For this post I have been particularly indebted to Veronica Buckley's, Christina, Queen of Sweden. The Restless Life of a European Eccentric (2011) from which all the quotations are taken. This BBC podcast is a very helpful introduction. If you want the full scholarly works there is a PhD from the University of Iowa on her patronage of the arts which can be read online. There is a short but informative Britannica article here.
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| Queen Christina by Sébastian Bourdon National Museum Public domain |
Christina's inheritance
Christina (Kristina Augusta) was born in the royal castle, Tre Kronor, on 8 December (OS), 1626, the only legitimate child of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden and his wife, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. She was born with a caul and when it was removed, she was initially thought to be a boy. It was only in the morning that, to everyone’s great disappointment, she was discovered to be a girl. Christina later claimed (improbably?) that her father said, ‘She will be clever, for she has deceived us all’. But she also said that her mother could not bear the sight of her because she was a girl ‘and she said I was ugly’. Perhaps because she was dropped as a baby, her upper body was lopsided, with one shoulder higher than the other.Christina was born into the Vasa dynasty that had ruled Sweden since 1523. The official title of the monarch, regardless of sex was ‘King of the Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Prince of Finland and Duke of Estonia, Livonia and Karelia'. The dynasty was hereditary and did not necessarily exclude female succession, though the bulk of the population found the idea very strange. Before he departed for war, Gustavus Adolphus managed to secure her right to succeed if he did not have a legitimate son.
In the seventeenth century, Sweden became a great power and would remain so until defeated by Peter the Great's Russia in the Great Northern War. It was a small poor country, with a population of no more than a million, 90 percent of them peasants. There were no more than six hundred adult male nobles and as few were active in politics, government was a series of personal relationships. Sweden’s rise in status was owing to two major figures, its charismatic king, Gustavus Adolphus and his chancellor, Baron Axel Oxenstierna, the ablest politician and administrator of the age.
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| Axel Oxenstierna statesman and administrator National Museum, Sweden Public domain |
At the time of Christina’s birth the Thirty Years’ War had been raging in Europe for eight years. At first, Sweden was preoccupied with disputes with Poland and had no wish to be drawn into the war. However, when the imperial forces began to build up a base on the Baltic, Gustavus Adolphus and his ministers felt they had no choice but to join forces with the Protestant powers fighting the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs. In 1628, therefore, they entered the war, and Gustavus Adolphus soon showed himself a formidable campaigner, winning the name, ‘the Lion of the North’. In September 1631 they defeated the imperial forces at Breitenfeld near Leipzig. This victory transformed Sweden’s status. It was now seen as a major player in Europe and by the following year Gustavus Adolphus had 120,000 men of many nationalities (including English and Scottish) under his command.
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| Gustavus Adolphus, 'the Lion of the North' Unknown painter. Public domain |
But on 6 November 1632 the Swedes were defeated at Lützen in Saxony and Gustavus Adolphus was killed. This was a game-changer in the war. His body was brought back to Sweden by slow stages, though because of a delay insisted on by the hysterical queen. She insisted on the coffin being kept open and Gustavus was not buried until nineteen months later.
Child queen
At the age of 6, Christina had become queen of Sweden, though it was some time before her claim was accepted by the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag. In 1633, following her acclamation, she ascended her father’s throne before the members of the four estates. But until she reached her eighteenth birthday the government would be in the hands of the ‘five great old men’ chosen by her father. The real ruler of the country was Oxenstierna. He had been chancellor since 1612. Christina was to describe him as a man ‘of great capacity, who knew the strengths and weaknesses of every state in Europe, a wise and prudent man, immensely capable and great-hearted’. |
| Christina, aged fourteen Public domain |
When she was ten, her unstable mother, Eleanora, was exiled to the island castle of Gripsholm at Mariefred, some fifty miles from Stockholm. Following the instructions of her late father, Christina was given the education of a prince. She made only patchy progress in Latin, but became fluent in French as well as Swedish and German. She later reminisced about what a good pupil she had been:
The great man was more than once forced to admire the child, so talented and so quick to learn, without fully understanding what it was that he admired – it was so rare in one so young.
Oxenstierna reported to the Senate that she was
not like other members of her sex. She is stout-hearted and of a good understanding.
But far from being a defender of women, Christina shared the misogyny of her age. She later wrote that of all defects, to be a woman was the worst:
As a young girl I had an overwhelming aversion to everything that women do and say and say. I couldn’t bear their tight-fitting, fussy clothes. I took no care of my complexion or my figure, or the rest of my appearance. I never wore a hat or a mask, and scarcely ever wore gloves. I despised everything belonging to my sex, hardly excluding modesty and propriety. I couldn’t stand long dresses and I only wanted to wear short skirts. What’s more, I was so hopeless at all womanly crafts that no one could ever teach me anything about them.
Apart from her small size, Christina seemed to have more masculine than feminine characteristics. Her voice was deeper than most women’s. She loved playing with toy soldiers. She was passionately attached to her horses and dogs. From time to time as an adult she liked to wear a sword. She swore like a man.
Was she a lesbian? As queen she became fixated with one of her ladies-in-waiting, a beautiful but rather passive young woman, Ebba Sparre, whom she called Belle. They commonly shared a bed, though this was quite common at the time, but Christina played on suspicions about the relationship. She hinted to the English ambassador, Bulstrode Whitelocke that Belle's 'inside' was 'as beautiful as her outside'. Perhaps she was simply making mischief!
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| Ebba Sparre, Christina's lesbian lover? Or not! Public domain. |
Ruling queen
In November 1644, Christina came of age, and began her rule, determined to break free of Oxenstierna. As well as being engaged in the Thirty Years' War as an ally of France, Sweden was also at war with Denmark for supremacy in the Baltic. In 1645, she overruled Oxenstierna and concluded a treaty with the Danes, which gave Sweden some Baltic islands and western provinces but also made significant concessions. With this settled, Christina became a major player in Franco-Swedish diplomacy.It was obvious to Oxenstierna and her other ministers that she would have to marry. If she loved anyone, it was her cousin, Carl Gustav, the son of her aunt, Katarina, but he was much more attached to her than she was to him. She later claimed that she was revolted by heterosexual sex. She told Oxenstierna that she did not intend to marry, though if she did choose a husband it would be Carl Gustav. In fact, she was grooming him for the succession and in 1648, as the war was nearing its end, she made him commander of all Sweden’s forces in the Empire.
Christina began her reign with a pattern of high spending. For years Oxenstierna had paid for his extensive policy of modernising Sweden by selling crown lands. This provided a dangerous precedent for Christina, who raised money by selling noble titles. It brought in short-term cash, but it was a counter-productive policy because the nobility were exempt from taxation. The number of the nobles rose dramatically but the crown’s assets shrunk.
On 24 October the Peace of Westphalia brought the Thirty Years’ War to an end. It was signed in two cities: Münster for the Emperor and his allies, and Osnabrück for the French, the Swedes and the Protestant powers. Sweden emerged with significant gains, though many Swedes thought Christina had agreed prematurely to its terms and conceded too much to the French, who emerged the real victors from the war.
Art collector
While the negotiations were taking place, the war was still going on and at the end of July 1648, the Swedes occupied Prague. Under secret orders from the queen they occupied the castle and seized all that remained of the collections of the Emperor Rudolf II, who had been the greatest art collector of his day. Christina received almost 500 paintings, 70 bronzes, 370 scientific instruments and 400 ‘Indian curiosities’, as well as ivories and precious stones and a live lion. She also gained his enormous library. These treasures provided her with the money to pay her soldiers and left her with more than enough to spare. In the spring of 1649 the fabulous treasure arrived in Stockholm and she found herself the owner of one of the finest treasures in Europe. She discounted the northern European paintings as of little value but had a great love for the Italian masters. She said she would give all her Dürers for a few Raphaels, and even then it would be doing them too much honour.’ With these acquisitions, Christina issued in a new cultural era for Sweden.
She was now showing a marked preference for the culture of Catholic Europe. She encouraged French scholars to settle in Stockholm and she began to impose on her hitherto informal court the elaborate rituals of the French court. She formed an ‘academy’ of scholars and artists, many of them foreign. She acquired the – not completely deserved – reputation of being ‘the Minerva of the North’.
The most famous foreign intellectual to be invited to Sweden was René Descartes, then living in Holland because his philosophical speculations had fallen foul of the Catholic church. He set off on 1 September 1649 and it took him six weeks to arrive in Stockholm, just as the winter was beginning to set in. But he felt snubbed by her lack of interest in him. It was not until January that Christina began her philosophy lessons with him. They took place in her icy library and he was forced to remain bareheaded in her presence. He caught influenza and after weeks of illness he died on 11 March 1650.
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| René Descartes, after Franz Hals The great philosopher, who did not survive the Swedish winter. |
The succession
By this time Christina had thrown open the question of the succession. In January 1649 she told the Riksdagit is impossible for me to marry. I am absolutely certain about it. I do not intend to give you reasons. My character is simply not suited to marriage. I have prayed to God fervently that my inclination might change, but I simply cannot marry.
In March the Riksdag accepted her proposal for her cousin, Carl Gustav, to be named her successor. They still believed that this was a formality as she would surely marry him. In the spring she fell gravely ill and this brought up again the question of the succession.
On 20 October 1650, she was crowned in Stockholm (rather than Uppsala, the traditional coronation site) in a splendid and extremely expensive ceremony, with Carl Gustav beside her. The unprecedented extravagance of her coronation sat rather oddly with her expressed desire to give up power.
Judicial murder?
At the end of 1651 she showed how ruthless she could be when her power was questioned. Arnold Johann Messenius had been imprisoned by Oxenstierna for seditious writings. When she attained her majority, anxious to assert her independence, she had him freed, ennobled him and appointed him her Historiographer Royal. But when he was found to have criticised Christina, she had him and his son arrested and executed.Abdication
Christina was now bored with governing and in 1651 she declared that she wished to abdicate. She was persuaded not to by the Riksdag, but the thought was still in her mind. At about the same time she became involved in secret discussions with the Jesuits. She had long outgrown any loyalty to Swedish Lutheranism and felt temperamentally drawn to the hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church.In 1653 she made a list of 6,000 books and manuscripts to be shipped to Antwerp. In February 1654 she told her council of her plan to abdicate. When they reluctantly accepted, they drew up a financial settlement for her, giving her a substantial amount in lands and money, but she refused their demand that she remain in Sweden. On 6 June at Uppsala Castle she formally abdicated in favour of Carl Gustav, who, on the same day was crowned king (Charles X). She was 27 and she had reigned for nearly ten years.
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| Uppsala Castle in 1675, the site of Christina's abdication. Public domain |
Conversion
She then left Sweden incognito and without the money promised her in the abdication settlement. On the Danish border she cast off her dress and put on the men’s clothing that from now on would be her preferred attire. She cut off her hair and put on a sword. When she crossed the border, she is said to have exclaimed ‘Free at last!’ In August she arrived at Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands, where she bought paintings and objets d’art. In December she arrived in Brussels, where she was finally received into the Catholic church, though she was disappointed that her conversion was not made public.The first half of her life was now over. She entered what was to be a very different second half.
Residence in Rome
In September 1655 she began her journey to Italy. In Innsbruck on 3 November, dressed in a gown of black silk, with a diamond cross her only jewel, she publicly announced her conversion. The celebrations, masterminded by Antonio Cesti, lasted a week. On 20 December she made her triumphal entry into Rome on a white palfrey and was received by Pope Alexander VII. She rented the Palazzo Farnese from the Duke of Parma, though she was beset by lack of money. |
| The Palazzo Farnese, Christina's first home in Rome. |
In January 1656 she founded an ‘Academy', making herself the centre of an intellectual and artistic circle. She held musical evenings, attended by cardinals. She set up a semi-permanent orchestra, and if she had been able to afford it, she would have staged operas.
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| Spectacle at the Palazzo Barberini, 26 February 1656 Papal Rome welcomes the convert. |
Prominent among her cardinal friends was the 32-year-old Decio Azzolino, a papal civil servant and skilled code-breaker. Christina fell in love with him, though it is impossible to know if they were ever physical lovers.
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| Cardinal Decio Azzolino Christina's confidante and possible lover |
They shared a common interest in diplomacy, and Christina, who now missed being a queen, began to intervene in the politics of France and Spain. Her goal was to become Queen of Spanish-held Naples and on her death to bequeath the crown to France. She made two visits to France, in 1656 and 1657, but the plan came to nothing. Instead, she stained her reputation by presiding over the gruesome execution at Fontainebleau of her equerry, the marchese Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi in October 1657, whom she believed had betrayed her. The execution was legal, but it was generally deplored, and when she returned to Rome in 1658 her popularity was lost.
At the Palazzo Riario
She now had a new home in Rome, the Palazzo Riario (now the Palazzo Corsini), which she proceeded to decorate with Italian art, making her by far the greatest collector in the city. In particular, she had an unrivalled collection of Venetian paintings. She also collected medals and sculptures and built up a vast library. At her instigation, the Tordinona, the first public opera house in Rome, was opened. Alessandro Scarlatti became her choirmaster and Arcangelo Corelli directed her orchestra. She befriended the sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini in his old age. She had finally achieved her great wish, to be an outstanding patron of the arts.The palazzo remained her home for the rest of her life. It was there that she wrote her autobiography.
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| Christina in her sexually ambivalent old age National Museum, Sweden Public domain. |
She still entertained political ambitions and when her cousin Charles X died, leaving a five-year-old son, she returned to Sweden, where she was told that as a Catholic she could never succeed to the throne. She abdicated for a second time. An attempt in 1668 to be elected Queen of Poland came to nothing.
She died on 19 April 1689 and she was buried in St Peter’s – one of only three women to have been given this honour. Azzolino died in June and his nephew sold off her art collection.
Conclusion
- Christina's vitality, intellectual curiosity, and distinctive personality made her a phenomenon. She was celebrated as 'the Minerva' of the age, though it has been argued that she she was a dilettante rather than a genuine intellectual, a magpie collector of works of art and literature and famous men.
- Her conversion is puzzling in many ways, as she proved no more a devout as a Catholic than she had been a Lutheran. Nevertheless, it was regarded as a great triumph in the Catholic world for the daughter of the Protestant hero, Gustavus Adolphus, to go over to the 'other side'.
- From the day of her birth until her death, there was an ambivalence about her sexuality. She preferred to dress as a man. She claimed to hate the thought of heterosexual sex and was possibly a lesbian - though the evidence is inconclusive. She and Cardinal Azzolino may have been lovers - or just very good friends! In our own day, she has become a trans icon but never a feminist one.
Postscript: in case you thought women can't be misogynists: After her abdication, Christina wrote:
Women should never be rulers, and I am so convinced of this, that I would have barred my daughters from the succession, if I had married. I would have loved my kingdom more than my children, and it would have been a betrayal of my kingdom to leave it to girls. And I should be believed all the more because I am speaking against my own interest – but then I have always made a point of speaking the truth, whatever it has cost me. It is almost impossible for a woman to be a good monarch or a good regent. Women are too ignorant, too weak in body and soul and mind. Everything that I have seen or read confirms that women who rule, or who try to rule, only make themselves ridiculous in one way or the other. I myself am no exception, even though I was groomed from my cradle to be queen. … The defect of being female is the greatest defect of all.
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