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1654.]
Declaration of her purpose
to abdicate. CHRISTINA’S ADMINISTRATION. ’ll^^^^eVuIllTinmrS! 341
Torstenson objected that the prince might probably
never marry, if he did not obtain her majesty’s
hand, the queen replied,
" No danger of that; love
need not ever burn for a single object; a crown
is a winsome bride *.
"
Some days afterwards, on the 28tli February,
the queen made the same proposition to the depu-
ties of the three unnoble estates; but to their re-
peated representations concerning the marriage
she rejoined:
" Ye shall have not a word upon it,
until the resolution for the succession of the prince
is drawn up." The land-marshal requested a com-
munication of the opinion of the senate, without
which the nobility could not express themselves
otherwise than they had already done. The queen
accomplished her object. On the 10th March,
1649, the council of state and the estates of Swe-
den,
—induced, as they said, by the high and weighty
grounds and arguments of her majesty,
—-declared
his princely grace the palsgrave duke Charles Gus-
tavus successor to the throne, in case of the queen’s
decease without heirs^. Next day Axel Oxenstierna,
wlio had abstained from taking any public part in
the deliberations, was reluctantly persuaded to sub-
scribe the resdlution. The queen had for this pur-
pose sent the act to his house by the court-chan-
cellor Tungel, who has left an account of his visit ^.
Among other things the high-chancellor said :
" I
seriously confess it, if my grave were standing open
at this moment, and it wei’e in my choice to lay
myself in it, or to subscribe the instrument regard-
ing the succession, the fiend take me if I would not
bury myself rather than sign." Undoubtedly the
aged statesman suspected rightly, that Christina
was only calling another to the throne in order to
descend from it hei’self. That the matter really
stood thus, circumstances were soon to show. The
queen confirmed her work by a declaration ob-
tained from the estates at the diet of 1650, for the
heritability of the crown in the male descendants
of Charles Gustavus, and celebrated her corona-
tion on the 20th October at Stockholm, with a
pomp hitherto unknown in Sweden. One year
afterwards, on the 25th October, 1651, she made
known her purpose of laying down the sceptre.
It is historically demonstrable, that she had formed
this resolution so early as 1648 ’.
We have said that Christina’s abdication was the
result partly of political circumstances, and partly
of personal inducements. The former have un-
* From the narrative of Puffendorf and Arckenholtz,
founded on documents. Torstenson rlied April 7, 1651.
Upon this event, the chamberlain, Ekehlad, writes to his
father, April 23, 1651 (Scand. Mem. xx. 314): "My dear
father has heard of the mortal end of our good count Lin-
nart; God knoiveth with what heart I learned the tidings.
The cliief cause of his death (say the doctors), was his great
neglect in using no medicaments, after his body had become
constipated by all sorts of forbidden food. The queen was
with him shortly before his death, and he spoke his last
words to her."
5
Stiernman, Resolutions, &c. ii. 1105.
6 Printed in Adlersparre, 1. c.
7 In the answer which Chanut, formerly minister from
France, wrote to a letter from the queen, upon her abdica-
tion, dated the Hague, March 2, 1554, is this passage.
"
My
only concern in the great design cf your majesty, since you
are pleased it should be known that you have had the good-
ness to communicate it to me, is to testify, wherever I may
be, that the first and strongest consideration which has
caused your majesty to form this resolve, has been the good
folded themselves to our observation; it remains
only to say of the latter, which belong to the story
of her own mind, as much as the compass of the
present work permits. We set out with some short
remarks upon the civilization of that age, and its
influence on Sweden. On the Protestant side the
Bible and ancient Rome were the main fountains
of this civilization, both of which regained a cer-
tain freshness, when the Romish hierarchy that
had overgrown them was in a great measure de-
stroyed. From these elements, albeit sufficiently
confiicting, spirits of the nobler order created for
themselves an appropriate and interesting system
of opinion, exei’cising great influence both in reli-
gion and politics; whose most important represen-
tatives were, in the scientific and learned world,
the famous Grotius, in the political, Gustavus Adol-
phus. It was something more than accident that
conjoined these names. It was love for the writings
of Grotius that moved Gustavus Adolphus to off’er
to this persecuted scholar, a fugitive fi-om his
country, a refuge in his service; and Oxenstierna
fulfilled the intentions which the king’s death pre-
vented him from caiTying into eff’ect *. The chan-
cellor also belonged to the same religious and poli-
tical school. He was a great Bible-reader ^, and
not less an assiduous student of the old Roman
writers. Both these influences pervade his earn-
estful state papers in a pleasing and simple style;
and we perceive them in several others of his col-
leagues in the ministry and council, as in the high-
steward, Peter Brahe the younger, who resembled
his grandfather, as will have been seen, in this par-
ticular ^. In more recent times we have so often
heard the Swedish magnates of this poi-iod praised
for well-digested learuing, that we might conclude
this advantage to have been somewhat widely dif-
fused. But this our own researches do not bear
out. The knowledge of Latin indeed was among the
accomplishments of the great, since it was still re-
cognized as the diplomatic language of Europe ;
whence the ministry directed by a special minute,
that notes written in Latin should be answered in
Lathi, but that all pei’sons who employed other
languages should have their answer in Swedish.
Learning of greater extent, such as that of John
Skytte and Axel Oxenstierna, was found only in
exce])tional cases. We have already remarked in
the leaders of that generation this mark of a great
age, that almost all of them sought their honour in
of your subjects, and the security of your states, foreseeing
the confusions and partialities, difficult to be avoided after
the decease of sovereign princes, who are considered as the
last of the royal house. This is the motive which your
majesty was pleased to disclose to me six years ago." (Mon
seul partage dans le grand dessein de V. M., &c.) Arcken-
holtz, 1. c. i. 393.
8
Grotius, who had first sought refuge in France, returned
thither as Swedish ambassador, and Oxenstierna persisted
in keeping him on that post, in spite of Richelieu’s dissatis-
faction with Grotius. He was recalled after the accession of
Christina, came to Stockholm in 1645, but died in the same
year, on his return to his country. He himself says, that
he considered himself more honoured by Oxenstierna’s
friendship than by the embassy.
" Oxenstiernae amicitia
me speciosiorem quam ipsa legatione censeo." Compare
Arckenholtz, 1. c. i. 77.
9
Among several of his manuscripts in the library of
Upsala, is a collection of Biblical proverbs, compiled by him
during his reading.
’
Compare chap. x. adJin.
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