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298 Project as to the electorate
of Mentz,
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. ^’elWsTo^^TtheSet’"- [1633—
the issue of similar letters that Oxenstierna de-
clared,
" Let it remain in our archives for eternal
remembrance, that a German prince solicits this
from a Swedish nobleman, and that a Swedish
nobleman in Germany grants it to a German
prince, which I hold to be as absurd for the one to
i-equest as for the other to grant ’."
" There was
almost no state, no leading officer or functionary,"
says Chemnitz,
" who did not request some office,
abbey, convent, or lordship ;
all appealed to the
late king’s promise, and the chancellor was obliged
to leave matters to their course, if he would not
give lip all ; especially as the wide-extended con-
federacy of tlie officers in the army of the Danube
was added to his other embarrassments. For the
groundwork of his military system was to keep the
soldiers, as well as princes and states in goodwill,
for which there were no other means. Thus the
provinces conquered from the enemy, the longer
the more, were lost, and little thereof remained for
the crown of Sweden, except the archbishopric and
electorate of Mentz, which also was partly broken
up." It is not surprising that to him who gave so
much, something should also have been offered.
Richelieu praises his negotiator Feuquieres *, for
having so skilfully coimterworked Oxenstierna’s
plan to obtain at the convention of Heilbronn the
electorate of Mentz for himself. The plan of making
his high-chancellor with this possession chancellor
of the German empire, is said to have been that of
Gustavus Adolphus himself. That the matter was
in question is indubitable. The high-steward,
Gabriel Oxenstierna, announced in the Swedish
senate, on the 1 5th April, 1634, that his brother,
the high-chancellor, had prayed him to obtain the
opinion of the coimcil touching the proffer which
had been made, and on the 4tli August the minis-
try write to the chancellor himself :
" In case the
German estates, as we have been informed from
several quarters, will gratify the great industry
and labour of our beloved brother with any recom-
pense in his own person, we wotild gladly see it ;
and as we do not suppose that our beloved brother
will thereby withdraw himself from the service of
his country, we doubt not that our most gracious
queen and the estates of the realm will also see it
gladly." But he, least of all, has the right to re-
<
Maneat, inquit, in perpetuam rei meraoriam, in archive
nostro, Germanum principem a Sueco nobili id petiisse, et
Suecum nobilem, in Gerniania, Germane principi id contu-
lisse, quod tam ilium petere quam me donare a;que absonum
etabsurdum reor. Arckenholtz, Mem. de Christine, i.28, n.
(after Wassenberg, Paraenesis ad Germanos, who quotes it as
a proof of Oxenstierna’s arrogance). Rose (duke Bernard, i.
222.) mentions an expression of the duke to Oxenstierna,
" that a German prince had more to say than ten Swedish
noblemen." It was doubtless a reply to the above-cited
words of the chancellor, which were thus spoken in the
duke’s own affair.
8 "The sieur Feuquiferes discovered that he was carrying
on a secret canvass to incline the princes, states, and de-
puties of the said assembly (of IJeilbronn), to dispose of the
electorate of Mayence in his favour, which he adroitly
turned off." Mem. de Richelieu.
9 Extract from the Protocols of the Council in the Palm-
skbld Collections, T. 40. p. 157. Letter of the ministry to the
chancellor, Aug. 4, 1634. Reg.
’ Richelieu instructs Feuquieres :
" As for the chancellor
Oxenstierna, it behoved him to take care principally to ac-
quire his confidence and friendship, and to assure him that
the king wished to embrace his interests with all affection,
proach Axel Oxenstierna with intrigues for his
own advantage, who promised the co-operation of
France to procure for his son the hand of Chris-
tina, and the Swedish crown ^. This overture
Richelieu made to Oxenstierna, but in vain; and
the chancellor was so little inclined to tlie French
interest, that the envoy of France, on the contrary,
complauis of his growing arrogance and rudeness ’’’.
Proud this statesman undeniably was. It was
about this time that he wrote to field-marshal Tott,
who wished to be promoted to some recompense by
the duke of Mecklenburg :
" That I should recom-
mend your pretensions will not at all beseem me ;
for it appears to me not to be for the honour of the
country that I, in this my office, should solicit any
foreigner for your reward, just as if my country
were not adequate tnereto. If it concerned my
own person, and the duke proposed it not himself
out of his own courtesy, J would hold my rank in
the kingdom so high and noble, that I would not
make myself obliged either to him or to any other
foi-eigner for any benefice^." Long afterwards the
French ministry employed the proposition of mar-
riage thus made by him between Christina and
Oxenstierna’s son, as the means of improving the
chancellor in the queen’s good graces. In a letter
to his son Eric, of June 29, 1647, Oxenstierna calls
it a figment in itself woFthy of laughter, but re-
quests his son to marry in order to repress all sus-
picions *.
We pass on to the consideration of the military
occuri’ences.
The late king, says Chemnitz, had shortly before
his death so made his dispositions for the war,
that he left two armies in Upper Germany, one in
Alsace under field-marshal Gustave Horn, the
other in Bavaria under general John Baner, or
for the present (since Baner still suffered from the
wounds he had received at Nuremberg), under the
palsgrave Christian of Birkenfeld. On the Lower
Rhine he had likewise an army under general Bau-
dissin. For himself the king had determined to
advance into Lower Saxony, and meanwhile to send
duke Bernard of Weimar with a smaller body to
Franconia. The high-chancellor steadily followed
out this plan of the king. He divided the main
army in Saxony. The larger division, from 12,000 to
and that he would support the marriage of his son with the
heiress of Sweden, promising him that in this case the king
would assist him with money to maintain the war against
those who would wish to trouble his said son when he
should be king." (Quant au chancelier O.xenstjern, il falloit
&c.) Mem. de Richelieu, vii. 2S5.
2 The expressions of Feuquieres show his embitterment :
"We find ourselves not a little embarrassed, Mr.de la
Grange and I, as to the manner in which we have to con-
duct ourselves with respect to the said chancellor, whom
haughtiness and brutal pride make to lose his judgment."
(Nous ne nous trouvons pas peu embarasses, &c.) Lettres et
Negotiations de M. de Feuquieres, i. 277.
3 Palnisk. MSS. T. 309. p. 261.
4
Arckenholtz, Mem. de Christine, i. 106. iii. 79, n. In a
treatise, revised and corrected by Christina herself, Sur ce
qui s’est passe apr^s la mort du grand Gustave, she does Ox-
enstierna the justice to acknowledge that he at once rejected
the proposal.
" M. de Feuquieres, to attract Oxenstierna to
the side of France, promised his assistance, if he had any
desire of augmenting his private fortune, even to the fur-
nishing him with troops and money, if he wished to marry
the queen to his son. But Oxenstierna modestly refused
these offers." Mem. de Christine, iii. 78.
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