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  Swedish Royalty
  House of Vasa

Gustav I Parents    Erik Johansson, Cecilia Månsdotter Children    Eric XIV, John III, Catherine, Cecilia, Magnus, Anna Maria, Sophia, Elizabeth, Charles IX Eric XIV Children    Sigrid, Gustav John III Children    Sigismund, Anna, John Sigismund Children    Władysław IV, John II Casimir, John Albert, Charles Ferdinand, Alexander Charles, Anna Catherine Constance Charles IX Children    Catherine, Gustav II Adolf, Maria Elizabeth, Christina, Charles Philip Grandson    Charles X Gustav Gustav II Adolf Children    Christina Christina

Anna Vasa

Anna Vasa (17 May 1568 - 26 February 1625) was a royal sister of the monarch of Poland, Sweden and Lithuania.

She was born as the youngest child of Duke John of Finland and Catherine Jagellonica, sister of Sigismund II Augustus of Poland. Her birth took place in Eskilstuna and was just after her family was released from captivity at Gripsholm, during which she had been conceived.

Her father ascended 1569 the throne of Sweden. Although her mother had educated her to Catholicism, she converted to Lutheran creed later in 1580s. She was a specialist in medicinal herbs and kept an own apothecary. Anna went with her brother to Poland in 1587, but was sent back in 1589 because the polish court disliced the influence she had over her brother, and after this she lived in Sweden during the reign of her father, but in 1593 she returned to Poland to live in her brother Sigismund III Vasa's, court, where she spend the rest of her life, although she did return to the Swedish court on several brief occasions, among them in 1618. She was known as Anna of Svecia and was a Protestant member of a Catholic royal family. She became very respected because of her great learning.

When Sigismund succeeded in Sweden, he planned to make Anna the Regent of that kingdom, while he was to reside in Poland. Instead, their uncle, Charles, Duke of Sudermannia, got the Swedish council to appoint himself. Duke Charles, a fierce Protestant, however called Anna a poisoneress and used that in denigration of Sigismund.

Her brother became in 1587 King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.

Anna's appanage was Brodnica, a Prussian district near Baltic coast.

Anna remained unmarried. She is buried at the Church of St.Mary in Thorun, Poland, but only several years after her death, as a Pope had first forbidden the burial of a Protestant in a blessed graveyard in catholic Poland. Only her nephew, king Ladislaus, got that decree reversed.

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