HEDWIG ELEONORA OF HOLSTEIN-GOTTORP

'Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp' (October 23, 1634 – November 24, 1715), was a queen consort of Sweden. She was a daughter of Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp and Marie Elisabeth of Saxony.
She was married to King Charles X of Sweden for political reasons on October 24, 1654.
After the death of her husband in 1660, she became a member and chair of the regency of Charles XI (1660 - 1672) and later Charles XII during a couple of months in 1697, and as regent during the Great Northern War in 1700-1713, although she was never very politically active.
In 1713, she made her grand-daughter Ulrika Eleonora regent.

Contents

Characteristics

Queen Dowager

Reference

Characteristics

Queen Hedwig Eleonora was a very strong willed and dominating woman, whose temper was feared in the royal castles, and she entirely dominated the Swedish court until her death, as one of the most notable of the queens of Sweden. She was the dominating royal representative during her husband's absence (and he was absent most of their marriage), and again during her grandson's absence in the Great Northern War. She did, though, accompany her husband to Poland in 1656 and to Denmark in 1658.
Although described as severe and strict, she displayed a more tolerant attitude than most would have. The scandal of her son's first fiancee, Juliana of Hesse-Eschwege – a young German princess, paternal cousin to the king, had been fostered in the Swedish court and it was the officially understanding that she should be married to him when he became an adult. However, in 1672, Princess Juliana, in the carriage with the queen dowager, fell to the floor of the carriage in labour. The father proved to be Gustaf Lilie, a married officer of the court. But the engagement was not broken; Princess Juliana was sent to the country to wait for the scandal to blow over, while Lilie was sent abroad, which was very tolerant from the queen dowager, considering the sexual morals of the time. However, soon after, Princess Juliana gave birth to another child. The father was the young secretary of the ducth ambassador, the son of her Dutch servant, Marchand. This time the engagement was broken and she was married off to the father, who was given the title baron Lilienburg (Lilies estate was named Lilienborg) and expelled from the country. The couple mowed to the Netherlands.

Queen Dowager

To great relief to the lords of the guardian government, she was never very interested in politics, but was satisfied to have the position as the country's first lady and royal symbol, presiding over the court and, formally, over the government. She simply signed documents they gave her, among those the decree which acknowledged the old serfdom in Latvia and Estonia (then Swedish provinces) in 1671.
In 1661, she was considered a possible consort of king Charles II of England, but nothing came of it; she claimed she wished to remain faithful to her dead husband.
When her mourning period was officially ended 1663, the court exploded in parties with her as a hostess. As apart of the festivitys, she opened the first real theater in Bollhuset in 1666-1667.
Her son Charles XI was a "mother's boy" in his childhood and shy through his entire life. During his first appearances in parliament, he talked only to the members of the government through her, and she continued to be the real queen even during his later reign, to the sorrow of her daughter-in-law, Ulrike Eleonora of Denmark. The King referred to his mother as "The Queen" and to Ulrike Eleonora simply as "my wife". Foreign ambassadors, wary of this, always paid their respects to Hedwig Eleonora first, and then to Ulrike Eleonora.
Hedwig Eleonora enjoyed great respect as "riksänkedrottningen" , which means "the realm queen dowager". Throughout her entire life she managed to keep a reputation of great virtue among the people. Among the court, however, she was known to have lovers, among them the young nobleman count Carl Gyllenstierna (1649-1705), an affair that started in 1668 and continued for many years, some suggest even to his death, and, according to unconfirmed gossip, resulted in at least one abortion; the young count's new castle was built with a secret passage from the bedrooms used by him and the queen dowager under her visits.
A known scandal in her later years was the one of her favorite lady-in-waiting, Charlotta Carolina Bärfelt. Bärfelt, described as a person fond of intrigues, had made herself known in court for taking bribes in exhange for talking to the dowager queen on peoples behalf, and was suspected for stealing a huge amount of objects from the royal castle and Hedwig Eleonora herself. The rumours became so intense that Bärfelt was attacked on the streets and misstreated by unknown men. The court demanded she be investigated, and Arvid Horn, the queen dowager's priest Molin and countess Piper asked formed an alliance with Carl Gyllenstierna; the dowager queen's lover stated " ''Either miss Bärfelt leaves or I will leave''", and then, Hedwig Eleonora exiled her from court; she must have had influence over the dowager queen, for Carl Gyllenstierna gave order that the door of Hedwig Eleonora be locked the last night Bärfelt was in the castle to prevent her from coming to the queen at night to persuade her to let her stay. Hedwig, however, forbit any investigation of Bärfelt's luggage to see if the missing object's was there.
Her main interests were architecture and painting, as well as playing cards. The beautiful Drottningholm Palace, where the present Swedish royal family resides, is the
result of Hedwig Eleonora's love for architecture.

Reference

★ Herman Lindquist; "'History of the queens of Sweden'".