page_title: John III of Sweden
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: John III of Sweden / Family
caption_attribution_description: Gunilla Bielke (1568-1597).
context_page_description: John III was King of Sweden from 1569 until his death. He was the son of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second wife Margaret Leijonhufvud. He was also, quite autonomously, the ruler of Finland, as Duke John from 1556 to 1563. In 1581 he assumed also the title Grand Prince of Finland. He attained the Swedish throne after a rebellion against his half-brother Eric XIV. He is mainly remembered for his attempts to close the gap between the newly established Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Catholic church.
  His first wife was Catherine Jagellonica of the Polish-Lithuanian ruling family, and their son Sigismund eventually ascended both the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish thrones.
context_section_description: John married his first wife, Catherine Jagellonica of Poland (1526–83), of the House of Jagiello, in Vilnius on 4 October 1562. In Sweden, she is known as Katarina Jagellonica.  She was the sister of king  Sigismund II Augustus of Poland.  Their children were:
  Isabella (1564–1566)
  Sigismund (1566–1632), King of Poland (1587–1632), King of Sweden (1592–99), and Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania
  Anna (1568–1625)
  He married his second wife, Gunilla Bielke (1568–1592), on 21 February 1585; they had a son:
  John (1589–1618), firstly Duke of Finland, then from 1608 Duke of Ostrogothia. The young duke married his first cousin Maria Elisabet (1596–1618), daughter of Charles IX of Sweden (reigned 1599–1611)
  With his mistress Karin Hansdotter (1532–1596) he had at least four illegitimate children:
  Sofia Gyllenhielm (1556–1583), who married Pontus De la Gardie
  Augustus Gyllenhielm (1557–1560)
  Julius Gyllenhielm (1559–1581)
  Lucretia Gyllenhielm (1560–1585)
  John cared for Karin and their children even after he married Catherine Jagellonica, in 1562.  He got Karin a husband who would care for her and the children: in 1561, she married nobleman Klas Andersson (Västgöte), a friend and servant of John. They had a daughter named Brita. He continued supporting Karin and his illegitimate children as king, from 1568. In 1572 Karin married again, as her first husband was executed for treason by Eric XIV in 1563, to a Lars Henrikson, whom John ennobled in 1576 to care for his issue with Karin. The same year, he made his daughter Sofia a lady in the castle, as a servant to his sister Princess Elizabeth of Sweden. In 1580, John married her to Pontus de la Gardie. She later died giving birth to Jacob De la Gardie.
caption: Gunilla Bielke
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