an empty ceremony of no consequence. Her political influence as the confidant of Sigismund was noted, and Anne and her Jesuit confessor Sigismund Ehrenhöffer acted as a channel between the king and the Papal envoy Germanico Malaspina, to whom they gave information about the king's policy. In April 1594 in Stockholm, she gave birth to daughter, Catherine, whose baptism was elaborately celebrated at the Swedish court, but the child died soon after. The Poles had demanded that she leave her daughter Anna Maria behind her as hostage in Poland during their stay in Sweden. She had also been afraid that the Swedes would demand to keep her daughter Catherine (born in Sweden) when she returned to Poland. On her departure from Sweden in July 1594, she was granted the towns of Linköping, Söderköping, and Stegeborg as personal domains on the condition that she respect the Protestant belief within these fiefs. Upon their return to Poland, Anne acted as the confidant of Sigismund. She advised him on navigating between the Polish noble factions, on the League against the Ottoman Empire, and especially on the relationship between Poland and the Habsburg dynasty. She had however no interest in maintaining the personal union between Catholic Poland and Protestant Sweden, and used her influence to oppose the plan to have her son Wladislaus succeed Sweden by sending him there to be brought up a Protestant. Anne died on 10 February 1598 in Warsaw as a result of haemorrhage during the birth of her last child, who also died then. Sigismund III then married her sister Constance Renate of Habsburg. Issue Anna had five children, but only Władysław lived to become an adult: Anna Maria (23 May 1593 – 9 February 1600) Catherine (19 April 1594 – 16 May 1594) Władysław (9 June 1595 – 20 May 1648), (reigned 1632-1648 as Władysław IV of Poland) Catherine (27 September 1596 – 2 June 1597) Christopher (10 February 1598 – 10 February 1598) Ancestors Gallery References Citations Sources Anteckningar om svenska qvinnor (Swedish) Europe in the sixteenth-century, Andrew Pettegree, 2002, Den svenska historien. 4. Gustav Vasa. Riket formas (The History of Sweden. 4. Gustav Vasa. The empire is formed), Gunvor Grenholm, Jan Cornell, Jerker Rosén, Sten Carlsson and Svenolov Ehrén, 1978, Further reading 1573 births 1598 deaths People from Graz Polish queens consort Anna 1592 16th-century House of Habsburg Austrian princesses Grand Duchesses of Lithuania Burials at