Johan Skytte

Who was Johan Skytte?

Johan Skytte was a Swedish politician.

Skytte was son of the Mayor of Nyköping, Bengt Nilsson Skräddare. While attending school in his home town and for the nine years he was studying at foreign universities, he used the surname Schroderus, a Latinised form of the German Schröder – his father's surname – which means "tailor".

Already at his return from his foreign studies in 1602, he was hired as tutor of the young Prince Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the future king, and was ennobled the following year, taking the name Skytte after an extinct noble family from which he claimed descent on the maternal side.

He was sent to London in 1610 on a diplomatic mission, an attempt to seek the hand of Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James I for the young prince. In 1611, he was made governor of Vestmannia, in 1617 a high councillor and in 1622 chancellor of Uppsala University, which he remained until his death. Skytte participated in drafting the 1617 Coronation Oath of king Gustav Adolf.