Source:
Sketches of the Lives of Distinguished Females: Written for Girls, with a View to Their Mental and Moral Improvement, pages 53 to 58, by Ann Hasseltine Judson (published posthumously), 1833; original at Harvard University
The biography:
THIRD EVENING.
... "How glad I am", exclaimed Marion, "that I am an American, and am not forced to kneel to any human being."
"And so am I", responded each of the little party."
"My dear children", said Mrs. Grenville, "when you are a few years older, and better able to judge of the situation of other nations of the present day, you will have reasons, more just and laudable than this, to congratulate yourselves that this favoured country was your birth-place. But I hope you have not fallen out altogether with royalty, for I have one sketch more to give you, and then we will descend to private life, as we have been associating almost long enough with 'crowned heads.'"
"I hope the next will be a different character from Queen Elizabeth", said one of the children.
"I fear you will not like her much better; but I must not anticipate. I remember the time when CHRISTINA, queen of Sweden, appeared to me as one of the greatest of women. This false impression I received from a book I read in my young days; and as the work was written for children, and may have been read by some of you, I will endeavour to give you a juster estimate of her character, which will prevent you from retaining this impression as long as I did. Christina was one of the most extraordinary women that perhaps ever existed. She was the daughter of the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, whom she succeeded at the early age of six years, and many of the most eccentric traits in her character owe their origin to the manner in which her father wished her to be educated. His wife, being a woman of weak intellect, probably gave rise to the opinion, that by separating his child from the influence or example of women, she would become more fit to act the sovereign. His instructions were that she should receive a masculine education; and although he stipulated that the modesty proper for her sex should be instilled into her, yet he desired her to adopt the sentiments and principles of men. 'He was not aware', as one of her biographers has remarked, 'that he required two things, which were, in fact, incompatible with each other; and that in surrounding his daughter almost exclusively with men, however learned and accomplished, and in cultivating only the sentiments and acquirements proper to the other sex, he was depraving her manners, if not her mind, and striking at the foundation of the only feminine virtue on which he insisted.' So true is it, my dear girls, that 'woman shines but in her proper sphere;' and whatever may be her talents or education, qualities or situation, if she step beyond the boundaries of her sex, she becomes ridiculous and disgusting to every well-regulated mind. It was chiefly to a contempt 'for all that women say or do', which she so frequently expressed, and to her hatred of every thing like restraint or control, that she owed her downfall. This celebrated queen, from being at twenty-three the wonder, admiration, and astonishment of Europe, became, a few years afterward, the object of scorn and ridicule in every country she visited. When she was of sufficient age to assume the sceptre, the wisdom and glory of her administration, her untiring devotion to its duties, the encouragement she gave to literature and learned men, added to her extreme youth, threw around her a halo of greatness, which, had she then died, would have established her as one of the brightest models of female sovereigns. But, unfortunately for herself and her country, she lived long enough to become hated by the people who once adored her, and despised by those who once admired her. She abdicated her throne at the age of twenty-eight [sic], and this act was said by her eulogists to have proceeded from her fondness for study, and a wish to exchange the splendour and cares of royalty for a humble station and the pursuit of philosophy. This was the impression that I received when I first read of Christina; it seemed so disinterested an act, so glorious a sacrifice to the charms of literature, that I thought her a truly great woman."
"I should have thought so too", said Marion, "had you not given us some insight into her character. But what were her reasons for resigning her crown?"
"In answer to your question, my niece, I will quote the authority of her latest biographer. 'She became every day more disgusted with the duties of her situation; and the necessity of attending to a certain routine of affairs fatigued and irritated her, merely because it was an obligation. One of her secretaries appearing before her with some despatches which required her signature, she turned from him impatiently, and with a vulgar exclamation said to her cousin, Prince Charles, in whose favour she then wished to abdicate, 'will you never deliver me from these people?''
"These very duties, in the early part of her reign, were a delight to her; a plain indication that she was governed only by impulse and her own inclinations; that caprice, self-will, and a wish to be free from the restraints of duty, were the true reasons for resigning the throne. After her abdication, she left Sweden, visited several of the countries of Europe, where the homage she first received soon changed to ridicule and neglect; became a convert to the Roman Catholic religion; established herself in Italy, a dependant on the bounty of the pope; and, finally, sank into the grave at the age of eighty-three [sic], unhonoured and unlamented [sic]."
"She deserved her fate", exclaimed Marion; "I have but little pity for her."
"Oh! Marion", said the kind-hearted Emily, "perhaps she would not have acted as she did if she had been brought up in a different manner."
"True, my dear Emily", replied Mrs. Grenville, "we should always let the spirit of charity check us when inclined to judge with severity the conduct of another; and remember that while we condemn the offence, we may pity the offender.
"I have now, my dear girls, finished my sketches of female sovereigns, and our future meetings will be devoted to the biographies of women in private life, among whom there is found more piety, more true excellence, and more exalted models of what women should be, than is generally exhibited in the contaminating crowd of courts, in the palaces of kings, or on the thrones of empires."
Above: Kristina.
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Above: Ann Hasseltine Judson.
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