Profiles Past: King Erik XIV of Sweden
The thing is with a hereditary monarchy, it’s sort of a gamble; you’re never quite sure what kind of ruler you’re going to be lumped with for the foreseeable future. True, there’s not as much on the line these days when the power of all the world’s monarchs barely matches that of a Blockbuster giftcard, but during the 16th century it often meant life or death to a whole lot of people.
As was the case for the Swedes under the reign of King Erik XIV.
Erik’s father, Gustav I, was a man of both glorious beard and insatiable anger. During his reign, Gustav became notorious for his largely unwarranted acts of violence; chasing servants around the castle with a knife, ripping out his daughters’ hair when they disobeyed him and even beating a goldsmith to death after they’d taken a day off without asking.
Despite this, since taking the crown as head of a rebel army in 1523, he had become revered for his leadership skills and led Sweden into a time of relative peace with their neighbours; Denmark and Norway. Establishing a monarchy system that survives to this day, he is sometimes even regarded as the “father of the Swedish nation”.
Baby Erik was born ten years into Gustav’s reign in 1533 at Stockholm Castle. His mother, Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg, died prematurely at the age of just 21, leaving a two-year old prince in the hands of his father and a slew of surrogate mothers.
Despite a rather unstable family environment, Erik’s life began promisingly. An intelligent child, he was competent in several foreign languages, mathematics, history, art and astrology and even began cultivating his own beard as a young adult. Once he realised his reasonable effort could never really match his father’s he soon turned his attention elsewhere: getting plastered at parties.
Binges began during his teenage years and only accelerated when Gustav granted him the title of duke, leading to more lavish affairs for the now 24-year old. This lifestyle did nothing to impress the King, who as we’ve learnt previously isn’t someone you want to get on the wrong side of. But Erik didn’t stop there.
To further incur the wrath of his dad he began sending marriage proposals to eligible ladies all over Europe, including Renata of Lorraine, Anna of Saxony, Christine of Hesse, Mary Queen of Scots and, ambitiously, Queen Elizabeth I; ruler of a country Gustav considered at the time largely unimportant and unworthy of Sweden’s alliance. Nevertheless Erik was quite set on Queen Liz for one reason or another and pursued her for several years, sending her many passionate letters and even planting his own half-brother in her court as a love ambassador of sorts.
In spite of his charm, intelligence and reported good looks, Gustav failed in all of his royal romantic endeavours, either losing interest in his pursuits or, in the case of the Queen of England, running into a cold, hard, ginger brick wall.
Liz was said to enjoy Erik’s flattering letters at first, but soon grew bored of his persistent approach, replying to his marriage proposal in 1560:
“We are grieved we cannot gratify your serene highness with the same level of affection… we have never conceived a feeling of that kind of affection toward anyone.
“We do not conceive in our hearts to take a husband, but highly commend the single life.”
He was about to take the bold step of visiting England to further woo her, but Gustav was timely enough to keel over just before he left. Erik was to be king.
His crowning ceremony in 1560 was a typically grand event and he soon decorated and furnished his castles to a degree of luxury never seen under his father, most likely to impress his legion of party guests and female conquests.
In their excellent podcast on Erik, Stuff You Missed in History Class attributed much of this pompery as to “hide a very deep-seated insecurity”, which makes perfect sense next to his philandering nature, incessant drinking and, of course, the beard.
This insecurity could well have come to disastrous effect later in his reign, but, as in life, he began well. While his own expansionist way of ruling may have differed massively from his father’s, it did reap its own benefits: a “landgrab” in Estonia led to increased power over the Baltic Sea and it’s subsequent trade routes. As well as this he established a new constitution for Sweden and a new institution in the form of supreme court.
However, cracks soon began to show as Erik exhibited signs of extreme paranoia, possibly a manifestation of his aforementioned insecurities. Firstly his half-brothers, the dukes, had much of power taken from them to prevent any sort of uprising. The future King John III, Erik’s oldest sibling, was even imprisoned for “high treason” in 1563 and remained so for several long years.
Marriage to a commoner, Karin Månsdotter, may have provided Erik with some happiness in his life, as well as several children, but it did nothing to improve his rapidly deteriorating mental condition. Once she had joined him in royal court, he was certain that the other nobles were making fun of him and Karin behind their backs.
This, alongside the pressures of running a nation during the Nordic Seven Years’ War, soon led the King to reveal some all-too-familiar family traits.
Gustav-like fits of rage became more and more common, servants were chased around the castle and often killed, coughing in court could lead to accusations of treason: you were either in his good books, or death was just around the corner.
Erik’s paranoia and fury came to a head in 1566 focused fully on the noble Sture family. He was once more incensed by delusions of usurpation, this time at the young soldier Nils Svantesson Sture, so much so that Nils was quickly arrested, imprisoned and horribly tortured.
After his initial release, Nils was arrested again along with several other members of his family, including his father Svante Sture, under suspicion of sabotaging the King’s seemingly never-ending marriage plans. This time they weren’t so lucky.
At first Erik seemed to dismiss his accusations; he wrote to Svante in reconciliation and visited him, dropping to his knees in regret, begging forgiveness. But a mere few hours after leaving he returned, enraged by ill news. He personally stabbed Nils Sture to death and, as he left once more, ordered the guards to murder every prisoner they held, including Svante Sture.
As if that wasn’t a bloody enough resolution, Erik, at that point quite distressed, ran into childhood tutor Dionysius Beurreus, who tried desperately to calm him. The King immediately ordered his death and he too was killed by the guards.
Erik XIV, King of Sweden was found some days later in peasant’s clothing and still acting rather unreasonably, after disappearing into woods the day of the murders. Once he was returned to Stockholm, his position was irreparable.
A council ruled in his stead during long, unpredictable bouts of depression and isolation, where he would disappear to various castles without notice. This did not sit well with Swedish nobles as, at that point, Erik had largely filled his council with commoners he deemed loyal, amongst them his wife and most trusted counsellor Jöran Persson, and had ousted many powerful families from his court.
Peasants ruling the country was very much the final straw for these nobles, as if the King’s declining mental condition hadn’t been enough. His half-brother John, who had been released from prison some years prior, raised an army with many dissatisfied Swedish dukes and took Stockholm from an incapacitated Erik towards the end of 1568.
While his counsellor was executed, Erik was spared, but unceremoniously booted from the throne and imprisoned in many of the castles he had partied in during his younger years. He spent nearly ten years locked away, at first with his family, then on his own, until his death aged 44 in 1577. This was officially put down to a “long illness”, but, as often seems to be the way with royal siblings, King John most likely sanctioned his murder.
Popular opinion reflected this and it was said his final meal consisted of a distinctly austere pea soup, poisoned of course. The story was substantiated in 1958 when his remains were subjected to new science and showed signs of a lethal level of arsenic.
And that was it for Erik of Sweden, I probably made it sound much longer, but his reign was a short one: exactly eight years, and his life wasn’t too lengthy either. He’ll likely forever be defined by his mental illness, often identified by modern historians as schizophrenia, and while you cannot forgive him for the cruelty of many of his actions, you can imagine he could’ve been a great leader in different circumstances.
What is even more telling is when you consider how strongly hereditary schizophrenia is, alongside the stark similarity between his father’s temper and his own. His half-brother Magnus also suffered from the condition, suffering severely in his early twenties, there are many stories of the “Mad Duke” in Sweden.
So I must return to what I said at the very start of this profile: that in a hereditary monarchy you never know what you’re going to get. I must admit that isn’t entirely true, as the warning signs for the anger, cruelty and mental fragility in Erik’s reign were visible before he was even born.
