page_title: Karin Månsdotter
section_title: Widowhood
hierarchical_section_title: Karin Månsdotter / Widowhood
context_page_description: Karin Månsdotter was first a mistress of King Eric XIV of Sweden and then briefly queen as his wife.
context_section_description: Karin Månsdotter returned to the Swedish court on two occasions. In 1577, newly widowed, she travelled to Stockholm to ask for financial support, which she received. The second time was in 1582, when she met with Queen Catherine Jagiellon and Queen Dowager Katarina Stenbock at Svartsjö Castle, in what was called "The Meeting of Three Queens Catherine".
  In 1587, her daughter Sigrid was appointed lady-in-waiting to the new king's daughter, Princess Anna, who followed her brother King Sigismund to Warsaw where he had been elected king. Karin accompanied her on her journey. In Warsaw, she met her son Gustaf again, twelve years after he was taken from her. She saw him once again in Estonia in 1595, and unlike the previous meeting, this meeting has been confirmed.  He was now a Catholic, had forgotten her and they could not speak to each other because he had forgotten the Swedish language, the only language Karin was able to speak; she could identify him only by his birthmarks.  He was poor and worked as a mercenary.  She tried to help him financially, and for the rest of her life, tried to get permission for him to return to Sweden, but never saw him again.  Her daughter Sigrid, on the other hand, married two Swedish noblemen and often spent time with her mother.
  Karin became respected and liked in Finland; during the great peasant rebellion Cudgel War in 1596–97, the rebels refrained from plundering her estate.  She was also successful in managing the affairs of the estate; in 1587, Liuksiala Manor was one of the most lucrative estates in Finland, and in 1599 it became the second most lucrative. She kept her neutrality during the Finnish aristocracy's conflict with Charles IX of Sweden in 1597–99. Her daughter, whose spouse had been loyal to King Sigismund, was forced to flee from Charles IX to Riga in 1598, but when she returned in 1603, Karin gave her refuge.
  In August 1605, Charles IX gave instructions that Karin and her niece (her sister's daughter, who was apparently staying with her) should be moved to Stockholm. It is not known why, but it may have been because of the political situation in Russia, where her son was a participant.  However, the instructions were never carried out.  In 1606, Karin asked Charles for permission to free her tenants from the royal taxes so she could use their tax money to buy the freedom of her son, who was at the time a prisoner in Russia, but the king refused. In 1607, Karin nonetheless forbade her tenants to pay the royal taxes. The king then sent her his representatives to explain that this could not be accepted. Soon after, the affair ended with the death of her son in captivity. She died peacefully after a period of illness at Liuksiala. She is buried in the Cathedral of Turku.
  Karin Månsdotter was the first royal mistress to a Swedish monarch to become queen since Christina Abrahamsdotter in 1470. Although three Queens of Sweden in her same century were not of royal blood, but noblewomen, Karin Månsdotter was the only one before Silvia (1976) who was a commoner — not counting Queen Desideria, who although born a commoner became Princess of Ponte Corvo four years before becoming Swedish royalty.
caption: Bust of Queen Catherine at her gravesite.
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