Christina Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric

by Buckley, Veronica

  It was a tremendous affair. Father Nickel decided to seek the advice of the Pope’s own Secretary of State, Cardinal Fabio Chigi. Chigi had been papal representative at the Westphalian peace negotiations, and consequently had some knowledge of the Swedes and their clever young Queen. It seemed to him that her letter was sincere, and an encouraging reply was soon dispatched: two Jesuit priests, Malines and Casati, both well schooled in theology and the natural sciences, were to make their way forthwith to Stockholm. Christina would have been gratified to see that their mission had been marked altissimo segreto – top secret. In a move that she herself had suggested, they were to travel disguised as two wealthy tourists, Malines – with a new beard and hair grown unjesuitically long – as Don Lucio Bonanni, and Casati as Don Bonifacio Ponginibbio. In case their letters should fall into unfriendly hands, the Queen herself was given the alias of Signor Teofilo Tancredo – Monsieur Godloving This-I-Believe – a convincing enough pseudonym in Italian, at least. The new Dons were under careful instructions to remain on good terms with each other, to avoid all political discussions while in Sweden, to listen to the talk of heretics without losing their tempers, and to take care that their secular attire did not encourage them to worldly pleasures. The Queen was interested above all, they were informed, in Greek literature and ancient philosophy – they should brush up their own knowledge accordingly. They dutifully did so, and towards the end of November they set off for the north.

  While the flurry of priests and papers continued in Rome, a second Jesuit journey was beginning quite separately in Copenhagen, sparked unwittingly by Christina’s old favourite, Claude Saumaise. In the same month that Father Macedo had set out on his little barge, Saumaise had set out from Stockholm to return to his post as Rector at the University of Leiden. Passing through Copenhagen, he happened to dine one evening at the residence of the Spanish Ambassador, Bernadino de Rebolledo, and over the wines he began to talk of his soujourn in Sweden, and of that country’s remarkable Queen. Rebolledo remarked that it was a pity Her Majesty’s evident mental powers could not be bent to an acceptance of the True Faith: surely some clever priest must be able to persuade her. The clever priest was directly at hand, at least as far as he himself was concerned, in the person of the Jesuit Father, Gottfried Francken. Saumaise, himself a kind of Calvinist unbeliever, no doubt smiled at the Ambassador’s suggestion, but he made no comment; Rebolledo said no more, and the subject was to all appearances dropped.

  Francken, however, a determined Dutchman, decided to follow it up. At 60 years of age, he was no longer young, but he was an experienced teacher of theology and philosophy, and ardent in the service of his faith. He was a hardened missionary, too: returning to Holland after years of study and work in Catholic lands, he had been thrown into prison by his unimpressed Calvinist compatriots. Now he was in Denmark, officially still a missionary priest, but in fact living comfortably in Rebolledo’s embassy quarters. It was not enough for an old warrior. Diplomats’ confessions and the flowery worries of their ladies were simply no substitute for real work in the field – and what a victory it would be to convert the Queen of Sweden! A sortie to Stockholm, Francken decided, was just the thing.

  Christina encountered him not in Stockholm, however, but at Nyköping Castle, where she was visiting her mother in the early weeks of the autumn. Francken had come supposedly on a minor diplomatic mission for Ambassador Rebolledo in Copenhagen. Their first meeting was formal, and Francken records that the Queen spoke to him in an ‘arrogant and sneering’ tone. If this was an instance of Christina’s famous capacity for dissembling, she seems to have convinced Francken, at least, for he abandoned his plan at once and asked leave to return to Copenhagen. It was granted, and he returned to his quarters to pack up his things directly. The fainthearted priest had not won his fair lady, but the lady herself was made of sterner stuff. No sooner was he in his room than he received a message from her, saying that he should not prepare to leave Sweden, but should present himself the next day for a secret interview with her.

  Closeted with him on the morrow, Christina came directly to the point. Was Francken really a Catholic priest? He was. Was he in fact a Jesuit? He could not deny it. Though it had been only a matter of weeks since she had smuggled Father Macedo out of the back door of the castle, Christina supposed that Francken must have been sent to her by the Jesuit General in Rome. If he was not a diplomat, she asked him, what then was his real mission in Sweden? He replied that he had hoped to teach her something of ‘the old religion’. Had he come to turn her into a papist, then? Did he not realize he could lose his head for this? Francken was prepared to take the risk.

  The Queen’s tone softened. She assured him that he was in no danger, and that she was anxious to learn what she could of his faith. She asked him to remain in Sweden, and to return with her to Stockholm at the end of her sojourn in Nyköping. Francken, as yet unaware of Macedo’s separate mission, was very willing to stay in Sweden, but less willing to go to Stockholm, where the castle already housed two Danish guests who would surely recognize him as one of Rebolledo’s priests. The guests were Corfitz Ulfeld, a great favourite of the late King Kristian, and his wife, Leonora, Kristian’s own illegitimate daughter. Always an intriguer with an eye for the main chance, Ulfeld had over the years built up a formidable cabal of enemies at the Danish court. On Kristian’s death, they had turned on him, accusing him of attempting to poison the new King Frederick. To the alarm of Axel Oxenstierna, who had no wish to antagonize the Danes, Ulfeld had decided to flee with his wife to Sweden. Christina, always happy to antagonize the Chancellor, had installed the pair handsomely in the Tre Kronor Castle, adding a snub to the Danes, who had once given her own mother refuge, by declaring the couple political refugees.

  If Leonora Ulfeld had moulded herself expressly to appeal to Christina, she could hardly have succeeded better. She was a beautiful woman, and clever, something of a bluestocking, and she arrived in Stockholm disguised as a man – not well disguised, however, as she was already six months pregnant. She had evidently found her flight-attire convenient, for she continued to wear men’s clothes for the duration of her stay, astonishing the townsfolk, disconcerting the courtiers, and no doubt provoking the envy of Christina, who had not yet dared try on a pair of trousers.

  Leonora’s trousers might have been enough of a deterrent for the earnest priest, but, with the Queen’s great secret and his own life at stake, Francken could not afford in any case to set foot in Stockholm. He took his leave in Nyköping, and made his way back to Copenhagen. From there he sent a detailed report of all that had transpired – not to the Jesuit General in Rome, but to his more immediate superiors in Flanders. He asked to be replaced at Rebolledo’s embassy, so that he might give his full attention to the matter of the Queen’s conversion. This was arranged, and, with the Ulfeld coast now clear, Francken returned to Sweden. He brought with him two letters, the first a personal recommendation from Ambassador Rebolledo, and the second from King Felipe of Spain, which declared that ‘Swedish ships might enter Spanish harbours in safety’. Christina took the latter as Rebolledo had intended it, as a metaphor for her own flight under Spanish wings. She was not deterred by the fact that the letter was several years old, or that the King himself had intended it quite literally as a guarantee that Sweden’s ships would not be attacked by Spain’s. As yet, the King knew nothing at all of her plan of conversion. Along with the two letters, Francken conveyed to the Queen an essay on morals which Rebolledo had written for her; she forbore to read it, pleading, perhaps truthfully, that her Spanish was not good enough.

  Francken departed, and the long northern winter wore on, while Christina awaited her deliverers. ‘It is so cold,’ wrote one contemporary, ‘that the streets of all the towns are desolate, no creatures stirring in them for many months, all the inhabitants retiring to their stoves.’2 When the spring arrived at last, like the rising of the sun after endless-seeming night, Stockholm life unfolded, and stretched, and stood up, a
nd went outside.

  One bright morning, Christina set out to make the crossing over to the island of Skeppsholmen. Though only a short sailing trip across the Norrström river – the island could be seen from the windows of the Tre Kronor Castle – the passage had proved treacherous before: on another spring day, offshore from the same island, Maria Eleonora had fallen as her boat rocked in a sudden squall, and so miscarried her long-awaited son.

  Christina came down to the jetty, accompanied by a number of her courtiers. A small rowing boat lay bobbing in the water, ready to carry her out to the ship that would sail across to the island. In the rowing-boat, General Wachtmeister stood unsteadily waiting to receive the Queen. She accepted the hand of the famous old Admiral Klaes Fleming, and stepped out onto the little wooden bridge which lay between the jetty and the rowing boat. Alas, the bridge’s planks were not secure. With the weight of four feet upon it, one plank came loose and sprang into the air, tipping both Queen and Admiral into the water. A horrified General Wachtmeister flailed out at Christina and managed to get hold of her belt, and was pulling her towards the rowing-boat when Fleming, floundering underwater, grabbed hold of her voluminous skirts, and pulled her under too. Both were rescued, but news spread nonetheless that the Queen was drowned, so that in the afternoon of the same day, she was obliged to ride through every part of the town, high and dry on horseback, to persuade the people that all was well.

  The Admiral had endured a tardy retribution, perhaps, for the greatest mistake of his life. It was he who had overseen the launching of the great warship Vasa, the fabulous painted galleon which had sunk in the harbour at Stockholm when Christina was only two years old. The sinking had taken the lives of scores of men, drowned when seawater flooded in through the open gunports. It was a modest indignity by contrast, even for an old war hero, to emerge from the waves ‘like a sodden chicken’. Christina made light of the whole affair, but she was never at ease on the water again.

  As the late winter of 1652 opened out into the spring, Christina began to grow anxious. For months she had heard nothing from Macedo or the Jesuits in Rome. She did not know that Father Nickel had been replaced as General of the Order, that his successor had died, and that a third General was now in office, and that each change had necessitated fresh authority for the mission to Stockholm. In consequence, she had been glad to see Father Francken again, but, though he had been fully prepared for a lengthy stay in Sweden, the Queen had not detained him long. Within a week or two she had sent him back to Copenhagen, armed with a letter of her own to Rebolledo, in which she requested the Ambassador’s help in forging ‘a bond of friendship’ between herself and King Felipe. Rebolledo dutifully dispatched a letter to that effect to the King’s chief minister, then packed Francken off to Sweden again. He stayed just a few weeks, and it was only now, on his third visit to her, that Christina mentioned to him her dealings with Macedo and the Fathers in Rome. Francken was dismayed. He had not realized there was a rival suitor for the Queen’s religious affections. He remarked unhappily that there were scholars and priests enough in the Low Countries – Her Majesty had really had no need to seek instruction from as far afield as Rome. Christina consoled him by requesting him to write an essay for her on the immortality of the soul. He did so, only to be packed off yet again, not back to Copenhagen, but to the Spanish Ambassador at The Hague.

  He carried a letter requesting the Ambassador to negotiate a possible retreat for the Queen in the Spanish Netherlands; the Governor, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, brother of the Emperor Ferdinand, was of necessity to be brought into the plan. Perhaps as a kind of apology for having kept him in the dark about Macedo, Christina also asked Francken to find some learned priest in Flanders who could come to Stockholm to instruct her. If so, it was a sadly backhanded attempt, as the newcomer was to take the role that Francken himself had thought to play. In the event, the chosen priest, Philip Nuyts, was a most unwilling replacement. Not much younger than Francken, he was in poor health, and begged to be excused from the assignment for fear the rigours of the north would prove too much for him. His hardy Dutch superior dismissed his concerns, assuring him that the change of climate would do him good, and that anyway he would be out before the next winter. Father Nuyts arrived in mid-April, disguised as a merchant, complete with cape and sword. The temperature was well below zero, and he was suffering from a fresh spring frostbite. Happily for him, the Queen kept him hardly a month. Her own spies had got wind of his mission – he was not in Sweden ‘just to steal hens’, it seemed. Alarmed, he burned all record of his discussions with Her Majesty, but later reported that they had mostly talked of how quickly he should be gone. He went almost as quickly as the weary Father Francken, who had only just arrived back in Stockholm on his fourth visit when he received instructions to go home to Flanders. His misfortunes had not come singly: there were in fact two letters, one from his superior in Antwerp, and a second from the Jesuit General in Rome; the General had at last learned of the separate missions, and was adamant that nothing was to get in the way of his own envoys, Malines and Casati.

  Francken was distressed by this latest dismissal, though Nuyts was no doubt relieved. Both, however, were alarmed to see that the two letters had already been opened. If their identity had been discovered, they could both be facing execution. Christina reassured them – in one respect, at least – with a smiling apology. She had opened the letters herself, she said. Seeing them in her post, she had become ‘so excited’ that she simply couldn’t help herself. The two Jesuits felt they could no longer help her, either, and began to make arrangements for their departure. But Christina demanded that Francken stay, and commissioned a second small essay from him, this one to outline the commonest points of religious controversy. It is in fact more likely that she wanted him there for his medical skills. He had made a special study of medicine some years before, prior to a planned mission to West Africa. Father Francken’s travels were seldom plain sailing, it seems – at the last minute, the voyage to Guinea had been diverted to Copenhagen.

  Christina had now made three separate appeals for help: to the Jesuits in Rome, via Macedo, to the King of Spain, via Rebolledo, and now to Leopold Wilhelm in the Spanish Netherlands. She had considered a fourth as well. Her old friend Bourdelot had suggested that she look to the French for help, and this had seemed to her an excellent idea. She had been a good friend to France, after all, supporting their claims at the peace treaties in the teeth of all that the Chancellor, and indeed her late father, had said and done. She took the precaution of packing up the several thousand books which she had acquired from Cardinal Mazarin’s library, and sent them back to France, with a message that she had only ever intended to keep them safe for His Eminence while the war lasted. She then confided her plans to Chanut, but his response dismayed her. He was aghast at the idea that she might seek a kind of luxurious refuge financed by the French. Sweden and France were longstanding allies, and the war with Spain was still ongoing; Mazarin was not likely to risk offending the Swedes by taking in their renegade Queen. So far the French had had no formal hand in Christina’s journey to Catholicism; Chanut, though a pious Catholic himself, and privately overjoyed at the step the Queen was about to take, was anxious to preserve his nation’s neutrality in the affair.

  Chanut’s reluctance had been something of a shock to Christina, and had brought home to her how difficult, and how lonely, her road to Rome might be. But now all seemed to be working out as she had hoped. Francken and Nuyts had been and gone, and their fellow Jesuits in the Spanish Netherlands would no doubt speak on her behalf to Leopold Wilhelm and the Ambassador there. That would take care of some of the practical problems. As for the religious question itself, that was being taken care of, too, under the very noses of the two Dutch priests. Unknown to them, Malines and Casati had finally arrived in Stockholm after an arduous and stormridden journey – including a stage by gondola – and were already instructing Her Majesty in the tenets of the Catholic faith. Christina ha
d shrewdly, and very skilfully, kept the two parties separate, and neither had had any knowledge of the other’s presence, though one of the Queen’s own spies did warn her – from Vienna, no less – that there were ‘no fewer than four Jesuits’ known to be at large somewhere in Stockholm.

  The Italian priests spent almost three months in the city in their guise as wealthy tourists. ‘Don Lucio and Don Bonifacio’ made regular visits to the Queen, and their reports indicate the questions that concerned her. Was there really any difference between good and evil? she asked. Was the soul really immortal? Was it absolutely necessary to pray to saints and keep statues of them and revere their relics? Could she not practise Catholicism in secret and remain outwardly Lutheran? Her great-uncle King John had tried to do so. And how, in the end, could faith be reconciled with reason?

  The two Jesuits did not deceive her. Yes, there was a difference. Yes, the soul was immortal. Holy Mother Church had good reasons for all its practices. No, Her Majesty could not be both Catholic and Lutheran at the same time. His Holiness had not smiled on the attempts of Her Majesty’s revered predecessor. Her Majesty must recognize that the articles of faith were above reason, and yet not contrary to reason. Her doubts were no more than the promptings of the devil.