Queen Christina of Sweden held an Itty-Bitty Flea Cannon by her bed
If you have not heard of the assailed 17th century queen Christina of Sweden, you are on the hunt. Queen Christina, remembered for violating gender norms and abdicating the throne to avoid marriage, was a truly unconventional monarch, inspiring books, plays, operas and even a Greta Garbo film from 1933. However, she was afraid of a Thing. Fleas!
The daughter and sole heir of the Protestant king Gustav II Adolf, the so-called lion in the north who died fighting against Catholic forces at the Battle of Lützen, Christina became queen at just six years old, although she did not actually exercise power until she turned 18. Legend has it that when she was born, the midwives announced that a boy had been born. When the mess had dissolved, her father declared: “She will be a smart one, she has deceived us all!”
Queen Christina of Sweden was considered unfeminine during her time. ( General goods )
Queen Christina, who was reported to have a masculine appearance and an aversion to women’s clothing, was a free-thinking woman who imitated the lifestyle of Queen Elizabeth I and preferred androgynous clothes and sensible shoes. Due to the pressure to marry, she stopped abdicating and then shocked the Protestant world by converting to Catholicism and moving to Rome where she became an iconoclastic protector of art.
By order of her father, Christina was educated as a prince and was taught politics, art, language and several occupations that were considered masculine at the time. In her autobiography, Christine said she “could never put up with dolls … My dolls were pieces of lead that I learned to wage war with.”
But despite her enlightened education, Christina suffered from a strangely annoying phobia. IN Usefully useless Mark Hanks claimed that she was terrified of fleas and went so far as to order the design of a small cannon to help her eradicate them. Christina is not the only monarch in history to be remembered for her phobias. The Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, was rumored to be terrified of insects and had his servants carry out in-depth inspections of rooms before entering.
A flea gun – to shoot fleas from servants. maybe I should apply @NHM_London too little new field equipment …. # verrall18 #verrall pic.twitter.com/34hqufUcLT
– NHM_Fleas (@NHM_Fleas) March 7, 2018
IN The cities of the world , Edwin Hodder claimed that Queen Christina’s small toy gun was included in Stockholm’s history museum’s collection. Whether this is really true or not is another matter. “I have never heard of this before, despite considerable background research,” wrote Kristina Sjögren, author of the 2017 novel about Queen Christina entitled The woman’s king , when contacted about the matter. “The weapon is not in line with Christina’s personality, as I see it. She was rational and intelligent and… would not have spent time on a flea gun. ”
Top picture: Queen Christina of Sweden kept a specially made small flea cannon to ward off small intruders. Source: General goods
By Cecilia Bogaard