Karin Månsdotter (in English Catherine; 6 November 1550 – 13 September 1612) was first a mistress of King Eric XIV of Sweden and then briefly queen as his wife.
Early life
Karin was born in Stockholm to a soldier and later prison guard named Måns (her surname is a patronym, literally "daughter of Måns") and his wife Ingrid. Her mother came from a family of peasants in Uppland, and was said to have sold vegetables on the square. Both her parents are believed to have died 1560. According to legend, Eric XIV first noticed her selling nuts at a square in Stockholm, and was so astonished by her beauty that he took her to court as his lover; in reality, however, Karin Månsdotter was in 1564 employed as a servant to Karin, wife of the king's trusted court musician Gert Cantor, who held a tavern and a guest house in his home, and likely served their guests as a waitress. She was a maid to the King's sister, Princess Elizabeth, when she became mistress to the king in 1565.
Royal mistress
Karin seems to have entered into a relationship with Eric in the spring of 1565. The position seems to have been quite official, as she was given expensive clothes and appeared with him openly at court, and was given her own apartment and servants. In the summer of 1565, she belonged to the king's retinue to Skara, where she was provided for from the bailiff's provision for the warfaring army, which was otherwise reserved for the army, and illustrates her new status. The royal accounts states that she was given a new and expensive wardrobe and her own staff, among them her own former employer: Karin, the wife of Gert Cantor. When her daughter Sigrid was born in 1566, she was treated as a legitimate princess. Before this the king had several mistresses in parallel, such as Agda Persdotter and Doredi Valentinsdotter, but when Karin entered his life, he dismissed them all. She also received education and learned to read and write. His treatment of her caused much astonishment. The ideas of the time suggested witchcraft and love potions to explain the deep attachment.
Karin is reported to have had a fiancé before she met Eric, an ensign named Maximilian. After she became royal mistress, he managed to get into the palace, where he was discovered by Carl the manservant and taken to the king, who had him killed. According to chronicler Daniel Hund, he was in fact trapped by Eric, who had asked Karin to send for him. The truth of the story is unknown.
Karin Månsdotter's portrait was done only in her husband's scribbled drawings in captivity and in a latter-day bust at her grave (a portrait long believed to be of her has been discovered to be of her sister-in-law). She was described as very beautiful with long blond hair and innocent eyes, and her personality seems to have been calm, humble and natural. The king was mentally unstable, and she seems to have been the only one who could comfort him and calm him down, which made her appreciated by his relatives, who considered her good for him. She had no personal enemies at court, but she was not respected, and their marriage in 1568 was considered a scandal and may have contributed to his dethronement.
Sometime in 1567, Eric decided to marry Karin in accordance to the agreement he made with the council in 1561, in which he had been promised to marry whom he pleased. His plans was supported by his advisor Jöran Persson, as the foreign negotiations had failed and a native aristocrat as queen would have threatened Persson's position. Karin is reported to have been a good friend of Persson's wife Anna Andersdotter, who apparently often accompanied her on her travels between the different royal palaces.
It is unknown whether Karin Månsdotter had any political influence, but a popular image in Swedish history was of her serving as a counterweight to the king's advisor Jöran Persson; a painting by Georg von Rosen three hundred years later (1871) illustrates this, showing the king on the floor, confused by his inner demons, with Karin Månsdotter at one side holding his hand, looking like an innocent angel giving him strength to resist the demands of Jöran Persson, standing on the other side of him, trying to get him to sign a document.