Early life Cecilia was described as the most beautiful of the daughters of Gustav I, and was frequently mentioned because of her beauty. She has been referred to as somewhat of a Black Sheep of the family, because of the
scandals she was involved in. During her early childhood, she, as well as her siblings in the royal nursery, were primarily under the care of her mother's trusted nurse,
Brigitta Lars Anderssons, her mother's cousin Lady Margareta and the noble widow Ingrid Amundsdotter. After the death of her mother in 1551, she as well as her siblings were placed in the care of
Christina Gyllenstierna and then under her aunts Brita and
Martha Leijonhufvud before her father's marriage to
Catherine Stenbock. They were then under the responsibility of their stepmother and, more precisely, the head lady-in-waiting
Anna Hogenskild. In 1556, she and her sisters were given a dowry of 100.000 daler, had their portraits painted and their personal qualities described in
Latin by the court poet
Henricus Mollerus and presented on the dynastic marriage market. The same year, her father presented
Ostfriesland (East Frisia) with a trading treaty and a marriage alliance. Ostfriesland was chosen because it was strategically placed toward Denmark, and because the
Calvinistic Emden was a rival to Lubeck and a treaty could break the domination of the
Hanseatic league in Sweden. She arrived in the autumn of 1565 after traveling some 400 miles by water and 750 miles on ice and snow. Cecilia had been engaged in a correspondence with Elizabeth for several years and seems to have felt admiration for her on a personal level. She successfully asked Elizabeth for an invitation to England already in 1562, and learned to speak English from English people in Sweden. Cecilia traveled to England through Estonia, Prussia, Poland and Germany (without visiting the home of her consort) to Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. She managed to meet her imprisoned brother John before her departure, and when she arrived in
Swedish Estonia, Eric asked his governor in
Reval to keep her under supervision, as he suspected her to be more loyal to their brother John than to him. Cecilia's visit to England was part of an attempt to convince
Queen Elizabeth I to marry her half-brother
King Eric XIV. == Issue ==