2*5 



CHRISTINA. 



CHRISTINA, MARIA. 



of education and discipline that had been traced out by the king 

 himself, and to this we must, in part, attribute the singular character 

 afterwards displayed by Christina. 



From her earliest years she was surrounded by grave masters and 

 scholars, who crowded and oppressed her intellect with Latin, Greek, 

 Hebrew, history, and politics ; and for her lighter amusements she 

 was allowed to ride on horseback in masculine attire, to hunt, to 

 shoot, and review troops. The society of her own sex was soon in- 

 supportable to her. It is generally stated that she made considerable 

 progress in several ancient and modern languages, and in other 

 branches of knowledge, and that at the council table she showed a 

 searching wit and great precocity of reason. But her knowledge was 

 not digested, and her mind wanted the equilibrium which is given by 

 refined taste and sound judgment. Bayle says she read daily some 

 pages of Tacitus in the original 



In 1644 she took the reins of government into her own hands, and, 

 much favoured by circumstances, acted rather a conspicuous part in 

 the affairs of Europe. She at once finished a war with Denmark, 

 obtaining by treaty the cession of some territory to Sweden; she 

 pressed on the peace with Germany against the advice of Oxenstiern 

 and others ; and finally became a party to the treaty of Westphalia 

 in 1643, by which, in consequence of the victories of her brave troops, 

 she obtained several millions of dollars, three votes in the diet of the 

 Germanic empire, and the cession of Pomerania, Wismar, Bremen, and 

 Vei-den. When pressed by the states to marry, she constantly and 

 firmly refused. The assigned motives of her refusal have been pre- 

 served in several eccentric speeches. Among those who aspired to 

 her hand was her own cousin Charles Guatavus, a prince of excellent 

 qualities. In 1649 she was induced by the states to declare him her 

 successor ; but she would not allow the prince any share of her sove- 

 reign power, of which she was exceedingly jealous. Soon after the 

 naming of her successor was over, she had herself crowned with great 

 pomp, under the title of King. 



Having now no wars to engage her attention, she gave herself up 

 with all the energy of her character to arts and literature, or rather to 

 a mania of patronising artists and men of letters. Her court was soon 

 crowded, good being mixed with the bad, the empty pretender with 

 the real man of science, the sage with the buffoon. She attracted to 

 Stockholm, Saumaise (Salmasius), Vossius, Bochart, Huet, Chevreau, 

 Naude, Meibom, and other foreigners, chiefly Frenchmen. 



Bourdelot, a gossiping intriguing French abb<5, who pretended to 

 some knowledge of medicine, and who was retained in quality of her 

 physician, became the great favourite of the queen by flattering her 

 vanity and ridiculing her court of philosophers and men of letters, 

 whose jealousies and jarriugs were incessant. Christina spent enormous 

 sums, for BO poor a country as Sweden, in the purchase of books, 

 manuscripts, statues, pictures, antiquities, and curiosities. But 

 reverence and affection for her father's memory stifled the murmurs 

 of the Swedes, and when, to the astonishment of everybody, she first 

 spoke of abdicating, she wag most earnestly entreated to remain on 

 the throne. For some short time after this she showed a renewal of 

 good sense and energy, and a disposition to public business. It was 

 at this interval that Cromwell's ambassador, Whitlock, saw a good 

 deal of her majesty, and that his secretary or follower, Morton, 

 picked up that curious information about her court and herself which 

 was afterwards published in England. (' Journal of an Embassy to 

 Sweden in 1653-54, from the Commonwealth of England,' by Charles 

 Morton ; Whitlock's 'Journal' was also published in 1855.) Her dis- 

 taste for what she called the splendid slavery of royalty, her desire to 

 indulge in all her caprices in perfect liberty, and (a stronger motive 

 perhaps than any other) her wish of presenting an extraordinary spec- 

 tacle to the world, soon returning upon her, she formally signified her 

 decided intention of renouncing the crown in May 1654, and on the 

 16th of June her abdication took place with great solemnity, she being 

 then only in the 28th year of her age. 



Christina reserved to herself the revenues of some districts in Sweden 

 and Germany, the entire independence of her person, and supreme 

 authority, with the right of life and death, over all such persons as 

 should enter her service and form her suite. A few days after this 

 public act she set off- for Brussels, where she privately abjured the 

 Protestant religion. A little later she publicly embraced Roman 

 Catholicism at Innspruck. From the Tyrol she travelled to Rome, 

 where she made a sort of triumphal entrance, riding on horseback, 

 dressed almost like a man. Here she surrounded herself with poets, 

 painters, musicians, numismatists, and the like. Quarrelling however 

 with some of the College of Cardinals, she made a journey into France 

 in 1656. At Paris she of course made a great sensation. Her constant 

 companions were authors and academicians; for the society of her 

 own sex she showed a greater contempt than ever, and the only French 

 woman about whom she teemed to take any interest was Ninon 

 L'Enclos. Her stay in Paris is said to have been shortened by Cardinal 

 Mazarin, who, finding her inclined to engage in some intrigues against 

 his authority, took such measures as rendered that capital an unpleasant 

 residence for her. She however returned to France in the following 

 year, and added to her notoriety by causing Monitldeschi, her master 

 of the horse and chief favourite, to be put to death, for some alleged 

 offence. This murder she justified by stating that by her deed of 

 abdication she had reserved to herself supreme power over her own 



suite, that she was still a queen wherever she went, and that 

 Monaldeschi was guilty of high treason. Strange to say, she found 

 defenders elsewhere ; and among them Leibnitz, who wrote an elaborate 

 justification of the deed at Fontainebleau. 



The court was offended, but took no public notice of this atrocious 

 act. Finding herself avoided in France, Christina thought of visiting 

 England, but the Protector Cromwell turned the dark side of his 

 countenance towards her ; she therefore did not land in England, but 

 returned to Rome, where she presently involved herself in great 

 pecuniary difficulties, and a quarrel with the pope (Alexander VII.). 

 Upon the death of the king, her cousin, Charles Gustavus, in 1660, she 

 travelled hastily from Rome to Stockholm, where, according to most 

 accounts, she showed a strong desire to re-ascend the throne ; but the 

 minds of the people were entirely alienated, and her change of religion 

 was an insuperable barrier. She returned once more to Rome, which 

 she never again left, except for one or two short intervals, during the 

 remaining twenty-eight years of her life. Through that long period 

 her occupations were, various, and many of her proceedings indicate 

 eccentricity approaching to insanity. She took part in several political 

 intrigues ; she is even said to have aspired to the elective crown of 

 Poland ; she interested herself for the Venetians in C'aadia, besieged 

 by the Turks ; she quarrelled anew with the pope and cardinals, who 

 had liberally supplied her with money ; she engaged actively in the 

 Molinist or Quietist controversy; she indulged in the dreams of 

 alchemy and judicial astrology ; she violently censured Louis XIV. for 

 his revocation of the Edict of Nantes and his dragonades against the 

 Protestants of France ; she founded an ' Accademia,' or literary society; 

 she corresponded with many savans, and she made a large collection 

 of objects of art and antiquity. The ruling passion, in short, was the 

 ambition of influencing great political affairs even when all power and 

 influence had departed from her. She died at Rome with great com- 

 posure on the 19th of April, 1639, in the sixty-third year of her age. 

 Though she wrote continually, not much of her writing has been 

 preserved. Her ' Maxims and Sentences," and ' Reflections on the Life 

 and Actions of Alexander the Great,' were collected and published by 

 Archenholtz, in his memoirs of her life, 4 vols. 4to, 1751. From the 

 somewhat tediously minute work of Archenholtz, who was librarian to 

 the landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and an honest painstaking man, Lacombe 

 derived the materials for his life of Christina, and D'Alembert his 

 reflections and anecdotes of the same personage. Her 'Secret Letters,' 

 and ' Memoirs of her own Life, dedicated to God,' are forgeries. 



(See Archenholtz, as above ; Catteau-Calville, Histoirc de Cristinc, 

 Heine de la Snide; Fortia, Travels in Sweden; Biographic Univeraelle ; 

 the works of Bayle, her contemporary and correspondent ; Voltaire ; 

 and Horace Walpole.) 



* CHRISTINA, MARIA, mother of the Queen of Spam, Isabel II., 

 was born April 27, 1806, in the city of Naples. She is the daughter 

 of the late King of the Two Sicilies, by his second wife, Maria Isabel, 

 daughter of Carlos IV., king of .Spain, and is the sister of Ferdinando 

 II., the present King of the Two Sicilies. She was married at Madrid 

 Dec. 11, 1829, to the late king of Spain, Fernando VII. Ou the 10th 

 of October, 1830, she gave birth to the present Queen of Spain. On the 

 death of the king, September 29, 1833, she became by his will queen- 

 regent (reina goberuadora) during the minority of her daughter. She 

 was secretly married December 28, 1833, to Don Fernando Muuoz, 

 then an officer in the royal life-guards. Shortly after the king's death, 

 hia brother, Don Carlos, laid claim to the throne, on the ground that 

 by the Salic law females were ineligible, notwithstanding the law which 

 had been passed before the king's death to make them eligible. A civil 

 war ensued, which lasted till September 1840, when the partizans of 

 Don Carlos were finally defeated. A conspiracy which was successfully 

 accomplished, August 13, 1836, in the royal residence of La Granja, 

 for a time deprived the queeu-regent of her power, and compelled her 

 to swear to the liberal constitution, June 18,1837; after which she 

 regained her authority, and continued to rule till 1840, when she gave 

 her assent to a law which interfered with the deliberations of the 

 ayuntamientos, or town-councils. The consequence of this violation 

 of the constitution to which she had sworn was an insurrection which 

 placed Espartero at the head of affairs, and the queen-regent abdicated 

 Oct. 12, 1840. She then retired to France. After the fall of Espartero 

 in 1843 she returned to Madrid. It having been decreed that the 

 Queen of Spain had attained her majority November 8, 1843, on the 

 10th of November Maria Isabel took the oath to observe the consti- 

 tution, and the regency of the queen-mother ceased. On the 13th of 

 October 1844 the marriage of Christina with Muhoz, then created 

 Duke of Rianzares, was publicly celebrated. As the queen at the time 

 of her accession was still very young, the influence aud power of 

 Christina were little if at all diminished, and the measures of her 

 government were generally arbitrary and unconstitutional. This state 

 of affairs continued till the beginning of 1854, when insurrections 

 commenced, which continued to extend till the 17th of July 1854, when 

 the people began to fight with the soldiers in the streets of Madrid. 

 On the 19th of July the ministers fled, the soldiers submitted to the 

 people, a national junta wag established, and Espartero was again 

 placed in authority. The conduct of Christina, personal as well as 

 public, had long filled the Spanish people with the greatest disgust. 

 On the 28th of August 1854 she was compelled to leave the country, 

 and is now (1856) living in exile. 



