CHRISTINA OF S WEDEN.*

WE do not know why Mr. Woodhead should have written once more the life of this crowned bluestocking. He has no new materials, and though he has, as he believes, a new view of his subject to advance, he is so honest that the impression of her character left by his book will be identical with that expressed by Macaulay, and entertained by all persons in the least degree con- versant with the facts of her life. She was a coarsely vain woman on a throne, with considerable abilities wasted in a search for information which, when acquired, never strength- ened a naturally weak judgment. Capricious and demon- strative, with a coarse mind and coarser tongue, she brought on herself a suspicion of want of chastity which was possibly unjust, and the hearty contempt of all who could distinguish between quickness and judgment, cleverness and solid ability, a great intellect and a merely hungry one.

She was the true child of her parents, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and Leanora of Brandenburg. From the former she inherited a clear brain, rather receptive than creative, fiery courage, and an almost inflexible will ; from the latter an in- satiable vanity, a spirit of reckless extravagance, and a determination to consider her own caprices reasons. Left at the age of six an orphan, she was first entrusted to her mother, oho mismanaged her at once by over indulgence and severity, expressing extravagant fondness, but keeping her in rooms hung with black, refusing her drinking water, and whipping the little Queen for drinking some dewdrops reserved as the Queen Mother's private cosmetic. She was therefore removed to the nominal guardianship of her Aunt Catherine, married to the Count Palatine of Poland, and the virtual control of a council of which the famous Chancellor Oxenstiern was the guiding spirit. They made the common mistake of teaching her more than her intellect could bear, and under their tuition she rapidly developed into a fanciful capricious man, with hosts of feminine weaknesses and very ill- balanced mind. She learnt most European tongues, rode hard to hounds, sat with the Privy Council at thirteen, swore like a blasphemous trooper, and detested women of all grades, a feeling which adhered to her through a long life, and produced the only really good bon mot Mr. Woodhead has been able to find. After her abdication she was annoyed by the familiarity of the Parisian ladies, who in proof of their equality insisted on kissing her. "'AV she said, with savage sarcasm, you kiss me so much because I am so like a man.' " On 8th December, 1644, she attained the age of eighteen, was proclaimed King of Sweden, and entered on an authority which was in theory almost un- limited, and in practice was restrained only by the visible privileges of the nobles, and the invisible opinion of her people. Her very first act proved her want of capacity for rule. The one question for Sweden was the power of the noblesse, which had been restricted by the House of Vasa, had repeatedly en- dangered the throne, and was detested by the people. Christina disliked it herself, and continued to dislike it—till, as Mr. Wood- head naively allows, the nobles gave her feces and entertainments, —and once or twice expressed her contempt for their claim to a monopoly of public offices. Nevertheless, her first act indefi- nitely increased their power. The Council had during her minority of twelve years alienated a great portion of the Crown lands to nobles, and assigned them the Crown rights over great tracts of free soil, but Oxenstiern coupled the grants with a clause enabling the sovereign on her accession to resume. Christina confirmed them all, to the bitter discontent of the States, and throughout her reign refused to recall them, not, so far as we can judge, from any policy or any sense of justice—for when abdicat- ing she tried to resume an enormous grant for herself—but simply from the pleasure all people feel in giving away that which costs them nothing. She even extended the grants, which involved the right of torture and the power of life and death, till it seemed that the class of yeomen was about to disappear. The nobles claimed exemption from duties, thereby crippling trade; and from tithe, thereby impoverishing the Church; and from taxes, thereby impoverishing the State ; but still Christina, who did not believe in them or anything else, except herself, ad- hered to the pleasant aristocrats, who in return suggested that a Venetian republic would suit Sweden much better than monarchy. Even when she was aware of their project, she only tried to con- ciliate them by diminishing her watchfulness, refused the unani- mous request of the other estates for the resumption of Crown lands, soothed the clergy by making livings freehold,

• Memoirs of Civistino, Queen of Sweden. By Henry Woodhead. Hurst and Blackett.

soothed the peasantry by abolishing the salt-tax, and soothed the nobles by leaving them their ill-gotten lands, ancrthe right to torture and hang everybody save themselves. All orders were discontented, and probably nothing, save the extreme reverence of the masses for the name of Gustavus Adolphus, the " snow-king," who had conquered Germany, prevented a revolution. The queen herself had no other hold over the army, for she loved peace, and had ended the war begun by her father and continued by Oxenstiern, by throwing away half the advantages they had gained, and which might have made Sweden the strongest Protestant power. Mr. Woodhead extols her humanity, forgetting that the greater the suffering caused by the Thirty Years' War, the more necessary it was to secure the ends for which the war had been undertaken. As it was, Christina, from an imaginative love of peace, left the House of Hapsburg dictator in Central Europe, and among other results condemned Italy, the only country she ever really loved, to a century of servitude.

All this while she was enacting her role as first bluestocking of the world, female antitype of Frederic II. She corresponded with Descartes, discussing Socratic questions, such as "which of the two misapplications is the worst, that of love or hatred ?' with Gassendi, who hated Descartes ; with Milton, who sent her flatteries ; with Menage, who wrote her gossip, flavoured with salt not Attic; with Scarron, the dirty buffoon, whose wife ruled Louis XIV., attracted Salmasius, and Vossius, and Bochart to her court; and patronized native science, particularly Stierribielm, the microscopist, and Olaus Rudbeck, the anatomist, and surrounded herself with foreigners of quick wits, bitter tongues, and no par- ticular scruples. She deliberately cultivated, in fact, the reputa- tion of a woman of letters, and the literary class, just then looked down upon, and delighted to hear of a queen who believed them her equals, sounded her praises over Europe. An anecdote or two, related by her partial biographer, will, perhaps, give a truer insight into her appreciation of literature than all their praises. Salmasius was very ill, and the Queen went to see him :—

" As she entered the room, he made'some pretence of hiding a book which he was reading, but which she insisted on seeing. It was one al- most unrivalled for coarseness, even at that time, called Le Moyeu de Parvenir.'

" Christina opened the book, and obliged her favourite attendant, the beautiful Ebbe Sparre, to read a passage aloud. The poor girl blushed and hesitated, but finally obeyed, to the great amusement of the Queen and the old reprobate, then sixty-two years of age, who indulged in fits of laughter."

Bourdelot, her physician, a Frenchman, and a very great favourite, used to keep her amused and, as he said, healthy, by ridiculing the learned men of her court, and playing off practical jokes, which Christina enjoyed immensely. Meibom had written a work on ancient music, and Naude, the Queen's librarian, on ancient dances, two subjects certainly worthy of inquiry, but-

" The mischievous Bourdelot persuaded the Queen to make them illustrate their works by a performance before the Court. Meibom was to sing, and Naud6 to dance, in the ancient style.

" As the knowledge they possessed of these arts was purely theoretical, it may easily be imagined that the performance was exquisitely ludicrous; the whole Court was convulsed with laughter, and the unfortunate per- formers were thoroughly disconcerted. " Naud6 withdrew in silence, but the more excitable musician was so enraged as to strike the author of the mischief in the Queen's presence. Such an outrage could not be overlooked, and he was expelled from S weden."

On the 11th October, 1650, six years after her accession, she went through the ceremony of her coronation, which was transacted with extraordinary magnificence, and a few days afterwards she expressed her intention of abdication. Her chief motives seem to have been an intense antipathy to the work of reigning, which left her no leisure, a crave to travel and reside in the sunny south, and the passion for oddity and éclat—a passion which might rise to any height in a woman capable of folly like this. Pimentelle had been sent from Spain as ambassador- " Pimentelle was a thorough courtier, and would have been agreeable to the Queen, even if it had not been her policy to be on friendly terms with Spain. At his first presentation, in August, 1652, he devised a re- fined piece of flattery. He affected to be so overcome with awe as to be unable to speak, and after a deep reverence he withdrew. A few days later he was granted an audience, when he accounted for his strange be- haviour by saying that it was caused by the Queen's majestic appearance.

" It is not to Christina's credit that she was deceived by such an arti- fice, but Pimentelle was at once received into her favour."

At the same time she made overtures through the Jesuits for her admission into the Catholic creed—as a refuge from doubts of the fundamental truths of religion and morality, such as the existence of any difference between good and evil—and founded the Order of Amaranta, an absurd order of knighthood, which bound its members to abstain from wedlock. Three years elapsed

after the first discussion of her intention to abdicate, but in Feb- ruary, 1654, she again brought it forward, and after some resistance from the senate, who probably feared a king less friendly to nobles, her cousin Charles Gustavus was crowned King. She had always selected this prince as her successor, though her sub- jects, proud of the line of Gustavus Adolphus, pressed her hard to marry, advice which she declined, as tending to limit her control over her own acts and caprices. She, however, had no idea of losing either her wealth or her dignity, and after a discreditable contest with the Orders, and trying for the first time to resume grants in her own favour, she was allowed to receive the revenues of Osel, Oland, Gothland, Wollin, Usedom, Norkoping, Goteborg, and Swedish Pomerania, to retain her royal rank, the right of send- ing ambassadors, and absolute sovereignty over all who might enter into her household. The ceremonial of abdication was performed on the 6th May, 1654, Oxenstiern steadily refusing to take part in it, and Christina at twenty-eight quitted Sweden and the throne, which heaven had entrusted to her for the good of the people she disliked, and the world, which she only cared to see as a traveller.

Her subsequent career is well known. She had abdicated for a whim, and she never ceased to regret her own decision ; applied for the throne of Poland, and for forty years wandered over Europe, from capital to capital, sometimes in man's dress, some- times courted, sometimes—as in Paris, where she had her secretary executed by her own guards—shunned, but always notorious and always craving fresh notoriety. It was always doubtful whether Sweden would not once more summon her to reign, and Sweden was then one of the first military powers, and Christina was therefore courted by monarchs who, neverthe- less, resented her independence, and satirized her morals. Her principal residence was Rome, where the Pope, proud of his convert and accustomed to troublesome embassies, allowed her many privileges, which she habitually abused, and the cardinals made love without much success ; and there she expired, leaving the remains of her property to Cardinal Azzolini. She died a Catholic, and one of her few legacies paid for 20,000 masses to be uttered_for the good of the soul in whose existence she, when in health, usually disbelieved.

Our own impression of her is that she was a quick-tempered, audacious woman, with a vast memory, some imagination, no modesty, an overweening idea of her own importance, and a little cracked. The nearest approach to her in modem times is Lady Hester Stanhope, but Lady Hester was a lady, and Christina was only a Queen with the manners of a groom, the temper of a trooper, and the morals of a barmaid.