Vulgar History - The Scandalous Saga of Sweden's Pirate Princess Cecilia Gustavsdotter Vasa

00:00:00.080 Before you knew what a stock was, you traded snacks, cards, turns.

00:00:05.820 You knew what something was worth because you felt it.

00:00:09.300 That instinct to trade didn't disappear.

00:00:11.940 It just grew up.

00:00:13.500 TD Easy Trade taps into that instinct so you can build something real for the future.

00:00:18.480 With no minimums, no monthly fees, and 100 free trades.

00:00:22.280 You already got this.

00:00:23.880 Because you are made to trade.

00:00:26.420 And TD Easy Trade is made to help.

00:00:28.400 Download it now. 1.00

00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to another episode of vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast 0.94

00:00:51.160 my name is ann foster and actually this is not just another episode this is our tits out

00:00:56.520 holiday super special episode i did one of these last year and i feel like well i feel like i want

00:01:03.060 to do another one frankly but it's a time of year where i wanted to to give a gift to all of you

00:01:09.440 the tits out brigade because it's been a wild year for this podcast uh statistically uh there

00:01:18.280 was an increase of according to the analytics i was looking at uh 999 increase of listeners

00:01:25.800 people from all different countries which is really exciting to me i mean there's already

00:01:29.980 people you know the ogs you know who you are the people who listen to this podcast

00:01:34.460 uh from it started in november 2019 so this has really truly been a corona cast really um

00:01:44.620 anyway thank you all for listening this is my gift to you this episode and

00:01:51.120 yeah so just briefly about the whole like people listening from all different countries

00:01:55.640 What's fun about getting these sort of end-of-year statistics from Spotify and from other places is I can see where people are listening from.

00:02:02.620 And it's just an ever-increasing, I could never list every single country that people are listening from.

00:02:08.540 But I think it's amazing that people are listening from all different places to this podcast.

00:02:12.620 And I'm not going to say that this is like literally my goal, but it's something that's on my mind,

00:02:18.180 is that I would like to eventually do an episode about a Skandalicious Woman from each and every country where there is a listener.

00:02:25.640 and with that in mind today we're going to be looking at a woman from Sweden and so this

00:02:34.520 this topic was suggested by friend of the pod Kim who is in Sweden. Kim very graciously also

00:02:41.440 helped me out as Swedish cultural consultant because I turns out I until a week or two ago

00:02:49.880 I knew is zero about the history of Sweden, and now I know a little bit. Thanks to Kim for

00:02:55.980 pointing me in the right direction. But who we're going to be looking at today is Princess Cecilia

00:03:02.940 of Sweden. And I want to give you a non-spoiler warning, I guess, which is just like rest assured

00:03:10.980 I chose this person to profile in this episode because it's a nice story. She is not at any

00:03:19.860 point thrown in jail she is not um executed she is not you know trapped in a tower for 40 years

00:03:28.040 and then slowly dies of self-inflicted starvation like it's it's a good story last year the festive

00:03:34.560 spectacular was latisse knolls and i think this is sort of in a similar vein of just like

00:03:40.500 a woman who lived tits out and just because of her own uh tenacity but also just kind of 1.00

00:03:47.140 luck and who she was around she managed to live to a pretty decent old age um and not too much

00:03:55.520 it's not a bummer the last season i did like not the fredigan episodes and stuff but the season

00:04:00.660 before that full of bummers um and this is just like a good heartening story you know so pour your

00:04:08.100 your hot beverage in your festive mug wrap yourself in a blanket sit by your fire

00:04:13.220 and let's listen to the story of princess cecilia of sweden so the only reference i have for this

00:04:22.160 is wikipedia because as it turns out there are not any easily findable english language records

00:04:29.660 about cecilia of sweden which is a first for me i've always been able to find a couple you know

00:04:35.260 articles ideally a biography but this is luckily the wikipedia article has lots of stuff

00:04:43.100 and then i did a lot of cross-referencing with other wikipedia articles to learn more about her

00:04:47.920 father and her brothers the castle we're going to hear about later so anyway thank you wikipedia

00:04:52.600 um if you're thinking of making some year-end contributions i personally make a monthly

00:04:58.860 contribution to wikipedia because they provide information that is useful so if you like me

00:05:06.900 are not familiar with the history of sweden we're gonna explain a bit because you really

00:05:14.020 need to know the situation and especially about her dad to understand just why she was

00:05:18.240 so cool so um her name is so she's cecilia of sweden so in swedish her name is cecilia

00:05:28.060 Gustav's daughter Vasa. She was born November 16th, 1540 in Stockholm. So she was the daughter

00:05:37.020 of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second queen Margaret. So who was King Gustav I of Sweden

00:05:45.120 slash what is the history of Sweden as an independent monarchy? So Gustav is considered

00:05:51.480 to rank among the country's greatest kings, arguably the most significant ruler in the

00:05:56.180 swedish history so well actually here's another source i used so friend of the podcast allison

00:06:03.240 epstein author of a tip for the hangman which by the way is out in paperback now great christmas

00:06:08.460 present she does a newsletter called dirtbags through the ages which is very much a companion

00:06:13.580 to this podcast i think they work really well together where she writes just kind of about

00:06:17.740 historical dirtbags from the ages anyway i'll put a link to how you can subscribe to this in the show

00:06:24.500 notes but she i was telling her when i was researching cecilia and then she got hyped

00:06:29.340 about gustav so she wrote about gustav and so i read her thing about him and that helped me

00:06:34.560 understand it a bit better anyway so gustav

00:06:39.080 so he lived around the same time as henry the eighth so just to put this in a time and place

00:06:45.980 henry the eighth was over in england gustav was over in sweden uh gustav was not you know born

00:06:52.260 prince who became the king he kind of like sees the throne in this ski based coup situation but

00:07:00.420 so cecilia is the same age ish same generation as queen elizabeth the first so i just need to

00:07:10.000 mention the uh so what happened with gustav he there is this thing called the um

00:07:15.280 the kalmar union which was a union of so it was an agreement that unified sweden denmark and

00:07:26.220 norway under a single monarch gustav not a fan of this um various things happened to him and

00:07:31.700 eventually he just like strapped on his skis and decided to ski to take over and be the new king

00:07:37.260 and as he went um he sort of picked up followers and other people who supported him so they're

00:07:42.440 just like this crowd of people just like skiing through 16th century Sweden um and then they got

00:07:49.660 there and he basically took over and they went and then to commemorate this in Sweden every year

00:07:57.940 um they hold a cross-country ski race in honor of this that's called the Vasa Lopet which means

00:08:05.320 the Vasa race because remember he's well he's Gustav Vasa is like his last name so they ski

00:08:11.660 as he did 90 kilometers brackets 56 miles um it's the oldest cross-country ski race in the world

00:08:19.300 as well as the one with the highest number of participants so this has been it started in 1922

00:08:26.300 so ski-based revolution that's the dad is gustav and so as kim pointed out and this is like very

00:08:35.100 important to understand and appreciate cecilia's whole deal is that gustav is like very renowned

00:08:41.120 as like the father of the country like in a very serious sort of way he's like i was thinking about

00:08:49.640 how i can compare i'm knowing people are listening to this from various countries um i would compare

00:08:54.580 him to like george washington in the u.s meets winston churchill in england like he's not just

00:09:01.040 like a very notable leader um who did a lot of stuff that was significant but he's also

00:09:06.680 very serious like he's not a party king so bear that in mind when Cecilia starts doing her thing

00:09:15.780 this is who her dad is um he also just at the same time as Henry VIII he was one who cut ties

00:09:25.120 between Sweden and the pope slash catholic religion like three months after Henry VIII

00:09:30.540 did the same thing so the pope was probably just like oh what's going on why is everybody like

00:09:34.180 dumping me the pope so he's very important um he was also again this is not like the gustav podcast

00:09:42.500 but he also was maybe a tyrant and other things but basically he's the founding father of the

00:09:48.740 modern swedish state he got their independence from the other countries etc and he had a daughter

00:09:54.940 called cecilia so in fact he had a lot of children so his oldest child was eric um and then that was

00:10:03.600 with his first wife then the second wife he had several children i'm going to name them all because

00:10:07.560 most of them become characters in the story so the oldest so eric is the oldest then there's johan

00:10:14.200 katerina cecilia magnus anna sophia elizabeth and carl and just so you know um all of the sons

00:10:25.180 except for magnus go on to become king of sweden because we get into sort of a bit of a

00:10:29.840 fredigant type scenario where just like the brothers all want to be king instead of each

00:10:38.080 other which is interesting to me because you know the whole henry the eighth being the prime example

00:10:42.800 of this it's like oh i want to have like a lot of sons i want to have a lot of children so like

00:10:46.220 the succession is safe but with gustav's sons it's like well if you have too many sons they're

00:10:51.560 all gonna fight against and slash kill each other so do you want to have a lot of sons i don't know

00:10:56.980 It's, it reminds me of what happened with, um, with the Fredegans, the men in that where

00:11:02.300 the brothers kept killing each other.

00:11:04.340 Anyway, so Cecilia, part of a big family and she was the second oldest daughter.

00:11:12.620 So she and her siblings were primarily under the care of, oh, I wanted to say like Kim

00:11:17.620 in Sweden, super big help.

00:11:19.980 I didn't want to be like, can you like tell me how to pronounce every Swedish name?

00:11:23.680 So I'm going to do my best.

00:11:25.660 um and i hope all of sweden is cool with me maybe pronouncing some things a bit strangely

00:11:32.320 but i'm doing my best so cecilia and her siblings were primarily under the care of her mother's

00:11:37.940 trusted nurse brigitte lars anderson's her mother's cousin lady margarita and the noble

00:11:43.440 widow widow ingrid emmon's daughter so when cecilia was 11 her mother died and then the

00:11:50.120 siblings were placed in the care of basically some other people with coolest swedish names

00:11:54.680 eventually the father got married for a third time um he mostly married for the third time

00:12:00.940 from what i can tell just so he would have a mom for the kids because he didn't have any more

00:12:05.300 children with a third wife whose name was katerina uh growing up cecilia was described as the most

00:12:12.100 beautiful of gustav's daughters she's frequently mentioned because of her beauty so sort of like

00:12:17.020 queen margo vibes not not as much as queen margo where like everyone else was kind of like weird

00:12:22.140 looking but she was the most beautiful and i think i think this is again like that cleopatra thing of

00:12:27.620 like she was probably yes very beautiful there's portraits and stuff but i think she also just had

00:12:31.600 like a personality and a charisma that really turned her maybe from an eight into a ten because

00:12:37.440 you just she was captivating so when she was 16 she and her sisters each had their portraits

00:12:44.880 painted and their personal qualities described in latin by the court poet henricus molarus and

00:12:50.620 they were presented on the dynastic marriage market so it's like hey guess who's eligible

00:12:55.640 to be married now all the daughters of gustav so that same year so there's like everywhere in this

00:13:06.320 era the 16th century like we've got sweden but there's a lot of like little kingdoms or not even

00:13:13.240 kingdoms like just little areas with their own like local rulers you know things weren't really

00:13:17.380 like the country borders that we would know now in the 21st century so part of sweden is east

00:13:24.620 frisia which is a historic region in the northwest of lower saxony germany um gustav presented them

00:13:32.420 with a trading treaty and a marriage alliance so they were basically like um who would you like

00:13:38.160 to marry of my two oldest daughters um so Edzard which is a great name the Count of East Frisia

00:13:47.020 visited Sweden to meet Cecilia and her older sister Katerina so he could choose which of

00:13:52.880 them he wanted to marry so like I guess he saw the portraits he read about the personal qualities

00:13:56.720 and he's like I can't decide so he met the two sisters and he decided to choose to marry Katerina

00:14:03.620 the older sister so she was 19 Edzard was 26 at this point Cecilia is 18 so Katerina and Edzard

00:14:12.260 got married in Stockholm in 1559 and then they left to go to East Frisia which is where he was

00:14:20.020 from so they were accompanied by Katerina's sister Cecilia and Edzard's brother Johan so

00:14:29.320 so johan is 20 years old cecilia is 18 years old so it's just kind of this like double date

00:14:34.960 well not double date because i mean johan and cecilia just they're siblings they're not another

00:14:41.360 couple or are they so they all went and they stayed at vadstina castle which is uh i'm going

00:14:49.060 to tell you a bit about vadstina castle because it's interesting and it's still a place you can

00:14:52.820 go and visit so it's in vadstina which is a place in sweden in the province of oster gottland in

00:15:00.420 sweden so vadstina castle had been built so what are we it's 1559 so construction of it began in

00:15:08.440 1545 as a fortress to protect stockholm um the fortress consisted of three smaller stone buildings

00:15:16.620 ramparts a courtyard a moat and four circular cannon turrets um so actually when gustav got

00:15:25.220 married for the third time he married katerina in vadstina in fact when the castle's banqueting

00:15:30.760 halls is called the wedding hall although the construction wasn't finished in time for the

00:15:35.100 wedding and then it was changed from a fortress into a habitable castle and so magnus who is

00:15:44.000 one of the brothers he is so there's eric johan katerina cecilia magnus so he's like two years

00:15:50.900 younger than cecilia so magnus became the duke of ostergoatland and that's where he lived and so

00:15:59.580 that is where they went to stay with him and this kind of sounds like currently still under

00:16:04.200 construction um fortress turned castle so the double date siblings pairs went to vatstina castle

00:16:14.900 to hang out with magnus their brother so magnus a note on prince magnus he was 16 years old at this

00:16:21.200 time um duke of ostergottland he was he will become spoiler the only son of gustav who didn't

00:16:29.240 eventually become king of sweden um and why is that because he's older than some of the other

00:16:34.720 boys but it's because he had a mental illness um not sure what that was like again not a lot of

00:16:43.320 english language sources about this so eventually i don't know if it's like he just had some issues

00:16:50.940 where eventually like his fiefs were taken over by his brother um who managed him as a guardian

00:16:57.140 because of Magnus' like mental condition.

00:17:00.120 I don't know if it's like head injury

00:17:02.380 or if it's like, you know,

00:17:03.600 some sort of like thing

00:17:04.440 that presented later in life.

00:17:06.620 Many ballads and stories

00:17:07.980 were inspired by Magnus

00:17:09.140 and his alleged interest

00:17:10.280 in mythological creatures such as fairies.

00:17:13.100 There are many stories about, quote,

00:17:14.560 the mad duke, for instance,

00:17:16.520 about how he saw a mermaid in the castle moat

00:17:18.760 and threw himself out a window,

00:17:20.360 nearly drowning himself.

00:17:21.900 There's no proof that this event ever took place,

00:17:23.840 but the story might have evolved

00:17:25.000 from an incident where he fell in the moat

00:17:27.120 during the construction of the castle drawbridge so that's magnus and that's vedstina castle

00:17:33.540 but now it's time for what happens at vedstina castle so we've got 16 year old magnus in his

00:17:42.880 like fortress and castle and his two sisters are there along with edzard and johan and it is here

00:17:50.200 that the first major scandal of cecilia's life occurred known as vadstina bulret aka the vadstina

00:17:57.900 thunder now this is a scandal with a name this is where i i was already like into the cecilia

00:18:06.960 situation but like the vadstina bulret it's like how you know all the political scandals now are

00:18:13.920 called like whatever gate after water gate like this is like a scandal so major it got a name

00:18:19.960 which is the Vadstina Bullrit, the Vadstina Thunder, and here's what happened.

00:18:25.340 So before this totally not double date honeymoon scenario, Gustav had been reluctant to let

00:18:31.520 Cecilia come along on this little trip. Maybe he knew that she was already kind of like

00:18:36.280 a mischievous person. There were at the time negotiations of a marriage between her

00:18:42.780 um and georg johan of palatine valdens i don't know who or what that is he wanted her to return

00:18:51.220 early and not go on this like cool teens road trip um he also asked katerina and edzard to

00:18:57.980 remain in sweden for the winter um but they're just like we're cool teens we're gonna go on a

00:19:03.360 trip whatever so whilst at vadstina castle the palace guards observed a man climbing in through

00:19:10.220 the window of cecilia's bedroom this happened four times in a row so like presumably four nights in

00:19:16.760 a row after i love that they waited they're like oh did a did a man just climb to the window of

00:19:22.300 the princess's bedroom like maybe but like let's just see if it happens again it happens again

00:19:27.420 happens again so after the fourth time they informed uh prince eric her eldest brother who

00:19:33.780 i guess was there too at vedstina um so then he eric was like what do i do so he asked magnus

00:19:40.840 and his courtiers to advise him which is wild because he's like magnus you're 16 years old

00:19:44.940 what should we do so they decided to keep cecilia's window under guard so the man in question could

00:19:52.380 not be in a position to deny the matter if he was caught so they they sprang a trap was sprung

00:19:59.500 so then the same thing happened again um on the night of december 13th eric sent guards to arrest

00:20:07.380 the man so when they entered cecilia's bedroom they discovered it was not just any man it was

00:20:12.040 in fact the groom's brother johan and he was in the bedroom without his trousers on which i don't

00:20:19.460 think people wore trousers at this time i think they're more like a doublet and hose so but

00:20:24.620 basically sounds like nude from the waist down whatever sorts of trousers he was wearing eric

00:20:32.700 had johan imprisoned interrogated him and then sent him to gustav to decide what to do so gustav

00:20:39.740 who's remember this like george washington slash winston churchill very serious father of sweden

00:20:45.420 he ordered johan to be imprisoned in a different castle um three days later katerina and edzard

00:20:53.560 remember they're married they were sent to a third other castle and placed under house arrest

00:20:58.860 i'm not sure why like because they like help facilitate this in some way i guess um eric

00:21:04.920 and cecilia herself were both recalled to stockholm i guess to be yelled at or something

00:21:10.020 cecilia um at this point accused her father of having beaten her and ripped her hair off

00:21:16.520 i again without a secondary source that is equally possible and not possible gustav was a very

00:21:25.500 serious man you know like he skied for whatever it was 90 kilometers like he is if his daughter

00:21:31.920 did this vatstina bull right like he might have freaked out at her in a physical abusive way

00:21:36.620 um he was mad at everybody basically gustav he accused he was mad at katerina he was mad at eric

00:21:45.040 the brother for not having restrained cecilia as they should because they're her older siblings

00:21:49.020 um he was also met at eric for having caused the scandal by his way of handling the whole affair

00:21:55.600 by like ignoring it um and then exposing it in public he wanted i guess eric to just like go

00:22:02.600 not bring guards in and stuff but just to like you know reprimand cecilia anyway gustav not

00:22:07.280 impressed with his children's handling of the vodstina bullret uh katerina the oldest sister 0.53

00:22:14.180 she was allowed to see the king that subsequent june she acted as a mediator and tried to issue

00:22:19.320 she tried to get free because remember she was in um house arrest and so was her husband and so

00:22:26.920 was her husband's brother the one with the trousers down johan katerina also protested 0.95

00:22:32.160 against the confiscation of cecilia's jewelry wow so part of cecilia's punishment for this 1.00

00:22:37.920 whole thing was to have her jewelry confiscated pretty major um katerina also asked her stepmother 1.00

00:22:46.720 also named katerina to to speak for them and to defend them it sounds like katerina the older 0.91

00:22:52.340 did do that as well everyone's just like banging plating gustav like can we just let everybody

00:22:57.220 basically everybody your children your children's spouses the in-laws can we just like release all

00:23:02.340 these hot young teens from jail in general um yeah so johan again trousers down johan

00:23:10.980 had he was the something of east frisia um you know he had connections so his mother

00:23:20.700 sent ambassadors to sweden to try and negotiate johan's release um eric suggested that cecilia

00:23:29.980 johan be forced to marry each other but gustav did not like the idea um and then that yeah the

00:23:37.740 same summer eventually after all of this negotiation and mediation johan was released

00:23:41.780 after having been forced to swear before gustav and the royal council nothing sexual had taken

00:23:46.940 place between him and cecilia despite him having been in her room five nights in a row with trousers

00:23:53.240 down and maybe it didn't I don't know um who's to say did Cecilia welcome him into her room

00:24:02.020 also don't know what we see of her later I feel like she probably was cool with it um and then

00:24:09.660 Cecilia's brothers like they wanted to say like nothing had happened between Johan and Cecilia

00:24:14.580 so they stamped a coin this is like a pretty major thing like it's again on par with like

00:24:20.220 skiing to take over country so her brothers came together they may had a coin made i don't know if

00:24:26.980 it was just one coin or like if this was like a circulating coin lots of people could have

00:24:31.260 anyway the coin pictured cecilia as the biblical heroine susanna in the bath which the meaning of

00:24:39.400 this coin was to say that cecilia was as innocent as the legendary susanna in the bible so if you

00:24:46.200 don't know that story side note on Susanna in the bible so Susanna and the elders is a story that's

00:24:53.920 in the book of Daniel in the bible so I'm not a biblical scholar by any means but I know that

00:25:02.700 there's some stories that are like in some religions accept them and there's some stories

00:25:07.560 that like some religions don't accept them there's like apocrypha which are like anyway so Susanna and

00:25:14.260 the elders is a story so it is accepted as part of the bible by the roman catholic and eastern

00:25:19.480 orthodox church but not by the protestants it is not included in the hebrew bible and is not

00:25:26.400 mentioned in early jewish literature so like who wrote this story we don't know but this is the

00:25:32.540 story so as oh also this is a story that um my favorite painter artemisia gentileski um memorably

00:25:41.300 painted. She did a lot of paintings of kind of what I would call tits out heroines of the Bible,

00:25:46.860 Artimedia Gentileschi. Anyway, who was also around, I feel like not at the same time as

00:25:52.940 Cecilia, but shortly after. So this is the story. Susanna, she lives in ancient Bible times.

00:25:59.120 She's bathing in her garden because that is how you bathe in ancient Bible times. She sent her 0.62

00:26:05.460 attendants away and she's just like bathing nude in her garden two elders like two old men

00:26:12.120 bump into each other when they spy on her bathing so they're these two men are just like oh hey

00:26:20.920 you're here also like spying on Susanna bathing like haha what a coincidence uh they both lust

00:26:26.100 for Susanna when she makes her way back to the house after bathing they grab her and demand she 0.83

00:26:32.220 have sex with them when she refuses they have her arrested claiming that the reason she sent her 0.97

00:26:37.820 maids away was to be alone as she was having sex with a young man under a tree but in fact she sent 0.99

00:26:43.120 her maids away so she could bathe by herself and just like have some peace and quiet she refuses

00:26:48.360 to be blackmailed and is arrested and is about to be put to death for adultery when young daniel

00:26:54.340 interrupts the proceedings shouting that the elders should be questioned to prevent the death

00:26:58.820 of an innocent so the two men are separated and are cross-examined about details about what they

00:27:03.540 saw but it's like in that um improv game so you have to make something up and hope that it matches

00:27:11.580 is what the other person said so the thing is that they disagree about because remember they

00:27:16.660 said like Susanna was having sex with a man under a tree and then both the men were asked like well

00:27:20.680 what kind of tree was it and the first says that it was a mastic tree and the second says they were

00:27:26.600 under an evergreen oak tree and these two trees are wildly different sizes so it made it obvious

00:27:34.040 that the two men were lying the two men are put to death virtue triumphs Susanna is cool and so

00:27:41.560 the brothers are basically saying Cecilia is as innocent as Susanna in the bible here's a coin

00:27:48.480 that says so so I guess that made everyone agree and that is the Vodstina bull rut

00:27:54.280 so you know the years go by gustav passes away i think of like a leg infection or something not

00:28:03.660 especially heroic the king is now eric the oldest brother of cecilia cecilia still not married so

00:28:11.840 her next youngest sister is anna and they were supposed to be married off to two men from

00:28:16.780 influential german families but because of the vodstina bolrit um georg johan of palatine valdez

00:28:24.620 chose anna over cecilia because cecilia was kind of like scandalicious and he didn't want that and 0.96

00:28:30.300 a wife in 1561 she was proposed by the earl of arendelle not arendelle from frozen a movie that

00:28:40.340 takes place in norway i looked that up because i was like wait is this because i read about

00:28:46.400 arendelle i'm like wait was frozen inspired by oldie times sweden no frozen inspired by oldie

00:28:53.320 times norway anyway so cecilia is proposed to by the earl of arendelle brackets not the one from

00:29:01.280 frozen although maybe that arendelle is norway it's spelled differently from arendelle and frozen

00:29:08.180 but that was where i was like wait a minute what's this frozen connection anyway cecilia is like i'm

00:29:14.180 cool i will accept this proposal of the earl of arendelle but eric who is the king slash her

00:29:19.840 brother you know he has to prove who she marries he does not agree cecilia is then proposed to by

00:29:27.400 the polish magnate count johan tensisky eric liked the idea and according to cecilia he forced her to

00:29:34.620 agree but these plans also do not materialize so cecilia age now 23 so that's like seven years

00:29:41.800 post Vodstina Bullrut is found to be by Eric to be having a party in her rooms with her sister

00:29:47.880 um I don't know if it would be Anna if she was married by this point or if it was the next

00:29:52.440 youngest sister Sophia or Elizabeth basically all of them so Cecilia 23 years old living her best 1.00

00:29:59.460 life partying in her room with her sisters um the two of them fought due to this incident and 0.96

00:30:05.660 Vodstina Bullrut Eric issues a new protocol for the royal court in which his sisters were to be

00:30:11.580 placed under a more strict observation to prevent them from damaging the reputation um so they

00:30:17.520 weren't allowed to leave the palace at night or early morning and they couldn't accept guests at

00:30:21.320 night or letters without permission and this is like the 12 dancing princesses but just three

00:30:27.180 princesses but also dancing and being told to stop um eric accused cecilia of mixing with

00:30:35.120 questionable people his rules also banned the princesses from receiving supplicants they were

00:30:41.620 forbidden from meddling in politics on behalf of people or to anyway interfere in affairs of state

00:30:47.260 cecilia anna and sophia the sisters had sent a letter of protest to eric the same year regarding

00:30:55.260 the imprisonment of their brother johan oh so johan was the guy trousers down but then same

00:31:02.020 name johan also their brother so the thing is that johan their brother um basically wanted to

00:31:10.660 be king instead of eric so he was rebelling or scheming against eric so he was put in jail

00:31:14.660 cecilia anna and sofia they're all on team johan so they sent a letter of protest to eric being

00:31:19.940 like please free our brother johan from jail and this is where eric is like i made a new rule where

00:31:25.520 princesses can't do anything so it might have been like that was part of why he made the rule 0.88

00:31:30.020 cecilia protested openly towards these regulations because they were bullshit and i think you're 0.99

00:31:36.780 getting a sense right now that she did not have any time for this sort of bullshit one year later 0.98

00:31:42.160 age 24 cecilia was married to christoph ii of baden rodemachern who was three years older than 0.98

00:31:49.600 her his job was he was the margrave of baden rhodemachern what is a margrave a margrave was

00:32:00.880 originally the medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defense

00:32:04.900 of one of the border provinces of the holy roman empire or of a kingdom that position became

00:32:10.960 hereditary in certain feudal families in the empire and the title came to be born by rulers

00:32:16.640 of some imperial principalities so he's a margrave i think i said margrate that was a typo that i

00:32:25.120 then said out loud margrave is the name of his so it's like a title the same way that earl or count

00:32:33.340 or duke is basically so cecilia age 24 married to christoph they were married in a far less

00:32:40.480 luxurious ceremony than that of her sister and their match seems to have taken place without

00:32:45.460 much negotiation so i think maybe because cecilia is such a scandalous person eric was just happy to

00:32:50.120 find someone to marry her off to there seems to not have been any political purpose behind the

00:32:56.100 marriage which is interesting so was it a love match or was eric just kind of like i just need

00:33:02.840 to marry you to someone i don't know this guy um christoph seems like not a very good husband

00:33:08.660 slash person so after the marriage he returned to rhodemachern where he's the margrave where he

00:33:16.800 built himself a palace and led a wasteful life so um but everything got interesting again when

00:33:26.420 cecilia and christophe were sent on an official state visit to england so the official purpose

00:33:34.100 of this visit was cecilia was to negotiate to try and convince queen elizabeth to marry her brother

00:33:42.160 eric and so cecilia had been corresponding with elizabeth sort of his pen pals for a while they

00:33:52.260 were like similar age both got along i guess um so she arrived in the autumn of 1565 having traveled

00:34:00.680 400 miles by water and 750 miles on ice and snow to visit queen elizabeth so they've been in

00:34:07.240 correspondence for several years cecilia seems to have felt admiration for her on a personal level

00:34:11.740 um to prep for this she had spent three years learning to speak english from english people

00:34:18.400 who are in sweden i think it was like cecilia and elizabeth were pen pals friends and then

00:34:24.800 because of this eric was like oh i can leverage this to get cecilia to negotiate a marriage

00:34:31.520 contract between elizabeth and me eric so but on route to england cecilia managed to sneak off to

00:34:37.660 meet her imprisoned brother johan um eric already kind of knew that she was probably more loyal to

00:34:46.440 johan than to him so he got his governor to keep her under supervision um but she kept just sort of

00:34:53.000 like doing some like secret spy business as she was like making her way to england so in the duchy

00:34:58.620 of prussia she asked the duke to work with a danish monarch to free johan and he agreed to do

00:35:04.760 that then she went to east frisia to visit her sister katerina where they also talked about

00:35:10.920 johan and how to free johan um after cecilia left katerina sent eric a furious letter about 0.93

00:35:17.400 how he's keeping johan in prison so cecilia's just like stirring up shit on route to england

00:35:22.740 um when she got to london she was allowed to stay in bedford house in london so she was welcomed by 0.95

00:35:32.740 francis sydney the countess of sussex and mildred cook the second wife of william

00:35:37.940 cecil or was that cecil this is where it's like wait a minute so we've been talking about cecilia

00:35:43.940 swedish people arendelle self-contained group of people who i was learning all about but this is

00:35:50.500 where cecilia becomes like a self-insert fanfic character into the court of elizabeth like we're

00:35:55.700 going to hear about a bunch of people you already know about so this this part for me i was like oh

00:35:59.940 thank god i know some of this stuff so cecilia made her formal entrance to london on september

00:36:06.780 11th 1565 dressed in black velvet trimmed with silver amazing surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting

00:36:13.760 dressed in red wait picture this this is like lady gaga met gala so cecilia arrives beautiful

00:36:20.720 black velvet trimmed with silver surrounded by ladies and women dressed in red this is like

00:36:25.620 festive wintry glamour um and the friends so elizabeth came to visit cecilia at bedford house

00:36:34.600 um according to the spanish ambassador cecilia and elizabeth got along very nicely they visited

00:36:39.840 they like became instant bffs they were pen pals and now they're real life friends

00:36:43.840 they visited weddings and dinners together that christmas 1565 cecilia they went to christmas mass

00:36:51.240 and you know in um when you receive communion you get like the little bread at church usually the

00:36:57.860 priest gives it but guess what cecilia received communion directly after elizabeth so that was

00:37:02.360 like pretty major that she was right after her um you might be wondering what about her husband 0.91

00:37:09.440 christophe who sucks so christophe was given an allowance as long as he allowed cecilia to remain 0.59

00:37:16.960 in england so he was like great i like money for gambling and wasteful living um so he was cool 0.96

00:37:23.180 with all this so she gave birth to her first child while she was in england and elizabeth

00:37:30.580 she let elizabeth name him so cecilia's first child is called edward fortunatus which is like

00:37:37.420 now we know what Elizabeth would have named a son if she had a son um at his christening

00:37:42.260 Elizabeth carried the baby so I feel like I don't know if she was specifically the godmother but

00:37:47.120 these two are like close as close can be um but remember how the purpose of this was supposed to 0.93

00:37:57.300 be Cecilia visits to convince Elizabeth to marry her brother like she basically did not do that at 0.99

00:38:03.940 all she was just like i'm gonna hang with my bestie and just wear glamorous outfits and be

00:38:10.780 in england and who cares so i which i i love this i love this is a great cecilia moment where she's

00:38:18.420 just like sent there officially on swedish court business but i think it's like she wanted to visit

00:38:23.360 elizabeth but then she found a way to make it be a work trip so then eric let her go but then she 0.74

00:38:28.760 like didn't do the work at all um she was also sent there to try and recruit english pirates 0.91

00:38:35.220 to attack hostile danish german and polish ships on the beltic sea um did she do that maybe

00:38:40.880 not sure didn't say wikipedia but we're getting into some piracy stuff which is like

00:38:48.700 gonna be great so um so christmas christening january um eric gave her an additional task

00:38:59.400 of negotiating an alliance between sweden and england to assist sweden in its attempt to have

00:39:03.880 peace in the war between sweden and denmark there are conflicting reports as to how she managed

00:39:09.200 these negotiations so again like did she care about that or was she just like too busy like

00:39:15.280 just being besties with elizabeth and hanging out i feel like the latter anyway um so there 0.81

00:39:23.260 are some reports that she did like try to be like hey elizabeth you want to marry my brother eric

00:39:28.460 who like i hate um so allegedly maybe she tried to go through robert dudley elizabeth's we all

00:39:38.260 know this boy toy unrequited lover so i guess she'd be like hey robert dudley can you tell 0.99

00:39:43.660 elizabeth to marry my brother eric who i hate and robert dudley would be like no and she'd be like 1.00

00:39:48.160 okay i tried so cecilia's own agenda included trying to get elizabeth to interfere in the

00:39:56.260 matter of johan still in jail and in fact elizabeth wrote to eric and asked him to release johan

00:40:03.200 cecilia was also in contact with a spanish ambassador at the english court

00:40:07.080 because Christophe's lands were partially placed in Spanish Luxembourg.

00:40:11.460 But then the friendship, much like Samantha on Sex and the City, just kind of ends here.

00:40:20.540 So the relationship between Cecilia and Elizabeth was damaged

00:40:25.500 because of Cecilia's close contact with the Spanish ambassador

00:40:28.140 and because of the scandals caused by her debts. 0.90

00:40:31.640 Debts? Yes.

00:40:32.820 so cecilia acquired enormous debts because she felt it was necessary to live a certain lifestyle 0.99

00:40:40.220 according to her status at court like she is a princess the wife of a margrave um so she was

00:40:45.500 spending beyond her means um christoph so she'd been in england for basically a year and then

00:40:52.860 christoph was forced to leave for germany in an attempt to borrow money for her so she could keep

00:40:57.000 buying i don't know furs and jewels or whatever her greatest creditors were people these two men

00:41:03.140 george north and johan diamond she also used the dr cornelius alternatus who borrowed her money and

00:41:11.320 pawned things for her so she i guess spent a lot of money on furs and jewels and then got this guy

00:41:17.560 to sell them so she could have more money to buy more furs and jewels or something um alternatus

00:41:22.660 alnatanus had previously been exiled from court by elizabeth for trying to convince her that he

00:41:29.040 could make basically straw into gold um elizabeth imprisoned him after he violated her order not to

00:41:35.520 have anything to do with cecilia so maybe she's like oh no my poor little innocent friend cecilia 0.99

00:41:39.480 is being scammed by this guy but in fact cecilia was using this guy to pawn her stuff so she could

00:41:44.240 rack up more debts and then so it was november the subsequent march christoph returned to england

00:41:52.180 in secret and tried to abduct Cecilia to free her from the creditors but was discovered and

00:41:57.740 put in prison by the creditors Elizabeth had him freed but this definitively ended the friendship 0.81

00:42:05.560 between Cecilia and the queen when Elizabeth realized that Cecilia was kind of a grifter

00:42:09.600 and kind of a mess and she didn't need that in her life at that time which like fair Elizabeth

00:42:14.660 had a lot going on at this time this is like early in her reign all the like guys are trying 1.00

00:42:18.840 to make her not be queen anymore she's got a lot going on um so one month later cecilia pawned her

00:42:27.860 jewelry and wardrobe to finance their return trip to baden baden where christoph is from where he's

00:42:33.440 the margrave but they were stopped in dover most of their luggage was confiscated in the names of

00:42:38.160 their creditors north and diamond um not only was cecilia and christoph's luggage confiscated but

00:42:44.800 also that of cecilia's ladies-in-waiting who had no debts and cecilia and her courtiers regarded

00:42:51.020 themselves as having been subjects of theft which they kind of were she was pregnant again at this

00:42:57.100 point and when she finally reached rhoda macron her son christopher gustav was born um with some

00:43:06.120 birth issues he had some handicaps and she blamed the creditors for this for the rest of her life

00:43:12.040 for having i don't know i guess stressed her out during pregnancy and then so what is she

00:43:20.540 going to do next so this is like a month-to-month saga at this point so that was april um let's see

00:43:27.840 so they returned to baden rotemachern where she stayed for five years there were religious wars

00:43:33.180 in the netherlands um let's see there was economic distress because of this and then

00:43:42.000 in 1569 the second half of baden so she's in baden rotemachern but the other half of baden is

00:43:50.060 baden baden was inherited by christoph's young nephew and placed under the rule of his catholic

00:43:55.500 relative albert v of bavaria who treated protestants with brutality that same year her

00:44:01.000 brother eric was assassinated and johan who's been in prison this whole time took over as king

00:44:05.740 um cecilia wrote to her brother johan who became johan the third of sweden and stated that she

00:44:11.960 feared for her safety because of like all the wars and stuff and asked for permission to return to

00:44:15.940 sweden permission granted so cecilia and christoph returned to kalmar in sweden um but do you know

00:44:26.480 who else had also just arrived johan diamond her creditor had just arrived with a fleet of 50 ships

00:44:32.100 the guy who had um confiscated her property and that of the ladies-in-waiting so she was given

00:44:37.880 permission from johan to arrest him um his fleet was then confiscated and he spent five years in

00:44:44.240 prison so like big mistake huge type moment uh christoph then left sweden um to he promised

00:44:54.280 johan he would provide sweden with mercenaries to help with her ongoing war with russia but in fact

00:44:59.380 he did not do that and christoph in fact never returned so like good riddance i guess he just

00:45:04.700 peaced out at this whole situation so in sweden cecilia was granted the city of arboga as her

00:45:11.180 personal fief i guess all of her like the stuff she did for her brother johan now that he's king

00:45:17.020 like this is all paying off because remember she was trying to get people to support him she was

00:45:21.020 writing letters and so johan gave her a city so she called herself the countess of arboga

00:45:28.420 arboga she had the authority to manage the trading policy and the legal system

00:45:33.620 and see to it that royal laws were respected and she also managed certain taxation on import and 1.00

00:45:38.080 export um so one of her missions in sweden was to have her dowry finally paid to her because when

00:45:46.640 she married christoph she was supposed to have gotten i forget with some huge amount of swedish

00:45:51.520 currency or like she and christoph were supposed to have gotten that but she'd never got it

00:45:55.040 johan iii could not afford to do so um but in lieu of money he gave her a fleet of ships 1.00

00:46:04.260 as a part payment of the dowry and what did cecilia do she became a pirate queen

00:46:10.800 so she used these fleets of ships to attack ships on the baltic sea johan had several licenses

00:46:18.520 issued to pirates on the baltic sea with permission to attack ships on the way to russia 0.98

00:46:22.380 to disturb russian trade during the war between sweden and russia cecilia came into conflict with 0.76

00:46:28.780 johan because she violated her permission by also attacking ships from friendly nations

00:46:33.300 like danish people and this created tension between sweden and denmark so this the lesson

00:46:38.720 of this is like don't give cecilia a fleet of pirate ships and expect her to follow the rules

00:46:44.620 which again i love about her so then a plot was prepared by a guy called charles de mornay

00:46:54.260 to assassinate johan who is the king slash her brother this so charles de mornay was also fun

00:47:03.540 In fact, the guy who back in the day had been the one who caught Cecilia with Pants Down

00:47:08.660 Johan in the Valdina bull threat.

00:47:12.720 Oh, I forget how you say it.

00:47:13.860 Anyway, in the Valdina thunder scandal.

00:47:17.760 So anyway, this guy's been around for a while.

00:47:19.200 Charles de Mornay.

00:47:20.800 He was in contact with Christina of Denmark and the French ambassador in Copenhagen, and

00:47:25.740 they wanted to assassinate Johan for various reasons.

00:47:28.540 Their plan was that Johan would be killed during a swords dance performed by Scottish

00:47:33.040 mercenaries um before the scottish mercenaries depart to the baltic i'm not sure if they're

00:47:39.000 going to come in and dance with swords and then with the swords then kill him with the swords but

00:47:42.720 that's what i imagine they mean after the assassination the plan was that charles de

00:47:47.400 mornay who had been the favorite of eric would be placed upon the throne as the new king

00:47:52.160 um however the plot did not materialize because i don't know the dancers did not

00:47:59.980 whatever this did not happen then the plot was revealed charles de mornay was arrested

00:48:05.900 interrogated and executed it was never made clear who participated in the plot but it is noted that

00:48:11.500 suspected conspirators often gathered at meetings in the apartment of princess elizabeth who is one

00:48:17.260 of cecilia's sisters and cecilia herself had frequently been seen at these meetings um so

00:48:24.180 cecilia and her sister elizabeth and their brother charles were somewhat compromised because they

00:48:29.100 were maybe involved in this scheme although they were never accused so i don't know like cecilia

00:48:34.160 like rode hard for um johan for a long time but if she was mad about him over the piracy stuff

00:48:39.820 anyway clearly she's turned against him so johan suspected her to have prepared a rebellion against

00:48:46.280 him um in 1573 he gave order that cecilia was not to be allowed in stockholm castle during his

00:48:52.420 absence and in 1574 after the plot had been exposed he gave orders to governors in oster

00:48:58.420 goteland to keep cecilia under watch and not to let her have access to any royal castle so this

00:49:04.140 is a part where it's like it had she been male or had um women been allowed to inherit the throne

00:49:13.200 like i feel like cecilia would have maybe seized it herself but instead she's just kind of like

00:49:18.880 supporting people just kind of freelance chaos just like whatever is best for her she's like

00:49:23.440 pirate ex-best friends of the queen she's just like living her best life and this is where i was

00:49:29.120 like what a great story um 1575 christoph her husband remember him he just like peaced out

00:49:35.520 forever he died so now she's a widow so her young son edward fortunatus remember who elizabeth named

00:49:43.080 formerly succeeded him as the margrave of baden rhodemachern um but he was in sweden so it's like

00:49:50.980 in absence he's the margave in absence according to the marriage contract cecilia was allowed to

00:49:56.580 be regent should her son succeed while still a child which happened but after christophe dies 1.00

00:50:03.800 her in-laws had documents which secured her which got which confiscated her rights um and took 0.50

00:50:10.500 control over the entire place baden rotomachen officially as guardians and regents of her son 1.00

00:50:16.660 cecilia not gonna accept that so she sent representatives to secure her rights but the 1.00

00:50:23.520 representatives were turned away and her authority as regent was not acknowledged at the same time

00:50:28.600 in a wild plot twist that makes us all go like wait what um elizabeth former best friend

00:50:34.460 offered cecilia newly widowed um the hand in marriage of elizabeth's boyfriend robert dudley

00:50:42.300 the earl of leicester what is going on so um cecilia was advised to decline by johan and she

00:50:50.760 even though she was like scheming against him also turned down but also she's just like what

00:50:55.340 no i don't want to marry elizabeth's favorite like what is happening why did elizabeth turn

00:51:01.580 to her former bestie to try and marry off robert edley well in a fun connection to last year's

00:51:08.220 festive holidays spectacular this was around the same time the rumors about robert and latisse

00:51:13.120 were heating up in fact three years later robert married latisse so this was the same time if you

00:51:19.760 listen to that episode where robert like had this big party for elizabeth at this castle where he

00:51:24.760 like flirted with latisse who was pregnant anyway so this is like a crossover moment where basically

00:51:31.200 i think elizabeth wanted to nullify the robert latisse situation and she's like well what if i 0.97

00:51:37.820 marry him to cecilia my ex-bestie but that did not happen obviously um cecilia then converted 0.93

00:51:45.260 to catholicism as a way to secure her and her son's rights to the domains of christophe and then

00:51:52.660 um two years later spanish ambassador arrived in sweden um because johan still the king wanted to

00:52:01.580 make an alliance with spain there's just a lot happening here in countries about which history

00:52:06.420 i know very little but so it's all about the swedish war against russia basically he wanted

00:52:13.540 spanish assistance um so he suggested that cecilia who is now a catholic could be made

00:52:20.860 governor in one of the spanish lands in europe preferably luxembourg so cecilia invited the 0.88

00:52:28.220 ambassador to arboga where she lives and started her own negotiations with him she didn't want

00:52:33.300 johan's negotiation she's going to negotiate this herself she supported the plans of making

00:52:38.640 her spanish governor and offered her pirate fleet remember they're still hanging around like she has

00:52:43.220 a pirate fleet she offered them to serve in the spanish war in the netherlands um but this caused

00:52:49.220 a conflict with her protestant brother charles who began to attack her fleet with his own so

00:52:55.760 not it's like sibling versus sibling pirate battles um cecilia acted as a valuable informant 0.97

00:53:03.520 to spain when johan's negotiations with spain failed he became suspicious of what cecilia was

00:53:09.580 up to and like rightfully so because she was definitely going behind his back getting things

00:53:14.340 figured out for herself um johan had the spanish ambassador placed in house arrest and banned him 0.50

00:53:20.000 for any contact with cecilia i love how every time any of her brothers find out cecilia's doing

00:53:25.020 something they just like try and like ban cecilia from doing stuff ban cecilia from seeing people

00:53:30.200 because it's like whenever she talks to anyone like shit goes down like she was again i'm getting 0.85

00:53:35.740 cleopatra vibe she's just like clearly so persuasive and charismatic um however cecilia 1.00

00:53:42.760 bribed her way into stockholm in secret and attempted to see the ambassador um she was caught

00:53:47.700 cecilia and her retinue were captured by the guard and brought to johan which caused quote a great

00:53:53.260 scene between the siblings shortly after cecilia went to germany um and so did and the spanish

00:54:00.300 ambassador was exiled so and when i say she returned to germany i mean she returned to

00:54:05.700 baden rhoda macron because she wanted to take control of her lands um and wrest control of

00:54:14.180 the place from her relatives in the name of her young son so hold on i didn't tell you the name

00:54:21.520 of the Spanish ambassador his name is Francisco de Ireso and I said that he was exiled but here's

00:54:29.460 what I just misinterpreted and I'm just going to explain to you now which is they actually left

00:54:33.100 together so in fact Francisco and Cecilia lived together in Baden for a time before he continued

00:54:41.960 on his way to Spain during this time she gave birth to a daughter which caused a scandal as

00:54:47.820 she had by that time been a widow for four years so clearly the father was francisco so the daughter

00:54:55.000 was placed in a convent by edward fortunatus against cecilia's will so even though that's

00:55:00.000 his sister edward fortunatus was just like oh let's just like stow her away um she was not

00:55:07.160 allowed to see the daughter again for a really long time um like decades the daughter took the

00:55:12.980 vows like became a nun and is known only by her nun name charitas so we don't know what name

00:55:20.740 cecilia gave her daughter she had with the spanish ambassador so that just casts everything i just

00:55:26.320 said about her and the spanish ambassador in a whole new light which is like let me just look

00:55:31.720 at this again i'm just rereading the whole paragraph so johan wanted so the spanish ambassador

00:55:37.700 arrived johan wanted cecilia to negotiate with him clearly they became lovers and then

00:55:42.540 Cecilia started looking for her own best interests what a story honestly so yeah um in the struggle

00:55:50.980 against Christophe's family slash her in-laws Cecilia was supported by Johan um but her other

00:55:58.940 brother Charles broke with her after the birth of Charitas because I guess that was just one scandal

00:56:05.140 too many for him or something but also it's just kind of like which of her brothers supports her

00:56:10.920 which of her brothers does she support this just keeps fluctuating like a dozen families

00:56:14.300 so she had her sons placed in the care of jesuits because remember she's catholic now too

00:56:20.000 but her alliance with spain eventually made her lose the support of johan as well in 1581 he

00:56:26.060 refused to let her back into sweden cecilia lived on the income of her swedish estate but then this 0.87

00:56:32.600 like her estate was confiscated by johan in 1585 because she opposed his marriage to someone called 1.00

00:56:42.240 gunila bielke why did she oppose the marriage of her brother to gunila bielke because gunila was

00:56:49.340 a noble woman but not a princess and cecilia and the other siblings felt it was inappropriate for 0.85

00:56:53.760 king to marry a non-royal person let's see so her son edward fortunatus came of age and he took

00:57:02.240 control of Baden-Rodemachern. He confiscated Cecilia's lands. He also amassed a lot of

00:57:11.420 debts. Cecilia, by the way, has been continuing to amass lots of debts here because that is just

00:57:17.360 the lifestyle where she lives. She became a diplomat. She courted various Catholic power 1.00

00:57:23.440 holders on behalf of herself and her son in economical and political matters. So she was

00:57:28.640 just traveling around being sort of a freelance diplomat trying to get I guess money and power

00:57:35.220 for her son in 1596 this is like eight years later Edward Fortunatus was deposed by other

00:57:44.180 family members again similar to what happened with the marriage with Gunilla so Edward Fortunatus

00:57:51.080 married Maria von Eichen which was an unequal marriage family members were so mad about that

00:57:58.100 slash about him being catholic that they some protestant family members deposed him

00:58:03.960 so cecilia continued trying to do the best for her and for her son she's described as a talented

00:58:11.420 diplomat with a great wit and verbal talent i mean i think we know i think we know that she is

00:58:15.900 very convincing in whatever she wants um

00:58:20.580 so let's see in 1613 she addressed the imperial german roman assembly in regensburg in favor of

00:58:29.240 her second son philip who had been imprisoned by the protestants in baden just a lot of drama

00:58:36.700 happening in baden cecilia it says here was often successful as she secured favorable sentences in

00:58:44.620 her favor like she was i think she would have been a very successful lawyer frankly she's just 0.99

00:58:50.340 very persuasive um let's see she secured favorable sentences in her favor but as the sentences could

00:58:58.280 not be carried out they were of little practical value i'm not sure what that means but it said

00:59:01.980 that on wikipedia she was a target of protestant propaganda for her conversion to catholicism and

00:59:09.100 political activity the most known slander against her was a story by everhard van reed he claimed

00:59:15.740 that she hosted a brothel in antwerp and that her son had to drag her from it by her hair she's also

00:59:22.480 compared to the empress messalina who i talked about a bit in the agrippina episode remember

00:59:28.840 there was a whole thing about like did she have a contest with a courtesan about who could have 1.00

00:59:33.100 sex with more people in a day etc so you know powerful woman people are like oh but she's like 1.00

00:59:41.060 does sex things and that means that she's bad like we've seen and heard that before whatever 1.00

00:59:45.880 cecilia was forced to support herself by loans due to her lack of income 1.00

00:59:52.000 and therefore was often hunted by creditors um in 1618 her estate was taken and she fled by

00:59:59.800 carriage to make contact with the archbishop of trier in luxembourg to escape her prosecutors

01:00:05.160 or her persecutors she was literally forced to abandon her carriage and jump over the border to

01:00:10.360 lorraine upon the outbreak of the 30 years war let's see at this point the protestant line of

01:00:16.980 the baden dynasties the people who had taken over from her son were deposed by the imperial army and

01:00:22.160 her grandson as a catholic so i'm not sure the son of either philip or edward fortunatus was

01:00:29.120 allowed to take control over the entire territory of baden so more power for her lineage cecilia

01:00:36.060 was therefore allowed to return to her estate in rhodomacron and spent her last years in comfort

01:00:41.200 there as the grandmother of the margrave i assume still she passed away age 86 and is buried under

01:00:51.920 the floor in the church in rhodomacron and that is the saga of princess cecilia the princess pirate

01:01:01.580 diplomat truly scandalous legend i mean frankly my i don't know a lot about swedish history but

01:01:09.360 at this point my favorite person from swedish history um the saga of the vadstina bullret

01:01:14.740 which is a great you know i love a scandal with a name so we need to score her on the

01:01:24.020 fredigand memorial scandalous scale scandalousness is the first category on the scandalousness scale

01:01:30.660 now instinctively i feel like 10 like come on but i want to like think this through so the evidence

01:01:37.360 we have of her i mean there's vodstina bullret major scandal we have the way that she was going

01:01:43.420 behind the back of her brothers all the time to um wheeling and dealing that's kind of more 1.00

01:01:48.580 scheminess and scandalousness there is i don't know you know scandalousness like a 10 in

01:01:55.040 scandalousness that's really for people who like um murder somebody or who like um you know some

01:02:04.760 sort of con artistry but she was in contrast to her father like just the fact that her father

01:02:13.280 like again picture gustav is this like george washington winston churchill hybrid the father 0.98

01:02:17.940 of sweden and she's just like i'm just gonna like go be a princess pirate slash do whatever the fuck 0.54

01:02:23.160 i want my whole life let's get you know what and it's christmas and i'm in a good mood so i'm

01:02:27.620 giving her a 10 10 for scandalousness to princess cecilia because she's like icon status to me right 1.00

01:02:33.420 now her scheminess i think is also very high like literal scheminess like she was friends with 1.00

01:02:42.340 elizabeth and then she was able to get like a business trip to england but then she didn't do 1.00

01:02:46.300 the business she was supposed to do and then she just like was kind of grifting elizabeth 0.99

01:02:50.280 and then the way that she like then she got a pirate fleet and then she kind of went rogue

01:02:56.680 with her pirate fleet like her scheminess i feel like it was pretty high and then also all the like 0.99

01:03:00.640 diplomacy and stuff like she was scheming every day she was alive for 80 whatever years

01:03:05.860 where i feel like she's gonna lose some points or not gain lots of points is in significance

01:03:12.360 because again kim my swedish cultural advisor i was like oh but how do we feel about her for

01:03:17.520 significance and kim is like i don't yeah i mean like her grandson became the margrave of baden

01:03:24.020 rhodemachern which is like cool um i feel like the chaos that she sowed was pretty iconic but

01:03:31.720 in terms of like significance of you know world events like if she had married robert dudley that

01:03:40.720 would have been pretty major she didn't like i don't feel her significance number is super high

01:03:47.300 and that's nothing against her i just don't in my heart very high but like in actuality i'm going

01:03:54.400 to give her a significance of like five because just the chaos she sowed in all of these wars

01:04:02.940 happening sweden russia like i'm sure there was an effect but like the long-term significance of

01:04:08.300 her i don't i don't see it the sexism bonus is as per ever this is interesting to consider because

01:04:16.120 like kim said like if she had been a man like she would have been king no question like she would

01:04:21.680 have like usurped she would have strapped on her skis like her dad and just like taken over but 1.00

01:04:26.580 she was a woman so she couldn't be a king um her brothers kept like making rules so she couldn't 0.89

01:04:33.600 just like have a good time at the same time i feel like she still did a lot of cool stuff like 0.99

01:04:41.540 the sexism did not super get in her way the way it did for like sd or like people who were really 1.00

01:04:48.920 inhibited from doing stuff like cecilia was like oh you're gonna just like make these rules against

01:04:52.760 me i'll just find a loophole and whatever convince like another country to make you forgive me

01:04:57.720 i feel like her sexism i'm gonna give her a 6.5 for sexism and frankly i just remembered 1.00

01:05:05.280 vis-a-vis scandalousness of course she deserves a 10 she ran off with a spanish ambassador

01:05:10.580 and had a daughter with her with him like her scandalousness score I feel like it's Christmas

01:05:18.800 but also I think that she deserves and gets a 10 so this gives her oh why don't I give 6.5

01:05:26.240 this is harder to add so it's like 26 31.5 oh wow this is actually quite high

01:05:35.340 so 31.5 cecilia of sweden honestly this puts her fourth highest score ever which i'm excited about

01:05:48.740 and i think well you know what all the numbers i give are always subjective but i feel happy about

01:05:53.980 it it's like the top four currently on the fredigan memorial scandal to scale fredigan does

01:05:59.840 the 38 queen margot 37.5 joanna of naples 33 cecilia of sweden 31.5 and then we're getting

01:06:07.820 down to um fifth place is a tie three would tie agrippina sophia dorothea and elizabeth woodville

01:06:15.080 oliva 31 like i feel i like this i like the way that this is shaping down like the top four

01:06:20.880 fredigand queen margot joanna of naples cecilia of sweden just women who just like did not give a 0.65

01:06:27.000 fuck and like were able just through force of personality but also i would say some fortunately 0.97

01:06:36.520 the people who they were around they were able to outsmart etc they ascended to the top of the scale 0.99

01:06:42.880 so that is princess cecilia of sweden slashed a little bit about the history of sweden itself

01:06:50.800 um and i wanted to say so i am excited about learning about people like cecilia people like

01:07:01.880 fredigan people i had not heard about i want to know who is like a lesser known scandalous person

01:07:09.080 from the place where you live or the place where you are from your city your country your territory

01:07:13.660 whatever you live like please let me know because when i you know if you just like sometimes i do

01:07:19.420 I'm like what are some people I could talk about on the podcast and I google like you know scandalous

01:07:23.340 women from history and it's always the same like five people it's like Marie Antoinette I'm like

01:07:27.520 yeah I could do an episode about her but like I want someone less famous I want like the fact that

01:07:32.960 Cecilia Sweden has been here this whole time with a very lengthy wikipedia page and I've never

01:07:37.940 encountered her until Kim mentioned it is like come on same with Fred again I'm like 0.96

01:07:42.220 would would that I had known about her before so please let me know who is a scandalous person from

01:07:48.740 your from where you're from somebody who's like lesser known ideally would be great um my dms are

01:07:56.300 open on instagram at um vulgar history pod if you're not on instagram my dms are also open on

01:08:03.580 twitter at vulgar history or you can email me if you have like lengthier thoughts you'd rather email

01:08:08.340 vulgar history pod at gmail.com i truly want to hear from you so please let me know who are some

01:08:15.180 cool heroines um and it's also helpful if you give me at least a little bit of info about like

01:08:21.180 why they're cool just so I know just so I know and if people send me like longer little writings

01:08:28.920 maybe I can like share those on the podcast because I will say there's been some people who

01:08:32.940 have suggested very interesting subjects to me before like they've sent me messages or suggested

01:08:39.360 them whatever and when I look them up I'm like oh this is a cool person but there's not enough to

01:08:43.400 like talk about for an hour like I want for the podcast I like to to talk for like 30 to 60 minutes

01:08:50.120 about whoever I'm talking about but if it's like a cool person and there's not that much known but

01:08:54.460 they are cool like you just write me in a little description of what what they were like and I can

01:08:59.820 read that as like a little mini episode or something who knows it's really this the planning

01:09:04.300 of this podcast like the life of Cecilia I never know what I'm gonna do next but it's gonna be

01:09:11.300 awesome so um other things to remind you about so like for sure i'm going to do another season

01:09:19.700 of the podcast in the spring probably so stay tuned for information about that but in the

01:09:25.100 meantime um if you want more episodes of vulgar history type things slash me talking about stuff

01:09:31.400 you can join my patreon page which is patreon.com slash ann foster writer so if you know about

01:09:38.480 patreon you know it's like you pledge a bit of money every month and then in exchange you get

01:09:43.160 extra stuff from me um if you pledge at least five dollars us per month then you get every

01:09:49.660 month i do one bonus episode on patreon which are called so this asshole where i talk about men who 0.51

01:09:55.400 are awful i'm this month i'm going to be doing charles dickens who you know i don't want to 0.92

01:10:01.720 spoil your annual reread of a christmas carol but he was awful to his wife and i'm going to be

01:10:07.440 talking about that anyway patreon.com and foster writer um you can also support the podcast slash

01:10:13.680 me by buying some of the merch which is at vulgar history.store vulgar history.s-t-o-r-e remember

01:10:20.300 you can use code tits out for free shipping in the u.s or tits out 10 for 10 off in the store

01:10:26.460 i'm thinking now i'd love to do some sort of cecilia of sweden inspired merch not sure what

01:10:34.020 that would look like at this point but i'll think of something cute and you can look in the store

01:10:39.840 and it'll be there um what else my book suggestions if it's like you want to know some good books to

01:10:47.520 read about scandalous women from history if you go to bookshop.org slash shop slash vulgar history

01:10:53.120 there's all the books i've mentioned that i've used as resources are all there in my little shop

01:10:58.120 and when you buy stuff from that link or in general from bookshop.org a little percentage

01:11:03.780 that goes to me which i also appreciate um and i guess that's everything instagram vulgar history

01:11:10.280 pod twitter vulgar history send me your stories at vulgar history pod at gmail.com and yeah it's

01:11:19.240 been a wild year i appreciate so much everybody who's been listening everyone who's been like

01:11:23.780 commenting um recommending this podcast to their friends like i don't have advertising so clearly

01:11:33.380 it's just like a mixture of word of mouth and algorithms that's got this 999% increase of 0.83

01:11:39.980 listenership so I truly appreciate it um keep your mask on tits out for 2022 and I'll talk to you all 0.92

01:11:48.040 next timey 0.92

01:12:03.380 Sorry, investing, trading, that isn't a personality.

01:12:09.380 You don't need the voice.

01:12:10.900 You don't need the jargon.

01:12:12.440 You don't need the podcast.

01:12:14.000 You already know how to trade.

01:12:16.060 You've done it your whole life.

01:12:17.960 And TD Easy Trade taps into that instinct

01:12:20.080 so you can build something real.

01:12:22.340 No minimums, no monthly fees, 24-hour support.

01:12:25.660 No investor personality required.

01:12:28.760 Because you are made to trade.

01:12:31.140 And TD Easy Trade is made to help.

01:12:33.380 Download it now.

01:12:34.760 Ready to take your investing knowledge to pro level?

01:12:37.420 This is Fidelity Connects, your daily edge in the markets.

01:12:41.080 Get deep insights on real-time market topics that may impact your investment portfolio.

01:12:45.540 Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow.

01:12:50.100 The war is over and both sides lost.

01:12:54.540 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

01:12:59.520 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

01:13:07.440 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

01:13:11.720 This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.

01:13:15.200 Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

01:13:21.120 This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.

01:13:28.640 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

01:13:33.340 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

01:13:44.120 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

Vulgar History - December 15, 2021

The Scandalous Saga of Sweden's Pirate Princess Cecilia Gustavsdotter Vasa

Episode Stats

Transcript