Christina Gyllenstierna
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Kristina (or Kerstin) Nilsdotter of Fogelvik, Heiress of Tullgarn, whom later generations have named Kristina Gyllenstierna (in her lifetime called "Fru Kristina") (1494-1559), was wife of the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Younger, and after his death herself regent and organiser of the defence against the attack from Denmark. She is one of the most important women in the history of Sweden, and regarded as a national heroine; statues are made to her memory.
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[edit] Background
Kristina 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 in 1511 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 Eriksen of Demstrup ("Gyldenstjerne") 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, the heiress of Fogelvik, was married to him and he ultimately became the High Steward of Charles' court.
Kristina's mother was Sigrid Eskilsdotter of Venngarn, Heiress of Lindholm (whose daughter from another marriage was Cecilia Månsdotter of Eka, Gustav I's mother) and her father was Niels Eriksen, Lord of Tullgarn (also written Nils Eriksson, and surnamed Gyllenstjerna by later centuries). Kristina'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 High Councillor and a clearly older, mature figure.
[edit] Rebellion and struggle
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 give a full indemnity for the past and a guarantee that Sweden should be ruled according to Swedish laws and custom; a convention to this effect was confirmed by the king and the Danish High Council on March 31.
Kristina 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 Kristina 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. She had surrendered after great starvation and suffering within the city walls.
During all this, Ebba Eriksdotter Bielke defended and commanded the city of Kalmar in the same fashion.
[edit] After the defeat
On November 1 the representatives of the nation swore their allegiance to King Christian, who crowned himself king of Sweden in Storkyrkan and invited the nobility to great festivities to celebrate the coronation. At a grand ball, he danced with Kristina. The festivities lasted for three days.
On November 7, King Christian summoned the Swedish nobility to a meeting. Lady Kristina, as well as several other influential women, were also invited. When they arrived, the doors were shut and guards set in place. The king accused them all of the deposition of the bishop Trolle, a Danish loyalist. Lady Kristina stepped forward and stated that it would not be possible for the king to punish them for this; the document to depose the bishop had been signed by everyone in the room; and as the king had promised amnesty to everyone involved in the rebellion, and the deposition of the Danish bishop had been a part of the rebellion, it would not be possible to punish those involved. "We have proof," she added, "the document is here." At this, the document was brought forward. But there was one thing they had not considered. The deposition of a bishop was also a crime against the church, heresy; and the king had no authority to pardon them for that. Thereby, he could punish them for the rebellion without breaking his word of amnesty. So he took his revenge, now known under the name of the Stockholm Bloodbath. Kristina's husband's remains were excavated from his grave and burned publicly at the stake as a heretic, and her brother, Erik Nilsson, Lord of Tullgarn, was executed by beheading, as were many other Swedish magnates. Kristina inherited Tullgarn at that stage, little benefit as it then did her.
No woman was executed at the Bloodbath, but Kristina was very close to it; she was, after all, considered a great traitor and a rebellion leader, and as such King Christian called upon her and publicly asked her to choose: which did she prefer, to be burned at the stake or to be buried alive? Confronted with this choice, Kristina was unable to reply and fainted with horror. This demonstration of weakness was perhaps her salvation, as King Christian was then advised to change his mind and treat her like a "weak woman" instead. She also agreed to pay him a large part of her property. Another woman almost executed was Christina's mother, Sigrid Eskilsdotter Banér, who was almost executed by drowning when she in the last moment agreed to pay the king her property.
Kristina, with a good number of noble ladies of Sweden, (among them being Sigrid Eskilsdotter Banér and the mother and sisters of Gustav Vasa), was taken captive and held in the feared and infamous "Blue Tower" in Copenhagen Castle, Denmark, from 1521. Kristina had the company of her two little sons in the prison. Only after a few years did the new kings of Denmark and Sweden reach an agreement that they were to be returned to their families in Sweden in 1525. Before she returned, she turned down the proposal of the powerful Søren Norrby; it was rumored, that she had intended to marry Norrby as a means to conquer the Swedish throne for herself and her children: Gustav Vasa interrogated her about this, but she denied it.
[edit] Later life and family
In 1527 Kristina remarried, to Johan Turesson, Lord of Falun. Gustav Vasa saw her as a threat when she first returned, as she was as great a national-symbol as he was, and the marriage was arranged as a form of retirement for her; she thereby promised not to involve herself further in politics. In 1527, a rebellion broke out in Dalarna in Sweden led by the so called Daljunkern (The Youngster from Dalarna), claiming to be the son of Sten Sture and Christina Gyllenstierna and drawing followers from, amongst others, those who opposed the reformation just staged by the king. In 1528, King Gustav had captured Daljunkern; he had Christina write a statement where she declared that Daljunkern was not her son but:"To my knowledge a thief and impostor", and Daljunkern was thereby beheaded.
From her first marriage she had two sons: Nils and Svante Sture, the latter of whom later was elevated to 1st Count of Vestervik and Stegeholm by King Eric XIV. From the second marriage she had a son Gustaf Johansson who at the same time became Count of Enköping (later changed to county of Bogesund). Through daughters of these two counts, Kristina became within a century an ancestress of most of Sweden's highest nobility [1]. Her distant direct descendant, Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Prince Gustav Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, and with Sibylla's son, king Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Kristina's blood returned to the Swedish throne.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Herman Lindqvist, "Historien om Sverige", ("The History of Sweden"), (Swedish).
- Gert Z. Nordström, "Stockholms blodbad", ("Stockholm's Bloodbath"), (Swedish).
- Ohlmarks, Åke, "Alla Sveriges drottningar", ("All the queens of Sweden"), (Swedish).
