Erik Johansson Vasa

Who was Erik Johansson Vasa?

Erik Johansson Vasa was the Lord of Rydboholm Castle in the Roslagen. He was born around the year 1470 to Johan Kristiernsson Vasa and Birgitta Gustafsdotter Sture in a village named Örby in the province of Uppland, Sweden. He was one of four children from Johan and Birgitta.

Erik Johansson Vasa was a faithful adherent of the Stures, a powerful and influential family in Sweden from the late 15th century to the early 16th century, and was notorious for his irritable and arbitrary temper. He assisted the Stures in fighting against the Danes, who controlled most of Sweden during the early 16th century. When the Danes, under Christian II, conquered Sweden and took the capital, Stockholm, in 1520 several members of the Sture party were executed in the Stockholm Bloodbath in November of that year, among whom was Erik Johansson. His first son, Gustav Eriksson Vasa, had escaped from Denmark some time previously and survived. As Gustav I, he became the King of Sweden in 1523 and founder of the House of Vasa.