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Philippa
Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway
Spouse	Eric of Pomerania, King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway m. 1406; wid. 1430
Father	Henry IV Bolingbroke, King of England
Mother	Mary de Bohun
Born	4 June 1394(1394-06-04) Peterborough Castle, Northamptonshire
Died	7 January 1430 (aged 35)
Burial	Cloister Church at Vadstena, Linköping

Philippa's grave at Vadstena Abbey

Philippa of England (4 June 1394 – 7 January 1430) was the Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway from 1406 to 1430. She was also the consort to King Eric of Pomerania. In fact, Philippa of England was the de-facto regent of Sweden in 1420 and the regent of Denmark and Norway from 1423 to 1425.^[1] She also received The Most Noble Order of the Garter in 1408.

Early life and marriage

Philippa was born to Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, King of England and Mary de Bohun at Peterborough Castle, Peterborough. In 1401, king Henry suggested Queen Margaret I of Denmark that an alliance be formed between England and Scandinavia with a marriage between the heir to the English throne and Catherine, sister to the heir of the Nordic thrones. Margaret could not agree to the English conditions for this marriage, but instead, Philippa was engaged to Eric, and formally proclaimed queen in 1405.

She was married on 26 October 1406 to Eric of Pomerania in Lund Cathedral at Lund in Denmark. (The town of Lund (= grove) lies in what is Sweden today; at this time it was still Danish territory.) Philippa was actually the first documented princess in history to wear a white wedding dress during a royal wedding ceremony: she wore a tunic with a cloak in white silk bordered with grey squirrel and ermine).^[2] Philippa was given large parts of Sweden as her dowry. The first years of their marriage, the couple lived in Kalmar in Sweden, and Philippa was to spend a lot of her time as queen in this country. It had been decided, that she would be granted personal fiefs in only one of the three kingdoms, and that was to be Sweden. Her head lady-in-waiting was the Swedish noblewoman Lady Katarina Knutsdotter, granddaughter of Saint Bridget and former lady-in-waiting of Queen Margaret I of Denmark herself. She was a benefator of Vadstena Abbey, were she was a frequent guest.

Regencies

During King Eric's periods of absence abroad, she practically was the regent, and in Sweden, were she spent a lot of her time, she was in charge most of the time even when the King was not abroad. He evidently had great trust in her. Both ancient and modern authors give a favourable account of her rule. It is even said that in certain matters she was more efficient than her husband. Scholars have largely accepted this judgment of the Queen without, however, going into details.^[3]

In 1422, for example Philippa presided over the Swedish council to solve a dispute between Swedish noble fractions. During her husbands stay abroad from 1423 she was regent in the three union kingdoms until 1425, and among others made a treaty with some members of the North-German Confederation of so-called Hanse-States about the validity of the coin-system. In 1426, she gathered support in Sweden for the war against Holstein, and the same year, she also acquired Swedish support for the protection of Copenhagen against the Hanseatic league. These years, she was the de facto regent in Sweden. In 1428 she successfully organized the defense of Copenhagen against the Hanseatic League, a heroic feat later recounted by Hans Christian Andersen in Godfather's Picture Book (1868).[1] At the time of her death in 1430, she was in Sweden at a Diplomatic mission. She is described as one of few monarch of the Kalmar Union actually popular outside Denmark.

Death

The queen bore a stillborn boy in 1429. She died on 7 January 1430 and was buried in the Cloister Church at Vadstena, close to Linköping in Östergötland, Sweden.

Ancestry

References

• Lars-Olof Larsson (2003), Kalmarunionens tid (The age of the Kalmar union)(Swedish)
• Åke Ohlmarks: Alla Sveriges drottningar (All the queens of Sweden) (Swedish)
• Herman Lindvist: Historien om alla Sveriges drottningar (History of all the queens of Sweden) (Swedish) (2006)
• http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1750/origin/170/
• Anne J. Duggan: Queens and queenship in medieval Europe

Succession