various nations he had advanced as far as Brunswick, when, on the 27th August, 1626, he was completely overthrown by Tilly at the battle of Lutter-sur-Baremberg. He immediately received a reinforcement of six thousand English and Scotch; but Wallenstein having meanwhile effected a junction with Tilly, he was forced to retire into Fionia, whilst his victorious enemies ravaged Holstein and Jutland. Wallenstein who now, it is said, aspired to the crown of Denmark, occupied Rostock and Wismar, and laid siege to Stralsund. But Christiern, aided by a Swedish army, at length drew him out of the North, and reconquered Jutland, Schleswig. and Holstein. A peace was concluded at Lubeck in 1629. Christiern is said to have entertained the project of conquering Sweden. But the Swedes were beforehand with him in the work of invasion; they suddenly entered Denmark in 1641, and, in spite of the energetic defence of Christiern, forced him to sign humiliating conditions of peace.—R. M., A.
CHRISTIERN V., King of Denmark and Norway, son of Frederick III., was born in 1646, and died in 1699. He succeeded his father in 1670, and was the first hereditary king of Denmark, the crown having been elective till the year 1660. Christiern visited England in 1662, and soon after married the Princess Charlotte-Amelia of Hesse. In 1675, joining the league formed by the German princes, the emperor, and the Dutch, he declared war against Sweden. At first he carried it on with great vigour and success. Jemteland and Scania were conquered, and, at the battle of Uddevalle, General Loevenhjelm with three thousand men routed a Swedish army eleven thousand strong. But victory then went over to the other side; and, notwithstanding the complete success of the combined fleets of Denmark and Holland at sea, Christiern found himself in 1679 obliged, by the defection of his allies, to conclude an unsatisfactory treaty of peace at Nimeguen with Sweden and France. His attempt on the independence of Hamburg brought him little honour. That he was a weak ruler is sufficiently proved by the fate of his able minister Griffenfeldt, who was condemned to death in 1676 for crimes that were never proved, the king possessing so little power, that the utmost he could do was to commute the sentence into imprisonment for life.—R. M., A.
CHRISTIERN VI., King of Denmark and Norway, son of Frederick IV., was born in 1699, and died in 1746. He ascended the throne on the death of his father in 1730. His reign was peaceful throughout, and politically considered, is utterly devoid of interest. Nothing but the usual squabbles with the house of Holstein-Gottorp, an insignificant quarrel with Sweden, and an alliance defensive with France, need be noticed. The king and queen, who could not speak the language of their people, surrounded themselves, to the great discontent of the country, with a crowd of needy pietistic Germans. Christiern, however, took a deep interest in the welfare of his subjects, and kept a kindly eye on whatever concerned the advancement of science, of education, and of good morals.—R. M., A.
CHRISTIERN VII., King of Denmark and Norway, son of Frederick V., was born in 1749, and died in 1808. Shortly after ascending the throne in 1766 he married Caroline Matilda, sister of George III. of England. Accompanied by Struensee his physician, he travelled into Germany, Holland, France, and England, where he received the degree of LL.D. from Cambridge. In 1770 Struensee became his prime minister, and governed with almost regal authority for sixteen months. Struensee amongst some other excellent reforms procured the liberty of the press; but the nobles, jealous of his power, conspired his fall. He was condemned to death by a commission, and executed on 28th April, 1772. The fate of Caroline Matilda was involved in that of the favourite. Being accused of an illicit connection with Struensee, she was divorced from her husband, and removed by the English government to Zell in Hanover, where she died in 1775. Soon after this the king fell a victim to insanity. Frederick his eldest son was declared major in 1784, and from that year conducted the government as prince regent, though he did not take the name, till his father's death. The reign of Christiern VII. was the most illustrious in regard to literature, science, and art, that Denmark had yet seen. It is sufficient to mention the names of Baggesen, Œhlenschlæger, Thorwaldsen, and the two brothers Œrsted.—R. M., A.
CHRISTIERN VIII., King of Denmark, son of the hereditary prince Frederick, was born in 1786. He married in 1806 the princess Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg. The king, Frederick VI., knowing the designs of Sweden with regard to Norway, sent Prince Christiern as his representative to the latter country. He was proclaimed king by the loyal Norwegians, but an army of forty thousand men, and threatening notes from the great powers, caused him to abdicate the throne on 26th October, 1814. Before parting with the crown he extorted a promise from Sweden that the independence of the Norwegian constitution should be sacredly maintained. Christiern ascended the Danish throne on the death of Frederick in the end of 1839. He was a most accomplished prince; his accession caused universal joy, but death put an end to his too short reign amidst the troubles of 1848.—R. M., A.
CHRISTINE, Queen of Sweden: This extraordinary woman, the daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus by his queen Eleonore, princess of Brandenburg, was born December 18, 1626. At the time of her father's departure for the Thirty Years' War she was only four years old; consequently though it has been said that Gustavus educated her rather as a boy than a girl, he could have had little or nothing to do with her education. At his death on the field of Lützen, November 16, 1632, she was only six years of age. She was immediately crowned queen of Sweden, and the Swedish parliament appointed the five principal ministers of state as her guardians. At the head of these was the celebrated Chancellor Oxenstjerna, who had been the able and zealous supporter of Gustavus in the great enterprise for the enfranchisement of protestantism, and who continued to prosecute the same design through the famous generals, Duke Bernhard of Weimar, Torstenson, Horn, Banner, and Wrangel, till the object was achieved at the peace of Westphalia.
Christine was educated with great care by Oxenstjerna, who became to her like a father. He gave her the most learned teachers in languages (ancient and modern), history, geography, philosophy, and politics. She displayed on her part an extraordinary force of imagination and of memory, and to these advantages added an unappeasable thirst of knowledge. Her guardians were amazed at the rapid progress she made in her education; but they were as quickly struck with the eccentricity of her character. She had the high courage and the desire of distinction of her father, to whom she bore a strong resemblance. She showed a decided taste for manly, rather than for feminine pursuits and accomplishments. She had a great passion for horseback and fox-hunting, in which no danger could disturb her. She was fond of wearing men's apparel, of associating with men, despised female ornaments, and showed great repugnance to the etiquette of royalty. At the same time, though an Amazon in her spirit and habits, she was under the middle size, and had one shoulder rather higher than the other, which she concealed as much as possible by the aid of dress and the carriage of her person. At sixteen the states proposed to dismiss her guardians and give her independent possession of the government; but she at this time displayed more wisdom than the parliament, excusing herself as too young, and the guardianship was continued two years longer, namely till 1644. Having once undertaken the supreme power, she entered on the business of the state with a zeal and an ability which astonished her ministers. She gave the highest promise of becoming a great sovereign by the tact and firmness of her judgment. She put an end to the war with Denmark begun that year, and at the treaty of Brömsebro in 1645, she obtained some new provinces. She then, contrary to the wishes of Oxenstjerna, hastened the conclusion of peace in Germany, disregarding the chancellor's suggestion that a continuance of the war must procure still greater advantages to Sweden. She turned her attention to the mercantile affairs of the country, and introduced various measures to the advantage of commerce. But her chief delight was in the prosecution of literature and science, and she reformed and promoted the literary and learned institutions of the country. She was, herself, perhaps the most accomplished woman of the age, understanding six languages, of which she wrote and spoke French and Italian like her native tongue; conversed with correctness in German, and read her favourites, Thucydides and Polybius, in the original. She maintained an autograph correspondence with the most learned men of foreign nations, and invited them to visit Sweden, or to send her information of the works they were engaged in. Gassendi sent her his mathematical works. Descartes, Grotius, Salmasius, Bochart, Vossius, Meibom, and other learned men sought her court, and were received with the most flattering distinction. Descartes ended his days at Stockholm; and Salmasius, under her patronage, entered the
