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16«.]
Views of the late king as to the
organization of the ministry.
CHRISTINA. THE REGENCY. Proposed alliance and match
with Brandenburg.
289
hundred years, nor knoweth whetlier one will come
soon again. My heart’s woe and longing for him
that hath departed do so engi-oss me, that scarcely
I know what I write. Yet herewith is little to be
done. Calamities are to be deplored, but not to be
altered. It beseemeth us to bear with patience
what God hath laid upon us, and to call upon his
grace for help, that mature counsel, firm courage,
and manly resolve, may prevent and avert all fur-
ther disaster ^." On the 5th December following,
the chancellor wrote that the king had wished to
govern the realm by the five colleges, whether he
were present or absent, living or dead ;
so that
under an able sovereign its affairs might be well
managed, and under a feeble prince not so speedily
brought to ruin. The king had also wished to
entrust the government during the minority of the
ruler to the heads of these five colleges, and had
long before his death commissioned him, the chan-
cellor, to draw out a form of government. For this
he had had little time, and afterwards it would have
been somewhat dangerous to him as a private person,
seeing that the matter was as hot iron to the touch ;
yet he had prepared the di’aught in Prussia, and
shown it to his majesty, who had been pleased to
approve the part which concerned the regalities.
In order that it might be signed, he had given
orders that a clean copy should be made, Avhich
had been forgotten in the multitude of pressing
occupations ^
On two subsequent occasions Sweden’s prospects
were a subject of discussion between the king and
the chancellor. First at Frankfort on the Maine,
of which Oxenstierna gives the followmg account
in a letter to the council, dated Berlin ^, Feb. 4,
1633 :
" His majesty, of Christian memory, when
he was a year ago at Frankfort on the Maine, him-
self proposed to the commissioners of tjie elector of
Brandenburg, a match between his daughter and
the young elector, and commanded me to commu-
nicate further regarding it with the envoys, as I
have also divers times done, according as his ma-
jesty, upon his journey to Bavaria, repeated by
written order. The principal motive was, that his
majesty would not cede Fomerania, and yet found
that it could not be kept without notable detri-
ment and great umbrage to the elector of Branden-
burg ; next, that the king also perceived, that if
Sweden and Brandenburg, with their dependencies,
might be conjoined, hardly such a state would be
found in Europe, and they might off’er the head-
ship to whomsoever they would. To try means
thereto, if it were possible, and at least to use this
9
Transcript of the chancellor’s letter to the councillors of
state. Palmsk. MSS. t. 370, p. 95.
’
Palmsk. MSS. t. 369, p. 239. On the 1 2th Februarj’,
1633, the chancellor again wrote,
"
Concerning the govern-
ment during the minority of the queen, a great number of
heads (a polygarchy) will be a hindrance and the ruin of the
kingdom, especially in a country which is accustomed to the
government of a single person. Therefore no other counsel
remains than that either one or a few should be appointed.
Arguments pro and contra there are enough in politics, and
we must fully acknowledge that an administrator is suitable
for the rest of the time. But as his late majesty was never
minded thereto, so far as I know, but constantly, as the
council of state knows, destined the administration of affairs
to the five heads of colleges, and approved that, when he
saw the method of government made out ; therefore can I,
for myself, discern no fitter counsel, than that the five heads
aff"ection for the moment, the king caused a pro-
position to be made through me ;
that he was re-
solved to give his daughter to the son of the elec-
tor, and to treat of the matter with the estates of
Sweden, in the hope of their consent under the fol-
lowing conditions as the principal :
—1. If the king
should have a son by his wife, he should possess
the crown of Sweden, Livonia, and what had been
conquered in Prussia, and the electoral prince all
that the king had already acquired, or might ac-
quire, a fast alliance being made between the two
states. 2. If the king should have no male heirs,
the electoral prince should receive with the king’s
daughter the crown of Sweden, and in this case
such an alliance was to be concluded, that the king
of Sweden might also be elector of Brandenburg,
and conversely ;
in the absence of the king, Sweden
was to be governed by its own constitution, as also
Brandenburg; that the dignity and regalities of
each might be unimpaired, and both united with
strong, indissoluble bonds. 3. In order that the
electoral prince might be instnicted in our religion,
and accustomed to our language and manners, he
was to receive his education in Sweden. With this
communication another matter was separately fallen
upon,
—whether the differences as to religion might
not be adjusted in some way, and how it would go
with the alliance in case the princess died ;
but on
account of the frequent expeditions of the war no-
thing further was done in the matter, than that the
commissioners of Brandenburg referred the same
to the elector, who vv’as afterwards better affectioned
to our party." The second occasion was in the
camp at Nuremberg, as the chancellor likewise in-
forms the council, who request him " to impart to
them these discourses of the king, since if any thing
mortal happened to himself the whole would other-
wise be concealed from them •"."
Upon this, how-
ever, nothing farther is known to us, than that the
secretary Grubbe’, who was sent home from Ger-
many, being questioned by the council, replied, that
the chancellor held in keeping some written record
of what the king had declared at Nuremberg, which
his excellency might produce in case any disturb-
ances arose. Probably this relates to the removal
of the queen dowager from the government, whereon
two letters from the king, written to the chancellor
during his stay at Nuremberg, are preserved*.
Christina, who says of her mother, that she "had
all the weaknesses as well as virtues of her sex,"
undoubtedly alludes to this letter, when she states,
in reference to her father’s last directions to Oxen-
stierna,
" He remmded the chancellor of the com-
of colleges should be declared administrators by the estates
of the realm, and if such be their pleasure, that the ordinance
should be enacted and solemnly ratified. If any of the articles
should be found doubtful, it may be left to another time, for
better deliberation, and the government natheiess be formed,
—ut sit aliqua potius respublica quam nulla. Better we
should dispute upon one or the other point, and seek to re-
dress errors, than that we should let the force of the state
fall asunder, and then be compelled to seek a remedy in the
matter by dangerous means and intestine discords, where no
cure is to be made sine sectione vena (without bloodshed)."
Ibid. 249.
2 Colin on the Spree. Palmsk.
3 Letter of the council to the chancellor, January 7, 1633.
Reg.
4 Of July 21 and August 1, 1632. Arckenholtz, Memoires
de Christine, iii. 34, n.
O
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