Christina Anna Skytte

From 1657 onward her brother, Gustav Skytte, secretly managed a pirate ship, attacking and plundering ships in the Baltic sea. Christina Anna and her fiancé, Gustaf Drake (1634–84), were also initiated in this activity and became his partners. Christina Anna and Gustaf Drake were no passive partner in her brother's enterprise. They reportedly had one of their partners killed, likely due to him wanting to withdraw from the business In 1662, she was reportedly present when they attacked a Dutch merchant ship, murdered its crew and sunk the ship somewhere between Öland and Bornholm. This attack exposed them, after the shipwreck washed up on the beach of Öland, in August of that same year. Leading to rumors circulating in the capital pointing them out as responsible. The Dutch envoy in Stockholm demanded action from the Swedish authorities.[6]

Christina Anna and Gustaf Drake married in 1662 and fled to Denmark to avoid arrest. Her brother, Gustav Skytte, did not manage to escape; he was arrested, put on trial for piracy, judged guilty as charged and executed in April 1663. Christina Anna was only 18 when the brother was arrested. Being a married woman and therefore a minor in contemporary law, Christina Anna was not personally prosecuted, but her spouse Gustaf Drake was charged in his absence and sentenced to confiscation of his property. In 1668, they returned to Sweden. Gustaf Drake was tried in Gothenburg, but was pardoned. Thereafter, the couple settled at Edeby gård in the parish of Ripsa at Nyköping in Södermanland.