Count of Vasaborg
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The House of Vasaborg was a noble family of Sweden, a branch of the House of Vasa, which had been elevated to royalty a century earlier. Queen Christina of Sweden made her illegitimate half-brother Gustav, 1st Count of Vasaborg (1616-53). Gustav was the child a mistress of Dutch extraction, Margriet or Margareta Slots, bore to king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
The family was registered to the Swedish House of Knights in 1647 as its sixth comital family. In 1646, count Gustav had been given the region of Uusikaupunki in Finland as his county and fief, altogether taxes of over 700 peasant farms, 586 mantals. Actually, the town of Uusikaupunki has sometimes been also called as "Vasaborg" or Newtown of Vasaborg because of this assignation.
The Coat-of-Arms of counts of Vasaborg, confirmed in conjunction with registration to the House of Knights, depicted a bunch of hay (the arms of Vasa) with a diagonal balk indicating bastard origin.
[edit] Vasaborg in Wildeshausen
The family of Vasaborg lived mostly in northern Germany, where they received several estates, and their seat was in Wildeshausen, which was received by the 1st Count after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The counts married German noblewomen of the rank of counts. Count Gustav's wife was countess Anna Sofia of Wied-Runkel. Quite often, their name was written "Graf zu Wasaburg", as they were so much in Germany. In 1679, following the Treaty of Nijmegen, Sweden pawned Wildeshausen's overlordship to the Prince-Bishop of Münster, in exchange for a loan of 100,000 Riksdaler. Sweden lost finally all that to Hanover in 1721, and the second count subjected himself to king George I of Great Britain.
Gustav Adolf (1653-1732), 2nd Count of Vasaborg, was a lieutenant colonel, ultimately in the Hanoverian service. His wife was countess Angelica Catharina of Leiningen-Westerburg.
The house of Vasaborg became extinct in the male line in 1754, when the 3rd count, George Maurice of Vasaborg (1678-14 January 1754) died. At the same time, he was last male-line descendant of the entire House of Vasa. His remaining sister countess Henrietta Polyxena (1696-1777) died on 30 October 1777, last official bearer of the surname.
However, their late sister countess Sophia Elisabeth Christina of Vasaborg (1694-1736?), an elder daughter Gustav Adolf, Count of Vasaborg and his wife Angelika Katharina von Leiningen-Westerburg, had had children with her husband, Count Henning von Stralenheim (died 1731), sometime governor-general of Zweibrucken: daughter Catharina Sophia (1717-64) who married baron Eric Sparre (1700-42), Lord of Forbach in Lorraine; and son count Henning Gustav (died 1787).
[edit] Stralenheim-Wasaburg
Emperor Joseph I had created in 1706 Henning von Stralenheim as HRR Reichsgraf. Earlier, in 1699, Henning had been created as a Swedish friherre, baron.
When the Vasaborg line was going extinguished, Henning of Stralenheim's son count Henning Gustav von Stralenheim, nephew of count George Maurice and countess Henrietta Polyxena, got adopted to it and started to use both names, in Germany typically written "Count von Stralenheim-Wasaburg", zu Wildeshausen. He married baroness Caroline von Eseback, and had a family who continued the line, going extinct in male line as late as in 1872 and has female-line descendants to our days.
King Gustav III of Sweden, proud of his own, legitimate female-line ancestry from the royal Vasa dynasty and having started to use Vasa name of his own branch (on basis of just them of the female-line descendants of original Vasas to have ascended their Swedish throne), as the fons honorum of comital Vasaborg fiefs and styles, forbade in 1777 his distant cousin count Henning Gustav from using the Swedish title and name Vasaborg. Because they lived outside Swedish dominions, this Swedish royal declaration had next to no effect in reality. Foreign courts and nobility listings continued to use the name Stralenheim-Wasaburg. Their comital rank and titles were anyway granted by the Holy Roman Empire and not dependent on the Swedish king's will.
One of the children of count Henning Gustav, his daughter countess Christiana of Stralenheim-Wasaburg (1783-1857) married Swedish count Charles Adam Lewenhaupt (1760-1857) and they have descendants in Sweden. Count Gustav Henry, the elder son of count Henning Gustav and his descendants lived in Bavaria, the younger son count Carl August in France as are his descendants. Gustav Henry's younger son count Charles Andrew Maurice (1810-72) was the last male count of Stralenheim-Wasaburg and left daughters. The daughter of count Charles Andrew Maurice's second cousin, i.e baroness Alfrede Henrietta Ebba Johanna Sparre of Forbach (1836-1904), the last survivor of that Sparre branch, married count Friedrich von Berlichingen-Rossach, a badener nobleman.
Living descendants of Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, plentiful bunch of currently living people, of whom these Stralenhaim-Wasaburgs progenited a fair share, possibly almost all, are listed in a separate article.
