At the road's end: Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld (1934-2017), landowner and royal brother-in-law

The court of Stockholm has announced the death of King Carl Gustaf's brother-in-law, Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld, the husband of Princess Désirée, at the age of 82. Princess Désirée was at his side.
The son of Baron Carl-Otto Silfverschiöld and his wife Madeleine Bennich, Baron Nils-August Otto Carl Niclas Silfverschiöld was born on 31 May 1934. He married Princess Désirée, the third of the present King's four elder sisters, in the Cathedral of Stockholm on 5 June 1964 and had three children: Carl, Christina and Hélène.
The couple kept a very low profile and rarely figured in the press. In recent years Niclas Silfverschiöld suffered from cancer and therefore missed several royal family events. The couple lived at Koberg Palace near Sollebrunn in Västergötland, a 40-room-palace surrounded by 20 000 acres of land which had come into the noble Silfverschiöld family through female inheritance in 1776. King Carl Gustaf as well as the King of Norway have been regular visitors to Koberg during the shooting season.
In a statement released by the royal court, King Carl Gustaf says that he and the rest of the royal family have received the news of Niclas Silfverschiöld's passing with deep grief and their thoughts are with Princess Désirée and her family.
Niclas Silfverschiöld's death comes thirteen months after the death of Princess Birgitta's husband, Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, while Princess Margaretha's estranged husband, John Ambler, passed away in 2008. The fourth sister, Princess Christina, who is battling leukemia, remains married to Tord Magnuson.