Anna Vasa of Sweden

Anna Vasa Anna of Sweden ( _pl. Anna Wazówna) (17 May 1568 - 26 February 1625) was a royal sister of the monarch of Poland, Sweden and Lithuania Sigismund III Vasa and starosta of Brodnica and Golub.

Biography

Anna was born as the youngest child of Duke John of Finland and Catherine Jagellonica, sister of Sigismund II Augustus of Poland. Her birth took place in Eskilstuna and was just after her family was released from captivity at Gripsholm, during which she had been conceived.

Her father ascended in 1569 to be throne of Sweden. Although her mother had educated her to Catholicism, she converted to the Lutheran creed later in 1580s. She was a specialist in medicinal herbs and kept her own apothecary. Her brother became in 1587 King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Anna went with her brother to Poland in 1587, but was sent back in 1589 because the Polish court greatly disliked her being a Lutheran and the influence she had over her brother. After this she lived in Sweden during the reign of her father. When Sigismund succeeded in Sweden, he planned to make Anna the Regent of that kingdom, while he was to reside in Poland. Instead, their uncle, Charles, Duke of Södermanland, got the Swedish council to appoint himself. Duke Charles, a fierce Protestant, however called Anna a poisoneress and used that in denigration of Sigismund. In 1595, she let her lady-in-waiting Sigrid Brahe marry Johan Gyllenstierna, which was considered a scandal as Brahe was engaged to another man by her family, and she was much disliked by her uncle, the regent and future king.

When her uncle took the throne in 1598, she left for Poland to live in her brother Sigismund III's, court, where she spent the rest of her life, although she did return to the Swedish court on several brief occasions, among them in 1618. She was known as "Anna of Svecia" (Anna of Sweden) and was a Protestant member of a Catholic royal family. She became very respected because of her great learning. In Poland, she became her brother's political advisor and acted as protector for the exiled Swedish loyalists and Protestants. She had to leave the court in Poland, because she insisted on staying Lutheran, but as an income she received administration of Strasburg in Prussia.

Anna engaged herself to marry her father's first cousin, count Gustav Brahe. Who had a career as general in Poland. Her brother Sigismund was not adverse to the idea. Although it was not the highest desirable marriage prospect proposed to her. She declined all other suitors. However, time passed and nothing came of her intended marriage. A definite explanation thereof is lacking in historical sources.

Anna's appanage was Strasburg (now Brodnica), a Prussian district near the Baltic coast, where she resided in Golub and Strasburg in the 1620s.

Anna remained unmarried. She is buried at the Church of St.Mary in Toruń, Poland, but only several years after her death, as a Pope had first forbidden the burial of a Protestant in a blessed graveyard in catholic Poland. Only her nephew, king Władysław IV Vasa, got that decree reversed. He founded a beautiful black Dębnik marble tomb monument with white alabaster figure of his beloved aunt.

Ancestors

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1= Anna Vasa
2= John III of Sweden
3= Catherine Jagellonica of Poland
4= Gustav I of Sweden
5= Margaret Leijonhufvud
6= Sigismund I the Old
7= Bona Sforza
8= Erik Johansson (Vasa)
9= Cecilia Månsdotter (Eka)
10=Erik Abrahamsson (Leijonhufvud)
11=Ebba Eriksdotter (Vasa)
12=Casimir IV Jagiellon
13=Elisabeth of Austria
14=Gian Galeazzo Sforza
15=Isabella of Naples

Gallery

References

* Herman Lindqvist, "Historien om Sverige; Gustav Vasas söner och döttrar" (In Swedish).
* http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0024.html