John Casimir, Count Palatine of Kleeburg
father of King Charles X of Sweden (1589-1652)
John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg (20 April 1589, Zweibrücken – 18 June 1652, Stegeborg Castle) was the son of John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken and his wife, Duchess Magdalene of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. He was married to
Catherine of Sweden and was the founder of a branch of Wittelsbach Counts Palatine often called the Swedish line, because it gave rise to three subsequent kings of Sweden, but more commonly known as the Kleeburg (or Cleebourg) line.
In 1591 his father stipulated that, as the youngest son, John Casimir would receive as appanage the countship of Neukastell in the Palatinate. Upon their father's death in 1611, however, the eldest son, John II, Count Palatine of Zweibrucken, instead signed a compromise with John Casimir whereby the latter received only the castle at Neukastell coupled with an annuity of 3000 florins from the countship's revenues (similarly, John Casimir's elder brother, Frederick Casimir, received the castle at Landsberg with a small surrounding domain, instead of the entire Landsberg appanage bequeathed to him paternally).
On 11 June 1615, Casimir married his second cousin Catherine of Sweden, and their son eventually became King Charles X Gustav of Sweden.
Family
Five of his children with Catherine survived infancy:
Christina Magdalena (1616–1662); married Frederick VI, Margrave of Baden-Durlach. King Adolf Frederick of Sweden was her great-grandson.
King Charles X Gustav of Sweden (1622–1660).
Maria Eufrosyne (1625–1687); married Count Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie.
Eleonora Catherine (1626–1692); married Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Eschwege.
“John Casimir, Count Palatine of Kleeburg” enters the record as father of King Charles X of Sweden (1589-1652). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Casimir and Count can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q62247. VIAF identifies the subject as 15577543. The Library of Congress control number is no00001582. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1589, 1652, 1591 and 1611.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Casimir, Count Palatine of Kleeburg” 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.