Queen Kristina of Sweden: causes controversy just for fun | by Ida Larsdotter | April 2022
“A queen without a kingdom, a Christian without faith, a woman without shame” – Pope Alexander Vll
December 18, 1626.
The exclaimed in a strong, guttural voice. Queen Maria Eleonora closed his eyes and let out a deep breath of relief. Her son was alive! At last she had fulfilled her duty to her husband. She had given him an heir to the throne. The queen had given birth three times before. A daughter and a son had been stillborn. Princess Kristina, her beautiful daughter, was born in 1623 and died before her first birthday.
“Look,” exclaimed one of the midwives.
“He was born with Gaul!”
The queen was exhausted, but she smiled. In Sweden, a veiled birth was a sign of happiness. The country was in conflict with many other European nations. Maybe this boy would be a warrior, just like his Father.
“Oh”.
When they started cleaning the prince, the women who were present at the birth realized that they were wrong. The royal child had been born with a hairy head and cried a deep cry. Still, the child was a woman. The queen did not take the news of a daughter well. Once again she had not had a son. In the months following the birth of her daughter, she would end up in a deep depression.
One of the midwives, embarrassed to have announced the baby’s wrong gender, carried the newborn princess to the father, who was waiting in the adjoining room. Gustav Adolf smiled when he was introduced to his daughter.
“She’s going to be smart,” he said.
“She fooled us all!”
Gustavus Adolf wrote a letter in 1630 to Count Axel Oxenstierna. The king, who was about to enter the Thirty Years’ War, was worried about what would happen to his family if he died in battle. Gustav Adolf asked the count to take care of his wife and ensure that his daughter would be the next monarch. Oxenstierna gave his word.
On November 6, 1632, the warrior king was shot by several bullets at the Battle of Lutzen. His only living daughter, Princess Kristina Augusta, was six years old. A secret council was set up, which ruled in Kristina’s name. Oxenstierna was the head of that council. Oxenstierna was a skilled politician and used his influence to defend Princess Kristina’s right to the throne.
Queen Maria Eleonora loved her husband deeply. When the news of his death reached her, she was devastated. Gustavus Adolf’s body was transported back to Stockholm and the queen refused to let him be buried “until she could be buried with him”. She ordered that his coffin be kept open, and she often went to visit the body, touched it, and ignored the decay. It got to the point where the queen barricaded herself, the heart of her dead husband and Princess Kristina in a room. Count Oxelstierna decided to put guards at the door of the room where the body was kept so that the queen could not enter. The king was buried in June 1633, eight months after his death.
It was feared that the queen would try to leave Sweden and take her daughter with her. Due to the mother’s mental illness, Count Oxelstierna decided that young Kristina would instead live with her father’s aunt. At her aunt’s house, Kristina played with her cousins. She was taught French, German and Latin and learned to speak eloquently. Count Oxenstierna himself taught the princess military strategy and politics. The type of education she received was usually reserved only for men.
In 1639, a sumptuous birthday party was held for Kristina at Tre Kronor Castle in Stockholm. The thirteen-year-old birthday girl wore a silver helmet and combat gear and channeled her idol Alexander the Great. Guests feasted on fancy, expensive dishes and lots of wine imported from France was served. For the rest of her life, Kristina would continue to hold parties and spend her enormous wealth on decorations, drinks and food.
On her eighteenth birthday, Queen Kristina became monarch in her own right. Standing in front of the home council that had ruled on her behalf, Count Oxelstierna handed over the document with the form of government for the coming years to the monarch. To his surprise, Queen Kristina refused to sign. By doing this in front of the entire private council, she wanted to prove that she was a woman who could not be passed over.
The Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants, the war in which her father had died, still raged when the Queen reached adulthood. Count Oxenstierna was reluctant to give up the power to decide on Sweden’s war effort to the queen. He sent his son Johan to a peace conference in Germany, where the count wanted Johan to argue against peace with the Holy Roman Empire. Queen Kristina, on the other hand, wanted more than anything else to end the war that plagued her entire life, so she sent her own representative to mediate a peace treaty.
In 1638, the New Swedish colony was established along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is today the United States. The Christina River in North Delaware was named after her. The Swedish colonial effort in North America was not long-lasting, but it negatively affected the Native American populations who lived in the area.
Swedish Africa Company was also established during Kristina’s reign. The company was involved in the transatlantic slave trade, which caused unimaginable suffering to the African people who were kidnapped and forced into slavery. This was a dark chapter in Swedish history.
The queen invited many artists and researchers to her palace. She discussed philosophy, music and art with visiting intellectuals. The most important thing was that she often discussed religion. Queen Kristina had been fascinated by Catholicism since childhood. As the daughter of a Protestant king who fought to limit the influence of the Catholic Church in the Baltic Sea region, and as a monarch in a Protestant nation, she was expected to be a devoted Lutheran.
In 1650, Kristina finally received her coronation. It had been postponed for six years due to the war Sweden was involved in. No costs were saved. Fine silk was imported from France and the queen was adorned with jewels. The coronation ceremony lasted four hours and the celebration continued for several days. This expensive celebration was viewed with disgust by the Swedish nobility.
After a few years of rule, rumors began to emerge from the Royal Palace in Stockholm. The Queen and her future wife, Ebba ‘Belle’ Sparre, was very close, often slept in the same bed. Danish and British diplomats began reporting back home, claiming that the Queen and Sparre were romantically involved. Letters between Ebba Sparre and the queen show a deep emotional connection, but it is not proven that they were lovers. Homophobia was the norm in Europe during the era. Foreign diplomats may have exaggerated their accounts in an attempt to damage the Queen’s international reputation. The queen often dressed in stereotypical “male” clothes, a fact that many of her contemporaries remarked on.
Painting by Ebba Sparre. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons: public domain.
“I was born free, have lived free and will die free.”
It is certainly known that the queen never intended to marry a man. She said this herself in her biography. Her first cousin, Charles Gustav, be in love with her. Kristina rejected his advancement and instead declared him to be her heir. She requested that, since she had produced an heir by giving the title to her cousin, no one would ever again ask Kristina to marry and have children.
On the sixteenth of June 1654, Queen Kristina Augusta abdicated the Swedish throne. She gave her reason for doing so, referring to some health problems and that the role of governing a country was too “challenging” for a woman to carry. Today it is believed that she abdicated to become a Catholic. Charles became Charles X Gustav.
With the help of a friend, she went through Denmark wearing menswear. Her belongings, including a large collection of rare books, expensive clothes and jewelry, and large sums of currency had already been transported by ship to Rome. The Swedish treasury was left depleted because of this.
In September 1654, Kristina Augusta arrived in Italy. In November of that year, she officially announced that she was converting to Catholicism and changing her middle name Augusta to Alexandra. Kristina spent the rest of her life in Rome. There, although she associated with the rich inhabitants of the city, and became acquainted with four popes who would rule the Vatican during her time in Rome, Kristina caused scandals in high society by being wicked. She continued to dress in clothes usually worn by men. However, Kristina found social acceptance among Rome’s artisans and became one patron musicians, painters and sculptors. She also stood up against anti-Semitism in Italy.
Kristina died in 1689, aged 63 years.