Source:
Memoirs of celebrated female sovereigns, volume 1, pages 62 to 69, by Anna Brownell Jameson, 1831; original at the University of Toronto
The biography:
The subsequent life of this extraordinary woman proves that the education which had rendered her bold, restless, and self-willed, while it inculcated no principle of duty, as little fitted her to play the part of an individual, as to discharge the office of a sovereign.
Christina arrived at Hamburg on the 10th of July, and took up her residence at the house of her banker, the rich Jew Texeira. By this time reports had reached her former capital that she was going about in man's attire, and entertained thoughts of changing her religion; the people were scandalized, and the Senate would have withdrawn her revenues if Charles had not interfered. From Hamburg she continued her route towards the Netherlands, and the first place at which she made any considerable stay was Antwerp. There her favourite hero, the Prince de Condé, for whom she had always professed a most romantic and enthusiastic admiration, wished to be introduced to her; but Christina, though uncrowned, demurred on some points of court etiquette, and when they did meet it was with mutual coldness and constraint.
On the day succeeding her public entry into Brussels, Christina executed a purpose which she had for some time meditated: she forsook the Lutheran faith, in which she had been educated, — the faith for which her illustrious father had fought and bled, — and professed herself a convert to the Romish Church. She made her private recantation, in presence of the Archduke Leopold, the ambassador Pimentelli, the Count Montecuculi, and others.
There is every reason to believe, from the character and subsequent conduct of Christina, that this change of religion was rather the result of policy than of conviction. She had resolved upon fixing her residence in Italy, and wished to avoid the inconveniences and the constant jealousy to which an open profession of the Protestant faith would have exposed her in a Roman Catholic country. It was, however, the interest of the priests around her to represent her as a kind of martyr, — one who had sacrificed her crown for the sake of religion: whereas it was very well known that her profession of the Roman Catholic faith was not the motive of her abdication, but rather its result. Bourdelot and Saumaise, by unsettling her religious opinions, had prepared the way for indifference and scepticism; and then her conversion, as a matter of expediency, was not difficult. The Pope, Alexander VII.[,] who had lately ascended the papal chair, felt all the importance of such an illustrious proselyte, and ordered public thanksgivings at Rome. At Brussels, although her recantation was private, it was celebrated in the most ostentatious manner by balls, masquerades, hunting-parties, and other amusements; and yet farther to honour so great, so solemn an occasion, Cardinal Mazarin sent from Paris a company of famous comedians, who entertained the court of Brussels with operas and plays, alternately, in French and Italian. As these far surpassed any thing Christina had seen in her own country, they seem to have given her particular pleasure. The perfect levity and indifference of her own deportment was consistent with the whole of this extraordinary exhibition, of which it is difficult to say whether it was most ridiculous or most shocking. "S'il y a un Dieu, je serai bien attrapée", said she, after receiving absolution at the feet of Father Guemes the Dominican.
The festivities at Brussels were interrupted by the news of her mother's death. The Queen Dowager, unable to endure with fortitude her daughter's abdication, and cut to the heart by the indifference with which she had parted from her, had refused all comfort; she fell into a languishing distemper, of which she expired in March 1655. The same cause had shortened the life of the Chancellor Oxenstiern, who died a few weeks before her; he expired with the name of Christina on his lips: "Tell her", said he, "that she will repent of what she has done." Christina, though she sincerely regretted the chancellor, received the message with a smile — for the hour of repentance had not yet arrived.
We may form some idea of the little impression which Christina left behind her in Sweden, when we find that in the space of nine or ten months after her departure, Count Brahe was the only person from whom she received the slightest token of remembrance. When, however, the news of her conversion was brought to Stockholm, the people seemed to feel that the national honour was wounded by her apostasy. Their indignation fell upon Mathias, the first preceptor of the queen, whom they accused of not having sufficiently guarded her mind against the entrance of error; and, notwithstanding his eloquent defence, he was disgraced and deprived of his bishoprick. Many members of the senate did not scruple to assert that she ought to be deprived of the revenues which had been granted to her, so that Christina began to feel already by how uncertain a tenure she held the very means of subsistence. She wrote to her cousin, King Charles, appealing to his gratitude, and recommending her interests to his protection. But no care or thought of the future appears at this time to have disturbed her gaiety. During her stay at Brussels she lived with royal magnificence, lavishing immense sums in gifts to priests, poets, courtiers, comedians, and parasites, until the ready money she had brought from Sweden was nearly exhausted. She then turned her thoughts towards Italy. She had received the most pressing invitations from the Pope to take up her residence in his capital, and, at length, on the 22nd of September 1665 [sic], she quitted Brussels to proceed to Rome. Her suite consisted of about two hundred persons, principally Austrians and Spaniards; there were also four Swedish gentlemen of quality, and two ladies of honour; the latter more for show than use, as the queen neither noticed them nor required their services.
At Frankfort, Charles the Second and his brother, then exiles from England, visited her incognito: she refused to receive them openly lest she should give umbrage to Cromwell. From Frankfort she proceeded to Augsburg, where, on being shown the table at which her father had dined after the battle which made him master of all Bavaria, she burst into tears.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Anna Brownell Jameson.
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