Source:
Christina, Queen of Sweden, pages 57 to 62, by Francis William Bain, 1890; original at the University of Connecticut Library
The account:
Relieved, by the peace of Bromsebro, from obstacles in the quarter of Denmark, Sweden was now able to devote all her energies to the final settlement of the war in Germany, to which the Danish war was related as a fragment to the whole.
For a time, indeed, it seemed as though the negotiations for peace were to be as eternal as the war itself, which was "pressing on the nations involved in it with the weight of an inevitable necessity." Years had been passed in fruitless haggling over preliminaries, and when at length the congress was finally determined upon in 1641, other years flew by in sterile disputes about questions of precedence and futile formalities. At length, in 1644, it did actually assemble, the Gordian knot of the difficulties being cut by the arrangement that Sweden should send her plenipotentiaries to Osnaburgh, and France hers to Munster, preliminaries being carried on under the mediation of Venice and the Pope. But it was not till 1645, after the victorious campaigns of Torstenson and Condé, that there was any serious effort towards the actual furtherance of peace. That it was finally brought to a successful issue, when it was, is to a great extent due to the personal energy of Christina.
To this end she laboured with all her heart and soul. The reasons that determined her were many, both political and personal. She thoroughly understood the terrible evils of the most appalling war which has ever been waged, which is saying a great deal; and longed with a large-hearted humanity to deliver Germany from the ghastly vampire that was draining her blood not slowly, but in gulps. She saw, moreover, how her own people were being ruined chiefly by the burdens and conscriptions necessarily entailed upon them, as well as by the increasing power of the nobles, who flourished by the national decay, were the only gainers by the war, and wished to continue it, on behalf of their country's glory and their own interests, at the expense of the State. Though she well foresaw the troubles that would at once start into dangerous prominence the moment peace was concluded, she did not shrink from them; moreover, at any moment Fortune might desert them again, as she had so often done in the course of the war, rich in instances of the see-saw of victory and defeat; then would all the advantages gained at the expense of so much blood and toil and treasure be lost. The troubles of the Fronde were looming on the horizon in France, and that cloud looked then more dangerous than it afterwards proved.
"Now or never", she exclaimed, "is the time." But to these motives were added others of a personal nature. She longed to signalise her reign by other glories than those of war: visions of a brilliant and intellectual court in which she should move as the central luminary, dispenser of benefits, and patron of the arts and sciences, floated before her. She had only just mounted the throne, and[,] fired by ambition and the consciousness of great abilities, longed to be supreme not only in title, but in fact. All this could only come to pass by putting an end to the war; for as long as it continued, the European fame of the Chancellor, to whom all the credit for whatever happened in Sweden would be ascribed, would throw her, young, and a woman, completely into the shade.
In order then to gain strength to work her will, Christina found it necessary to form a party to balance the influence of that of the Chancellor. The situation is sketched in the words of the French ambassador, Chanut: "All the ministers were so much on their guard that one could draw from them nothing but conjectures as to the present state of the Court, which was[,] as it were[,] divided; on one side the Queen, the house of the Constable de la Gardie, the Palatine Princes (i.e. Charles and Adolphus), and Marshal Torstenson; on the other the Chancellor Oxenstiern, Marshal Horn, General Wrangel, and all those of the Senate who looked upon the Princes and the Constable as strangers. This latter party was less disposed to peace than that of the Queen."
We have already had hints of Christina's growing distrust of the Chancellor; she now became more definitely antagonistic to him. This rested on various grounds. Not only, as stated above, did his established position stand in the way of her fame, but her sympathies and his were diametrically opposed. He belonged to the party of the nobles and the war; not that he was, like many of them, and the generals, definitely opposed to peace; but he was lukewarm in its cause. He had indeed a genuine love of his country, and its honour was his first consideration; but just for this reason would his policy at this conjuncture have been fatal to Sweden. Now in his old age he remained faithful to his traditions and the maxims of the old religious war era that was passing away, and found himself unable to remodel his views to suit the changing circumstances of the time. It is impossible to say what might ultimately have become of Germany had the Swedish councils been dominated at this moment by the stubborn and unyielding patriotism of Oxenstiern.
He belonged to a vanishing system: Christina to the new. In nothing was this difference more significant than in their attitude towards the French. The Chancellor, true to his traditions, looked upon France with distrust, and for this there was some reason. Up to the last years of the war, one main cause of the want of genuine success on the Protestant side had been the lack of hearty co-operation between the French and Swedish forces; the French, directed by the calculating policy of Richelieu and Mazarin, never threw themselves heartily into the struggle till the appearance of Condé and Turenne. Hence the Swedes regarded France with distrust, and this traditional attitude was now maintained by Oxenstiern. Christina, on the contrary, was strongly inclined to the French, both from policy and personal motives. With a truer instinct than the Chancellor, and the tact of a woman, she perceived that to gain her ends it was incumbent upon her to establish friendly relations between the two Powers. She was also drawn in that direction by her relations with several members of her court. The French resident in Sweden already mentioned, Pierre Chanut, a man of very unique ability and sterling worth, of whom more anon, had made a deep impression upon her, and enjoyed her confidence to a great extent. She had a great admiration for Condé and Turenne, and wrote them letters on more than one occasion, expressive of her regard.
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Above: Kristina.
Above: Axel Oxenstierna.
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