A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Christina
CHRISTINA, (Queen of Sweden) Daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus. Born 1626, died 1689; aged 54.
Her father took great pleasure in carrying her about with him; and observing her natural intrepidity, wished to make her a soldier, but died too soon; and Christina laments in her memoirs, that she was not permitted to learn the art of war under so great a master; she regretted also, during her whole life, that she never marched at the head of an army, or so much as saw a battle.
The tears which she shed, when he set out on his German expedition, were regarded as a bad omen; and she betrayed the hero himself into tears, by an act of childish simplicity. Taking leave of him, by a little compliment which she had learned by heart; she repeated it when Gustavus, being abstract in thought, did not hear; but, not content with having said her lesson, she pulled him by his sleeve to excite attention, and began to say her little speech again. At this, the father was affected, caught her in his arms, and, after pressing her to his breast for some minutes, gave her to an attendant without speaking.
The states of Sweden being assembled, after his death, the marshal of the diet proposed the crowning Christina, by virtue of a decree which had declared the daughter of the posterity of Charles IX. the father of Gustavus, capable of succeeding to the throne. She was immediately proclaimed queen; and, from this time, shewed much pleasure in appearing in her regal capacity, though only six years old.
The mind of Christina could never forget the war-like and masculine scenes she had, in her infancy, been accustomed to, and accordingly had no taste for the employments and conversation of women. She was, on the contrary, fond of violent exercises, and such amusements as consist in feats of strength and activity; she had both ability and taste for abstracted speculations, and amused herself with languages and the sciences, particularly those of legislature and government.
While she was thus improving her infancy, by studying the art of peace, her generals sustained the glory of the Swedish arms in the thirty years wars. Attaining her eighteenth year, in 1644, she took the reins of government in her own hands, and was in every respect able to manage them. As the sovereign of a powerful kingdom, it is not strange that she was sought in marriage by almost all the princes of Europe. Amongst others, Charles Gustavus, duke of Deux Ponts, her first cousin, having served with great reputation in her armies, and assiduously cultivated her regard, ventured to pay his addresses, and propose marriage; and though she was averse to dividing her authority, she condescended to promise him, that if she ever consented to lose her liberty she would give him the preference. She had already determined, by some means, to raise him to the throne, and seems to have acted generously, by striving to inspire the people with an high opinion of his character.
Political interests, difference of religion, and contrariety of manners, furnished Christina with pretences for rejecting all her suitors; but her true motives were the love of independence, and an aversion she had conceived to marriage, even in her infancy. "Do not force me to marry," she said to the states; "for if I should have a son, it is not more probable that he should be an Augustus than a Nero."
As she was at the chapel of the castle at Stockholm, assisting at divine service with the principal lords of her court, a man, who was disordered in his mind, came to the place, with a design to assassinate her. This man, who was preceptor of the college, and in the full vigour of his age, chose, for the execution of his design, the moment when the assembly was performing what, in the Swedish church, is called an act of recollection, a silent and separate act of devotion of each individual kneeling, and hiding the face with the hand. Taking this opportunity, he rushed through the crowd, and mounted a balustrade, within which the queen was upon her knees. The baron Brahi, chief justice of Sweden, saw him, and cried out; and the guards crossed their partizans, to prevent his coming farther; but he struck them furiously on one side, leaped over the barrier, and, being close to the queen made a blow at her with a knife that he had concealed, without a sheath, in his sleeve. She avoided the blow, and pushed the captain of her guards, who instantly threw himself upon the assassin, and seized him by the hair: all this happened in a moment of time. The man was known to be mad; they therefore contented themselves with locking him up; and the queen returned to her devotion, without the least emotion that could be perceived by the people, who were much more frightened than herself.
No less ambitious of fame than her father, though neither in the camp nor cabinet, she immortalized her short reign by her attachment to the arts and learned men. Anxious for literary repose, she promoted the peace of Westphalia, in opposition to the wishes of Oxenstiern, whose father having been justly honoured with the confidence of Gustavus, had governed Sweden with an authority almost absolute during Christina's minority; who soon began to be weary of his yoke. The peace, however, so much desired and so necessary, was at last concluded in 1648. The success of the Swedish arms rendered her the arbitress of this treaty, at least as to the affairs of Sweden, to which it confirmed the possession of many important countries.
No public event of importance took place during the remainder of her reign, for there were neither wars abroad nor troubles at home. This quiet might be the effect of chance, but it might also be that of a good administration. The great reputation of the queen, and the love her people had for her, ought to incline us to the latter determination.
The peace had lightened the cares of government, but they were still too weighty for her. "I think I see the devil!" said she, "when my secretary enters with his dispatches." The Swedes, among whom refinement had made little progress, but whose martial spirit was now at its height, could not bear to see the daughter of the great Augustus devote her time and talents solely to the study of dead languages; to the dispute about vortexes, innate ideas, and other unavailing speculations; to a, perhaps affected, taste for medals, statues, pictures, and public spectacles, in contempt of the noble cares of loyalty; and were yet more displeased to find the resources of the kingdom exhausted, in what, they considered, inglorious pursuits and childish amusements. An universal discontent arose, and Christina was again pressed to marry. The disgust occasioned by this importunity, first suggested to her the idea of quitting the throne. She accordingly signified her intention of resigning, in a letter, to Charles Gustavus, and of surrendering her crown in full senate.
That prince, during his absence in Germany, had permission to correspond with the queen, and used it to promote his own interest in her affections. Archkenholtz relates, that he declared in one of his letters, that if her majesty persisted in her refusal, he was determined to decline the honours she proposed of nominating him her successor, and for ever banish himself from Sweden, This, however, seems to be only the language of gallantry.
Christina had drawn to her court all the distinguished characters of her time; Grotius, Paschal, Bochart, Descartes, Cassendi, Saumaise, Naude, Vossius, Heinsius, Meiborn, Scudery, Menage, Lucas, Holstenius, Lambecius, Bayle, Filicaïa, and many others: almost all have celebrated her, either in poems, letters, or literary productions of some other kind, the greater part of which are now forgotten.
Christina, however, may be justly reproached with want of taste, in not properly assigning the rank of all these persons, whose merits, though acknowledged, were unequal. She had lately affected a contempt of pomp, power, grandeur, and all the magnificence and splendour of a court. To be thought wise and learned was her chief passion; though she forfeited her title to superior wisdom, by counterfeiting inclinations which she did not possess, and laying a constant restraint on her natural sentiments. Poets, painters, and philosophers were her greatest favourites. She corresponded with the most celebrated scholars in Europe, and purchased the paintings of Titian at an extravagant price, which were then suffered to be clipped, to fit the pannels of her gallery. In a word, vanity was the foible of Christina; it had already been gratified with respect to power and grandeur; and now it flowed into a new channel. She aspired at being the sovereign of the learned, and dictating in the lyceum as she had done in the senate.
When she signified her intention of resigning, Charles Gustavus, trained in dissimulation, and fearing she had laid a snare for him, rejected the proposal. The strongest arguments and reasonings were employed for several months to divert her from it; but whether she imagined she had gone too far to recede with a good grace, or that her wishes continued the same, she continued firm in her resolution, till the principal members of the state, headed by the chancellor, waited upon her with the utmost solemnity; and, as a last effort, supplicated in so pathetic a manner, that she consented to postpone her design, on condition that she should never be pressed to marry.
An unfortunate accident happened a few days after she had given her promise, which nearly occasioned her premature death. Having given orders for some ships of war to be built at Stockholm, she went to see them, and as she was going aboard, across a narrow plank, with admiral Fleming, his foot slipping, he fell, and drew her with him into the sea, which, in that place, was near 90 feet deep. The first equerry instantly threw himself into the water, laid hold of the queen's robe, and got her on shore. During this accident, her recollection and presence of mind were such, that the moment her lips were above water, she cried out, "Take care of the admiral!"
Until the year 1654, nothing memorable occurred in Sweden. In that year Christina finally resigned her crown, finding it impossible to reconcile her literary pursuits, or, more properly, her love of ease and romantic turn of mind, with the duties of her station. Her intention was spread over the kingdom instantaneously; and this extraordinary resolution, which greatly exalted her character with the Swedes, affected them like a sudden explosion of thunder. All were struck dumb with her firmness; no one attempting to dissuade her from a purpose upon which they perceived her determined. The senate assembled at Upsal, heard Christina declare her design with silent astonishment; they only ventured to reply, that they were in expectation her promises to continue the government would have been of longer duration.
While they were deliberating upon the measures which would be necessary in consequence of her resignation, Christina dispatched a messenger to the hereditary prince, to treat with him on the revenues to be assigned for the support of her dignity, after her abdication. It was proposed that two hundred thousand rix dollars should be annually paid her, in certain instalments, and that many provinces of the kingdom should be appropriated, so as to render this revenue certain and unalienable. All being at length adjusted to mutual satisfaction, the queen turned her eyes to the security of the succession, in case the hereditary prince died without issue; but finding the people opposed her design, to settle it in the family of the count de Tot, who was of the royal blood, and a favourite of hers, she prudently declined it; and assembled the states at Upsal, where, in a set speech, she recapitulated the transactions of her reign, and the instances of her care and affection for the people; she specified all the measures she had taken to prevent any inconveniences that might result from her determination, and concluded with fixing upon the 16th of June, as the day on which she proposed resigning the crown and sovereignty to her cousin.
When the time arrived, which she expected with as much eagerness as other princesses have wished for their coronation, she was astonished that the states proposed to fix her residence in Sweden, as it was her design to live where she pleased, in countries where the sciences had made greater progress. This difficulty however she removed, by pretending her health made a short residence at Spa necessary. She then divested herself of all authority, resigning the crown to Gustavus, and dismissed the assembly with a pathetic oration, which drew tears from all the hearers.
Such was the extraordinary manner in which Christina resigned her crown, at the age of twenty-seven, after a reign equally glorious to herself and to Sweden, whose reputation was never at so high a pitch as under her government. In other countries the arts languished during tedious bloody wars; under Christina they flourished by the force of her own example.
No prince, after a long imprisonment, ever shewed so much joy upon being restored to his kingdom, as Christina did in quitting hers. When she came to a little brook, which separates Sweden from Denmark, she got out of her carriage, and, leaping to the other side, cried out in a transport of joy; "At last I am free, and out of Sweden, whither I hope I shall never return." She took with her whatever she had collected as curious and valuable, leaving her palace bare. After dismissing her women, she laid by the habit of her sex; "I would become a man," said she; "yet I do not love men because they are men, but because they are not women." She made some stay at Brussels, where she saw the great Condé. They were very friendly at first, but afterwards disputed on an idle point of ceremony, on which they ought neither of them to have contended.
Christina, besides abdicating her crown, abjured her religion, and embraced that of the Romish church. The catholics considered this as a great triumph, and the protestants were not a little mortified at the defection of so celebrated a woman; but both without reason; for the queen of Sweden meant only to conform in appearance to the tenets of the people among whom she intended to live, in order, more agreeably, to enjoy the pleasures of social intercourse. Of this her letters afford sufficient proof.
But, like most sovereigns who have quitted a throne, in order to escape from the cares of royalty, she found herself no less uneasy in private life. She soon discovered that a queen without power was a very insignificant character, and is supposed to have repented of her resignation. But, however that may be, it is certain she became tired of her situation, and made two journies from Italy into France, where she was received with great respect by the learned, whom she had pensioned and flattered; but with little attention by the polite, especially of her own sex, as her masculine airs and conversation kept women of delicacy at a distance.
Her capricious violence and arbitrary temper, ill agreeing with the resigner of a crown, was continually shewing itself, not only by her intriguing afterwards for that of Poland, but, in one instance, in a manner so dreadful, that she was obliged to leave France on account of the odium it threw on her character. The affair alluded to is that of Monaldeschi, her favourite, whom she ordered to be assassinated, for an act of unfaithfulness as a lover, and of treachery as a subject, though she was no longer a queen, in the great gallery of Fontainbleau, and almost in her own presence.
Christina, from her youth, had been taught to consider herself as a prodigy, and thought that events and their agents ought to bow before her. Of this the expressions constantly used in her letters are a proof, with respect to those with whom she was displeased; for she scarce ever signified her displeasure without threatening the life of the offender.
She went to Rome, after this to Sweden (her appointments being very ill paid) where she was not very well received; from Sweden to Hamburgh, where she continued a year, and then again to Rome; from Rome she returned to Hamburgh; and, on the death of Charles Gustavus, in 1660, returned to Sweden, it is said, with an intent to resume the government; but this could not be admitted on account of her change of religion, upon which she went back to Hamburgh, and from thence again to Rome. She intended another journey to Sweden; but it did not take place, any more than an expedition to England, where Cromwell did not seem well disposed to receive her; and, after many wanderings and many purposes of wanderings more, at last died at Rome.
Fond of business, and of acting an important part in every event, she was always solicitous to enter into the intrigues of a court, or to mediate between its factions; and by this means, as well as by exacting the deference due to a queen when she was so no longer, spent her time in a manner unworthy of her former character.