Else Cederborg: "The Tragic Life of A Queen" - Ezine article, formerly published

 

Queen Ingeborg

In the year of 1277 the Princess Ingeborg was born to the Swedish King Magnus III and his wife, Queen Helwig of Holstein. Eleven years later, i.e. 1288, this young princess was engaged to the Danish King Eric VI Menved. Their marriage took place in 1296 and in 1298 Ingeborg's brother, King Birger of Sweden, married her sister-in-law, Princess Martha of Denmark. 

Both of these marriages were for dynastic purposes, but the marriage of King Birger and Princess Martha was not carried out according to the plans of the Danish and Swedish courts. The Church fought King Eric and refused to give him the dispensation to have his sister marry his brother-in-law as there was some very strict rules against marriages between relatives. Actually, King Birger marrying the sister of his brother-in-law was considered to be "incest".

Maybe many of their superstitious contemporaries have seen the marriage of these supposedly close relatives as the reason for the misfortune that befell Ingeborg after her marriage to King Eric Menved. What happened was that in the years to follow her marriage in 1996 she gave birth to 8-14 children. We don't know the exact number, only that 8 of her children were boys who died soon after being born.

She was a beautiful and quite popular queen, but does not seem to have had any political significance except as the unsuccessful producer of a male heir to the throne. That means that what filled her life and mind must have been her dead babies and her failure as a queen.

However, in 1318 she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. That must have been such a relief to her as a queen as well as having infused her with a feeling of fulfilment as a woman. Everybody hailed her when she showed off her son to the public from the window of her carriage, but doing so she unfortunately lost her grip on the tiny baby who fell to the ground and died from his injuries.

According to some legends she subsequently was forced to leave the court and enter a convent after this tragic accident. However, others said that she made this choice herself as she could not face her old life as a queen. One year after the death of her son she herself died, soon to be followed by her husband, King Eric VI Menved.

When he too died in 1319 he had failed in all areas as a king the same way as she had as a queen. He had no issue, and Denmark was bankrupt. However, strangely enough his - and his queen - have attained a sort of romantic allure after having died in this miserable state. Both of them have actually been hailed in the old romantic literature of Denmark and they are well loved even today.

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The young king, Erik Menved

Eric VI Menved (1274 – 13 November 1319) was King of Denmark (1286–1319). A son of King Eric V and Agnes of Brandenburg, he became king in 1286 at age 12, when his father was murdered on 22 November by unknown assailants. On account of his age, his mother ruled for him until 1294