. On his return to Berlin, the Electress Dowager seems to have become completely captivated by the charming Swedish king. After plighting his troth to Maria Eleonora Gustaf Adolph hurried back to Sweden to make arrangements for the reception of his bride.

The new Elector, Georg Wilhelm who resided in Prussia, was appalled when he heard of his mother’s independent action. He wrote to Gustaf Adolph to refuse his consent to the marriage until Sweden and Poland had settled their differences. It was the Electress Dowager, however, who, in accordance with Hohenzollern family custom, had the last word in bestowing her daughter’s hand in marriage. She sent Maria Eleonora to territory outside of Georg Wilhelm’s reach and concluded the marriage negotiations herself.

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Queen Christina of Sweden

The wedding took place in Stockholm on November 25, 1620. A comedy was performed based on the history of Olof Skötkonung. Gustaf Adolph – in his own words – finally “had a Brandenburg lady in his marriage bed”. Anna of Prussia actually stayed with her daughter in Sweden for several years after the marriage.

Within six months of their marriage, Gustaf Adolph left to command the siege of Riga, leaving Maria Eleonora in the early stages of her first pregnancy. She lived exclusively in the company of her German ladies-in-waiting and had difficulty in adapting herself to the Swedish people, countryside and climate. She disliked the bad roads, sombre forests and wooded houses, roofed with turf. She also pined for her husband. A year after their wedding she had a miscarriage and became seriously ill.

In the autumn of 1623 Maria Eleonora gave birth to a daughter, named Christina, but the baby died the next year. At that time, the only surviving male heirs to the Swedish throne was the hated Vasa King Sigismund III of Poland and his sons. With Gustaf Adolph risking his life in battles, an heir to the throne was anxiously awaited. In the autumn Maria Eleonora was pregnant for a third time. In May 1625 she was in good spirits and insisted on accompanying her husband on the royal yacht to review the fleet.

There seemed to be no danger, as the warships were moored just opposite the castle, but a sudden storm nearly capsized the yacht. The queen was hurried back to the castle, but when she got there she was heard to exclaim: “Jesus, I cannot feel my child!” Shortly afterwards the longed-for son was stillborn.

Birth of Christina

With the renewal of the war with Poland, Gustaf Adolph had to leave his wife again. It is likely that she gave way to depression and grief, as we know she did in 1627, and it is probably for this reason that the king let his queen join him in Livonia after the Poles had been defeated in January 1626. By April, Maria Eleonora found she was again pregnant. No risks were taken this time and the astrologers predicted the birth of a son and heir. During a lull in the warfare, Gustaf Adolph urried back to Stockholm to await the arrival of the baby. The birth was a difficult one.

On December 18, a baby was born with a fleece (lanugo), which enveloped it from its head to its knees, leaving only its face, arms and lower part of its legs free. Moreover, the baby had a large nose and was covered with hair. Thus, it was assumed the baby was a boy, and so the King was told. Closer inspection, however, determined that the baby was a girl. Gustaf Adolph’s half-sister Catherine informed him that the child was a girl. She “carried the baby in her arms to the king in a condition for him to see and to know and realise for himself what she dared not tell him”. Gustaf Adolph remarked: “She is going to be clever, for she has taken us all in.”

His disappointment did not last long, and he decided that she would be called Christina after his mother. He gave orders for the birth to be announced with all the solemnity usually accorded to the arrival of a male heir. This seems to indicate that Gustaf Adolph, at the age of 33, had little hope of having other children. Maria Eleonora’s state of health seems to be the most likely explanation for this. Her later portraits and actions, however, do not indicate that she was physically fragile.

Shortly after the birth, Maria Eleonora was in no condition to be told the truth about the baby’s gender and the king and court waited several days before breaking the news to her. She screamed: “Instead of a son, I am given a daughter, dark and ugly, with a great nose and black eyes. Take her from me, I will not have such a monster!” She may have suffered from a post-natal depression. In her agitated state, the queen tried to injure the child.

December 8, 1907: Accession of King Gustaf V of Sweden.

08 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden, Gustaf V of Sweden, House of Bernadotte, House of Holstein-Gottorp, House of Vasa, Kings of Sweden, Oscar II of Sweden, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of Baden, Wilhelm I of Germany

Gustaf V (Oscar Gustaf Adolf; June 16, 1858 – October 29, 1950) was King of Sweden from 1907 until his death in 1950. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, the youngest daughter of Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau, by his second wife Princess Pauline Friederica Marie of Württemberg. Duke Wilhelm of Nassau was also the father of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg by his first wife, Princess Louise of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

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King Gustaf V of Sweden

Reigning from the death of his father Oscar II on December 8, 1907, until his own death 43 years later, Gustaf V holds the record of being the oldest monarch of Sweden and the third-longest reigning after Magnus IV-VII of Sweden and Norway (1319-1364) and the present Swedish King, Carl XVI Gustaf. He was also the last Swedish monarch to exercise his royal prerogatives, which largely died with him, although formally abolished only with the remaking of the Swedish constitution in 1974. He was the first Swedish king since the High Middle Ages not to have a coronation and hence never wore a crown, a tradition continuing to date.

Gustaf’s early reign saw the rise of parliamentary rule in Sweden, although the leadup to World War I pre-empted his overthrow of Liberal Prime Minister Karl Staaff in 1914, replacing him with his own figurehead Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (father of Dag Hammarskjöld) for most of the war. However, after the Liberals and Social Democrats secured a parliamentary majority under Staaff’s successor, Nils Edén, he allowed Edén to form a new government which de facto stripped the monarchy of all virtual powers and enacted universal and equal suffrage, including for women, by 1919.

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Meeting of the three kings in Malmö, December 18, 1914: Haakon VII of Norway, Gustaf V of Sweden, and Christian X of Denmark.

Bowing fully to the principles of parliamentary democracy, he remained a popular figurehead for the remaining 31 years of his rule, although not completely without influence – during World War II he allegedly urged Per Albin Hansson’s coalition government to accept requests from Nazi Germany for logistics support, refusing which might have provoked an invasion. This remains controversial to date, although he is not known to have shown much support for fascism or radical nationalism; his pro-German and anti-Communist stance was well known also in World War I.

On September 20, 1881 he married Princess Victoria of Baden in Karlsruhe, Germany. Victoria of Baden was the daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, and Princess Louise of Prussia, the second child and only daughter of German Emperor Wilhelm I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Victoria was named after her aunt, Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

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Gustaf and Victoria

German Emperor Wilhelm I and Empress Augusta were present at the wedding, and marriage was arranged as a sign that Sweden belonged to the German sphere in Europe. The marriage was popular in Sweden where she was called “The Vasa Princess”, because of her descent from the old Vasa Dynasty

Victoria of Baden was the granddaughter of Princess Sophie of Sweden, Grand Duchess of Baden, the daughter of the deposed King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden and his wife, Frederica of Baden. Victoria’s marriage to Gustaf V united the reigning Bernadotte dynasty with the former royal house of Holstein-Gottorp, which claimed descent from the House of Vasa which brought Sweden its independence and thus was popular throughout Sweden.

The kings of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, which produced the kings of Sweden from 1751 to 1818, often emphasized their Vasa descent, albeit through a female line. The current ruling house of Bernadotte similarly prides in its Vasa descent: Carl XIV, the first Bernadotte king, was an adopted son of Carl XIII, the last from the House of Holstein-Gottorp; his son Oscar I married a Vasa descendant Josephine of Leuchtenberg; and the focus of this blog post, his grandson Gustaf V, married Victoria of Baden who was, as we’ve seen, a great-grandchild of Gustav IV Adolf of the house Holstein-Gottorp.

Gustaf and Victoria were brought together by their families and their marriage was reported not to have been a happy one. Their marriage produced three children:

1. King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden (1882-1973) (aged 90) married 1) Princess Margaret of Connaught (1882–1920), had issue (four sons, one daughter), married 2) Louise Mountbatten (1889–1965), a stillborn daughter.

2. Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland (1884-1965)(aged 80) married Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1890–1958), had issue.

3. Prince Erik, Duke of Västmanland (1889-1918) (aged 29) died unmarried of the Spanish flu, no issue

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Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden with her mother, Grand Duchess Louise of Baden (only daughter of Wilhelm I, German Emperor) and her eldest son, baby Gustaf Adolf, 1883.

In 1890–1891, Victoria and Gustaf travelled to Egypt to repair their relationship, but it did not succeed, allegedly due to Victoria’s interest in one of the courtiers, and she repeated the trip to Egypt in 1891–1892. After 1889, the personal relationship between Victoria and Gustaf is considered to have been finished, in part, as estimated by Lars Elgklou, due to the bisexuality of Gustaf V.

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Victoria of Baden, Queen Consort of Sweden

An avid hunter and sportsman, Gustaf V presided over the 1912 Olympic Games and chaired the Swedish Association of Sports from 1897 to 1907. Most notably, he represented Sweden (under the alias of Mr G.) as a competitive tennis player, keeping up competitive tennis until his 80s, when his eyesight deteriorated rapidly. He died from flu complications and was succeeded by his son as King Gustaf VI Adolf.

Following his death at age 92, in 1950, Gustaf V was implicated in a homosexual affair in the Haijby affair. His alleged lover Kurt Haijby was imprisoned in 1952 for blackmail of the court in the 1930s. Homosexuality was a criminal offense in Sweden until 1944, though Gustaf’s position would have granted automatic immunity.

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