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344
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HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Appanage settled on the
queen; the abdication.
[1644-
lield no council, saj’ing, when the secretary of
state came with warrants for her signature, that
she would as lief see the devil. The court was
crowded witli dancers, singers, and comedians ’.
Even Jesuits came under this disguise, and
laboured for the conversion of the queen. This
was detei’mined by a new favourite, Don Antonio
Pimentelli, who came in 1G52 to Sweden as
Spanish ambassador, a man distinguished for
agreeable qualities, who was long inseparable from
the queen, living in the castle, and passing the
time in her company until three or four hours
after midnight. This favour he shared with the
young and handsome count Tott, lately returned
from his travels, whom the queen appointed to a
seat in the council (now augmented to forty-six
members) at the age of twenty-three, and wished
also to have made a duke, since he was descended
through his mother from king Eric XIV. This
project was dropped when Oxenstierna and Brahe,
to whom she offered the same honour, declined it.
Jealousy stung De la Gardie to complaint. He
alleged that count Tott, baron Steinberg, master
of the horse ’, and colonel Schlippenbach had said
that the queen had charged him with faithlessness
and deceit. Though all these declared to his face
that his assertion was false, he failed to demand
satisfaction. Christina could never forgive him this,
and afterwards, as long as she lived, expressed
nothing but contempt for him. Prodigality brought
its usual consequences; it had twice become ne-
cessary to close the queen’s kitchen, from want of
money. Under such circumstances it would be little
worth while to quote from the state registries the
projects repeatedly furnished at command by the
treasury, how the expenditure and receipts might
be equalized, or the pains-taking review of the
state of the finances in 165.3, drawn up by the
hand of the old chancellor, and preserved in the
library of Upsala. Public discontent began to rise
to a formidable pitch.
" Come not here," de la
Gardie’s mother wrote to him from his county in
West- Gothland, March 7, 1653;
"
through the whole
journey we heard that the peasants had revolted;
and in Blixberg that peasant with the great red
beard, who is usually deputy to the diet, said,
when he drank with my people, that the peasants
would kill all the nobility^." Charles Gustavus,
who passed his time in CEland, silent and attentive,
wrote, that he did not dare to travel to visit his
father, because the people sought and flocked to
him every where, as soon as he showed himself.
On the 11th of February, 1654, the queen sum-
moned the council to Ujjsala, and communicated
the ring, that no important business is despatched." The
chamberlain, John Ekeblad, to his father, Nov. 17, 1652.
Scand. Mem. xx. 322. After one of her entertainments the
queen, in 1653, founded the order of the Amaranth for fifteen
persons of both sexes, with the motto, Dolce nella memoria.
The first knight was Pimentelli, to whose birth-place, Ama-
rante in Portugal, some have wished to find an allusion in
the name of the order.
7 " Some twenty head of Italians are on their way from
Denmark, and expected to-morrow ; among them some
comedians, but most singers and musicians." The same to
the same, 1. c.
8 Steinberg had won the queen’s favour by saving her life
on the 14th May, 1652, at a naval review, when she fell from
a plank into the sea with admiral Fleming, and was drawn
by him in his fright under water. Others ascribe her rescue
to them her irrevocable resolve to lay aside the
crown, and to transfer it to the hereditary prince.
The usual remonstrances were off"ered ; at length
the high-chancellor said,
" If it is to be, then the
sooner the better." The estates were also con-
vened at Upsala on the 21st of May. Christina
spent the interval in coming to terms with the
prince, through Hermann Fleming and Stiernhook,
in regard to her future appanage. The estates
assigned to her the islands of Gottland, CEland,
CEsel, the town and castle of Norrkoeping, Wolgast,
with several garrisons in Pomerania, Poel, and
New-Cloister at Wismar, computed to yield a
revenue of 240,000 rix-dollars. That this should
have been done without taking into account the
donations made to others in the several districts
specified, produced in the end some sharp alter-
cation between the queen and the council. In the
territory set apart for her she obtained the right
of appointing governors, prefects, and other civil
functionaries, together with the ministers of the
royal pastorates, but only native Swedes, and con-
formants to the Confession of Augsburg, The first
and second instance in suits at law pertained to
her and her officers; she herself was to be respon-
sible to no one for her conduct.
The ceremony of abdication we may describe
in the words of the high-steward, Peter Brahe 2.
" The queen’s renunciation took place on the
morning of the 6th of June. It was a mournful
transaction. The queen left her chamber, having
the crown on her head, with the ball and sceptre
in her hand, clad in her coronation robes and a
white silk atlas kirtle, and delivered an address.
To this Herr Shering Rosenhane replied in an
oration fairly composed, and fitting to the occasion.
Thereupon her majesty laid aside one regal after
the other, descended from the throne, spoke to the
liereditary prince, who was presently to be crowned
king; recommending to him the weal of his country,
with laudation of every order, the council of state,
and especially those who had been her guardians,
with the noblest and most moving exhortations
and wise sayings that could be imagined. Her
majesty stood and spoke thus finely unconstrained ;
sometimes a sob broke her utterance. Many
honourable persons, both men and women (for all
the ladies were present), were moved to tears, see-
ing that she closed both her race and reign before
God’s enforcement, and how she stood beautiful
as an angel. To this the king made answer fitly
and gallantly. Her majesty wished to see the king
immediately on the throne, but he would not.
With that they left the hall, and her majesty
to general Wachtmeister. It is certain that Christina created
Steinberg a baron, and shortly before her abdication gave him
the rank of count. The nobility made some difficulty about
receiving him : but they complied on Charles Gustavus de-
claring that till then he would not accept their homage.
5 Mem. for the Hist, of Scand. xviii. 372.
’
Ayant quelque scrupule de passer en ce temps icy par le
pays pour y estre accable des diverses questions et proposi-
tions du menu peuple, qui me cherche partout. Charles
Gustavus to his father, Borckholm, March 14, 1652. Com-
municated by his late excellency M. Adlersparre. The pals-
grave John Casimir died at Stegeborg, June 8, 1652. In
Nerike and Vermeland insurrectionary movements actually
broke out. The ringleaders were punished with gibbet and
wheel.
2 Count P. Brahe’s Journal, p. 92.
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