Eric

Eric, the name of several Danish and Swedish kings.—ERIC VII., king of Denmark, born in 1382, the son of Duke Wratislav of Pomerania, was selected as her successor by Queen Margaret of Denmark, and in 1412 mounted the throne of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, united according to the treaty of Calmar. Cruel and cowardly in his character, he lost Sweden in 1437 through a revolt of the peasants of Dalecarlia, and in 1439 was deposed also in Denmark. He died in Rügenwald in 1459.—ERIC VIII., the Saint, became king of Sweden in 1155, did much to extend Christianity in his dominions, and to improve the laws, and fell in battle with the Danes in 1160.—ERIC XIV., the last of the name who reigned in Sweden, succeeded in 1560 to the throne of his father, the great Gustavus Vasa, and at once began to exhibit the folly that disgraced his reign. His flighty matrimonial schemes reached even Elizabeth of England and Mary of Scotland, until at length (1567) his roving fancy found rest in the love of a Swedish peasant-girl, who acquired an influence over him which was ascribed by the superstitious to witchcraft, since she alone was able to control him in the violent paroxysms of blind fury to which he was subject. His capricious cruelties and the disastrous wars that followed on his follies at length alienated the minds of his subjects, who threw off their allegiance in 1568, and solemnly elected his brother John to the throne. Nine years later the unhappy Eric ended his miserable life half voluntarily by a cup of poison. This crazy madman had a genuine love of letters, and solaced his captivity with music and the composition of psalms. His story has been worked into dramatic form by Swedish poets; in German by Kruse in his tragedy, König Erich (1871).