Christina (Swedish: Kristina; 18 December [O.S. 8 December] 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. Her conversion to Catholicism and refusal to marry led her to relinquish her throne and move to Rome.
Christina is remembered as one of the most erudite women of the 17th century, wanting Stockholm to become the "Athens of the North" and was given the special right to establish a university at will by the Peace of Westphalia. She is also remembered for her unconventional lifestyle and occasional adoption of masculine attire, which have been depicted frequently in media; gender and cultural identity are pivotal themes in many of her biographies.
At the age of five, Christina succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death at the Battle of Lützen, though she only began ruling the Swedish Empire when she reached the age of eighteen. During the Torstenson War in 1644, she initiated the issuance of copper in lumps to be used as currency. Her lavish spending habits pushed the state towards bankruptcy, sparking public unrest. Christina argued for peace to end the Thirty Years' War and received indemnity. Following scandals over her converting to Catholicism, and not marrying, she relinquished the throne to her cousin Charles X Gustav and settled in Rome.
Pope Alexander VII described Christina as "a queen without a realm, a Christian without faith, and a woman without shame." She played a leading part in the theatrical and musical communities and protected many Baroque artists, composers, and musicians. Christina, who was the guest of five consecutive popes and a symbol of the Counter-Reformation, is one of the few women buried in the Vatican Grottoes.
Christina was born in the royal castle Tre Kronor. Her parents were the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and his German wife, Maria Eleonora. They had a stillborn daughter in 1621, then the first Princess Christina, who was born in 1623 and died the following year, and a stillborn son in May 1625. Excited expectations surrounded Maria Eleonora's fourth pregnancy in 1626. When the baby was born, it was first thought to be a boy. It was "hairy" and screamed "with a strong, hoarse voice." She later wrote in her autobiography that "Deep embarrassment spread among the women when they discovered their mistake." The king, though, was very happy, saying, "She'll be clever, she has made fools of us all!" Gustavus Adolphus was closely attached to his daughter, whereas her mother remained aloof in her disappointment at the child being a girl. In the year after Christina's birth, Maria Eleonora was described as being in a state of hysteria owing to her husband's absences. She showed little affection for her daughter and was not allowed any influence in Christina's upbringing. The king was worried that her instability might pass on to their daughter.
The Crown of Sweden was hereditary in the House of Vasa, but following the reign of Christina's grandfather Charles IX (r. 1604–11), it excluded Vasa princes descended from a deposed brother (Eric XIV) and a deposed nephew (Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland). Gustavus Adolphus's legitimate younger brother Charles Philip had died years earlier. The one legitimate female left, his half-sister Catherine, came to be excluded in 1615 when she married John Casimir, Count Palatine of Kleeburg, a non-Lutheran. Christina became the undisputed heir presumptive. From Christina's birth, King Gustav Adolphus recognized her eligibility even as a female heir, and although she was called "queen," the official title the Riksdag gave at her coronation in February 1633 was "king".
In June 1630, when Christina was three years old, Gustavus Adolphus left for Germany to defend Protestantism and became involved in the Thirty Years' War. He secured his daughter's right to inherit the throne, in case he never returned, and gave orders to Axel Gustafsson Banér, his marshal, that Christina should receive an education of the type normally only afforded to boys.
When Gustavus Adolphus did not come home as expected after the summer campaign of 1630, Maria wrote to John Casimir, her brother-in-law that she could not stand it; she wanted to die. She begged him to try to persuade the king to come home. It was decided that Maria would travel to Germany the following spring. She arrived on 10 July 1631, to Wolgast in Pomerania. On 11 January 1632, she met with her spouse near Hanau. The couple were spotted for the last time on 28 October 1632 at Erfurt. The very next day, Gustavus Adolphus broke camp and left. On 3 November, Maria wrote to Axel Oxenstierna: "without H.R.M.'s presence, I am worth nothing, not even my life."
Maria, her mother and a member of the House of Hohenzollern, was said to be the most beautiful queen in Europe, but she was also considered hysterical, unstable and overly emotional. It has been suggested that she inherited madness, from both the paternal and maternal lines. However, this image of the hysterical, depressive and profligate queen dowager, which has become part of historiography, has been put into perspective in more recent research, first in the 1980s by the archivist Åke Kromnov, among others, and more recently in the monograph "Drottningen som sa nej" by Moa Matthis, published in 2010.
After the king died on the battlefield on 6 November 1632, Maria Eleonora returned to Sweden with the embalmed body of her husband. The 7-year-old Queen Christina came in solemn procession to Nyköping to receive her mother. Maria Eleonora declared that the burial should not take place during her lifetime - she often spoke of shortening her life - or at least should be postponed as long as possible. She also demanded that the coffin be kept open and went to see it regularly, patting it and taking no notice of the putrefaction. They tried to persuade Maria not to visit the corpse so often. Axel Oxenstierna managed to have the corpse interred in Riddarholmen Church on 22 June 1634, but had to post guards after she tried to dig it up.
Maria Eleanora had been indifferent to her daughter, but after Gustavus Adolphus's death, Christina became the center of her mother's attention. Gustavus Adolphus had decided that in the event of his death, his daughter should be cared for by his half-sister, Catherine of Sweden and half-brother Carl Gyllenhielm as regent. This solution did not suit Maria Eleonora, who had her sister-in-law banned from the castle. In 1634, the Instrument of Government, a new constitution, was introduced by Oxenstierna. The constitution stipulated that the "King" must have a Privy Council, which Oxenstierna himself headed.
Maria Eleonora was considered very difficult, and in 1636 she lost her parental rights to her daughter. The Riksråd justified its decision by asserting that she neglected Christina and her upbringing and that she had a bad influence on her daughter. Chancellor Oxenstierna saw no other solution than to exile the widow to Gripsholm castle, while the governing regency council would decide when she was allowed to see her daughter. For the subsequent years, Christina thrived in the company of her aunt Catherine and her family.
In 1638, after the death of her aunt and foster mother, the Royal Regency Council under Axel Oxenstierna saw the need to appoint a new foster mother to the underage monarch, which resulted in a reorganization of the queen's household. To prevent the young queen from being dependent upon a single individual and favorite mother figure, the Royal Council decided to split the office of head lady-in-waiting (responsible for the queen's female courtiers) and the office royal governess (or foster-mother) in four, with two women appointed to share each office. Accordingly, Ebba Leijonhufvud and Christina Natt och Dag were appointed to share the position of royal governess and foster mother with the title Upptuktelse-Förestånderska ('Castigation Mistress'), while Beata Oxenstierna and Ebba Ryning were appointed to share the position of head lady-in-waiting, all four with the formal rank and title of Hovmästarinna.