Like the title asks why does the Royal Armory in Stockholm along with other Swedish museums have so many sets of "murder clothes"? With historical "murder clothes" what i'm meaning is clothing that it is known people have died in non peaceful ways and is pretty old, like over 100 years old. The Royal Armory has at least two with Gustav II and III and Uppsala Cathedral has at least 3 with the Sture murders. I find it really odd that there are so many outfits still in decent condition that have so much information known about them and are known to have people die in them.
From what I know of English museum collections I can't think of many examples where it is known people died in the specific costumes besides something relating to Jack the Ripper. And while I don't know a lot about American museums I can't think of examples that are publicly displayed that have such detail known about them, only one I can think of is Jackie Kennedy's pink suit and that isn't on public display. Is there a specific reason why Sweden has so many well documented murder clothes? Or is this a common thing in other countries/museums, and i'm just looking too much into Sweden specifically?
And also following up, is there a reason Sweden has so much information on items that are so old that it's often hard to find specific information on? Like stuff from the 1600's is long ago enough that finding specific information on surviving stuff especially clothing can be hard yet there is a lot known about some of Gustav ii's stuff or the sture murders. Does the fact that they were all from well known people and dramatic historical events play into this? With England specifically even clothing from well known and regarded rulers are really rare connected to major events or not, I think both Elizabeth 1 and Henry 8 have like one piece of clothing that can be connected to them that they could have worn. (i don't think the effigy stays count and not including jewelry here). Cause for all the swedish murder clothes the connection to history definitely helps but it doesn't explain how they are still stored and well kept when clothing from similarly dramatic and well known events or people in other european/western countries aren't.
Also on a related note, is there a reason a lot of the clothing in the Royal Armory specifically still exists fairly unaltered? A lot of historical clothing gets re-used for fabric, so how come there's things in the Royal Armory that definitely could have been re-used or modified into something different like Sofia Magdalena's dress has enough fabric to do that. Is the reason why related with Sweden/the royal Armory specifically?
This is a really, really good question I have never really thought of before.
In general, there has been a trend of preserving royal clothing - to re-use, to display or to give away parts or whole suits to show favour to royal favourites (much cheaper than giving expensive gifts, coin or land) - Queen Kristina used to give away riding gloves in this way. Combine this with a certain historical luck in which Stockholm and Uppsala has not suffered an enemy occupation since 1521 and more clothing has survived than in many other places. I am sure someone better qualified than me can answer in detail why more clothing has not survived in countries such as England and France.
That said, we can talk a bit about the pieces you mention.
When it comes to the Sture murders of Count Svante Stensson Sture and his sons Erik Svantesson Sture and Nils Svantesson Sture, as the mortal remains of the dead were turned over to the widow of Svante and mother of Erik and Nils, Countess Märta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud, by historical accounts a decisive and strong personality, used to handling the estates and economical and administraive issues of the family when (which was often) her husband was away on duties assigned by King Erik XIV. She had the clothes of the victims carefully removed and stored at the Uppsala Cathedral. Considering she was polically savvy, demanded and recieved a hefty payout (1 000 mark, or 270kg of pure silver in bars) as penance for the murders along with a letter of absolvement for the three murdered and would use the silver to mint coin to finance the coup of Erik XIV's brothers Karl and Johan.
As to why Märta chose to preserve the clothes is not entirely known - she writes later of her sorrow and the 'accursed' silver she received in penance. Considering her political savvy, it might be that she wanted to keep them as a potential source of propaganda, to show should she need to gather support to oppose King Erik XIV, or simply for nostalgic reasons. They were stored with other treasures or keepsakes at the Uppsala Cathedral, where people in need of fine cloth or with an interest to reuse things would not be allowed. They might also have been kept around for the same potential propaganda reasons by Johan III and Karl IX (the coupmakers) as Erik XIV's queen and son were alive for quite some time and might potentially become a problem.
As for Gustav II Adolf's shirt and mooseleather buffcoat (and the mounted and stuffed remains of his horse, Streiff), they were taken as trophies of war and preserved as such at the best of the Holy Roman Emperor and were returned to Sweden as a gift from Austria in gratitude for the services the Swedish Red Cross had provided for Austrian wounded during and immediately after ww1.
Karl XII's uniform was brought back with his body and taken off during the embalming of the mortal remains of the King and transported to Stockholm along with the rest of the King's personal items and then placed in the Royal Armoury collection 1730, when it shows up on inventory lists for the first time.
Gustav III's clothes from the ball where he was shot were thoroughly examined as part of the very effective investigation carried out by the chief of the Stockholm police, Liljensparre, and then immediately brought to the Royal Armoury to be preserved there. Once again, political considerations might have been the cause - the King survived for 13 days after being shot, and wanted to ensure the Gustavian absolutism he had introduced througha coup in 1772 and his legacy and the regency for his young son, Gustav IV Adolf. Preserving his clothes, like Karl XII's were, could have figured as a potential propaganda tool in the ongoing conflict between the power of the Monarch and the Nobility of Sweden, of which the murder was just the latest in a long row of struggles for primacy.