Source:
Christina, Queen of Sweden, pages 20 to 36, by Francis William Bain, 1890; original at the University of Connecticut Library
The account:
The death of Gustavus caused a profound sensation throughout Europe. By the Imperialist party it was received with manifestations of joy: at Rome, Brussels, Vienna, and Madrid it was celebrated with rejoicings that lasted for days; even in Paris people could hardly restrain their satisfaction at being delivered from a too powerful ally. "This Goth", said Louis XIII., after Leipsic, "must be arrested in his career." At the moment when the balance Richelieu schemed for seemed to be on the point of disappearing in the might of a great Northern Empire, Fortune played into his hands.
It was very different with the Protestant party. The death of their champion dashed their hopes to the ground. On the Swedes the news fell like a thunderclap. "First came tidings", says Count Peter Brahé, "that the battle had had a prosperous issue. The next day after, which was the 8th of December, at half-past nine in the forenoon, word was sent me that I should come into the treasury chamber. When I entered, I saw all the councillors mightily troubled, some wiping their eyes, others wringing their hands. The Palsgrave came to me at the door lamenting. My heart misgave me, and I knew not what to fear, till I heard to my sore grief what had occurred. Both strangers and countrymen were in great woe and perturbation, despaired of the public welfare, and deemed that all would go to wreck and ruin. We of the council, as many as were here present, agreed to a well-considered resolution before we parted — to live and die with one another, in defence and for the weal of our Fatherland; and not only here at home to uphold our cause with all our power and in unity, but also to finish the war against the emperor and all his party, according to the design of the king of happy memory; and for a secure peace."
It was a moment analogous to that when the news of the disaster at Syracuse came to Athens. Like the Athenians, the Swedes did not despair. They forgot their internal differences in the face of the common danger. Above all it was necessary to determine the succession. King Ladislaus, who had succeeded his father Sigismund on the throne of Poland, thought that now or never was his chance of regaining the Swedish throne. "The partisans of Sigismund said openly, in various parts of Sweden, that his children showed more inclination for the Protestant religion than that of Popery, in which they had been brought up; and that should one of them in good faith embrace the confession of Augsburg, there was nothing to hinder him from regaining his rights on the crown." It was further to be feared that at any moment the old enemy, Denmark, might discover, that Sweden's weakness was her own opportunity.
It was a dangerous moment for the monarchy. Christina asserts in her Memoirs, and the fact is by no means improbable, that it was debated in certain circles whether it would not be well to set aside the infant heir, and establish a Republic. It is certain, however, that such a course was impossible; the lower orders and the army would have insisted on the queen's rights. It was accordingly determined for the security of the State immediately to proclaim the queen as heir; John Casimir led the way in giving the young queen his support, and the nobles followed his example. In the beginning of 1633 the Estates convened at Stockholm declared that, in conformity with the decrees of the Diet in 1604 at Norköping, and at Stockholm in 1627, Christina, daughter of the late King Gustavus, called the Great, should be Queen-elect, and hereditary princess of Sweden — with the reservation, however, that when she came of age, she should confirm all the rights, liberties, and privileges granted by former kings.
Hereupon there occurred an amusing incident. When the Marshal of the Diet proposed it to the Estates, a member of the Order of Peasants, named Laurent or Larsson, interrupted him, asking, "Who is this daughter of Gustavus? we do not know her, and have never seen her."
The Commonalty all began to murmur, and the Marshal answered, "I'll show her to you — if you will." And thereupon he went to fetch Christina, brought her into the assembled Estates and showed her to the Peasants, especially to the said Larsson. He, after having looked at her and considered her closely, cried, "'Tis herself — 'tis the very eyes, nose, and forehead of Gustavus, let her be our queen." Accordingly she was proclaimed by the Estates Queen of Sweden, and placed upon the throne.
Leaving the form of government to be settled in accordance with the advice of the Chancellor, Oxenstiern, who was absent in Germany, it was determined that the five highest officers of the State should be Regents during the queen's minority; the war in Germany was to be carried on with all possible assistance of means and forces; while the exclusion of Sigismund and his house from the throne of Sweden was reinforced.
"The problem presented to Gustavus Adolphus had been to reconcile finally to the hereditary monarchy as soon as possible that nobility which his father had oppressed. To their power he opposed that of an official class dependent on the sovereign. The FORM OF GOVERNMENT of 1634 in this respect merely develops the fundamental principles laid down by his administration. That this official class rose to be a new aristocracy was occasioned by circumstances inevitable to a government of guardians."
This remarkable document is said to be the earliest known example of a written constitution. Its main provisions are as follows: After requiring the king and his subjects to profess the Lutheran faith, and the confession of Augsburg, and directing that the succession shall be regulated comfortably to the hereditary settlement of 1544, it enacts that the king shall govern with full powers, but according to law; assisted by a senate of twenty-five members chosen by him from the nobility, including the five great officers of the State, who were to be ex officio members — namely, the High Steward, the High Marshal, the High Admiral, the Lord Treasurer, and the Lord Chancellor, the heads respectively of the five Colleges or Departments, of Justice, War, Admiralty, Exchequer, and Foreign Affairs. In the absence, illness, or minority of the king, the whole administration was to be in their hands. For judicial purposes there were hereby constituted four Palace Courts; in addition to the principal Court of Justice, at Stockholm, presided over by the High Steward, assisted by four councillors of State, and twelve others, of whom half were to be noble, there were provided "by reason of the size of the kingdom", three other courts, at Jonköping [sic] for Gothland, Åbo for Finland, Dorpat for the Transbaltic lands, each presided over by a member of the council with twelve assistants, half noble. In cases where, by reason of the nature of the matter or rank of the parties, the ordinary courts did not suffice, a special supreme court was to be constituted of the whole of these courts, together with the Senate and one burgomaster from each of the towns of Stockholm, Upsala, Gottenburgh, Norköping, Åbo, and Wiborg. To each of the four other colleges was assigned a certain number of assistants, chosen principally from the nobility. All five were to sit, except in special circumstances, at Stockholm. The Treasury alone had the power of disposing of any public funds.
The country was further divided for judicial purposes into fourteen "assizes", and for administrative purposes into twenty-four "districts", under as many prefects; the town of Stockholm retained its own jurisdiction under its own town reeve. Special regulations are laid down touching the tenure of each particular office. All public functionaries, in every department, are to render account once a year at specified times to the particular college to which they belong; at which yearly conventions exact account is to be taken of the whole state of the realm. In the absence, illness, or minority of the king, all new laws made, privileges, liberties, patents of nobility, &c., conferred, crown dues or taxed estates alienated or discharged, are legally null and void, unless they receive subsequent ratification by him.
From this outline of the main features of the form of government, it will be seen that the whole power of the State is placed in the hands of the nobility. Although there is little reason to doubt that the general ideas received the approbation of Gustavus Adolphus before his death, yet the filling in of the details may be confidently ascribed to Oxenstiern. It was at the time feared by some, that under the pretext of relieving him of business, this was but a scheme to reduce the sovereign to the position of a Venetian doge, and not without reason; for such a result was more than probable, even with a king of strong character; how much more was it likely to be the case with a mere girl? When accordingly we observe that the social power of the nobles, not less than their political power, increased greatly during her minority, it will impress us as no slight proof of her commanding intellect and force of character, that she could acquire so speedy and so absolute a sway over the Senate on taking the reins of government at eighteen.
The five great officers of Sweden, who were also the guardians of the young queen, were: Baron Gabriel Oxenstiern, younger brother of the Chancellor, High Steward; "a very honest man", says Christina; popular with the people and the nobility but of no special ability: Baron Gyldenheim [sic], High Admiral, a natural son of the late king [Charles IX], a true Swede, "cast in the antique mould;" his powers had been sorely tried by a captivity of twelve years in Poland; "he loved me", she writes, "as if I had been his own child:" the Treasurer, Gabriel Oxenstiern, cousin of the Chancellor, "a worthy man, with abilities equal to his position" (as we have seen, the regents removed John Casimir from this post, in spite of his excellent fulfillment of his duties, because they suspected his Calvinism, and feared he might entertain designs on the throne): Count Jacob de la Gardie, High Marshal, originally of French extraction, a man whose merit had raised him to the honours he enjoyed; his family will come before us again; and last, Axel Oxenstiern, Chancellor, the chief man in Sweden, and one of the first statesmen in Europe.
He will play a large part in Christina's life; we must pause to describe him. No one knew him better than Christina herself, and she has left us her own estimate of him. "He had studied much during his youth, and continued to do so in the midst of business; his capacity and knowledge of the world's affairs and interests were very great; he knew the strong and weak points of every State in Europe. His assiduity and attention to business were indefatigable; when he took relaxation, he found it in working. He has often told me that when he went to rest, he stripped off his cares with his clothes. He was ambitious, but faithful and incorruptible, withal a little too slow and phlegmatic", — so much so, indeed, that, as he said himself, the manifold cares of State never spoiled his night's rest, except on two occasions, the death of Gustavus and the disaster of Nordlingen.
A very close observer has painted him for us — Cromwell's ambassador, Whitelocke. "He was a tall, proper, straight, handsome old man, of the age of seventy-one years; his habit was black cloth, a close coat lined with fur, a velvet cap on his head furred, and no hat; a cloak; his hair grey, his beard broad and long, his countenance sober and fixed, and his carriage grave and civil. He spoke Latin, plain and fluent and significant, and though he could, yet would not speak French, saying he knew no reason why that nation should be so much honoured more than others as to have their language used by strangers. In his conferences he would often mix pleasant stories with his serious discourses, and take delight in recounting former passages of his life, and actions of his king; and would be very large in excusing his senilis garrulitas."
He began his career under Charles IX., abandoning theology for politics; he had been the right hand of Gustavus Adolphus all through his life; we are still to see his government during the Regency, and what befell him during Christina's own reign, which he outlived. Thus his whole life was bound up with the house of Vasa. Although it is as a Foreign Minister he is chiefly known, yet Axel Oxenstiern was not only a diplomatist, but a statesman; especially were his ideas on trade in advance of his time. In a memorial addressed to the senate on the affairs of Sweden in 1633, he says, speaking of certain regulations made by Gustavus Adolphus, "Although at the time there were grounds for them, it is now clear and manifest that trade, which ever loves freedom, suffered under them: since the towns do not increase by one, two, or three persons only having liberty of dealing and traffic, but their growth comes from multiplication of inhabitants, and in their concourse, whence all the burgesses of a town derive advantages; therefore the greatest part of the corporate bodies and their rigorous laws, especially the needless cost, should be abolished. Generally it were advisable to open Stockholm also, at a convenient season of the year, both to inlanders and outlanders ... and although some hucksters should set themselves against it, and it should have the appearance of impairing by free trade the maintenance of the burgesses, yet he who observes the matter with intelligence and without bias, and considers the welfare of the whole, will find that our inland wares will thereby only be more in request."
Such was the minister to whom it fell to deal with this difficult crisis; the situation in Germany was one which demanded all his energies and his utmost skill. The death of Gustavus had resolved the Protestant party into a chaotic confusion. Judicious people were of opinion that "the union of Sweden and the allies would soon go out in smoke." Oxenstiern forsaw that the internal discord was far more likely to be fatal to their plans than all the efforts of their enemies, though the King of Spain was raising new levies in Italy, and had obtained from the Pope permission to make use for the war of the tithes in his country. That obedience which all had been willing to yield to Gustavus Adolphus would, he foresaw, not be continued to himself. The various Powers were united only in their distrust and hatred of Sweden. "They hate us", he wrote, at a later time, "for the very thing that ought to make them love us, — they cannot do without us." With the short-sighted policy which has distinguished German potentates in every age, the Northern Princes were unwilling to continue a war of which they were thoroughly weary to benefit a foreign Power. Moreover, although Austria was their enemy, they distrusted equally the overbalancing power of Sweden. "I fear there are some of them", wrote the Chancellor, "who have their eyes turned to the Emperor. They are entirely ignorant how to adapt their steps to these dangerous times", "they nourish vain hopes; long orations, and reasons for doubting, with many ceremonies, are not wanting." Elsewhere he speaks contemptuously of "princes with their heads full of ancestors, and fancies many hundred years old."
The Elector of Saxony, unmindful of all that Sweden had done for him (he actually spoke of the heroic efforts of Gustavus to free Germany as "the troubles which arose in the year 1630"), and furiously angry to see a simple foreign gentleman like Oxenstiern taking the direction of affairs — a position which he thought ought to belong to himself — not only refused to act with him, but even did his best to render all his efforts towards a firm consolidation nugatory. The Elector of Brandenburg was little better: Oxenstiern in vain endeavoured to rouse him by the prospect of a marriage between Christina and his son Frederic William: he contented himself with expressing his great and permanent affection for Sweden. The Princes of Lower Saxony indulged in pleasing dreams of neutrality. In spite of all these obstacles, however, Oxenstiern concluded, on March 8th, 1633, a treaty with the four Upper or Southern Circles, at Heilbronn: by which they agreed to carry on the war under the lead of Sweden; the direction of affairs was to be entrusted to Oxenstiern, aided by a council of six; no separate treaty was to be concluded by any one of the allies. The French court seized the opportunity to try and enter this alliance; its minister Feuquières, who had been instructed to conciliate the Chancellor, made various overtures to him, assured him of the favour and assistance of the king, his master, in any schemes for his own private advantage, and even offered to negotiate a marriage between Christina and his son Eric; (this report contributed not a little at a later time to the dislike of Christina towards the party of Oxenstiern). The Chancellor, however, who knew Richelieu, and suspected, under these insidious proposals, his design of making a catspaw of Sweden to gain his own ends, declined; he contented himself with a renewal of the previous alliance between France and the late king.
Into the details of the war we can only enter in so far as they are subsidiary to politics. After Lutzen, confusion reigned in the Swedish army. Deprived of its leader, it lost also its unity, and the enthusiastic spirit which had placed it so far above the mercenary bands of the great military juggler, Wallenstein. Duke Bernard of Weimar, who had been mainly instrumental in gaining the victory of Lutzen after the death of the king, now claimed the lead. Mutiny arose, instigated, Christina asserts, by Bernard himself. The colonels drew up their complaints in writing, and refused to serve unless their claims were granted. Oxenstiern had to grant letters of investiture to German lands and estates amounting, together with money, to the value of 4,900,000 rix dollars. The Duke himself received the Duchy of Franconia, and the two bishoprics of Bamberg and Wurzburg, though the title which he coveted of Generalissimo of the Forces was sternly denied him, and given to Horn.
All this soon found its natural result in the disaster of Nordlingen, September 6th, 1634: the Swedes were defeated with the loss of 6000 men, and Horn taken prisoner. The consequences were well nigh fatal; Oxenstiern passed his second sleepless night, and even began to doubt whether Sweden had not taken upon itself too heavy a burden; Saxony speedily concluded a separate peace, at Prague (by which the Elector gained Lusatia); to this peace almost all the Protestant States, except the noble little Hesse, came over. The Swedish Government was terribly disheartened; the truce with Poland was drawing near its term, and apprehensions were entertained from the quarter of Denmark. The finances of the State were in a desperate condition. The clergy stubbornly refused to be taxed, though the nobles were more patriotic; the country was exhausted by the length of the war and the hard times. King Ladislaus began to make the most extravagant demands; he styled himself King of Sweden, completely ignoring Christina; Charles I. even promised him assistance should he proceed to arms. Under all these circumstances, a truce was concluded with Poland at Stumsdorf for twenty-six years, at the sacrifice of Prussia, on September 2, 1635. It went to the heart of the Chancellor to see all that his master had gained, at so great a cost, the result of years of warfare, annihilated by a stroke of the pen.
The league of Heilbronn now "threw itself into the arms" of France; Bernard of Weimar bound himself to French interests, hoping thereby to promote his own. The opportunity was one for which Richelieu had been waiting; without delay he sought to use it in gaining the provinces on the Rhine. Oxenstiern met the Cardinal at Compiègne, and arranged a treaty in April, 1635, by which the French were to have Alsace, and subsidize the Swedes.
This marked, however, the lowest point which the Swedish misfortunes were to reach. Irritated by the arrogant pretensions of the King of Poland, and the selfishness of the Elector of Saxony, the Swedes decided, in the Diet of 1635, to have nothing to do with the peace of Prague; their renewed resolution, lead by the genius of John Baner, once more regained them their lost reputation. Baner had been named by Gustavus Adolphus as the man most capable of supplying his place, should anything befall himself; but till the present moment he had been laid up by a wound received at Nuremberg. He now came forward to prove that he resembled Gustavus not merely in personal appearance. After quelling with prompt energy a mutiny at Magdeburg, he overran Saxony, giving the country of the perfidious Elector to the flames; and gave the decisive turn to his operations by completely defeating the allied Saxon and Imperial forces at Wittstock (September, 1636). By this victory the moral effects of Nordlingen were effaced.
Above: "Queen Christina's Accession to the Throne", by Joseph de Buelow.
Notes: Åbo is the Swedish name for the Finnish city of Turku, in the Southwest Finland/Finland Proper region.
Dorpat is the old German name for the Estonian city of Tartu.
Viborg (now spelled Vyborg) is now a town in the Vyborgsky District of Russia's Leningrad Oblast. It is located on the Karelian Isthmus, 81 miles northwest of St. Petersburg.
No comments:
Post a Comment