Annette’s 11th-great aunt married a man who seems to have been… well, let’s just say he wasn’t husband of the year.
Catharina Tidemansdotter was born in 1602 in Fogdö prästgård, Stockholm, Sweden, the daughter of the local parish priest in Fogdö. When she was just 17, she married Laurentius Olai Wallius, who was the son of a wealthy farmer named Olof Svensson and his wife Brita Nilsdotter. After the birth village of Valla, he took his surname Wallius. He was 14 years older than her, having been born in 1588.
He was ordained a priest in 1608 and served as assistant pastor in Fogdö, working with Catharina’s father, Tideman Laurentii. In 1610 he became a senior lecturer and principal at the Cathedral School in Uppsala. That didn’t last long. He disagreed with the bishop of Uppsala and left for Wittenberg, where he became a master of philosophy in 1614, and in 1618 he received his doctorate in theology from Tübingen.
In 1619, he was appointed chief court preacher to Sweden’s widowed Queen Kristina, but a year later he incurred her anger by accepting the post of Pastor of Stockholm’s cathedral Storkyrkoförsamlingen without checking with her first. His defence of his actions only made things worse and she remained furious with him. In the end he was allowed to save face by resigning.
However, King Gustav II Adolf, despite the disagreement with Queen Kristina, was impressed with his academic record and appointed Laurentius Primary Theological professor at Uppsala University. By 1622 he had been appointed rector of Uppsala University. It was a difficult time for the city – Uppsala was ravaged by the Plague at that time. Unfortunately, he also became an enemy of the Archbishop Johannes Canuti Lenaeus – and that got so out of hand, the king himself had to step in to sort it out.
His relationships with other people were not helped by his habit of pointing out his enemies – real or imagined – during his sermons. In later life, Archbishop Laurentius Paulinus Gothus wrote in 1648 to the Chancellor of Uppsala University, “Help me in the name of Jesus from Laurentius Wallius”.
One particular adversary was Swedish MP, Zackarius Anthelius, who in 1623 had been revealed to be a Catholic. At that time, Catholics were not allowed to stay in Sweden – and certainly not live there. He even kept his Catholicism from his wife. He was eventually found and and sentenced to death. Anthelius was told he would escape the death penalty if he renounced his Catholic faith. He said he would rather die. He was then subjected to what’s described as ‘severe torture’ at the hands of Laurentius. He eventually accepted the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church but the death penalty was carried out anyway.
Catherina, meanwhile, had been busy being pregnant – she gave birth to four daughters and a son – but by 1628, at the age of 26, she died in childbirth. Within three years he had married again, this time to Christina Luth, who came from a well-respected aristocratic family. That relationship didn’t go so well – he spread a rumour that his pregnant wife Christina had been unfaithful with one of their resident students, Simon Döpke.
On his deathbed in 1638, he confessed some of his reasons for the suspicions. After his death, his wife and reputation were investigated by the professors in Uppsala, but according to a judgment of 20 February 1639, the academy’s council stated that they found no reason to suspect any infidelity.