Christina Gyllenstierna
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Christina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna (1494-1559), wife of the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Younger, and after his death organiser of the defence against the attack from Denmark.
Christina was a great-granddaughter of king Charles VIII of Sweden (through her father, a younger son of Christina Karlsdotter Bonde, for whom Christina was named). She was married to young Sten Svantesson (who took the surname Sture) partly to strengthen his political position.
She was from an originally Danish family: her grandfather Erik Gyldenstierne was from Danish (Jutish) ancestry and acquainted with Sweden due to the Kalmar Union that then joined these realms and made officials move between capitals. When the Union began to dissolve, he allied with the future king Charles. As reward, Charles's daughter was married to him and he ultimately became the High Steward of Charles' court.
Christina's mother was Sigrid Eskilsdotter Banér (whose daughter from another marriage was Cecilia Månsdotter of Eka, Gustav I Vasa's mother) and her father was Niels Eriksen Gyldenstierne (also written Nils Eriksson Gyllenstjerna). Chistina's family belonged to the highest Swedish nobility of this Regency era.
Sten Sture, her husband, stepped up to the regency quite young, upon the death of his father Svante Nilsson, the regent. At that time there was an attempt to choose a rival, Eric Trolle, a more Danish-leaning Royal Councillor and a clearly older figure.
Sten Sture was mortally wounded at the battle of Bogesund, on January 19, 1520 and the Danish army, unopposed, was approaching Uppsala, where the members of the Swedish High Council, had assembled. The councillors consented to render homage to Christian II, on condition that he gave a full indemnity for the past and a guarantee that Sweden should be ruled according to Swedish laws and custom; and a convention to this effect was confirmed by the king and the Danish Royal Council on March 31.
Christina Gyllenstierna held out stoutly at Stockholm, and the peasantry of central Sweden, roused by her patriotism, flew to arms, defeated the Danish invaders at Balundsås on March 19, and were only with the utmost difficulty finally defeated at the bloody battle of Uppsala, on Good Friday, April 6, 1520.
In May the Danish fleet arrived, and Stockholm was invaded by land and sea; but Christina Gyllenstierna resisted valiantly for four months longer, and took care, when she surrendered on September 7, 1520 to exact beforehand an amnesty of the most explicit and absolute character. On November 1 the representatives of the nation swore their allegiance to King Christian, who repaid them by staging the Stockholm Bloodbath.
Christina, with a good number of noble ladies of Sweden, were taken captive and held in Kalundborg castle, Denmark. Only after a few years, the new kings of Denmark and Sweden reached an agreement that they were returned to their families in Sweden.
In 1527 Christina remarried, to Johan Turesson Tre Rosor.
From her first marriage she had two sons Mauritz and Svante Sture, the latter of whom later was elevated to 1st Count Sture, Count of Vestervik and Stegeholm by King Eric XIV and from the second marriage a son Gustaf Johansson Tre Rosor who at the same time became count of Enköping (later changed to county of Bogesund). Through daughters of these two counts, Christina became within a century an ancestress of most of Sweden's highest nobility [1]. Her distant direct descendant, Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married the Hereditary Prince of Sweden, and with Sibylla's son, king Charles XVI Gustav of Sweden, Christina's blood returned to the Swedish throne.
