Kings and Queens of Sweden
- Gustav I (born 1496, reigned 1523–1560)
- Eric XIV (reigned 1560–1568)
- John III (reigned 1568–1592)
- Sigismund (reigned 1592–1599)
- Charles IX (reigned 1599–1611; officially became king in March 1604)
- Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav Adolf the Great) (reigned 1611–1632)
- Christina (reigned 1632–1654)
In 1654 Christina, the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant Champion of the Thirty Years' War, abdicated, converted to Roman Catholicism and left the country. The throne passed to her half-cousin Charles X of the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a cadet branch of the Wittelsbachs.
The kings of the house of Holstein-Gottorp, which produced the kings of Sweden from 1751 to 1818, emphasized their Vasa descent through a female line. The current ruling house of Bernadotte similarly claims a Vasa mantle: Charles XIV was an adopted son of Charles XIII; his son Oscar I married a Vasa descendant Josephine of Leuchtenberg; their grandson Gustav V married Victoria of Baden who was a great-grandchild of Gustav IV Adolf of the house Holstein-Gottorp.
Read more about this topic: House Of Vasa
Famous quotes containing the words kings and/or queens:
“As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves.... Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
““Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind,
It might call up a new age, calling to mind
The queens that were imagined long ago,
Is but half yours....””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)