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

by Buckley, Veronica

  ‘God save our Pope Clement, for your good fortune will last as long as his life.’7 So Christina had written to Azzolino from Hamburg, and so it was to prove. Clement’s life did not last long. He had been Pope not much more than two years when news came, on a bright autumn day in 1669, of the fall of Crete to the besieging Turks. The same night, he suffered a stroke, and, though he rallied long enough to make a pious visit to each of Rome’s seven pilgrim churches, in the early days of the winter, at the age of 69, he died. Christina was present, along with others of his friends. He made a tender farewell to her as she wept beside him.

  She had lost more than a friend. Clement had been a fellow traveller in all her best artistic endeavours, and his own love of theatre and opera had allowed them to flourish in an illiberal time. His personal attachment to Christina had ensured her social standing through much flouting of convention and no small number of scandals; he had even given her a pension. Azzolino had still more cause to lament. He owed his powerful position to the favour of the Rospigliosi Pope, and there was no guarantee now that he would keep it.

  The months following Clement’s death were in consequence an anxious time for them both. Azzolino, being a cardinal, was involved on a daily basis in the business of electing the new Pope. The conclave lasted more than four months, an unusually long time, and for its duration he remained in the cold Vatican ‘cells’ reserved for the members of the Sacred College. The Vatican became a closed city; the cardinals could not leave, nor could anyone be admitted without a Vatican passport. Christina did not have one, but she was not prepared to wait for a new pope before she could see the Cardinal again, and besides, she wanted a hand in the election. Her own Riario was in Trastevere, outside the Vatican boundaries, so she shrewdly rented another palazzo, in Azzolino’s name, on the Borgo Nuovo near St Peter’s, on a three-year renewable lease at the very reasonable price of 500 scudi per annum. It was the Palazzo d’Inghilterra,8 so called because it had once belonged to the English King Henry VII, and it was perfect, being within the Vatican, but a private residence. She equipped a little study there, and moved in. She was now able to exchange daily, passportless messages with the Cardinal. It was a definite bending of the rules, and it did not go uncriticized, but the notes went back and forth insouciant.

  The conclave, as always, was effectively a contest between Spain and France, each seeking to dominate the proceedings and ensure the election of a pope favourable to itself. With unwarranted belief in her own powers of dissembling, Christina offered to work for both sides. Both accepted, though neither relied on her, and neither told her any secrets. The French assumed, correctly, that she would be receiving information from Azzolino, as she had done during the conclave for Clement IX; they felt they might as well hear whatever she heard. The Spaniards sent a spy of their own to wait upon her, one Monsignore Zetina, who relayed to her what he wanted Azzolino to know. In her own mind, Christina inflated her role of go-between to that of mediator between the two great nations. She revelled in the excitement of it all, and did not notice that her own views were not persuading anyone. Azzolino was not succeeding, either. His Squadrone Volante, once a vital fulcrum in the political balance, had now divided into smaller, inevitably less influential groups. With their power had gone their popularity. While the conclave was in progress, a satirical play entitled Il colloquio delle volpi – The Foxes’ Conversation – was staged in Rome, making fun of them all and accusing them of enriching their families at the public expense:

  AZZOLINO: It has not been difficult, since we are almost the only people in the Vatican who can read and write. We have more or less had the field to ourselves.

  CARDINAL OTTOBONI: The people loathe us. The other cardinals are calling down curses on our heads, and the ambassadors won’t tolerate us any longer.

  AZZOLINO: It’s true. I’m afraid we won’t be able to block the election of a pro-Spanish pope. If that happens, I’ll betake myself to my land in Le Marche, and wait there until the danger and disgrace have blown over – provided my lady the Queen will give me leave.9

  Azzolino’s character was correct. They were not able to block the election of a pro-Spanish pope. At the end of April 1670, after much toing and froing on behalf of other papabili, the cardinals quite suddenly lighted on Emilio Altieri, and declared him the new pontiff. He had not been by any means an outstanding candidate, and the sudden swing in his favour suggests a compromise rather than any belated recognition of genius. Altieri himself objected that, at 80, he was too old, but he was installed despite his protestations, and took, or was given, the name of Clement X. An anonymous pamphlet of the day provided a succinct biography: ‘Altieri is a Roman, of decrepit age, an intelligent and zealous man. He has no relatives and is highly esteemed by the cardinals. Unfortunately his memory is gone.’10

  ‘The popes they elect these days are too old, and too far behind the times.’ So Christina declared, but, despite his lack of memory, and despite having no male relatives, the new Clement managed to appoint a Papal Nephew in due course – the uncle of the husband of one of his nieces.

  It was the end of Azzolino’s glory days. All his cleverness and conniving were insufficient to persuade the new Pope that he had voted for him. He lost his position as Secretary of State, though he continued to work within the Secretariat where he had served assiduously for more than thirty years. He retained most of his lesser offices, too, and his wealth did not decline, but from now on, his influence was waning. In later years, he had the satisfaction of seeing other men bring to fruition some of the ideas that he had so long promoted – a more professional administration and, gradually, anti-nepotism – but he was never to regain the position he had enjoyed in the brief, bright days of the Rospigliosi Pope.

  Christina gave no banquet to celebrate the new Pope’s election, and there was no rioting recorded in Hamburg. On hearing the news, she simply swore, then hurried off to make her obeisances. She remained on civil terms with him, but no favours were forthcoming, for her or for Azzolino, from Clement X. The six years of his reign were quiet years for the Queen and the Cardinal, steady, domestic, unspectacular. Azzolino went daily to his work at the Secretariat; Christina cultivated her garden.

  The Pope survived to celebrate the Holy Year of 1675, but shortly afterwards he was assailed by dropsy, then fever, and within a few months, these, or his ‘decrepit age’, had carried him off. His successor, Benedetto Odescalchi, Pope Innocent XI, was elected virtually by diktat of the now mighty Louis XIV of France. His pontificate might once have brought a second spring for Azzolino and Christina, for Odescalchi had been one of the original members of the Squadrone. He had left them, however, to join an emerging group of Zelanti – Zealots – and his new, puritanical ways did not bode well for Rome’s many seekers of the good life. He began by closing down most of the theatres, including Christina’s Tordinona, which was converted into a granary. Women were barred from appearing on stage altogether, and Guido Reni’s celebrated Madonna and Child was ordered to be painted over – a breast, apparently, was exposed. The Pope did not stop there. Many Romans remained to be saved, especially Roman women. What had once applied to nuns only now applied to the whole female population; unearthing a prohibition from the previous century, Innocent forbade them to take music lessons from any male teacher, and further discouraged them from learning music at all. ‘Music is completely injurious to the modesty that is proper for the female sex,’ he declared piously, ‘because they become distracted from the matters and occupations most proper for them.’11 The ladies’ response is not recorded. Innocent himself, within the luxury of the Vatican, lived in the barest asceticism, forbidding all amusements so assiduously that the people swiftly dubbed him Papa Minga – Pope No. Christina did not appreciate his efforts at all, nor did he hers. One of his first acts of deluxurization was to withdraw her pension. With a neat twist of the knife, he instructed Azzolino to give her the news. She responded by describing it, most unconvincingly, as ‘a great favour from God
. The pension was a blot on my life,’ she wrote to the Cardinal, ‘the greatest humiliation I have known. The grace of its removal is worth a thousand realms.’12 Pressing his advantage, the Pope then tried to put a stop to her soirées at the Riario.

  It was no fun. Rome was beginning to look like Stockholm. Disheartened, Christina even thought of leaving, and considered an estate in Prussia where she might at least do as she pleased and stage whatever plays she liked. She wrote to Olivecrantz in Sweden that the thought of leaving Rome was ‘like a dagger to my heart’, but she owed it, she felt, ‘to God and to my glory’. But she did not go. In spite of all, life at the Palazzo Riario was good. Prussia was far to the north, and very cold, and a long way from the Cardinal. A hostile and infuriating pope notwithstanding, Rome was where she belonged.

  With Azzolino demoted and the Squadrone effectively dissolved, there was less chance now for Christina to play at the games of intrigue that she had so enjoyed. Though she did not acknowledge it, the conclave of Clement X had been her last real foray into politics, papal or otherwise. She continued to dabble, and might even have made a real difference had she been steadier of temperament or purpose. At one point, she made plans to become the formal protector of Rome’s Jewish population. She had spoken in defence of the Jews before, during her first, much criticized sojourn with the Texeira family in Hamburg. Now, apparently in response to a violent incident, she spoke out again, identifying herself, for the first time in her life, as the friend of all lowly folk as well:

  Moved by great compassion, Queen Christina, defender of the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden, declares that she has taken under her royal protection the Jewish ghetto and all its inhabitants. Let it be known to all who read this declaration that anyone who dares to insult or ill use these inhabitants in any way in future will be severely chastised.13

  But no one read it, for the declaration was never published. Perhaps Christina realized the impossibility of punishing every insult cast at Rome’s Jews, or perhaps, her moment of outrage passed, she simply forgot about it. ‘The Queen frequently undertakes things,’ Gualdo Priorato had said, ‘and then forgets them in the middle.’ It seems she had not improved with the passing of the years.

  There had been no change in her sense of personal authority, either, nor in her readiness for a fight, and she revealed both in a potentially bloody confrontation with the pious and unfriendly Pope. It concerned her royal franchise over the streets around her palazzo, itself a papal courtesy rather than a right. In Rome, the residences of foreign ambassadors – and royal persons – had long been exempt from papal authority or any of the usual laws of the land. This courtesy had gradually been extended to the streets around each residence, so that distinct quarters had developed, within which the ambassador – or royal person – was sovereign. In practice, this provided large areas of the city which were effectively free from the law, and over the years the ambassadorial quarters had attracted all kinds of half-legitimate business folk seeking to avoid taxes and trading regulations, as well as the usual appendage of thieves and prostitutes. The Pope now decided that enough was more than enough. Rome was to be washed clean of these shamefully colourful characters, and the whole city, to the very gates of the ambassadors’ residences, was to be taken back under papal jurisdiction. He managed it by a simple expedient: when an ambassador left the city, his replacement was not received at the Vatican until he had relinquished control over his quarter. In due course, he had regained them all except – by virtue of Gallic subterfuge – the French Ambassador’s, and, of course – since she was never replaced – Christina’s. As the French King was particular about the tone of his ambassador’s neighbourhood, a sturdy guard was placed around it to keep the undesirable element at bay. This last alternative avenue being now closed, the undesirables found their way, sooner or later, to the streets around the Riario.

  Christina’s quarter soon became a refuge for all the ‘Thieves, Assassins, and Debauch’d Women’ of Rome.14 She was not concerned about the scandal, nor about the people themselves, many of whom she happily took into her service. But she allowed herself to be flattered by the franchise that remained to her; it presented her with an opportunity, she felt, to make a patronizing gesture towards the detested Pope. If it was a wise and gracious gesture, too, that was incidental. She wanted to show that she was in a position to grant favours, so she wrote to Innocent, offering ‘to resign for ever’ the franchise of her quarter, ‘reserving nevertheless the Respects due both to my Habitation and Domesticks’, and adding, ‘As for my self, I neither pretend to, nor desire, any thing of your Holiness’15 – except, possibly, the reinstatement of her pension.

  It was not long before she regretted the letter, since it was not long before one of her own servants was in trouble with the Pope’s sbirri – his guardians of the peace. It seems that the valet of one of her guardsmen had cheated a banker of some barrels of brandy, and the sbirri seized him, neatly enough, as he was making his way to church. They carted him off to a nearby tavern, perhaps to take a drop of brandy of their own, and there they were surprised by a trio of the Queen’s guardsmen, who set upon them, retrieved the valet, and returned him in triumph to the Riario, while a chorus of excited onlookers stood by ‘Hooting at the Sbirri’.

  The Pope was not pleased at this flouting of his authority. His own men had been attacked in the streets – or rather, in a tavern, but still, they were his own men. Unable to wrest the valet from his refuge in the Riario, the Pope had him tried in absentia, along with the guardsmen who had freed him. With a heavy-handed twist, all were found guilty, not of theft, nor of brawling, but of sedition, and all were condemned to death. Notices were placed upon the walls of the Queen’s own palazzo, with a bounty offered for each of them. Seeing them, Christina went ‘stark mad’. She sent off a letter at once to the condemning magistrate, threatening wildly that if her men ‘do not die a natural death, they will not be the only ones to die’. Invited to a banquet at the Jesuit residence, at which the Pope was to be present, she turned up defiantly with a dozen men in full armour, among them three of the condemned. Innocent pretended not to notice, and courteously offered her ‘some Basons of Fruit’, including a bunch of green raisins, a rarity, apparently, for the time of year.

  Her first provocation having been defeated by politesse, Christina tried a second. She gave orders that any of the sbirri passing the Riario should be taken prisoner, and in charge of this order she placed one ‘Captain’ Merula, in fact a former bandit from Naples and a person of no glorious reputation, for it seems ‘he would Kill a Man upon the least occasion, or for Money, if you pleas’d’. Shortly after Christina’s order was given, in fact, he did, and his victim was one of the sbirri. The Pope, enraged, began to shout about excommunicating the Queen, until it was pointed out to him that ‘Crown’d Heads’ must be approached with caution, and that, anyway, her involvement could not be proved. Instead, he considered sending a troop to her palazzo to take the condemned men by force. Christina, hearing of this, decided to mount an armed defence. She called all her servants together after Sunday mass, and gave them the choice to fight or to flee. ‘I will be at your Head,’ she told them, ‘and expos’d to the same Perils with all of you. He may be Pope, but I will show him that I am Queen’ – Queen, at least, of one small palazzo, and a ragged quarter of the wanted, and the unwanted. She was met with cheers, but not very loud ones. Her Majesty was keen for the thrill of battle, but her servants did not want to fight. They were hewers of wood and drawers of water, after all, and the Pope’s soldiers were, well, soldiers.

  When Innocent heard of this, it is said that he ‘fell a Laughing’, and, in his lightened mood, he reconsidered his own plan. Violent confrontation was never a good idea, and there was no knowing how far the thing might go. Fighting could so easily spread, there could be a riot, there could even be a real uprising – it was true, he must admit, that his efforts to keep the people on the straight and narrow path had not made him very popular
among them. In the end, he let the matter pass with a shrug of his shoulders and a comment that Christina would not have appreciated: ‘È donna!’ he sighed – ‘Women!’ There was no march on the Riario, the seditious quartet escaped scot-free, and the servants went back, relieved, to their peaceable hatchets and kitchen knives.

  Christina retreated into private pastimes. Much of her time she spent reading and writing, and now, for the first time in her life, she took to attending daily mass, perhaps in an effort to reform her ways, but more likely to placate the Pope. Though political life was behind her, it was not in her nature to be inactive. ‘Doing nothing is what makes one old,’ she said, and though her health was not robust, and she had given up hunting long before, now and then she still attempted to defy the passage of the years. She had a caleche, a little low-wheeled carriage which she liked to drive in, and she would sometimes take the reins herself to drive about the Riario gardens, displaying her skill to the men of the household. One day she set off at a great speed, running ‘like a Fool up and down the Field’, and quickly lost control of the horses. Carriage and Queen overturned together, and for some minutes Christina lay on the ground, with her skirts up around her waist, calling for help, while ‘no Man durst come near her in this condition’. At last getting up unassisted, she laughed at their embarrassment, declaring that at least they would know now that she was ‘neither Male nor Hermophrodite, as some People in the World have pass’d me for’.16