Aurora De Geer

Full name and title: Countess Charlotta Aurora De Geer
Born: September 19, 1779
Died: May 14, 1834

Jacquette’s mother, sister to Emilie, Gerard, and Jacques. At the age of sixteen, she married her 27-year-old second cousin, Nils Gyldenstolpe (called Philip in the novel). Divorced in 1810. Aurora married her longtime love, Gustaf af Wetterstedt, in 1811.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Crown Prince Charles Jean

Full name and title: Crown Prince Charles Jean
Born: January 26, 1763 (Pau, Kingdom of France)
Died: March 8, 1844 (Stockholm, Sweden)

Oscar’s father, he was born Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte in Pau, France, in 1763. A Marshal under Napoleon, he was elected Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810. Renamed Charles Jean, he later became King Charles XIV Jean. Ruthless, brilliant, and politically shrewd, he founded the Bernadotte dynasty that rules Sweden to this day.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Crown Princess Désirée

Full name and title: Crown Princess Désirée
Born: November 8, 1777 (Marseille, France)
Died: December 17, 1860 (Stockholm Palace, Sweden)

Oscar’s mother, she was born Désirée Clary in Marseille in 1777, the daughter of a silk merchant. Once engaged to Napoleon Bonaparte, she later married Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. As Queen Desideria of Sweden and Norway, she remained emotionally and culturally tied to France, living apart from her husband for years before rejoining the court.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Frederik Due

Full name and title: Frederik Due
Born: April 14, 1796 (Trondheim, Norway)
Died: October 16, 1873 (Christiania, Norway)

Prince Oscar’s cavalier

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (picture is from 1850)

Gustaf af Wetterstedt

Full name and title: Gustaf af Wetterstedt
Born: December 29, 1776 (Vaasa, Finland)
Died: May 15, 1837 (Stockholm, Sweden)

Aurora’s second husband; stepfather to Jacquette; powerful court chancellor

Image credit: Gustaf af Wetterstedt (1776-1837), gouache by Giovanni Domenico Bossi, 1811. Original painting held by Zornmuseet, Sweden. Photograph by Zornmuseet. Public domain.

Jacquette Gyldenstolpe

Full name and title: Jacquette Gyldenstolpe
Born: July 4, 1797
Died: January 7, 1839

Swedish countess navigating court scandal, family betrayal, and forbidden love.

Image credit: Litography by Johan Elias Cardon (1802-1878) after a painting by Anders Gustaf Andersson (1780-1833)

Carl Löwenhielm

Full name and title: Count Carl Gustaf Löwenhielm
Born: January 30, 1790 (Värmland, Sweden)
Died: May 18, 1858 (Sweden)

Oscar’s cavalier, also a Swedish military officer.

Image credit: Painting by Leopold Fertbauer

Oscar Bernadotte

Full name and title: Prince Oscar
Born: July 4, 1799 (Paris, France)
Died: July 8, 1859 (Stockholm, Sweden)

The only child of Charles XIV Jean and Queen Désirée, Oscar was born in Paris in 1799. He became a Swedish prince when Bernadotte was selected to become Sweden’s next king. Raised between French and Swedish worlds, Oscar was educated, idealistic, and reform-minded. While he championed liberal causes, he carried the legacy of a dynasty built on ambition, secrecy, and sacrifice—including his own youth. At his father’s death in 1844, he was crowned King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway.

Image credit:

Oscar I of Sweden (as Crown Prince), 1823, oil on canvas by Joseph Karl Stieler.
Public Domain. Image via Wikimedia Commons: File:Crownprince Oscar of Sweden … Stieler.

Queen Charlotte

Full name and title: Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp
Born: March 22, 1759 (Eutin, Prince-bishopric of Lübeck)
Died: June 20, 1818 (Stockholm, Sweden)

Queen Charlotte was born in 1744 as Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. She became Queen of Sweden through marriage to the future King Charles XIII. A cultivated and politically aware royal, she maintained her own household and court. In Butterfly Games, she appears as an aging matriarch presiding over a court fractured by scandal and rivalry following the exile of her nephew, Crown Prince Gustav.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Former Crown Prince Gustav

Full name and title: Gustav, Prince of Vasa
Born: January 9, 1799 (Stockholm, Sweden)
Died: April 4, 1877 (Pillnitz, Germany)

Exiled prince; symbol of political rebellion for the Gustavian opposition.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons