Source:
Eccentric Personages: Memoirs of the Lives and Actions of Remarkable Characters, volume 2, pages 53 to 57, by William Russell, 1864; original at the Wellcome Library
The biography:
The nominal regency of Chancellor Oxenstiern expired on the 18th of December, 1644, Christina's eighteenth birthday, and the Queen no longer affected to be swayed by any other influence than her own imperious will. She was remorselessly indefatigable in the exercise of absolute power, regulating every detail of government by the simple magic of "such is my will." Taxation, the freedom or limitation of commerce, questions of war and peace, were decided by her peremptory "shall" or "shall not." Having no taste for the elegances of dress, she issued sumptuary decrees forbidding Swedish ladies to wear lace or coloured ribbons; prohibited any festal rejoicings at betrothals, bridals, baptisms. People sometimes drank to excess at such meetings, and that, Christina, who was a total abstainer just then, could not tolerate. Funerals, it was also decreed, should never exceed in cost about five pounds of English money; and gaming was forbidden under severest penalties. How a nation could quietly submit to such extravagance of despotism is a marvel.
In other than government matters the wayward, eccentric girl exhibited the same love of capricious domination. In a fit of educational enthusiasm, Christina endowed universities, academies, appointed largely salaried professors, and[,] suddenly changing her mind, dismissed them all with abuse and contempt. Two solemn philosophers, whom she had taken into favour, she one day, brusquely interrupting a grave colloquy, compelled to play at shuttlecock with each other as long as they could move their arms. Three of the most eminent scholars in Sweden she made pirouette before her in a Greek dance, she screaming with laughter the while, and urging the musicians to play faster, faster, until one of the venerable men fainted and fell on the floor. Descartes, whom she had induced by the most flattering promises to take up his residence at her court, she literally worried into a consumption by insisting, in that terrible climate and the season winter — a more than usually rigorous winter — upon his presence in her library punctually at five o'clock every morning. The young Queen's manner was always very suave, almost caressing, like Ferdinand VII.'s of Spain, when she had once decided upon the death or ruin of any one who had offended her. The velvet covering concealed a terrible claw. Christina was but nineteen [sic] when Captain Bulstrode, a Danish officer [sic], and said to be one of the handsomest, most accomplished men of his time, being present upon some mission from his sovereign at her court — he was, I suppose, a subordinate member of the Danish embassy — attracted her notice. She honoured him with her hand in a dance, and on several occasions comported herself very graciously towards him. The handsome officer misconceived the motive of the young Queen's graciousness, and was indiscreet enough to boast that he should one day be King Consort of Sweden. This silly, impudent vaunting was reported to Christina, whom it deeply offended. She had always boasted of as being an adept in the art of vengeance, and now gave a signal proof of her skill in the demoniac science. Captain Bulstrode found himself treated with more pointed favour than ever, and at last it was confidentially intimated to him that if he obtained the royal license of his sovereign[,] the King of Denmark[,] to throw up his allegiance to that monarch, and become naturalized as the subject of Queen Christina, there was nothing he might not hope for. Bulstrode swallowed the bait with avidity, knowing as he did that the Queen could not marry the subject of any other potentate than herself. The King of Denmark consented, Bulstrode's connexions being very influential, and all rejoiced at the great fortune in store for their handsome relative. Other necessary preliminaries were completed, and the gallant captain was to all legal intents and purposes the subject of the absolute Queen of Sweden. He, in a state of overflowing jubilant vanity, solicited the honour of offering his devoted homage to the new sovereign to whom he had sworn fealty — a request promptly granted. The triumphant captain was ushered with much ceremony into "the presence." Christina was alone, and emboldened by the flattering reception given him, this military Malvolio threw himself at the sovereign's feet, and poured forth a high-flown declaration of passionate love. Christina's answer was characteristic. She listened with a smile of withering scorn, and in reply said, "Poor witless fool! I will teach you what it is to falsely boast at your filthy orgies of the favour of a queen." Summoning her attendants as she spoke, "Take this man, who has dared to insult me, to prison. Let him be guarded securely, and fed during my pleasure upon the coarsest prison fare. Not many days will have passed before it will be necessary to confine him in a prison for lunatics during life. That shall be his fate. Away with him!" The astounded dupe was never again heard of. He died in either an ordinary prison or one specially reserved for the reception of lunatics. The saying of Solomon was terribly true, till the English people struck down kingly despotism in the person of Charles the First, giving flunkeyism, to quote Carlyle, a crick in the neck, from which it has never since fully recovered, and is not likely to recover. "Curse not the king", wrote the royal sage, who had found that all was vanity under the sun. "Curse not the king, even in thy bedchamber, for a bird of the air will carry the news, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."
Above: Kristina.
Notes: Consumption is an old word for tuberculosis. This is not the illness that Descartes died from; he had pneumonia, as did the French ambassador Pierre Hector Chanut, who he was staying with.
Bulstrode Whitelocke was an English politician, not a Danish officer. Representing Cromwell's republican government of the Commonwealth of England, he arrived at court in Uppsala, where it was staying due to the plague back in Stockholm, on December 23, 1653/January 2, 1654 (Old Style), a few weeks after Kristina's 27th birthday. Kristina turned 19 years old in 1646, and 1647 was the final full year of King Christian IV's life and reign; he died in 1648. The King of Denmark at the time of Whitelocke's embassy to Sweden was Christian's son, King Frederik III.
Whitelocke was never in love with Kristina, and she never had him arrested and imprisoned.
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