Görvel Fadersdotter (Sparre)

Görvel Fadersdotter (Sparre) (1509 or 1517 – 20 April 1605) was a Swedish noble and county administrator. She was a major landholder in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

She was born at Hjulsta Manor in Uppland, Sweden. She was the daughter of Fader Nilsson (Sparre of Hjulsta and Ängsö) (d.ca 1523) and Bodil Knutsdotter (Tre Rosor) of Mörby (d. by 1520). She was married and widowed three times; in 1532 to Swedish riksråd Peder Nilsson Grip (1507–1533); in 1534 to Danish riksråd Truid Gregersen Ulfstand (1487–1545); and in 1547 to Danish riksråd Lave Brahe (1500–1567). She had one child; her son Nils Ulfstand, (1535–1548), who died of the plague during a trip with his stepfather.

Görvel Fadersdotter was an early orphan and a great heiress through both her parents. Her maternal grandfather Knut Alvsson was the greatest landholder in Norway. When he rebelled against the Danish King and sided with the Swedes in 1502, his estates were confiscated by the Danish crown after he was slain. This property, consisting of 200 estates in Norway and Denmark, was later awarded to Görvel Fadersdotter.

During her second marriage, she left Sweden for Varberg Fortress in then Danish (now Swedish) Halland, where her spouse was county administrator; during the Count's Feud (Grevefeiden) she was held as prisoner there. She was confronted with various legal claims of her lands from her Norwegian and Swedish relatives and her stepchildren. In the 1530s, she had the Danish monarch appointed her guardian to further protect her interests. At the death of her son in 1548, she was in sole control of large territories.

In 1574, she renounced her claims on the debts owed to her by the crown, and was in exchange granted the fief Troll's Manor (Trolleberg) as county administrator. Görvel Fadersdotter later exchanged her Norwegian properties with King Frederick II of Denmark for equivalent compensation in Skåne. Between 1582 and 1599, she granted the Danish crown her Norwegian holdings in Nordenfjeldske; Giske (Giskegodset), Finne (Finnegodset) and Bjarkøy (Bjarkøygodset) . In 1582, she received the fief Börringekloster] in Skåne and some minor parishes. In 1601, she made King Christian IV of Denmark the heir to her Danish and Swedish lands. Her Swedish holdings had been confiscated during the Northern Seven Years' War (1563–1570), but were given back at the time of the Danish-Swedish treaty at Flakkebäck in 1603.

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