Source:
Some Historic Women; or, Biographical Studies of Women Who Have Made History, pages 280 to 282, by William Henry Davenport Adams, 1890-1899; original at the University of Toronto - Robarts Library
Above: Kristina.
The biography:
A young and clever queen was not long without suitors for her hand, and Christina's subjects, like our English Elizabeth's, were anxious that she should marry. Whether because she loved to imitate Elizabeth's example, though she had not Elizabeth's weighty reasons, or because she was unwilling to share her power with a husband, or because she felt herself unfitted for conjugal and maternal duties, she resolved on leading a single life, and with some slight occasional wavering, adhered to the resolution. To Chanut she said, on one occasion, that her aversion for the marriage bond was so great that she should prefer death to marriage. When her ministers pointed out that she ought to marry in order to secure the country from the danger of a disputed succession, she retorted that if she married she might as soon become the mother of a Nero as of an Augustus. In her Autobiography, she acknowledges to a warmth of temperament which might have been expected in the daughter of Gustavus, but thanks God that He had gifted her with the power of self-control. And she adds: — "I was born in such a rank that I might have chosen almost any man I preferred, for there was no one who would not have thought himself happy if I had given him my hand. Had I felt any weakness, I should have married, like so many others. I should not have had that unconquerable aversion to marriage, of which I have furnished such remarkable proofs, if it had been necessary to me." She was proud of her celibacy to the last, for one of her latest medals, struck at Rome, bears the emblematical figure of a phœnix, with the inscription, "I was born free, I lived free, and I died free."
Among her suitors were Ferdinand, King of Hungary; the Elector Palatine, Charles Louis; the three sons of Sigismund[,] King of Poland; Frederick William[,] Elector of Brandenburg; two sons of King Christian of Denmark; the Archduke Leopold of Austria; Philip IV. of Spain; our own Charles II., before he came to his throne; and her cousin, the gallant and accomplished Charles Augustus [sic]. Towards this last she at one time showed a marked inclination, and indeed a letter she wrote to him on the 5th of January, 1644, was very warmly worded: — "I see by your letter", she says, "that you fear to trust your thoughts to the pen. We may, however, correspond with entire freedom, if you send me the key to a cipher, arrange your letters in accordance with it, and change your seals as I change mine, so that the letters may be sent to your sister, the Princess Maria. You must adopt my precaution, for never were people here so much opposed to us as they now are. But they shall never succeed, so long as you remain firm. They talk much of the Elector of Brandenburg, but neither he, nor anyone else, however wealthy, shall alienate my heart from you. My love is so strong that it can be overcome only by death, and if, which God forbid, I should survive you, my heart shall remain dead for every other; my mind and affection shall follow you to eternity, there to dwell with you."
Methinks the lady doth protest too much! In the course of a few months Christina changed her mind, and whistled to the winds this love that was to prove everlasting. Her biographers attribute this mutability — one of Christina's few feminine characteristics — to the partiality she had formed for a handsome young noble, Magnus de la Gardie, whom she sent to Paris as her ambassador, apparently in order to secure herself from his attractions. Had she ever married[,] there can be little doubt that her choice would have rested upon him; but she conquered the temporary weakness, and went on her way in maiden meditation, fancy free.
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