Karin in time became everything to the king. He no longer sought for a bride in foreign courts, no other women had attraction for him, and at length, when the charming peasant girl had borne him a son, he determined to find a way to make her his queen. Those were days when it was not safe to meddle with the love affairs of a king. One unfortunate young man named Maximilian, who had loved Karin and sought her hand in marriage, one day intruded into the women's apartment of the palace, where he was seized. Erik, burning with jealousy, had him condemned on a false pretence, sewed up in a bag, and cast into the lake.
After that no one dared interfere with the love episode of Erik and Karin. Men said she had bewitched him by a love-philter. Some of the courtiers who feared her influence upon the king sought to disgrace her, with the result that her intercession alone saved their lives from the incensed monarch.
Erik's love for Karin never seemed to change. On beautiful summer afternoons, when he would sail with a merry party on Lake Malar, Karin was always of the party and the object of his tender attention. As they rowed home at night he would sit beside her, contemplating the beauty of the starry northern skies and listening to the songs from the shore or from distant boats. These were executed by his orders, the words and music often being his. One of these songs, in which he praises his "Shepherdess," promises to love her forever, and bids her a "thousand good-nights," is still extant.
The time at length came--this was after the period of his foreign wars and his insanity--that he asked permission of the legislative body to marry whom he pleased, at home or abroad. After this was given he privately married Karin, and subsequently determined upon a public celebration of his marriage and her coronation as queen. The chief families of the country were invited to the ceremony, but they neither came nor sent excuses. The coronation went on, notwithstanding, and the peasant's daughter Karin became queen of Sweden as Queen Catherine.
Not alone by this marriage, but in a dozen other ways King Erik had made enemies and he was now near the end of his career. A rebellion soon broke out against him, headed by Duke John, who had some time before been liberated, and by his younger brother Duke Charles. Though Erik fought with skill and courage, the insurrection was successful, he being taken prisoner and losing the throne. John was chosen to succeed him as king.