Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Vasa Dynasty
The brutal 'Stockholm Bloodbath' sparked off an insurrection in 1520 under the leadership
of the young nobleman Gustav Ericsson Vasa (1496-1560). Having failed to raise enough
support, Gustav was fleeing for the Norwegian border when two exhausted skiers caught
him up to tell him that the people had changed their minds. This legendary ski journey is
celebrated every year in the Vasaloppet race between Sälen and Mora.
Gustav I ruled from 1523 to 1560, leaving behind a powerful, centralised nation state.
He introduced the Reformation to Sweden and passed the power on to his descendants
though the 1544 parliament act that made the monarchy hereditary.
After Gustav Vasa's death in 1560, bitter rivalry broke out among his sons. His eldest
child, Erik XIV (1533-77), held the throne for eight years in a state of not-unjustified
paranoia. After committing a trio of injudicious murders at Uppsala Slott, Erik was de-
posed by his half-brother Johan III (1537-92) and dispatched to the afterlife via poisoned
pea soup at Örbyhus Slott.
The last of the male Vasa rulers, 17-year-old Gustav II Adolf (1594-1632) proved to be
a military genius, recapturing southern parts of the country from Denmark and consolidat-
ing Sweden's control over the eastern Baltic. He was killed in battle on 6 November 1632,
a day remembered for centuries in Sweden as a moment of national trauma.
Gustav II Adolf's daughter Kristina was still a child in 1632, and her regent continued
her father's warlike policies. In 1654 Kristina abdicated in favour of her cousin Karl X
Gustav, ending the Vasa dynasty.
Queen Kristina was immortalised in August Strindberg's 1901 play, her life was chronicled
in Veronica Buckley's biography
Christina, Queen of Sweden
, and she was fictionalised in
the 1933 film
Queen Christina
, starring Greta Garbo.
