Her
soldiers
won great battles
and ended mighty wars.
and ended mighty wars.
Orr - Famous Affinities of History, Romacen of Devotion
" Her
skin was fair and pale, so clear and so transparent as to make the story
plausible that when she drank from a flask of wine, the red liquid could
be seen passing down her slender throat.
Yet with all this she was not fine in texture, but hardy as a man. She
could endure immense fatigue without yielding to it. Her supple form had
the strength of steel. There was a gleam in her hazel eyes that showed
her to be brimful of an almost fierce vitality. Young as she was,
she was the mistress of a thousand arts, and she exhaled a sort of
atmosphere that turned the heads of men. The Stuart blood made her
impatient of control, careless of state, and easy-mannered. The French
and the Tudor strain gave her vivacity. She could be submissive in
appearance while still persisting in her aims. She could be languorous
and seductive while cold within. Again, she could assume the haughtiness
which belonged to one who was twice a queen.
Two motives swayed her, and they fought together for supremacy. One was
the love of power, and the other was the love of love. The first was
natural to a girl who was a sovereign in her own right. The second was
inherited, and was then forced into a rank luxuriance by the sort
of life that she had seen about her. At eighteen she was a strangely
amorous creature, given to fondling and kissing every one about her,
with slight discrimination. From her sense of touch she received
emotions that were almost necessary to her existence. With her slender,
graceful hands she was always stroking the face of some favorite--it
might be only the face of a child, or it might be the face of some
courtier or poet, or one of the four Marys whose names are linked with
hers--Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming, Mary Beaton, and Mary Seton, the
last of whom remained with her royal mistress until her death.
But one must not be too censorious in thinking of Mary Stuart. She was
surrounded everywhere by enemies. During her stay in France she was
hated by the faction of Catherine de' Medici. When she returned to
Scotland she was hated because of her religion by the Protestant lords.
Her every action was set forth in the worst possible light. The most
sinister meaning was given to everything she said or did. In truth, we
must reject almost all the stories which accuse her of anything more
than a certain levity of conduct.
She was not a woman to yield herself in love's last surrender unless her
intellect and heart alike had been made captive. She would listen to the
passionate outpourings of poets and courtiers, and she would plunge her
eyes into theirs, and let her hair just touch their faces, and give them
her white hands to kiss--but that was all. Even in this she was only
following the fashion of the court where she was bred, and she was
not unlike her royal relative, Elizabeth of England, who had the same
external amorousness coupled with the same internal self-control.
Mary Stuart's love life makes a piteous story, for it is the life of one
who was ever seeking--seeking for the man to whom she could look up, who
could be strong and brave and ardent like herself, and at the same time
be more powerful and more steadfast even than she herself in mind and
thought. Whatever may be said of her, and howsoever the facts may be
colored by partisans, this royal girl, stung though she was by passion
and goaded by desire, cared nothing for any man who could not match her
in body and mind and spirit all at once.
It was in her early widowhood that she first met the man, and when their
union came it brought ruin on them both. In France there came to her
one day one of her own subjects, the Earl of Bothwell. He was but a few
years older than she, and in his presence for the first time she
felt, in her own despite, that profoundly moving, indescribable, and
never-to-be-forgotten thrill which shakes a woman to the very center of
her being, since it is the recognition of a complete affinity.
Lord Bothwell, like Queen Mary, has been terribly maligned. Unlike her,
he has found only a few defenders. Maurice Hewlett has drawn a picture
of him more favorable than many, and yet it is a picture that repels.
Bothwell, says he, was of a type esteemed by those who pronounce vice
to be their virtue. He was "a galliard, flushed with rich blood,
broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with a laugh so happy and so prompt that
the world, rejoicing to hear it, thought all must be well wherever
he might be. He wore brave clothes, sat a brave horse, and kept brave
company bravely. His high color, while it betokened high feeding, got
him the credit of good health. His little eyes twinkled so merrily that
you did not see they were like a pig's, sly and greedy at once, and
bloodshot. His tawny beard concealed a jaw underhung, a chin jutting and
dangerous. His mouth had a cruel twist; but his laughing hid that too.
The bridge of his nose had been broken; few observed it, or guessed
at the brawl which must have given it to him. Frankness was his great
charm, careless ease in high places. "
And so, when Mary Stuart first met him in her eighteenth year, Lord
Bothwell made her think as she had never thought of any other man, and
as she was not to think of any other man again. She grew to look eagerly
for the frank mockery "in those twinkling eyes, in that quick mouth";
and to wonder whether it was with him always--asleep, at prayers,
fighting, furious, or in love.
Something more, however, must be said of Bothwell. He was undoubtedly a
roisterer, but he was very much a man. He made easy love to women. His
sword leaped quickly from its sheath. He could fight, and he could also
think. He was no brawling ruffian, no ordinary rake. Remembering what
Scotland was in those days, Bothwell might well seem in reality a
princely figure. He knew Italian; he was at home in French; he could
write fluent Latin. He was a collector of books and a reader of them
also. He was perhaps the only Scottish noble of his time who had a
book-plate of his own. Here is something more than a mere reveler. Here
is a man of varied accomplishments and of a complex character.
Though he stayed but a short time near the queen in France, he kindled
her imagination, so that when she seriously thought of men she thought
of Bothwell. And yet all the time she was fondling the young pages in
her retinue and kissing her maids of honor with her scarlet lips, and
lying on their knees, while poets like Ronsard and Chastelard wrote
ardent love sonnets to her and sighed and pined for something more than
the privilege of kissing her two dainty hands.
In 1561, less than a year after her widowhood, Mary set sail for
Scotland, never to return. The great high-decked ships which escorted
her sailed into the harbor of Leith, and she pressed on to Edinburgh. A
depressing change indeed from the sunny terraces and fields of France!
In her own realm were fog and rain and only a hut to shelter her upon
her landing. When she reached her capital there were few welcoming
cheers; but as she rode over the cobblestones to Holyrood, the squalid
wynds vomited forth great mobs of hard-featured, grim-visaged men and
women who stared with curiosity and a half-contempt at the girl queen
and her retinue of foreigners.
The Scots were Protestants of the most dour sort, and they distrusted
their new ruler because of her religion and because she loved to
surround herself with dainty things and bright colors and exotic
elegance. They feared lest she should try to repeal the law of
Scotland's Parliament which had made the country Protestant.
The very indifference of her subjects stirred up the nobler part of
Mary's nature. For a time she was indeed a queen. She governed wisely.
She respected the religious rights of her Protestant subjects. She
strove to bring order out of the chaos into which her country had
fallen. And she met with some success. The time came when her people
cheered her as she rode among them. Her subtle fascination was her
greatest source of strength. Even John Knox, that iron-visaged,
stentorian preacher, fell for a time under the charm of her presence.
She met him frankly and pleaded with him as a woman, instead of
commanding him as a queen. The surly ranter became softened for a time,
and, though he spoke of her to others as "Honeypot," he ruled his tongue
in public. She had offers of marriage from Austrian and Spanish princes.
The new King of France, her brother-in-law, would perhaps have wedded
her. It mattered little to Mary that Elizabeth of England was hostile.
She felt that she was strong enough to hold her own and govern Scotland.
But who could govern a country such as Scotland was? It was a land of
broils and feuds, of clan enmities and fierce vendettas. Its nobles were
half barbarous, and they fought and slashed at one another with drawn
dirks almost in the presence of the queen herself. No matter whom she
favored, there rose up a swarm of enemies. Here was a Corsica of the
north, more savage and untamed than even the other Corsica.
In her perplexity Mary felt a woman's need of some man on whom she
would have the right to lean, and whom she could make king consort.
She thought that she had found him in the person of her cousin, Lord
Darnley, a Catholic, and by his upbringing half an Englishman. Darnley
came to Scotland, and for the moment Mary fancied that she had forgotten
Bothwell. Here again she was in love with love, and she idealized the
man who came to give it to her. Darnley seemed, indeed, well worthy to
be loved, for he was tall and handsome, appearing well on horseback and
having some of the accomplishments which Mary valued.
It was a hasty wooing, and the queen herself was first of all the wooer.
Her quick imagination saw in Darnley traits and gifts of which he really
had no share. Therefore, the marriage was soon concluded, and Scotland
had two sovereigns, King Henry and Queen Mary. So sure was Mary of her
indifference to Bothwell that she urged the earl to marry, and he did
marry a girl of the great house of Gordon.
Mary's self-suggested love for Darnley was extinguished almost on
her wedding-night. The man was a drunkard who came into her presence
befuddled and almost bestial. He had no brains. His vanity was enormous.
He loved no one but himself, and least of all this queen, whom he
regarded as having thrown herself at his empty head.
The first-fruits of the marriage were uprisings among the Protestant
lords. Mary then showed herself a heroic queen. At the head of a
motley band of soldiery who came at her call--half-clad, uncouth, and
savage--she rode into the west, sleeping at night upon the bare ground,
sharing the camp food, dressed in plain tartan, but swift and fierce
as any eagle. Her spirit ran like fire through the veins of those who
followed her. She crushed the insurrection, scattered its leaders, and
returned in triumph to her capital.
Now she was really queen, but here came in the other motive which was
interwoven in her character. She had shown herself a man in courage.
Should she not have the pleasures of a woman? To her court in Holyrood
came Bothwell once again, and this time Mary knew that he was all the
world to her. Darnley had shrunk from the hardships of battle. He was
steeped in low intrigues. He roused the constant irritation of the queen
by his folly and utter lack of sense and decency. Mary felt she owed him
nothing, but she forgot that she owed much to herself.
Her old amorous ways came back to her, and she relapsed into the joys of
sense. The scandal-mongers of the capital saw a lover in every man
with whom she talked. She did, in fact, set convention at defiance. She
dressed in men's clothing. She showed what the unemotional Scots thought
to be unseemly levity. The French poet, Chastelard, misled by her
external signs of favor, believed himself to be her choice. At the end
of one mad revel he was found secreted beneath her bed, and was driven
out by force. A second time he ventured to secrete himself within the
covers of the bed. Then he was dragged forth, imprisoned, and condemned
to death. He met his fate without a murmur, save at the last when he
stood upon the scaffold and, gazing toward the palace, cried in French:
"Oh, cruel queen! I die for you! "
Another favorite, the Italian, David Rizzio, or Riccio, in like manner
wrote love verses to the queen, and she replied to them in kind; but
there is no evidence that she valued him save for his ability, which
was very great. She made him her foreign secretary, and the man whom he
supplanted worked on the jealousy of Darnley; so that one night, while
Mary and Rizzio were at dinner in a small private chamber, Darnley and
the others broke in upon her. Darnley held her by the waist while Rizzio
was stabbed before her eyes with a cruelty the greater because the queen
was soon to become a mother.
From that moment she hated Darnley as one would hate a snake. She
tolerated him only that he might acknowledge her child as his son. This
child was the future James VI. of Scotland and James I. of England. It
is recorded of him that never throughout his life could he bear to look
upon drawn steel.
After this Mary summoned Bothwell again and again. It was revealed to
her as in a blaze of light that, after all, he was the one and only
man who could be everything to her. His frankness, his cynicism, his
mockery, his carelessness, his courage, and the power of his mind
matched her moods completely. She threw away all semblance of
concealment. She ignored the fact that he had married at her wish. She
was queen. She desired him. She must have him at any cost.
"Though I lose Scotland and England both," she cried in a passion of
abandonment, "I shall have him for my own! "
Bothwell, in his turn, was nothing loath, and they leaped at each other
like two flames.
It was then that Mary wrote those letters which were afterward
discovered in a casket and which were used against her when she was on
trial for her life. These so-called Casket Letters, though we have
not now the originals, are among the most extraordinary letters ever
written. All shame, all hesitation, all innocence, are flung away in
them. The writer is so fired with passion that each sentence is like
a cry to a lover in the dark. As De Peyster says: "In them the animal
instincts override and spur and lash the pen. " Mary was committing to
paper the frenzied madness of a woman consumed to her very marrow by the
scorching blaze of unendurable desire.
Events moved quickly. Darnley, convalescent from an attack of smallpox,
was mysteriously destroyed by an explosion of gunpowder. Bothwell was
divorced from his young wife on curious grounds. A dispensation allowed
Mary to wed a Protestant, and she married Bothwell three months after
Darnley's death.
Here one sees the consummation of what had begun many years before
in France. From the moment that she and Bothwell met, their union was
inevitable. Seas could not sunder them. Other loves and other fancies
were as nothing to them. Even the bonds of marriage were burst asunder
so that these two fiery, panting souls could meet.
It was the irony of fate that when they had so met it was only to be
parted. Mary's subjects, outraged by her conduct, rose against her. As
she passed through the streets of Edinburgh the women hurled after
her indecent names. Great banners were raised with execrable daubs
representing the murdered Darnley. The short and dreadful monosyllable
which is familiar to us in the pages of the Bible was hurled after her
wherever she went.
With Bothwell by her side she led a wild and ragged horde of followers
against the rebellious nobles, whose forces met her at Carberry Hill.
Her motley followers melted away, and Mary surrendered to the hostile
chieftains, who took her to the castle at Lochleven. There she became
the mother of twins--a fact that is seldom mentioned by historians.
These children were the fruit of her union with Bothwell. From this time
forth she cared but little for herself, and she signed, without great
reluctance, a document by which she abdicated in favor of her infant
son.
Even in this place of imprisonment, however, her fascination had power
to charm. Among those who guarded her, two of the Douglas family--George
Douglas and William Douglas--for love of her, effected her escape. The
first attempt failed. Mary, disguised as a laundress, was betrayed by
the delicacy of her hands. But a second attempt was successful. The
queen passed through a postern gate and made her way to the lake, where
George Douglas met her with a boat. Crossing the lake, fifty horsemen
under Lord Claude Hamilton gave her their escort and bore her away in
safety.
But Mary was sick of Scotland, for Bothwell could not be there. She
had tasted all the bitterness of life, and for a few months all the
sweetness; but she would have no more of this rough and barbarous
country. Of her own free will she crossed the Solway into England, to
find herself at once a prisoner.
Never again did she set eyes on Bothwell. After the battle of Carberry
Hill he escaped to the north, gathered some ships together, and preyed
upon English merchantmen, very much as a pirate might have done. Ere
long, however, when he had learned of Mary's fate, he set sail for
Norway. King Frederick of Denmark made him a prisoner of state. He was
not confined within prison walls, however, but was allowed to hunt and
ride in the vicinity of Malmo Castle and of Dragsholm. It is probably in
Malmo Castle that he died. In 1858 a coffin which was thought to be
the coffin of the earl was opened, and a Danish artist sketched the
head--which corresponds quite well with the other portraits of the
ill-fated Scottish noble.
It is a sad story. Had Mary been less ambitious when she first met
Bothwell, or had he been a little bolder, they might have reigned
together and lived out their lives in the plenitude of that great love
which held them both in thrall. But a queen is not as other women; and
she found too late that the teaching of her heart was, after all, the
truest teaching. She went to her death as Bothwell went to his, alone,
in a strange, unfriendly land.
Yet, even this, perhaps, was better so. It has at least touched both
their lives with pathos and has made the name of Mary Stuart one to be
remembered throughout all the ages.
QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI
Sweden to-day is one of the peaceful kingdoms of the world, whose people
are prosperous, well governed, and somewhat apart from the clash and
turmoil of other states and nations. Even the secession of Norway, a few
years ago, was accomplished without bloodshed, and now the two kingdoms
exist side by side as free from strife as they are with Denmark, which
once domineered and tyrannized over both.
It is difficult to believe that long ago, in the Middle Ages, the cities
of southern Sweden were among the great commercial centers of the world.
Stockholm and Lund ranked with London and Paris. They absorbed the
commerce of the northern seas, and were the admiration of thousands
of travelers and merchants who passed through them and trafficked with
them.
Much nearer to our own time, Sweden was the great military power of
northern Europe. The ambassadors of the Swedish kings were received with
the utmost deference in every court.
Her soldiers won great battles
and ended mighty wars. The England of Cromwell and Charles II. was
unimportant and isolated in comparison with this northern kingdom, which
could pour forth armies of gigantic blond warriors, headed by generals
astute as well as brave.
It was no small matter, then, in 1626, that the loyal Swedes were hoping
that their queen would give birth to a male heir to succeed his splendid
father, Gustavus Adolphus, ranked by military historians as one of the
six great generals whom the world had so far produced. The queen, a
German princess of Brandenburg, had already borne two daughters, who
died in infancy. The expectation was wide-spread and intense that she
should now become the mother of a son; and the king himself was no less
anxious.
When the event occurred, the child was seen to be completely covered
with hair, and for this reason the attendants at first believed that it
was the desired boy. When their mistake was discovered they were afraid
to tell the king, who was waiting in his study for the announcement
to be made. At last, when no one else would go to him, his sister, the
Princess Caroline, volunteered to break the news.
Gustavus was in truth a chivalrous, high-bred monarch. Though he must
have been disappointed at the advent of a daughter, he showed no sign
of dissatisfaction or even of surprise; but, rising, he embraced his
sister, saying:
"Let us thank God. I hope this girl will be as good as a boy to me. May
God preserve her now that He has sent her! "
It is customary at almost all courts to pay less attention to the birth
of a princess than to that of a prince; but Gustavus displayed his
chivalry toward this little daughter, whom he named Christina. He
ordered that the full royal salute should be fired in every fortress of
his kingdom and that displays of fireworks, balls of honor, and court
functions should take place; "for," as he said, "this is the heir to my
throne. " And so from the first he took his child under his own keeping
and treated her as if she were a much-loved son as well as a successor.
He joked about her looks when she was born, when she was mistaken for a
boy.
"She will be clever," he said, "for she has taken us all in! "
The Swedish people were as delighted with their little princess as were
the people of Holland when the present Queen Wilhelmina was born, to
carry on the succession of the House of Orange. On one occasion the king
and the small Christina, who were inseparable companions, happened
to approach a fortress where they expected to spend the night. The
commander of the castle was bound to fire a royal salute of fifty cannon
in honor of his sovereign; yet he dreaded the effect upon the princess
of such a roaring and bellowing of artillery. He therefore sent a
swift horseman to meet the royal party at a distance and explain his
perplexity. Should he fire these guns or not? Would the king give an
order?
Gustavus thought for a moment, and then replied:
"My daughter is the daughter of a soldier, and she must learn to lead a
soldier's life. Let the guns be fired! "
The procession moved on. Presently fire spurted from the embrasures of
the fort, and its batteries thundered in one great roar. The king looked
down at Christina. Her face was aglow with pleasure and excitement; she
clapped her hands and laughed, and cried out:
"More bang! More! More! More! "
This is only one of a score of stories that were circulated about the
princess, and the Swedes were more and more delighted with the girl who
was to be their queen.
Somewhat curiously, Christina's mother, Queen Maria, cared little for
the child, and, in fact, came at last to detest her almost as much as
the king loved her. It is hard to explain this dislike. Perhaps she had
a morbid desire for a son and begrudged the honors given to a daughter.
Perhaps she was a little jealous of her own child, who took so much of
the king's attention. Afterward, in writing of her mother, Christina
excuses her, and says quite frankly:
She could not bear to see me, because I was a girl, and an ugly girl at
that. And she was right enough, for I was as tawny as a little Turk.
This candid description of herself is hardly just. Christina was never
beautiful, and she had a harsh voice. She was apt to be overbearing
even as a little girl. Yet she was a most interesting child, with an
expressive face, large eyes, an aquiline nose, and the blond hair of her
people. There was nothing in this to account for her mother's intense
dislike for her.
It was currently reported at the time that attempts were made to maim
or seriously injure the little princess. By what was made to seem an
accident, she would be dropped upon the floor, and heavy articles of
furniture would somehow manage to strike her. More than once a great
beam fell mysteriously close to her, either in the palace or while she
was passing through the streets. None of these things did her serious
harm, however. Most of them she luckily escaped; but when she had grown
to be a woman one of her shoulders was permanently higher than the
other.
"I suppose," said Christina, "that I could be straightened if I would
let the surgeons attend to it; but it isn't worth while to take the
trouble. "
When Christina was four, Sweden became involved in the great war
that had been raging for a dozen years between the Protestant and the
Catholic states of Germany. Gradually the neighboring powers had been
drawn into the struggle, either to serve their own ends or to support
the faith to which they adhered. Gustavus Adolphus took up the sword
with mixed motives, for he was full of enthusiasm for the imperiled
cause of the Reformation, and at the same time he deemed it a favorable
opportunity to assert his control over the shores of the Baltic.
The warrior king summoned his army and prepared to invade Germany.
Before departing he took his little daughter by the hand and led her
among the assembled nobles and councilors of state. To them he intrusted
the princess, making them kneel and vow that they would regard her as
his heir, and, if aught should happen to him, as his successor. Amid the
clashing of swords and the clang of armor this vow was taken, and the
king went forth to war.
He met the ablest generals of his enemies, and the fortunes of battle
swayed hither and thither; but the climax came when his soldiers
encountered those of Wallenstein--that strange, overbearing, arrogant,
mysterious creature whom many regarded with a sort of awe. The clash
came at Lutzen, in Saxony. The Swedish king fought long and hard, and so
did his mighty opponent; but at last, in the very midst of a tremendous
onset that swept all before him, Gustavus received a mortal wound and
died, even while Wallenstein was fleeing from the field of battle.
The battle of Lutzen made Christina Queen of Sweden at the age of six.
Of course, she could not yet be crowned, but a council of able ministers
continued the policy of the late king and taught the young queen her
first lessons in statecraft. Her intellect soon showed itself as more
than that of a child. She understood all that was taking place, and all
that was planned and arranged. Her tact was unusual. Her discretion was
admired by every one; and after a while she had the advice and training
of the great Swedish chancellor, Oxenstierna, whose wisdom she shared to
a remarkable degree.
Before she was sixteen she had so approved herself to her counselors,
and especially to the people at large, that there was a wide-spread
clamor that she should take the throne and govern in her own person. To
this she gave no heed, but said:
"I am not yet ready. "
All this time she bore herself like a king. There was nothing distinctly
feminine about her. She took but slight interest in her appearance.
She wore sword and armor in the presence of her troops, and often she
dressed entirely in men's clothes. She would take long, lonely gallops
through the forests, brooding over problems of state and feeling no
fatigue or fear. And indeed why should she fear, who was beloved by all
her subjects?
When her eighteenth year arrived, the demand for her coronation was
impossible to resist. All Sweden wished to see a ruling queen, who might
marry and have children to succeed her through the royal line of her
great father. Christina consented to be crowned, but she absolutely
refused all thought of marriage. She had more suitors from all parts of
Europe than even Elizabeth of England; but, unlike Elizabeth, she
did not dally with them, give them false hopes, or use them for the
political advantage of her kingdom.
At that time Sweden was stronger than England, and was so situated as to
be independent of alliances. So Christina said, in her harsh, peremptory
voice:
"I shall never marry; and why should you speak of my having children! I
am just as likely to give birth to a Nero as to an Augustus. "
Having assumed the throne, she ruled with a strictness of government
such as Sweden had not known before. She took the reins of state into
her own hands and carried out a foreign policy of her own, over the
heads of her ministers, and even against the wishes of her people. The
fighting upon the Continent had dragged out to a weary length, but the
Swedes, on the whole, had scored a marked advantage. For this reason the
war was popular, and every one wished it to go on; but Christina, of
her own will, decided that it must stop, that mere glory was not to be
considered against material advantages. Sweden had had enough of glory;
she must now look to her enrichment and prosperity through the channels
of peace.
Therefore, in 1648, against Oxenstierna, against her generals, and
against her people, she exercised her royal power and brought the Thirty
Years' War to an end by the so-called Peace of Westphalia. At this time
she was twenty-two, and by her personal influence she had ended one of
the greatest struggles of history. Nor had she done it to her country's
loss. Denmark yielded up rich provinces, while Germany was compelled to
grant Sweden membership in the German diet.
Then came a period of immense prosperity through commerce, through
economies in government, through the improvement of agriculture and the
opening of mines. This girl queen, without intrigue, without descending
from her native nobility to peep and whisper with shady diplomats,
showed herself in reality a great monarch, a true Semiramis of the
north, more worthy of respect and reverence than Elizabeth of England.
She was highly trained in many arts. She was fond of study, spoke
Latin fluently, and could argue with Salmasius, Descartes, and other
accomplished scholars without showing any inferiority to them.
She gathered at her court distinguished persons from all countries. She
repelled those who sought her hand, and she was pure and truthful and
worthy of all men's admiration. Had she died at this time history would
rank her with the greatest of women sovereigns. Naude, the librarian of
Cardinal Mazarin, wrote of her to the scientist Gassendi in these words:
To say truth, I am sometimes afraid lest the common saying should be
verified in her, that short is the life and rare the old age of those
who surpass the common limits. Do not imagine that she is learned only
in books, for she is equally so in painting, architecture, sculpture,
medals, antiquities, and all curiosities. There is not a cunning workman
in these arts but she has him fetched. There are as good workers in
wax and in enamel, engravers, singers, players, dancers here as will be
found anywhere.
She has a gallery of statues, bronze and marble, medals of gold,
silver, and bronze, pieces of ivory, amber, coral, worked crystal, steel
mirrors, clocks and tables, bas-reliefs and other things of the kind;
richer I have never seen even in Italy; finally, a great quantity of
pictures. In short, her mind is open to all impressions.
But after she began to make her court a sort of home for art and
letters it ceased to be the sort of court that Sweden was prepared for.
Christina's subjects were still rude and lacking in accomplishments;
therefore she had to summon men of genius from other countries,
especially from France and Italy. Many of these were illustrious artists
or scholars, but among them were also some who used their mental gifts
for harm.
Among these latter was a French physician named Bourdelot--a man of keen
intellect, of winning manners, and of a profound cynicism, which was
not apparent on the surface, but the effect of which last lasting. To
Bourdelot we must chiefly ascribe the mysterious change which gradually
came over Queen Christina. With his associates he taught her a distaste
for the simple and healthy life that she had been accustomed to lead.
She ceased to think of the welfare of the state and began to look down
with scorn upon her unsophisticated Swedes. Foreign luxury displayed
itself at Stockholm, and her palaces overflowed with beautiful things.
By subtle means Bourdelot undermined her principles. Having been
a Stoic, she now became an Epicurean. She was by nature devoid of
sentiment. She would not spend her time in the niceties of love-making,
as did Elizabeth; but beneath the surface she had a sort of tigerish,
passionate nature, which would break forth at intervals, and which
demanded satisfaction from a series of favorites. It is probable that
Bourdelot was her first lover, but there were many others whose names
are recorded in the annals of the time.
When she threw aside her virtue Christina ceased to care about
appearances. She squandered her revenues upon her favorites. What she
retained of her former self was a carelessness that braved the opinion
of her subjects. She dressed almost without thought, and it is said that
she combed her hair not more than twice a month. She caroused with male
companions to the scandal of her people, and she swore like a trooper
when displeased.
Christina's philosophy of life appears to have been compounded of an
almost brutal licentiousness, a strong love of power, and a strange,
freakish longing for something new. Her political ambitions were checked
by the rising discontent of her people, who began to look down upon her
and to feel ashamed of her shame. Knowing herself as she did, she did
not care to marry.
Yet Sweden must have an heir. Therefore she chose out her cousin
Charles, declared that he was to be her successor, and finally caused
him to be proclaimed as such before the assembled estates of the realm.
She even had him crowned; and finally, in her twenty-eighth year, she
abdicated altogether and prepared to leave Sweden. When asked whither
she would go, she replied in a Latin quotation:
"The Fates will show the way. "
In her act of abdication she reserved to herself the revenues of some
of the richest provinces in Sweden and absolute power over such of her
subjects as should accompany her. They were to be her subjects until the
end.
The Swedes remembered that Christina was the daughter of their greatest
king, and that, apart from personal scandals, she had ruled them well;
and so they let her go regretfully and accepted her cousin as their
king. Christina, on her side, went joyfully and in the spirit of a grand
adventuress. With a numerous suite she entered Germany, and then stayed
for a year at Brussels, where she renounced Lutheranism. After this she
traveled slowly into Italy, where she entered Borne on horseback,
and was received by the Pope, Alexander VII. , who lodged her in a
magnificent palace, accepted her conversion, and baptized her, giving
her a new name, Alexandra.
In Rome she was a brilliant but erratic personage, living sumptuously,
even though her revenues from Sweden came in slowly, partly because the
Swedes disliked her change of religion. She was surrounded by men of
letters, with whom she amused herself, and she took to herself a lover,
the Marquis Monaldeschi. She thought that at last she had really found
her true affinity, while Monaldeschi believed that he could count on the
queen's fidelity.
He was in attendance upon her daily, and they were almost inseparable.
He swore allegiance to her and thereby made himself one of the subjects
over whom she had absolute power. For a time he was the master of those
intense emotions which, in her, alternated with moods of coldness and
even cruelty.
Monaldeschi was a handsome Italian, who bore himself with a fine air of
breeding. He understood the art of charming, but he did not know that
beyond a certain time no one could hold the affections of Christina.
However, after she had quarreled with various cardinals and decided to
leave Rome for a while, Monaldeschi accompanied her to France, where
she had an immense vogue at the court of Louis XIV. She attracted wide
attention because of her eccentricity and utter lack of manners. It
gave her the greatest delight to criticize the ladies of the French
court--their looks, their gowns, and their jewels. They, in return,
would speak of Christina's deformed shoulder and skinny frame; but the
king was very gracious to her and invited her to his hunting-palace at
Fontainebleau.
While she had been winning triumphs of sarcasm the infatuated
Monaldeschi had gradually come to suspect, and then to know, that his
royal mistress was no longer true to him. He had been supplanted in her
favor by another Italian, one Sentanelli, who was the captain of her
guard.
Monaldeschi took a tortuous and roundabout revenge. He did not let the
queen know of his discovery; nor did he, like a man, send a challenge
to Sentanelli. Instead he began by betraying her secrets to Oliver
Cromwell, with whom she had tried to establish a correspondence. Again,
imitating the hand and seal of Sentanelli, he set in circulation a
series of the most scandalous and insulting letters about Christina. By
this treacherous trick he hoped to end the relations between his rival
and the queen; but when the letters were carried to Christina she
instantly recognized their true source. She saw that she was betrayed
by her former favorite and that he had taken a revenge which might
seriously compromise her.
This led to a tragedy, of which the facts were long obscure. They were
carefully recorded, however, by the queen's household chaplain, Father
Le Bel; and there is also a narrative written by one Marco Antonio
Conti, which confirms the story. Both were published privately in 1865,
with notes by Louis Lacour.
The narration of the priest is dreadful in its simplicity and minuteness
of detail. It may be summed up briefly here, because it is the testimony
of an eye-witness who knew Christina.
Christina, with the marquis and a large retinue, was at Fontainebleau in
November, 1657. A little after midnight, when all was still, the priest,
Father Le Bel, was aroused and ordered to go at once to the Galerie des
Cerfs, or Hall of Stags, in another part of the palace. When he asked
why, he was told:
"It is by the order of her majesty the Swedish queen. "
The priest, wondering, hurried on his garments. On reaching the gloomy
hall he saw the Marquis Monaldeschi, evidently in great agitation, and
at the end of the corridor the queen in somber robes. Beside the
queen, as if awaiting orders, stood three figures, who could with some
difficulty be made out as three soldiers of her guard.
The queen motioned to Father Le Bel and asked him for a packet which she
had given him for safe-keeping some little time before. He gave it to
her, and she opened it. In it were letters and other documents, which,
with a steely glance, she displayed to Monaldeschi. He was confused by
the sight of them and by the incisive words in which Christina showed
how he had both insulted her and had tried to shift the blame upon
Sentanelli.
Monaldeschi broke down completely. He fell at the queen's feet and wept
piteously, begging for pardon, only to be met by the cold answer:
"You are my subject and a traitor to me. Marquis, you must prepare to
die! "
Then she turned away and left the hall, in spite of the cries of
Monaldeschi, to whom she merely added the advice that he should make his
peace with God by confessing to Father Le Bel.
After she had gone the marquis fell into a torrent of self-exculpation
and cried for mercy. The three armed men drew near and urged him to
confess for the good of his soul. They seemed to have no malice against
him, but to feel that they must obey the orders given them. At the
frantic urging of the marquis their leader even went to the queen to ask
whether she would relent; but he returned shaking his head, and said:
"Marquis, you must die. "
Father Le Bel undertook a like mission, but returned with the message
that there was no hope. So the marquis made his confession in French
and Latin, but even then he hoped; for he did not wait to receive
absolution, but begged still further for delay or pardon.
Then the three armed men approached, having drawn their swords. The
absolution was pronounced; and, following it, one of the guards slashed
the marquis across the forehead. He stumbled and fell forward, making
signs as if to ask that he might have his throat cut. But his throat
was partly protected by a coat of mail, so that three or four strokes
delivered there had slight effect. Finally, however, a long, narrow
sword was thrust into his side, after which the marquis made no sound.
Father Le Bel at once left the Galerie des Cerfs and went into the
queen's apartment, with the smell of blood in his nostrils. He found her
calm and ready to justify herself. Was she not still queen over all who
had voluntarily become members of her suite? This had been agreed to in
her act of abdication. Wherever she set her foot, there, over her own,
she was still a monarch, with full power to punish traitors at her will.
This power she had exercised, and with justice. What mattered it that
she was in France? She was queen as truly as Louis XIV. was king.
The story was not long in getting out, but the truth was not wholly
known until a much later day. It was said that Sentanelli had slapped
the marquis in a fit of jealousy, though some added that it was done
with the connivance of the queen. King Louis, the incarnation of
absolutism, knew the truth, but he was slow to act. He sympathized with
the theory of Christina's sovereignty. It was only after a time that
word was sent to Christina that she must leave Fontainebleau. She took
no notice of the order until it suited her convenience, and then she
went forth with all the honors of a reigning monarch.
skin was fair and pale, so clear and so transparent as to make the story
plausible that when she drank from a flask of wine, the red liquid could
be seen passing down her slender throat.
Yet with all this she was not fine in texture, but hardy as a man. She
could endure immense fatigue without yielding to it. Her supple form had
the strength of steel. There was a gleam in her hazel eyes that showed
her to be brimful of an almost fierce vitality. Young as she was,
she was the mistress of a thousand arts, and she exhaled a sort of
atmosphere that turned the heads of men. The Stuart blood made her
impatient of control, careless of state, and easy-mannered. The French
and the Tudor strain gave her vivacity. She could be submissive in
appearance while still persisting in her aims. She could be languorous
and seductive while cold within. Again, she could assume the haughtiness
which belonged to one who was twice a queen.
Two motives swayed her, and they fought together for supremacy. One was
the love of power, and the other was the love of love. The first was
natural to a girl who was a sovereign in her own right. The second was
inherited, and was then forced into a rank luxuriance by the sort
of life that she had seen about her. At eighteen she was a strangely
amorous creature, given to fondling and kissing every one about her,
with slight discrimination. From her sense of touch she received
emotions that were almost necessary to her existence. With her slender,
graceful hands she was always stroking the face of some favorite--it
might be only the face of a child, or it might be the face of some
courtier or poet, or one of the four Marys whose names are linked with
hers--Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming, Mary Beaton, and Mary Seton, the
last of whom remained with her royal mistress until her death.
But one must not be too censorious in thinking of Mary Stuart. She was
surrounded everywhere by enemies. During her stay in France she was
hated by the faction of Catherine de' Medici. When she returned to
Scotland she was hated because of her religion by the Protestant lords.
Her every action was set forth in the worst possible light. The most
sinister meaning was given to everything she said or did. In truth, we
must reject almost all the stories which accuse her of anything more
than a certain levity of conduct.
She was not a woman to yield herself in love's last surrender unless her
intellect and heart alike had been made captive. She would listen to the
passionate outpourings of poets and courtiers, and she would plunge her
eyes into theirs, and let her hair just touch their faces, and give them
her white hands to kiss--but that was all. Even in this she was only
following the fashion of the court where she was bred, and she was
not unlike her royal relative, Elizabeth of England, who had the same
external amorousness coupled with the same internal self-control.
Mary Stuart's love life makes a piteous story, for it is the life of one
who was ever seeking--seeking for the man to whom she could look up, who
could be strong and brave and ardent like herself, and at the same time
be more powerful and more steadfast even than she herself in mind and
thought. Whatever may be said of her, and howsoever the facts may be
colored by partisans, this royal girl, stung though she was by passion
and goaded by desire, cared nothing for any man who could not match her
in body and mind and spirit all at once.
It was in her early widowhood that she first met the man, and when their
union came it brought ruin on them both. In France there came to her
one day one of her own subjects, the Earl of Bothwell. He was but a few
years older than she, and in his presence for the first time she
felt, in her own despite, that profoundly moving, indescribable, and
never-to-be-forgotten thrill which shakes a woman to the very center of
her being, since it is the recognition of a complete affinity.
Lord Bothwell, like Queen Mary, has been terribly maligned. Unlike her,
he has found only a few defenders. Maurice Hewlett has drawn a picture
of him more favorable than many, and yet it is a picture that repels.
Bothwell, says he, was of a type esteemed by those who pronounce vice
to be their virtue. He was "a galliard, flushed with rich blood,
broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with a laugh so happy and so prompt that
the world, rejoicing to hear it, thought all must be well wherever
he might be. He wore brave clothes, sat a brave horse, and kept brave
company bravely. His high color, while it betokened high feeding, got
him the credit of good health. His little eyes twinkled so merrily that
you did not see they were like a pig's, sly and greedy at once, and
bloodshot. His tawny beard concealed a jaw underhung, a chin jutting and
dangerous. His mouth had a cruel twist; but his laughing hid that too.
The bridge of his nose had been broken; few observed it, or guessed
at the brawl which must have given it to him. Frankness was his great
charm, careless ease in high places. "
And so, when Mary Stuart first met him in her eighteenth year, Lord
Bothwell made her think as she had never thought of any other man, and
as she was not to think of any other man again. She grew to look eagerly
for the frank mockery "in those twinkling eyes, in that quick mouth";
and to wonder whether it was with him always--asleep, at prayers,
fighting, furious, or in love.
Something more, however, must be said of Bothwell. He was undoubtedly a
roisterer, but he was very much a man. He made easy love to women. His
sword leaped quickly from its sheath. He could fight, and he could also
think. He was no brawling ruffian, no ordinary rake. Remembering what
Scotland was in those days, Bothwell might well seem in reality a
princely figure. He knew Italian; he was at home in French; he could
write fluent Latin. He was a collector of books and a reader of them
also. He was perhaps the only Scottish noble of his time who had a
book-plate of his own. Here is something more than a mere reveler. Here
is a man of varied accomplishments and of a complex character.
Though he stayed but a short time near the queen in France, he kindled
her imagination, so that when she seriously thought of men she thought
of Bothwell. And yet all the time she was fondling the young pages in
her retinue and kissing her maids of honor with her scarlet lips, and
lying on their knees, while poets like Ronsard and Chastelard wrote
ardent love sonnets to her and sighed and pined for something more than
the privilege of kissing her two dainty hands.
In 1561, less than a year after her widowhood, Mary set sail for
Scotland, never to return. The great high-decked ships which escorted
her sailed into the harbor of Leith, and she pressed on to Edinburgh. A
depressing change indeed from the sunny terraces and fields of France!
In her own realm were fog and rain and only a hut to shelter her upon
her landing. When she reached her capital there were few welcoming
cheers; but as she rode over the cobblestones to Holyrood, the squalid
wynds vomited forth great mobs of hard-featured, grim-visaged men and
women who stared with curiosity and a half-contempt at the girl queen
and her retinue of foreigners.
The Scots were Protestants of the most dour sort, and they distrusted
their new ruler because of her religion and because she loved to
surround herself with dainty things and bright colors and exotic
elegance. They feared lest she should try to repeal the law of
Scotland's Parliament which had made the country Protestant.
The very indifference of her subjects stirred up the nobler part of
Mary's nature. For a time she was indeed a queen. She governed wisely.
She respected the religious rights of her Protestant subjects. She
strove to bring order out of the chaos into which her country had
fallen. And she met with some success. The time came when her people
cheered her as she rode among them. Her subtle fascination was her
greatest source of strength. Even John Knox, that iron-visaged,
stentorian preacher, fell for a time under the charm of her presence.
She met him frankly and pleaded with him as a woman, instead of
commanding him as a queen. The surly ranter became softened for a time,
and, though he spoke of her to others as "Honeypot," he ruled his tongue
in public. She had offers of marriage from Austrian and Spanish princes.
The new King of France, her brother-in-law, would perhaps have wedded
her. It mattered little to Mary that Elizabeth of England was hostile.
She felt that she was strong enough to hold her own and govern Scotland.
But who could govern a country such as Scotland was? It was a land of
broils and feuds, of clan enmities and fierce vendettas. Its nobles were
half barbarous, and they fought and slashed at one another with drawn
dirks almost in the presence of the queen herself. No matter whom she
favored, there rose up a swarm of enemies. Here was a Corsica of the
north, more savage and untamed than even the other Corsica.
In her perplexity Mary felt a woman's need of some man on whom she
would have the right to lean, and whom she could make king consort.
She thought that she had found him in the person of her cousin, Lord
Darnley, a Catholic, and by his upbringing half an Englishman. Darnley
came to Scotland, and for the moment Mary fancied that she had forgotten
Bothwell. Here again she was in love with love, and she idealized the
man who came to give it to her. Darnley seemed, indeed, well worthy to
be loved, for he was tall and handsome, appearing well on horseback and
having some of the accomplishments which Mary valued.
It was a hasty wooing, and the queen herself was first of all the wooer.
Her quick imagination saw in Darnley traits and gifts of which he really
had no share. Therefore, the marriage was soon concluded, and Scotland
had two sovereigns, King Henry and Queen Mary. So sure was Mary of her
indifference to Bothwell that she urged the earl to marry, and he did
marry a girl of the great house of Gordon.
Mary's self-suggested love for Darnley was extinguished almost on
her wedding-night. The man was a drunkard who came into her presence
befuddled and almost bestial. He had no brains. His vanity was enormous.
He loved no one but himself, and least of all this queen, whom he
regarded as having thrown herself at his empty head.
The first-fruits of the marriage were uprisings among the Protestant
lords. Mary then showed herself a heroic queen. At the head of a
motley band of soldiery who came at her call--half-clad, uncouth, and
savage--she rode into the west, sleeping at night upon the bare ground,
sharing the camp food, dressed in plain tartan, but swift and fierce
as any eagle. Her spirit ran like fire through the veins of those who
followed her. She crushed the insurrection, scattered its leaders, and
returned in triumph to her capital.
Now she was really queen, but here came in the other motive which was
interwoven in her character. She had shown herself a man in courage.
Should she not have the pleasures of a woman? To her court in Holyrood
came Bothwell once again, and this time Mary knew that he was all the
world to her. Darnley had shrunk from the hardships of battle. He was
steeped in low intrigues. He roused the constant irritation of the queen
by his folly and utter lack of sense and decency. Mary felt she owed him
nothing, but she forgot that she owed much to herself.
Her old amorous ways came back to her, and she relapsed into the joys of
sense. The scandal-mongers of the capital saw a lover in every man
with whom she talked. She did, in fact, set convention at defiance. She
dressed in men's clothing. She showed what the unemotional Scots thought
to be unseemly levity. The French poet, Chastelard, misled by her
external signs of favor, believed himself to be her choice. At the end
of one mad revel he was found secreted beneath her bed, and was driven
out by force. A second time he ventured to secrete himself within the
covers of the bed. Then he was dragged forth, imprisoned, and condemned
to death. He met his fate without a murmur, save at the last when he
stood upon the scaffold and, gazing toward the palace, cried in French:
"Oh, cruel queen! I die for you! "
Another favorite, the Italian, David Rizzio, or Riccio, in like manner
wrote love verses to the queen, and she replied to them in kind; but
there is no evidence that she valued him save for his ability, which
was very great. She made him her foreign secretary, and the man whom he
supplanted worked on the jealousy of Darnley; so that one night, while
Mary and Rizzio were at dinner in a small private chamber, Darnley and
the others broke in upon her. Darnley held her by the waist while Rizzio
was stabbed before her eyes with a cruelty the greater because the queen
was soon to become a mother.
From that moment she hated Darnley as one would hate a snake. She
tolerated him only that he might acknowledge her child as his son. This
child was the future James VI. of Scotland and James I. of England. It
is recorded of him that never throughout his life could he bear to look
upon drawn steel.
After this Mary summoned Bothwell again and again. It was revealed to
her as in a blaze of light that, after all, he was the one and only
man who could be everything to her. His frankness, his cynicism, his
mockery, his carelessness, his courage, and the power of his mind
matched her moods completely. She threw away all semblance of
concealment. She ignored the fact that he had married at her wish. She
was queen. She desired him. She must have him at any cost.
"Though I lose Scotland and England both," she cried in a passion of
abandonment, "I shall have him for my own! "
Bothwell, in his turn, was nothing loath, and they leaped at each other
like two flames.
It was then that Mary wrote those letters which were afterward
discovered in a casket and which were used against her when she was on
trial for her life. These so-called Casket Letters, though we have
not now the originals, are among the most extraordinary letters ever
written. All shame, all hesitation, all innocence, are flung away in
them. The writer is so fired with passion that each sentence is like
a cry to a lover in the dark. As De Peyster says: "In them the animal
instincts override and spur and lash the pen. " Mary was committing to
paper the frenzied madness of a woman consumed to her very marrow by the
scorching blaze of unendurable desire.
Events moved quickly. Darnley, convalescent from an attack of smallpox,
was mysteriously destroyed by an explosion of gunpowder. Bothwell was
divorced from his young wife on curious grounds. A dispensation allowed
Mary to wed a Protestant, and she married Bothwell three months after
Darnley's death.
Here one sees the consummation of what had begun many years before
in France. From the moment that she and Bothwell met, their union was
inevitable. Seas could not sunder them. Other loves and other fancies
were as nothing to them. Even the bonds of marriage were burst asunder
so that these two fiery, panting souls could meet.
It was the irony of fate that when they had so met it was only to be
parted. Mary's subjects, outraged by her conduct, rose against her. As
she passed through the streets of Edinburgh the women hurled after
her indecent names. Great banners were raised with execrable daubs
representing the murdered Darnley. The short and dreadful monosyllable
which is familiar to us in the pages of the Bible was hurled after her
wherever she went.
With Bothwell by her side she led a wild and ragged horde of followers
against the rebellious nobles, whose forces met her at Carberry Hill.
Her motley followers melted away, and Mary surrendered to the hostile
chieftains, who took her to the castle at Lochleven. There she became
the mother of twins--a fact that is seldom mentioned by historians.
These children were the fruit of her union with Bothwell. From this time
forth she cared but little for herself, and she signed, without great
reluctance, a document by which she abdicated in favor of her infant
son.
Even in this place of imprisonment, however, her fascination had power
to charm. Among those who guarded her, two of the Douglas family--George
Douglas and William Douglas--for love of her, effected her escape. The
first attempt failed. Mary, disguised as a laundress, was betrayed by
the delicacy of her hands. But a second attempt was successful. The
queen passed through a postern gate and made her way to the lake, where
George Douglas met her with a boat. Crossing the lake, fifty horsemen
under Lord Claude Hamilton gave her their escort and bore her away in
safety.
But Mary was sick of Scotland, for Bothwell could not be there. She
had tasted all the bitterness of life, and for a few months all the
sweetness; but she would have no more of this rough and barbarous
country. Of her own free will she crossed the Solway into England, to
find herself at once a prisoner.
Never again did she set eyes on Bothwell. After the battle of Carberry
Hill he escaped to the north, gathered some ships together, and preyed
upon English merchantmen, very much as a pirate might have done. Ere
long, however, when he had learned of Mary's fate, he set sail for
Norway. King Frederick of Denmark made him a prisoner of state. He was
not confined within prison walls, however, but was allowed to hunt and
ride in the vicinity of Malmo Castle and of Dragsholm. It is probably in
Malmo Castle that he died. In 1858 a coffin which was thought to be
the coffin of the earl was opened, and a Danish artist sketched the
head--which corresponds quite well with the other portraits of the
ill-fated Scottish noble.
It is a sad story. Had Mary been less ambitious when she first met
Bothwell, or had he been a little bolder, they might have reigned
together and lived out their lives in the plenitude of that great love
which held them both in thrall. But a queen is not as other women; and
she found too late that the teaching of her heart was, after all, the
truest teaching. She went to her death as Bothwell went to his, alone,
in a strange, unfriendly land.
Yet, even this, perhaps, was better so. It has at least touched both
their lives with pathos and has made the name of Mary Stuart one to be
remembered throughout all the ages.
QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI
Sweden to-day is one of the peaceful kingdoms of the world, whose people
are prosperous, well governed, and somewhat apart from the clash and
turmoil of other states and nations. Even the secession of Norway, a few
years ago, was accomplished without bloodshed, and now the two kingdoms
exist side by side as free from strife as they are with Denmark, which
once domineered and tyrannized over both.
It is difficult to believe that long ago, in the Middle Ages, the cities
of southern Sweden were among the great commercial centers of the world.
Stockholm and Lund ranked with London and Paris. They absorbed the
commerce of the northern seas, and were the admiration of thousands
of travelers and merchants who passed through them and trafficked with
them.
Much nearer to our own time, Sweden was the great military power of
northern Europe. The ambassadors of the Swedish kings were received with
the utmost deference in every court.
Her soldiers won great battles
and ended mighty wars. The England of Cromwell and Charles II. was
unimportant and isolated in comparison with this northern kingdom, which
could pour forth armies of gigantic blond warriors, headed by generals
astute as well as brave.
It was no small matter, then, in 1626, that the loyal Swedes were hoping
that their queen would give birth to a male heir to succeed his splendid
father, Gustavus Adolphus, ranked by military historians as one of the
six great generals whom the world had so far produced. The queen, a
German princess of Brandenburg, had already borne two daughters, who
died in infancy. The expectation was wide-spread and intense that she
should now become the mother of a son; and the king himself was no less
anxious.
When the event occurred, the child was seen to be completely covered
with hair, and for this reason the attendants at first believed that it
was the desired boy. When their mistake was discovered they were afraid
to tell the king, who was waiting in his study for the announcement
to be made. At last, when no one else would go to him, his sister, the
Princess Caroline, volunteered to break the news.
Gustavus was in truth a chivalrous, high-bred monarch. Though he must
have been disappointed at the advent of a daughter, he showed no sign
of dissatisfaction or even of surprise; but, rising, he embraced his
sister, saying:
"Let us thank God. I hope this girl will be as good as a boy to me. May
God preserve her now that He has sent her! "
It is customary at almost all courts to pay less attention to the birth
of a princess than to that of a prince; but Gustavus displayed his
chivalry toward this little daughter, whom he named Christina. He
ordered that the full royal salute should be fired in every fortress of
his kingdom and that displays of fireworks, balls of honor, and court
functions should take place; "for," as he said, "this is the heir to my
throne. " And so from the first he took his child under his own keeping
and treated her as if she were a much-loved son as well as a successor.
He joked about her looks when she was born, when she was mistaken for a
boy.
"She will be clever," he said, "for she has taken us all in! "
The Swedish people were as delighted with their little princess as were
the people of Holland when the present Queen Wilhelmina was born, to
carry on the succession of the House of Orange. On one occasion the king
and the small Christina, who were inseparable companions, happened
to approach a fortress where they expected to spend the night. The
commander of the castle was bound to fire a royal salute of fifty cannon
in honor of his sovereign; yet he dreaded the effect upon the princess
of such a roaring and bellowing of artillery. He therefore sent a
swift horseman to meet the royal party at a distance and explain his
perplexity. Should he fire these guns or not? Would the king give an
order?
Gustavus thought for a moment, and then replied:
"My daughter is the daughter of a soldier, and she must learn to lead a
soldier's life. Let the guns be fired! "
The procession moved on. Presently fire spurted from the embrasures of
the fort, and its batteries thundered in one great roar. The king looked
down at Christina. Her face was aglow with pleasure and excitement; she
clapped her hands and laughed, and cried out:
"More bang! More! More! More! "
This is only one of a score of stories that were circulated about the
princess, and the Swedes were more and more delighted with the girl who
was to be their queen.
Somewhat curiously, Christina's mother, Queen Maria, cared little for
the child, and, in fact, came at last to detest her almost as much as
the king loved her. It is hard to explain this dislike. Perhaps she had
a morbid desire for a son and begrudged the honors given to a daughter.
Perhaps she was a little jealous of her own child, who took so much of
the king's attention. Afterward, in writing of her mother, Christina
excuses her, and says quite frankly:
She could not bear to see me, because I was a girl, and an ugly girl at
that. And she was right enough, for I was as tawny as a little Turk.
This candid description of herself is hardly just. Christina was never
beautiful, and she had a harsh voice. She was apt to be overbearing
even as a little girl. Yet she was a most interesting child, with an
expressive face, large eyes, an aquiline nose, and the blond hair of her
people. There was nothing in this to account for her mother's intense
dislike for her.
It was currently reported at the time that attempts were made to maim
or seriously injure the little princess. By what was made to seem an
accident, she would be dropped upon the floor, and heavy articles of
furniture would somehow manage to strike her. More than once a great
beam fell mysteriously close to her, either in the palace or while she
was passing through the streets. None of these things did her serious
harm, however. Most of them she luckily escaped; but when she had grown
to be a woman one of her shoulders was permanently higher than the
other.
"I suppose," said Christina, "that I could be straightened if I would
let the surgeons attend to it; but it isn't worth while to take the
trouble. "
When Christina was four, Sweden became involved in the great war
that had been raging for a dozen years between the Protestant and the
Catholic states of Germany. Gradually the neighboring powers had been
drawn into the struggle, either to serve their own ends or to support
the faith to which they adhered. Gustavus Adolphus took up the sword
with mixed motives, for he was full of enthusiasm for the imperiled
cause of the Reformation, and at the same time he deemed it a favorable
opportunity to assert his control over the shores of the Baltic.
The warrior king summoned his army and prepared to invade Germany.
Before departing he took his little daughter by the hand and led her
among the assembled nobles and councilors of state. To them he intrusted
the princess, making them kneel and vow that they would regard her as
his heir, and, if aught should happen to him, as his successor. Amid the
clashing of swords and the clang of armor this vow was taken, and the
king went forth to war.
He met the ablest generals of his enemies, and the fortunes of battle
swayed hither and thither; but the climax came when his soldiers
encountered those of Wallenstein--that strange, overbearing, arrogant,
mysterious creature whom many regarded with a sort of awe. The clash
came at Lutzen, in Saxony. The Swedish king fought long and hard, and so
did his mighty opponent; but at last, in the very midst of a tremendous
onset that swept all before him, Gustavus received a mortal wound and
died, even while Wallenstein was fleeing from the field of battle.
The battle of Lutzen made Christina Queen of Sweden at the age of six.
Of course, she could not yet be crowned, but a council of able ministers
continued the policy of the late king and taught the young queen her
first lessons in statecraft. Her intellect soon showed itself as more
than that of a child. She understood all that was taking place, and all
that was planned and arranged. Her tact was unusual. Her discretion was
admired by every one; and after a while she had the advice and training
of the great Swedish chancellor, Oxenstierna, whose wisdom she shared to
a remarkable degree.
Before she was sixteen she had so approved herself to her counselors,
and especially to the people at large, that there was a wide-spread
clamor that she should take the throne and govern in her own person. To
this she gave no heed, but said:
"I am not yet ready. "
All this time she bore herself like a king. There was nothing distinctly
feminine about her. She took but slight interest in her appearance.
She wore sword and armor in the presence of her troops, and often she
dressed entirely in men's clothes. She would take long, lonely gallops
through the forests, brooding over problems of state and feeling no
fatigue or fear. And indeed why should she fear, who was beloved by all
her subjects?
When her eighteenth year arrived, the demand for her coronation was
impossible to resist. All Sweden wished to see a ruling queen, who might
marry and have children to succeed her through the royal line of her
great father. Christina consented to be crowned, but she absolutely
refused all thought of marriage. She had more suitors from all parts of
Europe than even Elizabeth of England; but, unlike Elizabeth, she
did not dally with them, give them false hopes, or use them for the
political advantage of her kingdom.
At that time Sweden was stronger than England, and was so situated as to
be independent of alliances. So Christina said, in her harsh, peremptory
voice:
"I shall never marry; and why should you speak of my having children! I
am just as likely to give birth to a Nero as to an Augustus. "
Having assumed the throne, she ruled with a strictness of government
such as Sweden had not known before. She took the reins of state into
her own hands and carried out a foreign policy of her own, over the
heads of her ministers, and even against the wishes of her people. The
fighting upon the Continent had dragged out to a weary length, but the
Swedes, on the whole, had scored a marked advantage. For this reason the
war was popular, and every one wished it to go on; but Christina, of
her own will, decided that it must stop, that mere glory was not to be
considered against material advantages. Sweden had had enough of glory;
she must now look to her enrichment and prosperity through the channels
of peace.
Therefore, in 1648, against Oxenstierna, against her generals, and
against her people, she exercised her royal power and brought the Thirty
Years' War to an end by the so-called Peace of Westphalia. At this time
she was twenty-two, and by her personal influence she had ended one of
the greatest struggles of history. Nor had she done it to her country's
loss. Denmark yielded up rich provinces, while Germany was compelled to
grant Sweden membership in the German diet.
Then came a period of immense prosperity through commerce, through
economies in government, through the improvement of agriculture and the
opening of mines. This girl queen, without intrigue, without descending
from her native nobility to peep and whisper with shady diplomats,
showed herself in reality a great monarch, a true Semiramis of the
north, more worthy of respect and reverence than Elizabeth of England.
She was highly trained in many arts. She was fond of study, spoke
Latin fluently, and could argue with Salmasius, Descartes, and other
accomplished scholars without showing any inferiority to them.
She gathered at her court distinguished persons from all countries. She
repelled those who sought her hand, and she was pure and truthful and
worthy of all men's admiration. Had she died at this time history would
rank her with the greatest of women sovereigns. Naude, the librarian of
Cardinal Mazarin, wrote of her to the scientist Gassendi in these words:
To say truth, I am sometimes afraid lest the common saying should be
verified in her, that short is the life and rare the old age of those
who surpass the common limits. Do not imagine that she is learned only
in books, for she is equally so in painting, architecture, sculpture,
medals, antiquities, and all curiosities. There is not a cunning workman
in these arts but she has him fetched. There are as good workers in
wax and in enamel, engravers, singers, players, dancers here as will be
found anywhere.
She has a gallery of statues, bronze and marble, medals of gold,
silver, and bronze, pieces of ivory, amber, coral, worked crystal, steel
mirrors, clocks and tables, bas-reliefs and other things of the kind;
richer I have never seen even in Italy; finally, a great quantity of
pictures. In short, her mind is open to all impressions.
But after she began to make her court a sort of home for art and
letters it ceased to be the sort of court that Sweden was prepared for.
Christina's subjects were still rude and lacking in accomplishments;
therefore she had to summon men of genius from other countries,
especially from France and Italy. Many of these were illustrious artists
or scholars, but among them were also some who used their mental gifts
for harm.
Among these latter was a French physician named Bourdelot--a man of keen
intellect, of winning manners, and of a profound cynicism, which was
not apparent on the surface, but the effect of which last lasting. To
Bourdelot we must chiefly ascribe the mysterious change which gradually
came over Queen Christina. With his associates he taught her a distaste
for the simple and healthy life that she had been accustomed to lead.
She ceased to think of the welfare of the state and began to look down
with scorn upon her unsophisticated Swedes. Foreign luxury displayed
itself at Stockholm, and her palaces overflowed with beautiful things.
By subtle means Bourdelot undermined her principles. Having been
a Stoic, she now became an Epicurean. She was by nature devoid of
sentiment. She would not spend her time in the niceties of love-making,
as did Elizabeth; but beneath the surface she had a sort of tigerish,
passionate nature, which would break forth at intervals, and which
demanded satisfaction from a series of favorites. It is probable that
Bourdelot was her first lover, but there were many others whose names
are recorded in the annals of the time.
When she threw aside her virtue Christina ceased to care about
appearances. She squandered her revenues upon her favorites. What she
retained of her former self was a carelessness that braved the opinion
of her subjects. She dressed almost without thought, and it is said that
she combed her hair not more than twice a month. She caroused with male
companions to the scandal of her people, and she swore like a trooper
when displeased.
Christina's philosophy of life appears to have been compounded of an
almost brutal licentiousness, a strong love of power, and a strange,
freakish longing for something new. Her political ambitions were checked
by the rising discontent of her people, who began to look down upon her
and to feel ashamed of her shame. Knowing herself as she did, she did
not care to marry.
Yet Sweden must have an heir. Therefore she chose out her cousin
Charles, declared that he was to be her successor, and finally caused
him to be proclaimed as such before the assembled estates of the realm.
She even had him crowned; and finally, in her twenty-eighth year, she
abdicated altogether and prepared to leave Sweden. When asked whither
she would go, she replied in a Latin quotation:
"The Fates will show the way. "
In her act of abdication she reserved to herself the revenues of some
of the richest provinces in Sweden and absolute power over such of her
subjects as should accompany her. They were to be her subjects until the
end.
The Swedes remembered that Christina was the daughter of their greatest
king, and that, apart from personal scandals, she had ruled them well;
and so they let her go regretfully and accepted her cousin as their
king. Christina, on her side, went joyfully and in the spirit of a grand
adventuress. With a numerous suite she entered Germany, and then stayed
for a year at Brussels, where she renounced Lutheranism. After this she
traveled slowly into Italy, where she entered Borne on horseback,
and was received by the Pope, Alexander VII. , who lodged her in a
magnificent palace, accepted her conversion, and baptized her, giving
her a new name, Alexandra.
In Rome she was a brilliant but erratic personage, living sumptuously,
even though her revenues from Sweden came in slowly, partly because the
Swedes disliked her change of religion. She was surrounded by men of
letters, with whom she amused herself, and she took to herself a lover,
the Marquis Monaldeschi. She thought that at last she had really found
her true affinity, while Monaldeschi believed that he could count on the
queen's fidelity.
He was in attendance upon her daily, and they were almost inseparable.
He swore allegiance to her and thereby made himself one of the subjects
over whom she had absolute power. For a time he was the master of those
intense emotions which, in her, alternated with moods of coldness and
even cruelty.
Monaldeschi was a handsome Italian, who bore himself with a fine air of
breeding. He understood the art of charming, but he did not know that
beyond a certain time no one could hold the affections of Christina.
However, after she had quarreled with various cardinals and decided to
leave Rome for a while, Monaldeschi accompanied her to France, where
she had an immense vogue at the court of Louis XIV. She attracted wide
attention because of her eccentricity and utter lack of manners. It
gave her the greatest delight to criticize the ladies of the French
court--their looks, their gowns, and their jewels. They, in return,
would speak of Christina's deformed shoulder and skinny frame; but the
king was very gracious to her and invited her to his hunting-palace at
Fontainebleau.
While she had been winning triumphs of sarcasm the infatuated
Monaldeschi had gradually come to suspect, and then to know, that his
royal mistress was no longer true to him. He had been supplanted in her
favor by another Italian, one Sentanelli, who was the captain of her
guard.
Monaldeschi took a tortuous and roundabout revenge. He did not let the
queen know of his discovery; nor did he, like a man, send a challenge
to Sentanelli. Instead he began by betraying her secrets to Oliver
Cromwell, with whom she had tried to establish a correspondence. Again,
imitating the hand and seal of Sentanelli, he set in circulation a
series of the most scandalous and insulting letters about Christina. By
this treacherous trick he hoped to end the relations between his rival
and the queen; but when the letters were carried to Christina she
instantly recognized their true source. She saw that she was betrayed
by her former favorite and that he had taken a revenge which might
seriously compromise her.
This led to a tragedy, of which the facts were long obscure. They were
carefully recorded, however, by the queen's household chaplain, Father
Le Bel; and there is also a narrative written by one Marco Antonio
Conti, which confirms the story. Both were published privately in 1865,
with notes by Louis Lacour.
The narration of the priest is dreadful in its simplicity and minuteness
of detail. It may be summed up briefly here, because it is the testimony
of an eye-witness who knew Christina.
Christina, with the marquis and a large retinue, was at Fontainebleau in
November, 1657. A little after midnight, when all was still, the priest,
Father Le Bel, was aroused and ordered to go at once to the Galerie des
Cerfs, or Hall of Stags, in another part of the palace. When he asked
why, he was told:
"It is by the order of her majesty the Swedish queen. "
The priest, wondering, hurried on his garments. On reaching the gloomy
hall he saw the Marquis Monaldeschi, evidently in great agitation, and
at the end of the corridor the queen in somber robes. Beside the
queen, as if awaiting orders, stood three figures, who could with some
difficulty be made out as three soldiers of her guard.
The queen motioned to Father Le Bel and asked him for a packet which she
had given him for safe-keeping some little time before. He gave it to
her, and she opened it. In it were letters and other documents, which,
with a steely glance, she displayed to Monaldeschi. He was confused by
the sight of them and by the incisive words in which Christina showed
how he had both insulted her and had tried to shift the blame upon
Sentanelli.
Monaldeschi broke down completely. He fell at the queen's feet and wept
piteously, begging for pardon, only to be met by the cold answer:
"You are my subject and a traitor to me. Marquis, you must prepare to
die! "
Then she turned away and left the hall, in spite of the cries of
Monaldeschi, to whom she merely added the advice that he should make his
peace with God by confessing to Father Le Bel.
After she had gone the marquis fell into a torrent of self-exculpation
and cried for mercy. The three armed men drew near and urged him to
confess for the good of his soul. They seemed to have no malice against
him, but to feel that they must obey the orders given them. At the
frantic urging of the marquis their leader even went to the queen to ask
whether she would relent; but he returned shaking his head, and said:
"Marquis, you must die. "
Father Le Bel undertook a like mission, but returned with the message
that there was no hope. So the marquis made his confession in French
and Latin, but even then he hoped; for he did not wait to receive
absolution, but begged still further for delay or pardon.
Then the three armed men approached, having drawn their swords. The
absolution was pronounced; and, following it, one of the guards slashed
the marquis across the forehead. He stumbled and fell forward, making
signs as if to ask that he might have his throat cut. But his throat
was partly protected by a coat of mail, so that three or four strokes
delivered there had slight effect. Finally, however, a long, narrow
sword was thrust into his side, after which the marquis made no sound.
Father Le Bel at once left the Galerie des Cerfs and went into the
queen's apartment, with the smell of blood in his nostrils. He found her
calm and ready to justify herself. Was she not still queen over all who
had voluntarily become members of her suite? This had been agreed to in
her act of abdication. Wherever she set her foot, there, over her own,
she was still a monarch, with full power to punish traitors at her will.
This power she had exercised, and with justice. What mattered it that
she was in France? She was queen as truly as Louis XIV. was king.
The story was not long in getting out, but the truth was not wholly
known until a much later day. It was said that Sentanelli had slapped
the marquis in a fit of jealousy, though some added that it was done
with the connivance of the queen. King Louis, the incarnation of
absolutism, knew the truth, but he was slow to act. He sympathized with
the theory of Christina's sovereignty. It was only after a time that
word was sent to Christina that she must leave Fontainebleau. She took
no notice of the order until it suited her convenience, and then she
went forth with all the honors of a reigning monarch.
