Source:
Memoirs of celebrated female sovereigns, volume 1, pages 34 to 38, by Anna Brownell Jameson, 1831
The biography:
In the mean time the war with Denmark proceeded, and the Swedish troops had gained signal advantages under Torstenson. But notwithstanding Christina's hereditary predilection for war, her admiration of Condé, who was her hero par excellence, and her oft-repeated wish that she might one day head her own armies, she had sufficient sense to perceive that peace had become necessary to her kingdom, and that, in order to establish her authority at home, it was necessary to have tranquility abroad; she entrusted to Oxenstiern the care of concluding a treaty with Denmark. It was signed in 1645, on terms so advantages to Sweden, and so satisfactory to Christina, that on the Chancellor's return, she presented him with a large estate, created him a count, and, on investing him with the title, pronounced his eulogium in the assembled senate, after the manner of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
In the course of the same year, as Christina herself informs us, she was "seized with a sickness almost to death, through fatigue and application to business;" nor can we wonder at this, when we are assured that for many months she never slept more than three to five hours out of the twenty-four.
Christina was content to share with her Chancellor Oxenstiern the merit of concluding the treaty with Denmark; — it was not so with the grand general pacification of Europe, which put an end to the Thirty Years' War, and which is called in history the Peace of Westphalia. The ministers of the various European powers met at Munster, and afterwards at Osnaburg, and the negotiations lasted more than six years. Christina was represented in this congress by John Oxenstiern, the son of the chancellor, and Adler Salvius; and her correspondence with these two ministers affords the strongest proof of her talents, her political sagacity, her impatience of temper, and her determination of purpose. Young as she was, and naturally frank and magnanimous, Christina seems thus early to have learned and adopted one paltry art of government, that of sowing secret dissension among her ministers, in order to retrain the principal power in her own hands. In this manner she opposed Salvius to Oxenstiern, whom she suspected of wilfully retarding the negotiations, as his father, the chancellor, was known to differ from her, relative to the expediency of the peace. The reasons he opposed to this, her favourite object, were probably worthy of so great and profound a statesman, and, had the war continued, it might have added to the possessions of Sweden, and have placed her in a yet more commanding situation with regard to the rest of Europe. But a single defeat in a pitched battle must have lost her all the advantages hitherto gained; and Christina, who had heard of nothing but war since she was an infant, began to be weary of the sound. She was, perhaps, too precipitate in hurrying on the conclusion of the treaty; but a negotiation of six years would have wearied the patience of one far less impatience. Whatever might have been her motives, history cannot deny her the true glory, so becoming to her sex and to her age, of having contributed mainly to this great peace, which, after many delays and difficulties, and calling forth all the talent and diplomatic subtlety of the greatest statesmen in Europe, was at length signed in 1649 [sic]. At the time that England was convulsed by civil wars, and France distracted by factions, as sanguinary as they were inglorious; that Germany lay desolate, and Spain was humbled, — a young queen of three-and-twenty dictated from her little kingdom terms to all Europe, and, stretching forth her sceptre, commanded peace. There is another circumstance connected with this famous treaty, which is worth remembering. The Thirty Years' War had been caused principally by the influence of a woman, — an amiable and a conscientious woman (Elizabeth of Bohemia, (eldest daughter of James I.) who advised her husband Frederick, the Elector Palatine, to accept the contested crown of Bohemia: this led to the war.); who, could she have foreseen the consequences of her fatal advice, — could she have looked into futurity, and beheld the torrents of human blood poured forth like water, — the millions of lives sacrificed, — the burnings and massacres of Tilly and his fierce soldiery, — the desolation of her people, — the flames of her own palace, (that palace into which she had been led in triumph a beloved and honoured bride!) and herself wandering a beggar from city to city, — she must have died with horror on the spot. Two women healed, or, at least, ended the miseries of which she had been the unconscious, but most fatal and wretched instrument. It is generally allowed that the peace of Westphalia had never been concluded but for Christina of Sweden, and Amelia the Landgravine of Hesse; another extraordinary women, at a period when female influence seemed openly to rule the destinies of Europe.
The news of the ratification of the peace was brought to Stockholm on the 31st of October 1648, and was celebrated by Christina with public rejoicings. She did not, however, easily forgive the Chancellor Oxenstiern for having contradicted her in this affair; and the whole of that powerful family, notwithstanding the eminent services they had rendered their country, were for some time treated with a coolness as capricious and ungrateful as it was undeserved.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Anna Brownell Jameson.
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