During the past summer, I did something I’ve been planning to do for years: I visited Kalmar Castle, which is one of the older castles in Sweden. Initially built in the 13th century, it reached its full glory as a Renaissance Palace in the 16th century, but nothing really lasts for ever does it? The …
Evil deeds and their grisly consequences – of crime and punishment Read More »
In Sweden, Kristian II of Denmark has the not-so-flattering epithet ”the tyrant”. After all, it was because of his duplicity that the streets of Stockholm ran red with blood one cold November night in 1520 as one after another of the Swedish nobles who’d fought against Danish dominion were summarily executed. In Denmark, obviously, he …
When Isabella of Austria became Elisabeth of Denmark – the story of a young queen Read More »
In one of my recent posts, I wrote about Hans II of Denmark and his wife, Kristina. Not a marital union that ended all that happily—not after Hans became so infatuated with the fair Edle he forgot that key word discretion, thereby humiliating his loyal wife before the entire court. Well, so thought the queen …
From royal prince to mendicant friar – the story of Jakob of Dacia Read More »
Sometimes, I start out by researching one person and end up fascinated by another. In this particular case, I wanted to know more about Hans II, King of Denmark and Norway (“And Sweden!” he adds, but as he was only king here for like three years, I see that as more of a parenthesis) This …
Ms Ironbeard, King Hans and the failure of a royal marriage Read More »
I wrote this post several years ago, but it remains a favourite of mine, mainly because the idea of mary Queen of Scots and John Knox working together as marriage counsellors is so…wow? Impossible? So, I give you Mary and John and their efforts to save a failing marriage! These days, we tend to have …
The matter of an infected Scottish marriage and its consequences Read More »
Today, I am hosting a stop on the book tour for State of Treason by Paul Walker. It is a somewhat unusual book tour in that the promoted format is the audio version. Audio books is a relatively new thing for me–but I realise I am WAY behind the times here. I am also rather …
State of Treason – welcoming Paul Walker and his spying protagonist Read More »
I am presently taking part in the Historical Writer’s Forum Blog Hop. This year’s theme is “Momentuous events”, and as history is choc-full of momentuous events, it wasn’t exactly easy to whittle things down. But when restricting myself to momentuous events in July, today’s subject leapt out and grabbed me by the throat. Well, figuratively …
Rise, wash, convert – 25 of July 1593 was an unusual day in the life of Henri IV Read More »
Renaissance princesses usually had one purpose in life: to wed as arranged by their male family members and, preferably, present their husbands with an heir or two. It didn’t really matter how powerful or rich your dynasty was—a woman was an asset to create new alliances, full stop. Naturally, little princesses were fully aware of …
Some months ago, I visited Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Even those with no Swedish can probably work out that Nationalmuseum means National museum—somewhat of a misnomer, IMO, as a lot of the stuff on display comes from other places than Sweden. That’s what happens when an ambitious up-and-coming military nation sweeps through a broken Europe in …
Today, we’re going to spend some time with two little Swedish boys. They happen to share a couple of things: both of them were named Gustav. Both of them belonged to the Vasa dynasty (in the case of prince number two, he was really surnamed Holstein-Gottorp, but would become known as a Vasa prince). Both …
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