Hedvig Eleonora von Fersen

Hedvig "Hedda" Eleonora von Fersen (2 July 1753 – 8 November 1792, in Pisa) was a Swedish noble and a lady in waiting to the Swedish queen, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark. She was the daughter of Axel von Fersen the Elder and Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie, and the sister of Count Axel von Fersen the Younger, Sophie Piper and Fabian von Fersen (1762–1818). In 1773, she married marshal Baron, later Count Thure Leonard von Klinkowström in his second marriage, and with him had four children, among them was the artist Hedvig Amalia Charlotta Klinckowström and Count Axel Leonhard von Klinckowström, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences and la Société pour l'encouragement de l'industrie nationale. Life Hedvig Eleonora was given a high education by her father and acquired a reputation as a cultivated intellectual. It was said about her that she had "the most passionate mind, surpassing perhaps all other women in Sweden, along with the strongest soul." Freemason She is known to be one of five women to have been a member of the Freemasons in Sweden during the 18th century: alongside Sophie von Fersen, Countess Ulrica Catharina Brahe, and (not as surely documented but most likely) Christina Charlotta Stjerneld. She is confirmed as a member of a Freemasonic adoption lodge for women at court in 1776, when Princess Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte was initiated by her consort Duke Charles as Grand Mistress of the female lodge. Court life In 1774, she accepted the position of statsfru (lady of the bedchamber) to the queen, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark. She accepted the position unwillingly upon the wish of her spouse, who wanted for her to accept it for economic reasons.