Anna of Finland
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Anna Vasa (17 May 1568 - 26 February 1625) was a royal sister of the monarch of Poland, Sweden and Lithuania.
She was born as the youngest child of Duke John of Finland and Catherine Jagellonica, sister of Sigismund II Augustus of Poland. Her birth took place in Eskilstuna and was just after her family was released from captivity at Gripsholm, during which she had been conceived.
Her father ascended 1569 the throne of Sweden. Although her mother had educated her to Catholicism, she converted to Lutheran creed later in 1580's. She was a specialist in medicinal herbs and kept an own apothecary. Anna lived in Sweden during the reign of her father, but then moved to Poland to live with her brother Sigismund III Vasa's, court. She was known as Anna of Svecia and was a Protestant member of a Catholic royal family.
When Sigismund succeeded in Sweden, he planned to make Anna the Regent of that kingdom, while he was to reside in Poland. Instead, their uncle, Charles, Duke of Sudermannia, got the Swedish council to appoint himself. Duke Charles, a fierce Protestant, however called Anna a poisoneress and used that in denigration of Sigismund.
Her brother became in 1587 King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
Anna's appanage was Brodnica, a Prussian district near Baltic coast.
Anna remained unmarried. She is buried at Church of St.Mary in Thorun, Poland, but only several years after her death, as a Pope had first forbidden to bury a Prorestant to a blessed graveyard in catholic Poland. Only her nephew king Ladislaus got that decree reversed.
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