Source:
Eccentric Personages: Memoirs of the Lives and Actions of Remarkable Characters, volume 2, pages 59 to 64, by William Russell, 1864; original at the Wellcome Library
The biography:
Wearied at last by the very indulgence of her petulant, capricious humours, disgusted with the sameness of the dissipation in which she had so long lived, and was living, Christina[,] by way of change[,] fixed her thoughts upon heavenly joys. She admitted to her confidence several clever Jesuits, who, having succeeded in converting her, or more correctly cajoling her into the belief that she was converted to the faith of Roman Catholicism, advised her to "put money in her purse" — abundance of money — and then exhibit to the world the edifying spectacle of the daughter of the crowned arch-heritic, Gustavus Adolphus, renouncing an earthly for a heavenly crown. Sacrifice so heroic and sublime would ensure her a glorious immortality in this world and the next; — canonisation would follow in due course, and no name in the holy hierarchy of heaven would be more frequently invoked than that of Saint Christina!
The children of Loyola were too strong for her. As no Roman Catholic could by the fundamental law wield the Swedish sceptre, she determined upon resigning the crown in favour of the but recently nominated Crown Prince. The solemn act of abdication took place on the 6th of June, 1654, in presence of the Assembly of States. Whitelock, Cromwell's envoy, was there. This the wilful woman did in defiance of the remonstrances of her wisest and most attached counsellors. The English envoy reported the speech delivered by the Marshal of the Boors upon the occasion, which is conclusive as to her general popularity amongst the masses of the population. "O Heavens! madam", exclaimed the rude, coarsely-attired, but common-sense country-fellow, "O Heavens! madam, what are you about to do? It humbles us to hear you speak of forsaking those who love you as well as we do. Can you be better than you are? You are queen of all these countries, and if you leave this large kingdom, where will you get such another? If you should do it — as I hope you won[']t for all this — both you and we shall have cause, when it is too late, to be sorry for it. Therefore, my fellows and I pray you to think better of it, and keep your crown upon your head; then you will keep your own honour and our peace; but if you lay it down, in my conscience you will endanger all. Continue in your gears, good madam, and be the fore-horse as long as you live, and we will do the best we can to bear your burthen. Your father was an honest man, a good king, and very shining in the world. We obeyed and honoured him whilst he lived. You are his child, and have governed us very well. We love you with all our hearts; and the Prince is an honest gentleman. When his time comes[,] we shall be ready to do our duties to him as we do to you. But as long as you live[,] we are unwilling to part with you, and therefore I pray, madam, do not part with us."
The entreaties of the blunt-spoken Marshal of the Boors did not prevail; the formal act of abdication was accomplished, and Christina hastened out of the kingdom, taking with her an enormous amount of treasure in gold, silver, and jewels. A few weeks afterwards [sic] she openly renounced [sic] the reformed religion [sic], and was solemnly received into the fold of Rome. "The greatest scandal she could afflict us with", remarked the Pope, when the intelligence reached him, "unless the idea of writing a book in defence of the faith should unhappily seize her."
Cardinal Mazarin, the prime minister of France, differed from the Pope, and dispatched a French troop of comedians for the express purpose of giving éclat to so illustrious a conversion. Balls, plays, concerts, masquerades succeeded each other for many weeks in celebration of the great event. The conversion, we need hardly say, was false, factitious, the vagary of a hot brain ambitious of notoriety. When leaving the play one evening, Christina remarked to a lady, sotto voce, "They could do no less than treat me to a play after I had indulged them with a farce." [sic] That particular mind-fever soon passed off. The woman would seem to have doubted the existence of God. "If there is a God", she whispered to a confidant, after finishing her first confession, — "If there is a God, I shall be prettily caught." In a letter addressed at the same period to the Countess Sparre, she wrote, "My chief employments are to eat well and sleep well, to study a little, chat, laugh, see French and Italian plays, and pass my time in an agreeable dissipation. In conclusion, I hear no more sermons, and utterly despise all orators. As Solomon said, 'all wisdom is vanity.' Every one ought to live contentedly, eat, drink, and be merry."
Christina could not herself follow Solomon's advice. The remainder of her restless life was chiefly consumed in vain efforts to regain a crown, that of Sweden or of Poland, and in quarrelling fiercely with successive popes. One dogma she strenuously insisted upon, her divine right of taking the life, with or without cause, of any of her former subjects. She carried this article of her political creed into execution. Suspecting her chamberlain Monaldeschi of having betrayed or threatened to betray her interests, she ordered the captain of her guard to stab, murder him almost in her very presence. His piteous screams for mercy availed nothing. The crime was consummated, and afterwards defended by her as a legitimate exercise of authority committed to her by God, which she had not and could not give up! The plea was allowed by "the gods of the earth." The murder was committed at the Palace of Fontainebleau, and even the philosopher Leibnitz was of opinion that Christina was justified by her inherent royal power! Christina died, having shortly before obtained plenary absolution of the Pope, in April, 1689, in the sixty-third year of her erratic, bizarre, blood-stained existence.
Above: Kristina.
Notes: Russell conflated or confused (if he wasn't intentionally deceptive or didn't make up the rumour himself) Bulstrode Whitelocke, the English ambassador, with a non-existent Danish officer called Bulstrode. But Whitelocke had already left Sweden a few days before Kristina's abdication day. The famous speech by the peasant to Kristina is a fabrication by Whitelocke.
The main reason Kristina was so often mistaken for, rumoured and believed to be an atheist, is because she was never outwardly pious, something she couldn't bear, much less understand or comprehend. For her, especially once she found validation in the new and "heretical" Catholic practice of Quietism in her later years, piety and religiosity was simply and almost entirely an internal, very personal and private matter.
Kristina was 62 when she died, not 63.
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