Karin Månsdotter

Born in 1550 to a common soldier who became a jailer, Karin grew up on the lowest rung of society and went into service in a court musician's household — and it was service, not chance, that brought her within sight of the king. She became Erik XIV's companion and then — astonishingly, against every custom of the age — his wife and crowned queen in 1568. Few have ever travelled so short a road from poverty to a throne.

She wore it for barely a year. When Erik was deposed, everything she had risen to collapsed. She was parted from her husband and carried across the sea to Finland, held for a time within the grey walls of Turku Castle — the girl raised beside the cells now shut inside one.

But captivity was not her last word. After Erik's death in 1577 she was freed and given the manor of Liuksiala, where she lived thirty-five quiet years, loved by the district — a mistress of her own house, no longer anyone's hostage. She died in 1612 and was buried in Turku Cathedral: the city that had held her prisoner became, in the end, the city that kept her.