Dorothea Ostrelska

Dorothea Ostrelska (died after 1577) also known as Dosieczka, Doska and Dvärginnan Dorothea ('Dorothea the Female Dwarf'), was a Polish Court dwarf in service of the queen of Sweden, Catherine Jagellon.

Dorothea Ostrelska was likely in the service of Catherine in Poland prior to her marriage. She did belong to the Polish retinue accompanying Catherine from Poland to her new life in Finland and Sweden upon the marriage to Duke John in 1562. When Catherine and John was imprisoned in Gripsholm Castle in Sweden in 1567, Catherine was not able to keep her entire household, but Dorothea Ostrelska, as well as another court dwarf, belonged to those she acquired permission from Eric XIV of Sweden to keep. She was a favorite and confidante of the queen, and credited with a position of some political influence. She evidently acted as an informer to the queen. Her favored position is also revealed in the great care, privileges and concern the queen showed her while she (Ostrelska) was at one point taken ill.

She upheld a correspondence with the sister of Catherine, Sophia Jagiellon, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and has left some writings which provides a source of information of contemporary Sweden. One example is the information that Karin Månsdotter was engaged in market trade prior to her marriage. Her correspondence describe the contemporary political situation in Sweden and provides insight in her own influential position as the queen's favorite confidant. When the imprisoned Eric XIV almost managed to break through a window in his cell, it was Dorothea Ostrelska who revealed his escape attempt and caused him to have bars installed in his cell and his windows reduced in size.

Dorothea Ostrelska is not mentioned after the year 1577 and is reasonably assumed to have died that year.

Her position is mirrored with Agnieszka (courtier), whose life in the court of Catherine's sister Sophia Jagiellon, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg is an almost excat replica to her.

References

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