Sweden's Christina was officially crowned king, then gave the crown away
Although everyone called her queen, the title the Swedish parliament gave Christina at her coronation in February 1633 was king. She was six. Twenty-one years later she abdicated, converted to Catholicism, refused to marry and moved to Rome, where a pope dismissed her as a queen without a realm and a woman without shame.
Her birth in December 1626 at Stockholm's Tre Kronor castle began with a mix-up. After several lost pregnancies, the court was desperate for a son, and the hairy, loudly screaming baby was at first taken for a boy. Her father, Gustavus Adolphus, laughed off the error, predicting that a daughter who had fooled them all would be clever. Her mother, Maria Eleonora, was openly disappointed and kept her distance.
Before leaving to fight in the Thirty Years' War in 1630, the king secured Christina's right to inherit and ordered that she be educated like a prince. He was killed on the battlefield in November 1632. Her mother grew so erratic in grief that she lost custody in 1636, and to stop the child attaching herself to any single mother figure, the regency council later split her governess and chief lady-in-waiting roles among four women. Christina thrived on study, reportedly working ten hours a day, discussing Tacitus with Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna and learning at least eight languages, including Arabic and Hebrew.
Declared an adult at 18 in 1644, she soon clashed with Oxenstierna, who opposed peace with the Holy Roman Empire. Christina sent her own envoy, and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the long wars of religion, bringing Sweden five million thalers and new German territories. She also dreamed of making Stockholm an Athens of the North. Her extravagant spending, however, pushed the state towards bankruptcy and stirred public anger.
In 1654 she handed the throne to her cousin Charles X Gustav. In Rome she hosted and protected Baroque artists and musicians, was received by five successive popes, and after her death in April 1689 was laid to rest in the Vatican Grottoes, an honour granted to very few women.
Source: Christina, Queen of Sweden
