Eric, the name of several of the kings of Denmark, and Sweden, and Norway, the most notorious being the son of the noble Swedish king Gustavus Vasa (q.v.), who aspired to the hand of Elizabeth of England and challenged his rival Leicester to a duel; afterwards sought Mary of Scotland, but eventually married a peasant girl who had nursed him out of madness brought on by dissipation; was deposed after a State trial instigated by his own brothers, and ultimately poisoned himself in prison eight years later (1533‒1577).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Ergot * Eric the Red