Difficult Women: Cecilia Gustavsdotter Vasa
The scandalous saga of Sweden’s pirate princess
As many of you may be unfamiliar with Swedish history, I want to make sure you know what you’re in for with this one:
Pirates!
Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley!
Secret affairs!
A love child!
Nuns!
Ski Ski Revolution
A sword dance… to the death??
Yes, readers, this can only be the super scandalous saga of Sweden’s own Cecilia Gustavsdotter Vasa, the Pirate Princess!
Before we begin, I must also thank Kim, my Swedish cultural liaison, for a) suggesting this story and b) helping explain the cultural context for much of it to me. Part of what she explained to me is about Princess Cecilia’s Dad, King Gustav I, which is how I will start explaining this story to you as that context is crucial. The vibes are a bit like if you were going to talk about Alice Roosevelt, you need to explain the Theodore Roosevelt of it all. And actually, the vibe here is kind of similar to that with the Very Serious Patriarch and the Wild Child Daughter.
Sweden’s King Gustav I was arguably the most significant ruler in the Swedish history. Fans of Allison Epstein’s Dirtbags Through the Ages may remember him from this newsletter: Lace Up Your Battle Skis. I recommend reading that essay, or if you’re in a hurry, here’s a very brief synopsis of Gustav’s whole thing.
Gustav was living at around the same time as Henry VIII was being King in England, just to set this all in time and place. Unlike Henry, Gustav was not born a prince who became the king. Instead, he was the son of a wealthy family who seized the throne in a ski coup known to me (and Allison Epstein) as the Ski Ski Revolution.
tl;dr there was this thing called the Kalmar Union, which was an agreement that unified Sweden, Denmark, and Norway under a single monarch. Gustav was not a fan of this, so one day, he strapped on his skis and decided to ski to take over and become the new king. And as he went, he picked up followers and other people who supported him, also on their skis. So, there was just this crowd of people who were just skiing through 16th-century Sweden. The full distance they went was 90km, and upon arrival, Gustav took over just the Swedish part and is, therefore, the father of an independent Sweden and its first king.
Fun fact: since 1922, every year in Sweden, they have held a cross-country ski race to honour this ski coup. It’s called the Vasaloppet, which means the Vasa race because his name was Gustav Vasa. So, people ski the same trip he did, 90 kilometres. It's the oldest cross-country ski race in the world, as well as the one with the highest number of participants.
The thing with Gustav is that he is renowned as the father of the country in a very patriarchal (by which I mean fatherly) sort of way. Imagine him like a mixture of George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Santa Claus. So bear that in mind when Cecilia starts doing her thing. This is who her dad is.
But back to our main story, Gustav was the father of a Princess named Cecilia, along with numerous other children. His oldest child was Erik, the only child he had with his first wife, Katarina1. With his second wife, Margaret, he had Johan, Katarina, Cecilia, Magnus, Anna, Sofia, Elisabet, and Karl. When Cecilia was 11, her mother died. Gustav then married another woman named Katarina again.
Growing up, Cecilia was described as the most beautiful of Gustav's daughters. When she was 16, she and her sisters each had their portraits painted and their personal qualities described in Latin to be sent around to eligible Princes so that each sister could find a husband. One of the places where these dating profiles were sent was East Frisia.
Today, East Frisia is part of Germany. Back then, it was its own thing, ruled over by Edzard I, Count of East Frisia. Edzard couldn’t decide between Cecilia and her older sister Katarina, so he came to Sweden to meet them in person. After meeting them, he decided to marry Katarina, the older sister. She was 19, and Edzard was 26.
Katarina and Edzard got married in Stockholm in 1559, then headed back to East Frisia. 18-year-old Cecilia went along with them, as did Edzard’s 20-year-old brother, Johan. It was kind of a double date, except that Cecilia and Johan weren’t a couple2.
The four of them stopped in Vadstena (which is in the province of Östergötland in Sweden) to hang out en route at Vadstena Castle. This castle was a former fortress, currently being redone as a habitable castle, and you can visit it today! One of the reasons this double date stopped there was that Cecilia’s 16-year-old brother Magnus was the Duke of Östergötland and was living there, as was their older brother Erik. Erik was there in the role of guardian to Magnus, who would later become known as the Mad Duke and needed someone to keep an eye on him.
So it’s during this visit that the first major scandal of Cecilia's life occurred: the Vadstenabullret (which means the Vadstena Thunder). One night, the palace guards noticed a man sneaking into Cecilia’s room through the window. He didn’t report this and waited to see if it would happen again. It did three more times until finally, the guards decided to let Erik know.
Erik went to Magnus, and they decided to have guards keep watch on Cecilia’s window for one more night to catch this intruder in the act. And so on December 17, when the man again climbed in, palace guards burst through the door to arrest him. Only to find that Cecilia’s nighttime visitor was none other than Johan, Edzard’s younger brother, caught in the room with his trousers around his ankles.
Erik had Johan imprisoned, interrogated him, and then sent him to Gustav to decide what to do. Gustav ordered Johan to be imprisoned in a different castle. The newlyweds, Katarina and Edzard, were sent to a third other castle and placed under house arrest for maybe facilitating the Vadstenabullret. Erik and Cecilia herself were both recalled to Stockholm so Gustav could yell at them.
Remember, Gustav is a man who skied for 90 kilometres to take over the country. He was an intense person, and public relations meant a lot to him. Cecilia, at this point, accused her father of having beaten her and ripped her hair off. Months went by with all these people still in prison until June when Katarina, the oldest sister, was permitted to see Gustav. She acted as a mediator and tried to negotiate freedom for all of them. She also protested against the confiscation of Cecilia's jewelry. Katarina got their stepmother, also named Katarina, to also advocate for Cecilia. On top of this, Edzard and Johan’s mother sent ambassadors to Sweden to try to negotiate Johann's release.
Faced with this ongoing pressure from all sides, Gustav eventually agreed to release Johan after swearing before the royal council that nothing sexual had taken place between him and Cecilia.
Cecilia’s brothers wanted to make a public declaration of Cecilia’s innocence, so they had a coin minted. This is a pretty major thing, on par with skiing to take over a country. The coin pictured Cecilia as the biblical heroine Susanna in the bath. This means that Cecilia, like Susanna, was innocent.
Then, years pass. Gustav dies. Erik becomes the new King of Sweden. Cecilia, due to her scandalous reputation, is still not married when, at age 23, she is found to be holding secret nighttime parties in her bedroom with her sisters. Erik found out about this and issued a new protocol for the royal court, in which his sisters were to be placed under a more strict observation to prevent them from damaging their reputation further. So they weren't allowed to leave the palace at night or early morning, and they couldn't accept guests at night or letters without permission.
They were also forbidden from meddling in politics on behalf of people or interfering in affairs of state. Why? This is because Cecilia, Anna, and Sofia had sent a letter of protest to Erik the same year regarding the imprisonment of their brother, Johan Vasa. The thing with Johan Vasa is that he wanted to be King instead of Erik and was scheming against him, and he got sent to jail to prevent him from scheming.
One year later, at age 24, Cecilia was married to Christoph II of Baden-Rodemachern, who was three years older than her. His title was the Margrave of Baden-Rodemachern. What is a Margrave? A Margrave was originally the medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defence of one of the border provinces of the Holy Roman Empire or of a kingdom. That position became hereditary in certain feudal families in the empire, and the title came to be borne by rulers of some imperial principalities.
In 1565, Cecilia and Christoph were sent on an official state visit to England. The official purpose of this visit was for Cecilia to convince Queen Elizabeth to marry her brother Erik. She was chosen because she and Elizabeth had been pen pals for a few years, as they were of similar ages, and Cecilia admired Elizabeth. Erik decided to leverage this friendship to try and marry Elizabeth, who was famously young and not married.
Cecilia took advantage of this business trip to sneak off to spend time with her (still) imprisoned brother, Johan. Despite Erik having sent a man along to supervise Cecilia, she managed to sneak off and do various pro-Johan tasks while en route to England, including getting the Duke of Prussia to work with the Danish monarch to free Johan.
Cecilia made her formal entrance to London on September 11, 1565, dressed in black velvet trimmed with silver, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting dressed in red. Elizabeth came to visit her, and they got along just as well in person as they had via letters. Cecilia was her plus-one at various weddings and dinners. Cecilia received communion directly after Elizabeth that year at Christmas mass, which was notable to everyone as a statement of their friendship. Cecilia gave birth to her first child while she was in England and let Elizabeth name him. The name Elizabeth chose was Edward Fortunatus, and she carried him to the christening.
Although Erik had sent her to a) convince Elizabeth to marry him and to b) get England to support Sweden in various wars, Cecilia’s main agenda was c) to get Elizabeth to help free Johan from jail. In fact, Elizabeth wrote to Erik and asked him to release Johan. But as quickly as their friendship began, Elizabeth suddenly cut Cecilia off.
There were a few reasons, one of which was Cecilia’s debts. She had acquired enormous debts because she felt it was necessary to live a certain lifestyle according to her status at court. Her husband, Christoph, was forced to leave England in an attempt to borrow money for her. Her greatest creditors were George North and Johann Diamond. She also used Dr. Cornelius Alternatus, who borrowed her money and pawned things for her. So she, I guess, spent a lot of money on furs and jewels and then got this guy to sell them so she could have more money to buy more furs and jewels or something.
Dr. Alternatus had previously been exiled from court by Elizabeth for trying to convince her that he could turn straw into gold. Elizabeth imprisoned him after he violated her order not to have anything to do with Cecilia. So maybe she was like, “Oh no, my poor little innocent friend, Cecilia, is being scammed by this guy.”
In fact, if anyone was scamming anyone, it was Cecilia scamming Dr. Alternatus, who she got to pawn her stuff so she could rack up more debts. In March 1566, Christophe returned to England in secret and tried to abduct Cecilia to free her from the creditors, but was discovered and put in prison by the creditors. Elizabeth had him freed, but this definitively ended the friendship between Cecilia and the Queen when Elizabeth realized that Cecilia was kind of a grifter and kind of a mess and she didn't need that in her life at that time, which like fair, Elizabeth had a lot going on at this time.
One month later, Cecilia pawned her jewelry and wardrobe to finance their return trip to Baden, where Christoph is from, but they were stopped in Dover. Most of their luggage was confiscated in the names of their creditors, North and Diamond. Not only was Cecilia and Christoph's luggage confiscated, but also that of Cecilia's ladies-in-waiting, who had no debts. And Cecilia and her courtiers regarded themselves as having been subjects of theft, which they kind of were.
She was pregnant again at this point. When she finally reached Baden-Rodemachern, her son, Christopher Gustav, was born with some disabilities. She blamed the creditors for this, for having stressed her out during pregnancy.
Cecilia and her family stayed in Baden-Rodemachern for five years. Then, in 1569, the other half of Baden (Baden-Baden) was inherited by Christoph's young nephew and placed under the rule of his Catholic relative Albert V of Bavaria. Also, her brother Erik was assassinated, making her imprisoned brother Johan the new King — meaning, finally, he was released from prison! Cecilia wrote to Johan, explaining that she feared for her safety due to all the current wars, and asked permission to return to Sweden. She’d always had his back, so of course, Johan agreed.
But just as Cecilia and their family returned to Kalmar, guess who else pulled into town? Her creditor Johan Diamond, along with a fleet of 50 ships. Cecilia was like, “Johan, may I arrest him?” And Johan was like, “I’ll allow it.” So Diamond’s fleet was confiscated, and he was sent to prison.
Cecilia’s husband, Christoph, then promised Johan he would go get mercenaries to help with the ongoing war against Russia, and left town. But in fact, he did not do that, and in fact, he never returned. Cecilia was, honestly, better off without him by now, as Johan granted her the city of Arboga as her personal fief.
Cecilia, now Countess of Arboga (a title she invented for herself), had the authority to manage the trading policy and the legal system and see to it that royal laws were respected. She also managed certain taxation on imports and exports. And she was also focused on getting her dowry paid to her. Back when she married Christoph, she should have gotten a huge amount of money, but Erik did not provide it to her. Johan also could not afford what was owed to her, so in lieu of money, he gave her a fleet of ships. And so Cecilia entered her Pirate Queen era.
Cecilia used her new fleet to attack ships on the Baltic Sea. She got carried away, however. Johan had several licenses issued to pirates on the Baltic Sea with permission to attack ships on their way to Russia to disturb Russian trade during the war between Sweden and Russia. But Cecilia violated this by also attacking ships from friendly nations like the Danish people, causing an international incident between Sweden and Denmark.
And then, a guy named Charles de Mornay hatched an incredibly dance-based scheme to assassinate Johan. Charles was also, fun fact, one of the guards back in the days of the Vadstenabullret, so he’d been all up in Cecilia’s business for decades now. He’d been close pals with her dead brother Erik and so was against Johan for that, among other reasons. He was in contact with Christina of Denmark and the French ambassador in Copenhagen, all of whom wanted to assassinate Johan for various reasons. Their plan was the greatest thing you’ve ever heard since the ski-based coup, so get ready.
A group of Scottish mercenaries were in town, preparing to depart to the Baltic. These mercenaries were also dancers and were planning to perform a sword dance in front of Johan and the other royals. And the scheme was they would then use these swords to kill him. Now, I don’t know if they were going to first dance with the swords and then kill him or to just pretend like they’re going to dance but instead kill him, but either way, this is camp, and I’m here for it. Their plan after killing Johan was that Charles de Mornay would be placed on the throne as the new king.
But before we could get to Dance Dance Revolution, the plot was revealed. Charles de Mornay was arrested, interrogated, and executed. It was never made clear who participated in the plot, but it is noted that suspected conspirators often gathered at meetings in the apartment of Cecilia’s sister, Princess Elisabet. And Cecilia herself had frequently been seen at these meetings. So, the sisters were somewhat compromised because they were maybe involved in this scheme, although they were never accused. And while Cecilia had been loyal to Johan for ages, she was a pirate now and was angry with him for pirate reasons and was now anti-Johan, so she was probably involved in the sword dance scheme.
Johan thought the same. So he ordered that Cecilia was not to be allowed in Stockholm Castle during his absence in case she tried to pull another coup. He also orders the governors in Östergötland to keep Cecilia under watch and not to let her have access to any royal castle. This is a part where, had she been male, or had women been allowed to inherit the throne, Cecilia would probably have seized power herself. But instead, she's just kind of supporting people, just kind of freelance chaos, just like whatever is best for her.
Anyway, time goes by, and in 1575, her husband Christoph dies, making their son Edward Fortunatus the new child of Margrave of Baden-Rodemachern. As he was in Sweden with his mother, he was Margrave in his absence. According to the marriage contract, Cecilia was allowed to be regent should her son succeed while still a child. But because nothing is ever straightforward in this family, her in-laws provided documents which confiscated her rights and took control over the entire place, Baden-Rodemachern, officials, guardians, and regents of her son. Cecilia was not going to accept this, so she sent representatives to secure her rights, but the representatives were turned away, and her authority as regent was not acknowledged.
Simultaneously to this, Elizabeth I re-enters the story to offer Cecilia a new husband: Elizabeth’s boyfriend, Robert Dudley. Why did Elizabeth make this offer? Well, as you may have read in my newsletter about Lettice Knollys, Robert Dudley was falling for Elizabeth’s younger doppelganger and Elizabeth did not like that. She hoped by marrying Robert off, she could get him to stop pursuing Lettice. But Cecilia turned down this offer because she didn’t want any part of that toxic mess.
Cecilia then converted to Catholicism as a way to secure her and her son's rights to Baden-Rodemachern. And then two years later, Spanish ambassador Francisco de Ireso arrived in Sweden because Johan, still the king, wanted to make an alliance with Spain. Johan suggested that Cecilia, who is now a Catholic, could be made governor in one of the Spanish lands in Europe, preferably Luxembourg. So Cecilia invited Francisco to Arboga, where she lived, and started her own negotiations with him. Her negotiation included that she would get her pirate fleet to work for Spain in the Netherlands. When Johan's negotiations with Spain failed, he became suspicious of what Cecilia was up to, and like rightfully so, because she was definitely going behind his back to get things figured out for herself, and also, she had taken Francisco as her lover.
Johan had Francisco placed in house arrest and banned him from any contact with Cecilia. Cecilia bribed her way into Stockholm in secret to try to visit Francisco. She was caught and brought to Johan, which caused “a great scene between the siblings.”
This ended with Cecilia going back to Baden-Rodemachern with Francisco to take control of her lands and wrest control of the place from her relatives in the name of her young son. The lovers lived together in Baden for a time before he continued on his way to Spain. During this time, she gave birth to a daughter, which caused a scandal as she had by that time been a widow for four years. So clearly, the father was Francisco. This daughter was placed in a convent by Edward Fortunatus, against Cecilia's will. Cecilia was not allowed to see her daughter, whose birth name we do not know. All we know is the name she took as a nun was Charitas.
Cecilia’s alliance with Spain eventually made her lose the support of Johan again in 1581 when he refused to let her back into Sweden. Cecilia lived on the income of her Swedish estate for another four years until Johan confiscated her estate because he was mad at her (again). This time, he didn’t appreciate how she wasn’t supportive of his marriage to Gunilla Bielke. Gunilla was a noblewoman but not a royal, and Cecilia and the other siblings felt it was inappropriate for a king to marry a non-royal person, but Johan was like “Bet” and just took her estate.
Cecilia, by the way, had been continuing to amass lots of debts because that is just the lifestyle in which she lives. She became a diplomat. She courted various Catholic power holders on behalf of herself and her son in economic and political matters. So she was just travelling around being sort of a freelance diplomat, trying to get money and power for her son until 1596, when other family members deposed Edward Fortunatus for marrying a non-royal woman.
Cecilia kept on with her diplomatic life, including in 1613 when she addressed the Imperial German Roman Assembly in Regensburg in favour of her second son, Philip, who the Protestants had imprisoned in Baden. The men of this family truly cannot stay out of prison. Meanwhile, Cecilia was a target of Protestant propaganda for her conversion to Catholicism and political activity. Like so many women in history, that meant people trashed her for being too sexy. The most known slander against her was a story by Everhard van Reed. He claimed that she hosted a brothel in Antwerp and that her son had to drag her from it by her hair.
Cecilia was forced to support herself by loans due to her lack of income and, therefore, was often hunted by creditors. In 1618, her estate was taken, and she fled by carriage to make contact with the Archbishop of Trier in Luxembourg to escape her prosecutors or her persecutors. In an action sequence, she had to barrel roll out of the carriage to jump over the border to Lorraine.
Upon the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, her in-laws were deposed by the Imperial Army and her grandson (the son of Edward Fortunatus or Philip, I’m not sure which) was named the Margrave. Cecilia was, therefore, allowed to return to her estate in Rotomachern and spent her last years in comfort there as the grandmother of the Margrave. She passed away at age 86 and is buried under the floor in the church in Baden-Rodemachern.
And that is the saga of Princess Cecilia, the princess, pirate, diplomat, and truly scandalous legend.
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Ann Foster is a writer and podcaster. She’s currently writing a nonfiction biography of Caroline of Brunswick. Don’t know who that is? You will soon! She’s represented by Amy Bishop-Wycisk at Trellis Literary Management.
References:
One of three Katarinas in this story.
Or were they???
That was bloody amazing! Thank you so much for this highly entertaining read! I would totally watch a limited series about Cecilia!
I guffawed at the barrel roll over the border.