Source:
Memoirs of Christina, Queen of Sweden, volume 1, pages 153 to 158, by Henry Woodhead, 1863; original at the University of Michigan
The account:
THE States assembled at Stockholm, in December, 1644, and preparations were made to hand over the authority to Christina on the 8th of that month, which was her birthday. She then appeared for the first time in royal splendour, accompanied by the Senators and great Officers of State. She was seated on a silver throne, the gift of Magnus de la Gardie, from whence she addressed the assembly with much dignity, and received their oath of allegiance. After the various dignitaries had done homage to her she promised, on her part, to show due consideration for the Council, not to govern without consulting them, nor to resent any advice they might give. In deference to her own prejudices, as well as those of her people, she was proclaimed King of Sweden.
Christina entered upon her duties with a profound feeling of the great responsibility she incurred. She states in her memoirs that constant labour and watchfulness were required to render her worthy of her post, and confesses the fearful reckoning she should owe to God for the right performance of her duties.
One of her first measures was to grant an indemnity to the Regents for their past acts. It would have been most difficult and ungracious to have withheld this indemnity; but it is certain that Christina, in granting it, gave great offence to all the States except the nobles. The other orders had viewed with great dissatisfaction the alienation of the Crown domains.
Portions of these domains had been sold at various times during the war to defray the most urgent expenses, and as the Regents had declared that none but nobles could purchase the Crown lands, their alienation strengthened the aristocracy in the same degree that it weakened the Sovereign. The temporary assistance to the finances bore no proportion to the sacrifices which were made, for[,] as there was no competition to purchase the Crown lands, they were sold very far below their value. The price paid was according to a uniform scheme, and professed to be at the rate of one hundred rix-dollars for a property which gave a revenue of three rix-dollars, but as a very low valuation of the Crown lands was made, few of the purchases in reality got less than ten or twelve per cent. for their money. It was against the constitution to alienate these domains during the minority of a Sovereign, but the demand for money was urgent, and the Regents asserted that no other means of supplying it could be devised.
If the Crown alone had suffered from the encroachments of the nobility, the other States might have viewed the subject with philosophic indifference, but they perceived that the scheme of the nobles was to enrich themselves at the expense of all the other orders. Sweden was in that state when land constitutes the only wealth, and the whole of the land threatened to become the property of the aristocracy.
The peasants and farmers were greatly discontented. When they were the tenants of the Crown, they were indulgently treated: sons succeeded their fathers in the land they cultivated, by a tacit understanding which was practically as advantageous to them as an absolute right of inheritance.
All this was now changed, and the tenant was turned out at the pleasure of a new landlord. Sometimes a nobleman did not acquire the positive ownership of an estate, but only purchased certain charges upon it. In these cases he often obliged the occupant, by a series of persecutions, to relinquish the entire property; and if an obstinate plebeian would not submit, the lot fell on him to serve as a soldier.
The tyranny of the nobles was already loudly complained of, but its sphere was widely extended by the sale of the Crown lands. It had been provided that whenever the Queen attained her majority, she should be at liberty to annul the act of the Regents, and to resume her domains. The change of tenure was considered the greatest of all grievances by the people, and they urged the Queen vehemently to resume her lands, and the public opinion was so strong on the subject as to threaten a revolution in Sweden.
Christina could not avoid doing some wrong to one party or the other. If she had pursued the old policy of the Swedish kings, and had allied herself to the people, she might have increased her own power, and relieved herself from the pecuniary embarrassments by which her whole reign was oppressed.
It could, however, hardly be expected that a young Queen should, by her first act, cause a revolution by which her oldest friends would be the sufferers. She soon had cause to complain of the nobles, but even when most irritated against them, she would not adopt a course which she thought was dishonourable. A price had been paid for the lands, and although it was much less than they were worth, she shrank from the injustice of an act of confiscation. In answer to all solicitations, she replied that she would never resume anything she had once granted. It is difficult to see how she could have acted otherwise, but it is evident that this first step gave a fatal blow to the royal authority, and paved the way for future encroachments of the nobles.
The States, however, were obstinate in their demand, and a revolution would hardly have been averted, if the news of victories in Germany had not diverted the public mind.
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Above: Kristina.
Note: The silver throne was a gift to Kristina from Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, but it was not made until 1650, and it was made specially for her coronation ceremony that same year.
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