Sverker the Younger

[5] When his father Karl had been murdered in Visingsö in 1167, apparently by minions of the next king Knut Eriksson, Sverker was taken to Denmark while a boy and grew up with his mother's clan of Hvide, leaders of Zealand.

Sverker also allied himself with the Galen clan leaders in Skåne who were close to the Hvide, by marriage through lady Benedicta Ebbesdatter.

The troubled Danish-Swedish relations at this time can be seen from attempts by Knut Eriksson and his jarl Birger Brosa to support rebels against Valdemar I and Canute VI.

His uncontested election probably owed much to Jarl Birger Brosa whose daughter, Ingegerd, Sverker married soon after his first wife had died.

He may be identified with a Jon Jarl who, according to later tradition, fought the Russians and Ingrians for nine years, but was killed at Askanäs by Lake Mälaren by Karelian pirates, immediately after his return.

[10] Around 1203, Knut's four sons, who had lived in Swedish royal court, began to claim the throne and Sverker exiled them to Norway.

Sverker made a new military expedition, with Danish support, to Sweden, but was defeated and killed in the Battle of Gestilren in July 1210.

[17] With his first wife, the Danish noble Benedicta Ebbesdatter (Galen branch of the Hvide family), b. c. 1165/70, d. 1200), whom he married before 1190 when yet living in Denmark, Sverker had at least one well-attested daughter, Helena.

The second marriage in 1200 with Ingegerd, daughter of the Folkunge Jarl Birger Brosa, produced a son and heir, Johan (1201–1222), who was chosen king of Sweden 1216.

[21] His attested daughter Helena Sverkersdotter married (earl) Sune Folkesson of the family of Bjälbo, justiciar of Västergötland.

Their daughters Catherine and Benedicta became pawns in marriages to gain Swedish succession after 1222, when the Sverker dynasty became extinct in male line.