AKA Sten Svantesson Sture

Born: 1492
Birthplace: Sweden
Died: 3-Feb-1520
Location of death: Lake Mälar, Sweden
Cause of death: War

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Government

Nationality: Sweden
Executive summary: Regent of Sweden, 1530-20

Sten Sture, commonly called Sten Sture the Younger, the son of Svante Sture. After his father's death he was elected regent by the majority of the lesser gentry to the exclusion of the candidate of the high aristocratic faction, Erik Trolle, whence the inextinguishable hatred of the two families. In 1513 the aged archbishop of Uppsala, Jakob Ulfsson, resigned in favor of Gustaf Trolle, son of Erik Trolle, who was elected by the cathedral chapter and recommended to the pope by the regent on condition that the new archbishop should do him homage. Unfortunately these two masterful young men (Trolle was twenty-seven, Sture barely twenty-three), who represented respectively the highest ecclesiastical and the highest civil authority in Sweden, were only too prone to carry on the family feud. On the return of Trolle from Rome he refused to do homage to the regent until all his enemies had been punished, and allied himself with Christian II of Denmark, who hastened to the archbishop's assistance when Sture besieged Trolle in his stronghold at Stäke (1516). Nevertheless Sture not only defeated Christian II at Vedla, but took and razed Stäke to the ground, and shut up the archbishop in a monastery at Vesteras. A riksmöte, or national assembly, held at Stockholm in 1517, declared unanimously that Sweden would never recognize Trolle as archbishop because he had defied the regent and brought the enemy into the land. The war with Denmark was then vigorously resumed. On Midsummer Day 1518 Christian II appeared before Stockholm with his fleet and landed an army, but was again defeated by Sten Sture at Bränkyrka. An attempt of the papal legate Arcimboldus to mediate between the two countries at Arboga (December 1518) failed. In 1520 Christian, with a regular army, and armed with a papal bull excommunicating Sture, again invaded Sweden. The armies clashed near Börgerund on Lake Aarunden (January 19). At the very beginning Sture was hit by a bullet and his peasant levies fled to the wild mountainous regions of Tiveden where they made a last desperate but unsuccessful stand. The mortally-wounded regent took to his sledge and posted towards Stockholm, but expired on the ice of Lake Mälar two days later, in his 27th year.

Father: Svante Sture (Swedish senator, d. 1512)
Wife: Christina Gyllenstierna

    Shot: Battle (19-Jan-1520)

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