Historical Women - Princess Cecilia Vasa of Sweden

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

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

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

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

Cecilia on a contemporary medal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Historical Women - Ecsedi Báthory Erzsébet

Erzsébet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Historical Women: 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. Even though Johan was forced to flee the country only two years after their wedding because of disloyalty against the king, she remained loyal to Gustav throughout the rest of her life. She died in 1559.