Source:
Six Thousand Years of History, volume 5 (Famous Women), pages 227 to 230, by Edgar Sanderson et al., 1900; original at Pennsylvania State University
The biography:
CHRISTINA
A. D. 1626-1689.
WHO RESIGNED A CROWN
When the great and self-sacrificing Gustavus Adolphus fell mortally wounded on the field of Lutzen, where he led on a knightly war of defense against the Catholics, he left as heir to the throne of Sweden, Christina, a Princess only seven years old [sic]. This child was destined to arouse the interest and evoke the astonishment of the world. The stricken nation committed the regency to the chiefs of the five colleges, and Oxenstiern, the chancellor of Gustavus Adolphus, remained at the head of affairs. When Christina was 23 years old peace had been established on a basis that was glorious for Sweden, and Christina had proved herself a diligent scholar, who promised to be a worthy daughter of the noble and valorous King who had died for a principle. Yet she had already exhibited many evidences of eccentricity. She early took to violent exercise, and discovered an invincible repugnance to both the employments and the conversation of women. She invited Descartes, Vossius, Grotius and other famous scholars to her court, and liberally rewarded them out of a treasury that had been sorely taxed by the wars. The jealous Swedes declared that she even made peace, so that she could give more hours to study. "I think I see the devil", she said, "when my secretary enters with his dispatches." Meanwhile she read the lives of Elizabeth and Isabella, and concluded that Elizabeth did wisely to keep free from a Ferdinand of her own. Like Elizabeth, Christina loved to study the ancient authors, and Polybius and Thucydides were her favorite authors. As she was an only daughter and child, the statesmen of Sweden, of course, were kept in anxiety regarding her successor, as their own estates might be swallowed up in a civil war should she die without an heir. All the eligible Princes of Europe offered their hands — the Prince of Denmark, the Elector Palatine, the Elector of Brandenburg, the King of Spain, the King of the Romans, Don John of Austria, Sigismund of Cassovia, the King of Poland, and John Casimir his brother, and, above all, her first cousin, son of her aunt, her father's sister, Charles Gustavus, generalissimo of the armies, who was her devoted flatterer and lover. While he had been absent in Germany he had obtained permission to correspond with the young Queen, and lost no opportunity to advance his own interests; indeed, those interests served to conspire with the needs of the state. Arckenholtz, the principal biographer of the Queen, says that the ardent lover declared, in one of his letters, that, if her Majesty persisted in her refusal to marry him, he on his side would decline the honour she proposed for him of reigning after her, and would banish himself forever from Sweden.
In February, 1650 [sic], Christina called her Senate together, announced her unwillingness to marry, and nominated Charles Gustavus to be her successor on the throne. To this the statesmen finally assented, and preparations for the coronation began. Custom demanded that the ceremony should take place at Upsal, but the desire for a magnificent spectacle carried it to Stockholm, whereat the superstitious foresaw evil. Moreover, Christina had constantly complained of the duties of office. She desired reflection and retirement, philosophical tranquillity, and affected an aversion for pomp, power, grandeur, and all the dress and splendor of a court. She had a wide correspondence with scholars. She purchased Titian's paintings at a great price, yet cut the canvases to make them fit the panels of her walls. "She aspired", says Arckenholtz, "to become the sovereign of the learned; to dictate in the lyceum as she had done in the Senate." "Do not force me to marry", she would say to her ministers, "for, if I should have a son, it is not more probable that he should be an Augustus than a Nero."
While she was at the chapel of the Castle of Stockholm, assisting at divine service with the principal lords, an insane assassin made an attack on her life. He chose the moment in which the assembly was engaged in what in the Swedish Church was called an "act of recollection", a silent act of devotion, performed by each individual, who knelt and covered the face with the hand. Taking this opportunity, when no one would be looking, he rushed through the crowd and mounted a balustrade within which the Queen was on her knees. The Baron Braki [sic] (or Brahé) was alarmed, and cried out; the guards interposed with their pikes, but the assassin got past them, and aimed a blow at the Queen with a knife. The Queen avoided the blow, and pushed the captain of her guards, who threw himself on the assassin, and seized him by the hair. The man was known to be mad, and was locked up. The Queen proceeded with the service, without emotion.
At another time, some ships-of-war were finishing at Stockholm, and she went to inspect them. As Admiral Fleming was going on board, across a narrow plank, holding the Queen by the hand, his foot slipped and he fell in the sea, carrying her with him. Steinberg, the Queen's first equerry, threw himself in the water, laid hold of her robe, and, with assistance, pulled her ashore. The moment her lips were above water, she cried: "Take care of the Admiral!" She was not violently agitated, and dined the same day in public, where she gave a humorous account of her adventure.
Christina's court soon became a veritable academy. There came Saumaise, Paschal, Bochart, Gassendi, Naude, Heinsius, Meibon [sic], Scuderi, Menage, Lucas, Holstenius, Lambecius, Bayle (of Bayle's Dictionary or Encyclopedia), Madam Dacier, and many others. These people of genius all celebrate her in the works which they have left to the world, once more proving that it is profitable for a Prince to patronize the arts. Yet it may be clearly seen that she had enough literary material on hand for a big row, and it came when Saumaise (Salmasius) introduced the adventurer Michon, who called himself Bourdelot. He attempted the rôle of Aristophanes, and made sport of the scholars, thus amusing the Queen. The Count Magnus de la Gardie, son of the Constable of Sweden, was the favorite and lover of Christina, but he aroused her jealousy because he revealed a tendency to govern. Bourdelot, to the great scandal of the Swedes, supplanted Magnus, and gained such an ascendancy over the Queen that public indignation compelled her to banish him. Soon after, she spoke of him with hatred and contempt. But the incident was painful, and awoke some resentment in her mind against the Swedes, who, all along, had detested her associates and regarded them with the aversion usually bestowed on foreigners.
_-_Nationalmuseum_-_18075.tif~3.jpg)
Above: Kristina.
Note: The man who tried to assassinate Kristina was Christoffer Presbeckius.
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