Duke of Finland

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Duke of Finland (in Finnish Suomen herttua; Swedish hertig av Finland) has been a title, which generally was granted as a tertiogeniture to members of the royal dynasty of Sweden, between 13th and 16th centuries. It included a duchy along with the feudal customs, and often meant a veritably independent principality.

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[edit] Occasional pursuits to establish a Finnish principality

[edit] Bishop-Duke Kol

In the late 15th century, historian Ericus Olai claimed that bishop Kol of Linköping (d. 1196?) had been the Duke of Finland (Dux Finlandiae).[1] This claim is not supported by any other sources. There is also no evidence of Swedish rule in Finland already at the end of the 12th century. It must also be noted that in the later 12th century, the title "dux" was still used in the meaning of jarl and came to mean duke only hundred years later.

However, the Bishop of Linköping had an unexplained connection to Finland during the 13th century. Pope used him in 1229 to assist the Bishop of Finland to organize the diocese, and the first known Duke of Finland, Benedict, was soon after his nomination elected also as the Bishop of Linköping.

[edit] Bishop-Duke Benedict

Bengt Birgersson (1254-91), an eccleasiastic, the youngest brother of king Valdemar I of Sweden and Duke Magnus of Sweden (later king Magnus III), was in 1284 granted the Duchy of Finland by his elder brother king Magnus. Duke Benedict, a consecrated priest and the chancellor of the realm, was elected in 1286 bishop of Linköping. As far as is known, he bore revenues from Finland until his death but did not attempt any independent rule. He was the first known holder of the appanage of Finland.

[edit] Duke Valdemar

The youngest son of the late king Magnus III of Sweden (1240-90), Valdemar (1280s-1318) was given his late uncle Benedict's duchy of Finland at the coronation of his eldest brother king Birger I of Sweden in 1302. Valdemar's elder brother Duke Eric was in 1310s busily building a truly independent principality in Western Sweden, duke Valdemar being his ally. There are no evidence that duke Valdemar managed to have as much independence for his own duchy as his brother, but it is obvious that Valdemar used his Finnish position and revenues to assist duke Eric against the king, and kept his Finnish appanage under Eric's and his administration instead of the king's. In 1315, in alliance with Eric, Valdemar gained Turku castle and Häme castle together with their provinces, i.e most of Finland, as well as Stockholm Castle, most of Uppland and Borgholm with Öland, as result of their civil war against the king. On 10 december 1317 he was imprisoned in Nyköping together with his brother Eric by their brother king Birger. Sometime in 1318, duke Valdemar (and duke Eric) died while incarcerated. With his second wife Ingeborg of Norway, duke Valdemar had a son, born in 1316, who presumably died young.

[edit] Duke Benedict Algotsson

Favorite of the king, Benedict, Duke of Halland (1330-60), whom his relative king Magnus IV of Sweden (nephew of duke Valdemar, above), Overlord of Terra Scania had already in 1353 recognized as Duke of Halland (an originally Danish principality) as the heir of its earlier dukes, Dukes of Estonia and Reval, was in c 1353 or 1354 given the duchy of Finland too.

Duke Benedict II apparently did not make any bigger efforts to establish himself as ruler in Finland, being satisfied to bear revenues from the duchy. He had his seat in Southern Sweden, where he acted as Viceroy of Skane.

Duke Benedict was married with Ingeborg of Tofta, a lady said to have been elder than him. Ingeborg was daughter of Ulf Abjörnsson, justiciar of Tiohärad, younger half-sister of Charles Ulvsson, Lord of Tofta, and maternal niece of Erengisle, Earl of Orkney (She was of such high family that after her death, she became the aunt of Margaret "Sparre" of Tofta, mother of Charles VIII of Sweden, who also was an ancestress of Gustav I of Sweden).

Duke Benedict, a favorite of the king, was trampled under certain nobility's opposition against the king. He was exiled in 1357, and killed in 1360. In 1357, his holdings, including Finland, were given to Eric, Duke of Scania, the heir of the king, co-ruler of the kingdom since that, who ruled Finland and other areas with he title of king. Duke Benedict II died without any children. His closest heirs are the issue of his elder brother Lord Knut Algotsson, which, if continues at all, is only through an illegitimate daughter.

[edit] Duke John: from a Duchy to a Grand Duchy

In 1556, two hundred years after it was vacated by deposition of Duke Benedict II, Benedict's kinsman king Gustav I of Sweden (reigned 1523-60) gave the duchy of Finland to his second son, the then 18-year-old John (1537-92). This became the known history's most serious attempt to create a real principality in Finland. The duchy given to Duke John included the Finland Proper, Raasepori together with Western Uusimaa, and Lower Satakunta. The duchy thus formed was given extraordinarily independent feudal rights by king Gustav, whose favorite son John has been said. (Additionally, Duke John was appointed as Governor-General of Finland, meaning all the other areas beyond Gulf of Bothnia and up to the eastern border. These additions he however did not hold by feudal right but as a royal appointee.)

Duke John settled in Turku, where he created a cultivated princely court at Turku castle. He had a Finnish mistress, Kaarina Hannuntytär, before his marriage, and several Finnish and Swedish families descend from their bastards. As Duke of Finland, he drove an own foreign policy which at times was at odds with his elder brother King Eric XIV of Sweden (reigned 1560-68). Also in domestic affairs, Duke John soon opposed the king, together with a party of high nobility who all opposed the increasing centralization of the government. Duke John married his first wife Catharina of Poland (1526-83, known as Catharina Jagellonica) on 4 October 1562, against the wishes of king Eric. Duke John was an enthusiastic patron of arts and architecture. Eric regarded his conduct as a rebellion. Duke John and Duchess Catharina were imprisoned to Gripsholm Castle by his brother king Eric in 1563, after a siege of Turku castle and its conquest by royal troops. The imprisoned duke kept his title, but the duchy itself became administered by royal officials.

Eric was deposed by leaders of nobility in 1568, and Duke John, recently released, instead ascended the throne of Sweden. He reigned until his death in 1592 as King John III. Apparently he made, in 1589, arrangements to grant the duchy of Finland to his youngest son Duke John (see below).

In 1581, King John III (the incumbent titular duke of Finland) assumed the subsidiary title Grand Prince of Finland (in Finnish Suomen suuriruhtinas; Swedish Storfurste till Finland) to the Kings of Sweden. That title became established in Latin renderings (and later in 19th century in English) as Grand Duke of Finland. This monarch's title was intended to cover all Finland, not only his former duchy in the Southwest part of the country. Accordingly, occasionally in the subsequent centuries, Sweden's appointees to govern Finland were assigned to the "Grand Principality of Finland".

[edit] Titulary use

King John III (died 1592), the previous duke of Finland, gave his old Duchy and its title as royal duke to John the Younger (1589-1618), his newborn son of his second marriage with Gunilla Bielke (1568-97). King Sigismund, child John's half-brother, seems to have confirmed this appanage. Royal chancellery administered the duchy on behalf of the underage duke, and provided him his allotted revenues. However, when young Duke John approached adulthood, his duchy was in 1606 changed (possibly forced to exchange, in apparent desire to assign Finland to crown prince Gustav Adolf; or voluntarily - Ostrogothia, the replacement, is better located for a person just wishing to enjoy the things of and near the Swedish capital city and with no very independence-desiring mind) to that of Ostrogothia (documents show a change of the recipient of revenues of these two provinces), previously held by king John's younger brother the late duke Magnus. Duke John married his first cousin Maria Elisabeth of Sweden (1596-1618), and they died childless.

There are documentation that Crown Prince Gustav Adolf (1594-1632), elder son of Charles IX of Sweden, the heir-apparent, was in 1606 made Duke of Finland, upon the assignation of Ostrogothia to duke John the younger, and started to receive ducal revenues from Finland. Finland was intended never to go outside the succession to the throne. Gustav Adolf ascended the throne of Sweden in 1611.

In 1802, signalling his holdings in face of tensions tightening between Russia and Sweden, King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden gave the title "Grand Duke of Finland", generally held by the monarch himself, to his new-born son, Prince Carl Gustaf (who died three years later), as the boy's customary ducal appanage title of a royal prince (a royal duke). That was already the era when no real duchy nor any revenue-collecting right were given, so the grant remained purely titulary.

[edit] Reflections on scenarios

Another royal duchy of Swedish realm, the Sudermannian one (generally held by secundogeniture) was a couple of times the holding of a royal prince who really formed a separate, quite independent principality. Most prominently, Eric, the second son of king Magnus III, and Charles, the youngest son of Gustav I. Sudermannian principality however was located in a central, Swedish-speaking area of the kingdom, very close to the capital, and was not easy to be kept separate in long run. Finland was located beyond a sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, seen from the capital of the kingdom, and was inhabited mostly by population whose language was Finnish and not Swedish. Dukes of Finland were not as enterprising as the Sudermannian ones, and they generally did not leave heirs to sustain the ducal succession separate from the kingdom's dynasty, whereas Sudermannian dukes did.

[edit] Klaus Fleming

When John the Younger was (titular) duke of Finland, baron Klaus Fleming (1535-97) acted as the Governor General of Finland, Karelia and Estonia, appointed by king Sigismund of Sweden and Poland. Duke Charles of Sudermannia managed to get the real power in Sweden proper, but Fleming opposed him, and kept faith with king Sigismund. Those years, Finland was practically independent of the Swedish government, and dependence to the king in Poland was nominal only. Historians have assessed that "at that time, Finland was closer to independence than ever before in its recorded history", or even "was an independent country for the first time when Fleming ruled it". It has been extrapolated in historical research that had the fight not got lost upon the death of Fleming in 1597, Finland would probably ended up as a separate principality under nominal Polish overlordship, and that sooner or later an independent state would have emerged,knowing that the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was too distant to effectively keep dominance over the area.

[edit] List of Dukes of Finland

  • 1284-91 Benedict (1254-91), the third son of Ingeborg of Sweden and Birger jarl, a conqueror of Finland
  • 1589-(1606) John (1589-1618), later Duke of Ostrogothia, youngest son of king John III with Gunilla Bielke, his second queen

No duke of Finland has left descendants in legitimate line to survive to our days. Except John III's legitimate descent (who were kings of Sweden and Poland and have been totally extinct since 1672), lineage of all the others went extinct upon their own death.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Suomen Museo 2002. See page 66. The book can be ordered from the Finnish Antiquarian Society.
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