Erik Trolle
Regent of Sweden (1460-1530)
Erik Trolle (or Erik Arvidsson; c. 1460 – 1530) was elected regent of Sweden in 1512, during the era of Kalmar Union. He was Justiciar of Närke and a Lord High Councillor of Sweden from 1487.
Biography
Erik Arvidsson was born around 1460 into an important family of high nobility and was apparently aiming at a clerical career. Erik's parents were lord Arvid Birgersson Trolle (died 1505) and his first wife Kerstin Jonsdotter (Gädda). His father had connected him to the powerful Thott family by marrying Beate Iversdatter Thott (died 1487) as his second wife in 1466. His last stepmother was his father's third wife Brita Turesdotter Bielke.
Erik studied at the University of Rostock and University of Cologne, had positions as Canon in Uppsala and Linköping but was never ordained. Erik was elected Regent (riksföreståndare) at the meeting of the High Council of Sweden in 1512 upon the death of regent Svante Nilsson, Lord of Ekesiö, but never actually took office, being superseded by Svante's son, the young Sten Sture the Younger.
He married in 1487 the wealthy Ingeborg Philipsdatter (Thott) (died 1495), his stepmother's first cousin, as his first wife and settled on her manor Ekholmen Castle in Uppland. His second wife, from about 1512, was Karin Eriksdotter Gyllenstierna, much his junior, who survived until around 1562.
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This entry incorporates text from “Erik Trolle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.