Dietrich, Count of Oldenburg - Marriages and Children

Marriages and Children

He had firstly, as a child, married (for reasons of succession and uniting the hereditary fiefs) a distant cousin, Countess Adelheid of Oldenburg-Delmenhorst (who is said to have died already in 1404), daughter of Oldenburg Count Otto IV of Delmenhorst, and in 1423 he married for a second time, Helvig of Schauenburg (born in about 1398-1400, died 1436), widow of Prince Balthasar of Mecklenburg and daughter of the murdered Duke Gerhard VI of Schleswig-Holstein and his wife Elisabeth of Brunswick, thus sister of the reigning Duke Adolf VIII. All his legitimate children were born of the second wife.

His second marriage strengthened this interest in Scandinavian monarchies, since Helvig was a descendant of King Eric V of Denmark, King Haakon V of Norway and King Magnus I of Sweden.

At this time, all Scandinavia lived under the Kalmar Union erected by Queen Margarethe I of Denmark. In 1387 she had lost her own heir Olav IV of Norway, the new heirs now being Eric of Pomerania, and his sister Catherine who was married with a prince of the Palatinate and Bavaria.

Count Theodoric of Oldenburg is said to have been a rival claimant to the crowns of Sweden and Denmark during the reign of Eric VII/ Eric XIII, whose succession was through Christopher I of Denmark, the younger brother of the murdered Eric IV, and through Magnus I of Sweden, younger brother of the deposed King Valdemar.

Count Theodoric had three surviving sons and one daughter:

• Christian (1426–1481), who succeeded him as Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, and became later King Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, as well as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein.
• Maurice (1428–1464); when his elder brother became king, he was given the County of Delmenhorst.
• Gerhard (1430–1500); when his eldest brother had become king, he was given the county of Oldenburg, and from his other brother's heirs he also inherited Delmenhorst in about 1483. The third son got his name from usages of the mother's Holstein clan.
• Adelheid (1425–1475), first married count Ernest III of Hohnstein (d. 1454) and then in 1474 Count Gerhard VI of Mansfeld (d. 1492).