Ingeborg of Norway

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Ingeborg of Norway, a.k.a Duchess Ingeborg, Old Norse Ingibjörg Hákonardóttir, Swedish Ingeborg Håkansdotter, (1301-1361), was a Scandinavian royal duchess and sometime regent of Norway (1319-1321) and Sweden (1319-1326).

She was born as the only legitimate daughter of king Haakon V of Norway from his marriage with Euphemia of Rügen. As a child, she was betrothed in 1305 to Eric, Duke of Södermanland, a younger brother of king Birger of Sweden. In 1312, they were formally married; at her wedding, her mother queen Euphemia wrote the famous poems Euphemia-songs.

She barely was old enough to bear her first husband two children, in 1316 and in 1317, before he was murdered. Her son Magnus VII of Norway, at the age of 3, was proclaimed king of Norway upon her father's death, in rights devolved from her. Ingeborg was recognized as formal regent of her son in Norway.

Soon, the Swedish nobility elected young Magnus king of Sweden after deposing Birger, and Ingeborg was made nominal regent of Sweden; however, power was mostly in hands of the two highest officers of the Swedish kingdom.

Ingeborg married her lover Knut Porse (d 1330), a nobleman from less than royal circles, in 1327. While Knut was allowed to become Duke of Halland and holder of Ingeborg's inherited estates, her marriage was another reason why Swedes, and also increasingly Norwegians, did not allow Ingeborg to use her governmental power in these kingdoms; after an intrigue was discovered, where she had made plans of taking direct control with her husband and making her positions independent, she was stripped of her power and her postition as regent in Norway in 1321 and in Sweden in 1323 - though she remained titular regent in Sweden until 1326, and had a place in the parliament. Her son became an adult in 1332, and Ingeborg secured the (temporary) mowe(?) of Skåne under Swedish superiority.