Margareta Elisabeth Roos

Margareta Elisabeth Roos (1696-1772) was a Swedish-Estonian woman and a crossdresser who served as a soldier in the Swedish army under Charles XII of Sweden during the Great Northern War.

Margareta was born as daughter of an officer in the Swedish province of Ingermanland in Estonia and ran away from home dressed as a boy because she was treated poorly.

She enlisted in the army in 1713 and served as a soldier in the battle fields until the end of the war, for eight years, until 1721, during which she was noted for great courage and promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer. Apparently, she was never discovered.

After the war, she worked as head butler at the household of a countess, guessed by some sources to be Hedvig Vilhelmina Oxenstierna, for three years. During an illness, however, a maid discovered her to be a woman and told the countess. The countess agreed to keep quiet, but arranged a marriage with an officer of Scottish origin, himself a veteran of the war. This was said to have happened in 1724.

Unlike the story of Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar, another Swedish wartime crossdresser, the story of Margareta has never been confirmed, and may or may not be true.

Her story was told to a priest by her relatives in 1843, seventy-one years after her death.

Sources

• "Karolinska Kvinnoöden" (Fate of Carolinian Women), Book, by Alf Ã…berg (In Swedish).

This article is based on a GNU FDL LGBT Wikia article: Elisabeth Roos Margareta Elisabeth Roos

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