Arthur Henry Hardinge's essay on Kristina, year 1880, part 9

Source:

Queen Christina of Sweden: Lothian Prize Essay for 1880, pages 61 to 62, by Arthur Henry Hardinge, 1880; original at the University of Michigan

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015012302041&seq=67

The essay:

The Court of France, after the death of Monaldeschi, treated Christina with such marked coldness, that she resolved to leave the country. She was desirous of visiting England, for she had always admired Cromwell, whose daring military exploits had charmed her, and whose rise to power she compared to that of her own great ancestor, Gustavus Vasa. It was even said that she was scheming to secure the continuance of the new-made alliance between England and France, by inducing the Protector to put away his wife and marry one of Mazarin's nieces. However this may have been, Cromwell, though he was studiously civil to Madalschi, Christina's envoy, yet gave him to understand that it would be hardly possible for him to receive his mistress in England. He must, indeed, have felt that her intriguing nature would prompt her to mix herself up in the political affairs of the country; nor would it have been consistent for him — the head, or would-be head, of the Protestant interest in Europe — to receive at his Puritan court a princess who had abjured the Gospel, and whose strange way of life would hardly have squared with the notions of British precisians. Christina, let loose amongst the Pharisees of Whitehall, swearing like one of Rupert's troopers, jesting profanely at the expense of the "elect", and driving about London on the "Sabbath-day" with frivolous Frenchmen and Italians, would have shocked feelings which the Protector was careful not to offend; and her meeting with Cromwell, which would have formed one of the most interesting incidents in the history of that time, had, unfortunately, to be given up.

She accordingly returned to Rome, where she spent the years 1658 and 1659 in the society of her literary friends. She was, however, no longer on such good terms as formerly with the Pope. Alexander VII. had now openly embraced the side of Spain, and Christina's French sympathies, and the reports which spread about of her plotting an invasion of Naples by the armies and fleets of France and England, caused political differences between them, which were embittered by private quarrels. She accused the Pope of setting spies to watch all she did; he, on the other hand, took offence at her imperious demands, and, at her claiming for her house, and the square around it, the immunities granted to the palaces of ambassadors, which had long been a subject of complaint at Rome, as affording protection to all the ruffians in the city. Yet, in spite of all this, he continued to treat her with great generosity; he allowed her 12,000 scudi a-year, and appointed Cardinal Azzolini, a typical Italian ecclesiastic, learned, polite, and keenly observant, to be the steward of her household. Her money affairs, it appears, were in great confusion; the war raging in Pomerania prevented her from drawing her revenues from that province, and threw her more and more for support upon the Pope.

A position of dependence was, however, unbearable to her; and she had already begun to intrigue with the Austrians for the invasion and conquest of Pomerania, when the news of the death of her cousin, the King of Sweden, gave a new turn to her plans, and determined her once more to re-visit her native country.

Above: Kristina.

Above: Oliver Cromwell.

Above: Pope Alexander VII.

Above: Cardinal Decio Azzolino.