Source:
Memoirs of celebrated female sovereigns, volume 1, pages 87 to 90, by Anna Brownell Jameson, 1831; original at the University of Toronto
Algernon Sidney's letter of September 8/18, 1660 to his father Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, is here:
The biography:
In 1660, her cousin Charles Gustavus died in the midst of all his ambitious and warlike plans; he left an infant son, who was immediately proclaimed King of Sweden, by the title of Charles XI. Christina immediately determined to revisit Sweden. The ostensible purpose of this journey was to arrange her affairs, and procure the more punctual payment of her revenue. There can be no doubt that her real object was to take advantage of any opportunity that might offer for the resumption of her crown. She did not perhaps entertain any design of supplanting the infant king, either by treachery or violence; but his health was feeble, his life precarious, and, notwithstanding her absolute renunciation of the kingdom, she pretended to the right of succession, and did not disguise her inclination to claim that right. Having placed all her property, and all her domestic affairs in the hands of Cardinal Azzolini, she dismissed the greatest part of her household, and left Rome with a very small train. She proceeded through Germany to Hamburg, where she remained only a few days, and was visited by Algernon Sydney. She resumed her journey towards Stockholm, travelling with great rapidity, for she was apprehensive that some means would be taken to prevent her entrance into her former kingdom. In fact nothing could exceed the astonishment, jealousy, and fear, which her expected arrival caused, not only among the members of the Regency, but among all ranks of the people. She was received upon the frontiers with all external marks of respect, but from the moment she set foot within the kingdom, her every step was watched, and her every action misinterpreted. She was obliged to dismiss all her train of foreigners, to send her confessor and her almoner back to Hamburg, and to hear mass in the chapel of the French Ambassador. Her change of religion and her general extravagance and levity of conduct had scandalised the whole nation, particularly the clergy and peasantry. The senate, and those in whom the chief power was now vested, dreaded her talents, and jealously guarded against her interference. Her memorial, requiring the payment of the arrears of her income, was strongly opposed, under pretence that by her change of religion she had forfeited all claims whatever on the faith of the nation. In that very city, once her own capital, where she had reigned almost absolute, she was obliged to sue for justice (The extraordinary inconsistency of Christina's character renders any thing credible, else we could scarce believe the assertion of one writer, (Parival,) who says, "La Reine, voyant que son autorité était sans pouvoir, eut recours aux larmes, priant à mains jointes les Ecclésiastiques de lui vouloir accorder son droit." Christina in tears! and wringing her hands! — The very evening before, when the deputies were representing the artifices of the Pope, she replied, with her usual haughty carelessness, "that the Pope would not give a doit for them all."), and to receive, at length, as a special favour, the fulfilment of a solemn contract. Before she could procure even thus much, the Swedish Government, in the name of the young king, extorted from her a second formal renunciation of the kingdom, and of all pretensions, present or future, to the crown of Sweden; and, as her presence was found to be inconvenient and disagreeable, they required, as another condition, that she should either renounce the Roman Catholic religion or leave the kingdom, in either case securing to her the punctual payment of her income. There was no alternative; she submitted, and quitted Sweden, after a residence of seven months.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Anna Brownell Jameson.
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