long for your dear lord brother". Anna left with Sigismund for Poland 12 September 1587 and was present at his coronation. During her stay at the Polish court, she attracted negative attention by celebrating Lutheran masses with her court. In 1589, Anna accompanied Sigismund to the meeting with their father in Reval, Swedish Estonia. She was present during the stormy sessions of Riksråd where King John insisted that Sigismund abdicate the Polish throne and come back to Sweden. Swedish councilors protested the idea and furious John promised to persecute them. Erik Sparre asked Anna to intercede as mediator and calm her father. While Sigismund returned to Poland, Anna followed her father back to Sweden, where she spent the following three years. In 1592, Anna returned to Poland to attend the wedding between her brother and Anna of Austria. She was disliked at the Polish court because of her religion and the influence she had over Sigismund and was suspected of having supported her father's failed plan to arrange a Protestant marriage for Sigismund with Christina of Holstein-Gottorp. The Archbishop was so provoked by her Lutheran services that he threatened both Anna and Sigismund with excommunication. Her sister-in-law Anna of Austria, however, prevented any persecution. In July 1593, she carried her new niece Anna Maria at her baptismal. Cardinal Andrew Báthory proposed a marriage for her with the Prince of Transylvania. However Anna engaged herself to marry her father's first cousin Count Gustaf Brahe (1558-1615), son of Per Brahe the Elder and a future general in Poland. They were raised together at court and were reportedly mutually in love with each other, and there were rumors that they met each other in secret in the home of Brahe's sister Ebba Sparre. In 1587, Gustaf Brahe followed Sigismund and Anna to Poland when Sigismund was elected king there. In 1589, he formally asked Sigismund for Anna's hand, and while he was not given a clear answer, he was not refused, which made him hope that he might be accepted. The potential marriage between princess Anna and Gustaf Brahe was fiercely opposed by Duke Charles, who viewed it as a plot of Gustav Brahe to make princess Anna ruling queen regnant of Sweden while her only brother Sigismund was absent in Poland, and he therefore used their relationship in his libelous chronicle Karlskrönikan. Although it was not the most desirable marriage proposed, Anna