Princess Cecilia of Sweden - Early Life

Early Life

As a child, she had a delicate health and was often sick, but as an adult, she became healthy, beautiful, and energetic. Princess Cecilia is often talked about as the "Black Sheep" of her family; she was a controversial person, the centre of many scandals throughout her lifetime. Several negotiations were made to arrange a marriage, but the scandals she was involved in prohibited the plans for several years. In 1559, at the wedding in Vadstena between her eldest sister Princess Catherine and Edzard II of Ostfriesland, her brothers observed a man climbing into her window several nights in a row, and when they decided to investigate the matter the following night, they caught the brother of the groom, John II of Ostfriesland (1534–1591), in Cecilia's bedroom without any hose (pants) on. This caused a great scandal; after having refused to marry Cecilia, the count was thrown in jail for a year, and some sources indicate that he was castrated. Cecilia herself was so beaten up by her father that she accused him of having ripped her hair off. Her brothers printed a coin which pictured her as Susanna in the bath, indicating that she was as innocent as the legendary Susanna of the Bible.

Princess Cecilia was involved in a few other incidents, also considered to be scandalous. People gossipped about what technique of contraception she used, claiming that she spat in the mouth of a toad to avoid pregnancy. Her half-brother king Eric XIV wrote a new protocol of movement of the court when he caught her having a nightly party in her private appartements.