Erik Johansson Vasa
Erik Johansson Vasa | |
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Painting of Erik Johansson Vasa by Lorens Pasch the Younger from 1782, based on an earlier painting by another artist, who in turned had based his painting on a much earlier one. Consequently, Erik may have looked totally different. | |
Spouse(s) | Cecilia Månsdotter Eka |
Noble family | House of Vasa |
Father | Johan Kristiernsson Vasa |
Mother | Birgitta Gustafsdotter Sture |
Born |
c. 1470 Örby |
Died |
8 November 1520 Stockholm |
Erik Johansson Vasa (1470 – 8 November 1520) was the Lord of Rydboholm Castle in the Roslagen. He was born around the year 1470 to Johan Kristiernsson Vasa and Birgitta Gustafsdotter Sture in a village named Örby in the province of Uppland, Sweden. He was one of four children from Johan and Birgitta.
Erik Johansson Vasa was a faithful adherent of the Stures, a powerful and influential family in Sweden from the late 15th century to the early 16th century, and was notorious for his irritable and arbitrary temper. He assisted the Stures in fighting against the Danes, who controlled most of Sweden during the early 16th century. When the Danes, under Christian II, conquered Sweden and took the capital, Stockholm, in 1520 several members of the Sture party were executed in the Stockholm Bloodbath in November of that year, among whom was Erik Johansson. His first son, Gustav Eriksson Vasa, had escaped from Denmark some time previously and survived. As Gustav I, he became the King of Sweden in 1523 and founder of the House of Vasa.
Personal life
He married Cecilia Månsdotter Eka and had eight children with her. All of their children were born in either Orkesta or Rydboholm Castle, in the present-day county of Stockholm. Their children were:
- Gustav Eriksson Vasa (12 May 1496[1] – 29 September 1560)
- Margareta Eriksdotter Vasa (1497 – 31 December 1536)
- Johan Eriksson (b. 1499, d. young)
- Magnus Eriksson (1501–1529)
- Anna Eriksdotter (1503–1545)
- Birgitta Eriksdotter (b. 1505, d. young)
- Marta Eriksdotter (1507–1523)
- Emerentia Eriksdotter (1507–1523)
See also
- Foundation of modern Sweden
- Line of succession to the Swedish Throne
- Kalmar Union
- Swedish History
References
- ↑ Gustav's gravestone gives his year of birth as 1485, but according to his son Charles IX he was born in 1488, while his nephew Per Brahe gave 1495 as his year of birth, and historian Erik Göransson Tegel the year 1490. Brahe and Tegel agree, however, that Gustav was born on Ascension Thursday and on the 12th of May, and these dates coincided in 1491 and 1496.
- Ahnlund, Nils. Gustav Adolf the Great. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1940.