Noble Blood - Queen Christina Removed Her Own Crown

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Christina of Sweden is one of the most compelling figures of the 17th century, a queer Catholic convert who rejected social norms and stepped down as a monarch to live a life completely on her own terms. [Side note: my novel, ANATOMY: A LOVE STORY is available for pre-order at read.macmillan.com/lp/anatomy-a-love-story] Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists. We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. Video on Demand.

This guy's bobo-bubim. 2 a whatever time it is. Lizzie McGuire. And I'm like, the paper view. It was like a first closet moment from me where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful.

But I'm appreciating her. in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Coleristas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Before we start, just a little quick note, I wrote a book. It's called Anatomy, a Love Story,

and it's coming out next February. It's a story about love and dead bodies in 19th century, Edinburgh. And if you like this podcast, I have a really good feeling that you're also really going to like this book. So here's where I have to get a little bit earnest and say pre-orders are incredibly important for authors. Basically, publishers look at those

numbers and decide how many eyeballs they're going to put the book in front of when it's actually published. So if you're interested at all or even on the fence, do me a favor at least and check it out and see if you're intrigued enough for a pre-order. It would mean so much to me. Also, if you want to support the show, you can always get access to bibliography material and episode scripts on our Patreon at patreon.com slash Noble Blood Tales. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. Christina of Sweden had an unusual birth.

She was born on a frosty December day to the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, and his wife, Maria Eleonora. The couple had achieved four pregnancies before Christina, but they hadn't had a single child survive past infancy. One son was a stillborn. A daughter died before her first birthday. And so this new pregnancy was a source of joy, but also of profound anxiety for the royal family. A slew of doctors were sent to examine the queen, and one by one they all turned to the king with knowing smiles and said, it's a boy. Christina came out screaming, a horse, strong, low-pitched, voice, and she came out covered in the downy fur that sometimes covers newborns.

It was probably a combination of those factors, and the fact that having a male heir at this point was already a foregone conclusion, that Christina was initially declared to be a boy. When the mistake was identified, the attendants were humiliated. The air in the royal chambers was still and stifling with the awkwardness of the entire situation. King Gustavus broke the tension. If he was disappointed at not having a male heir, he didn't show it. She'll be clever, he said. She has made fools of us all. The king adored his daughter, and from that point on, he correctly assumed that he and his wife wouldn't be having any more children, and that Christina was going to be his heir. If she was a woman, well, that was okay by him.

technically Christina never became a queen. After her father's death, people called her Queen Christina of Sweden, but her actual formal title was king. Swedish law didn't include the terminology for a non-queen consort, or a queen just married to the king, without monarchical power in her own right. Christina's accidental misgendering at birth turned out to be just the first in a long line of unusual happenings,

in possibly one of the strangest lives of Renaissance's royal history. Christina was a woman who lived with a peculiar knack for doing things exactly on her terms, fond of wearing men's clothing and not combing her hair, with absolutely no interest in getting married to a man, and a much bigger interest in pursuing romantic relationships with women. Christina was not the king that Sweden really wanted, which especially became true when she decided that she wanted to convert to Catholicism, even though her kingdom was deeply Lutheran.

And so, citing burnout, Christina abdicated and spent the next several decades of her life bouncing between various European courts, throwing elaborate parties so expensive they could bring her host's financial ruin, and ultimately landing at the Vatican where she was a guest under five, separate popes. Back when she was reigning in Sweden, one of her political enemies said of her, quote, Christina was bringing everything to ruin and that she cared for nothing but sport and pleasure. So often Disney movies and history stories, this podcast often included, fall into the trap of telling the tales of beautiful, gentle princesses. Christina was neither. She was strange-looking, and strange in her habits, probably the best educated woman in Europe of her day. She loved

music and theater and other women, and still she's one of only three women to be buried in the papal Vatican grottoes. Of course there was murder along the way. What good story doesn't have murder. Christina may have abdicated her throne, but she never gave up having the power of life and death over her courtly subjects. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Christina's mother, Maria Eleanor, didn't share her husband's calm demeanor or collectiveness when it came to the fact that they didn't actually have a son. Marie Eleanor was incredibly volatile, often erratic in her behavior in ways that some historians

sometimes posthumously characterize as postnatal depression, or at least some unspecified mental illness. The court collectively actually decided to withhold the information from the queen that her newborn son wasn't actually a son for a few days. When the queen was finally told that she had given birth to a daughter, she threw a tantrum. Quote, instead of a son, I am given a daughter dark and ugly with a great nose and black eyes. Take her from me. I will not have such a monster. That quote just about defines the relationship between mother and daughter that for the rest of their lives could charitably be described as chilly. I wouldn't go so far as some other historians do to imply that in the queen's agitated state of mind that she attempted to hurt her own child, but I do think it's consistent with a bitter, disinterested parent that Christina had a number of dangerous accidents when she was still young.

A beam fell onto her cradle when she was an infant. A nursemaid was accused of dropping the baby onto a stone floor, injuring Christina's shoulder. As a young child, Christina accidentally fell down a flight of stairs, breaking her collarbone. Her collarbone never healed correctly, and for the rest of her life, Christina would be in a perpetual shrug, with one shoulder sitting higher than the other. In stark contrast to her mother's disinterest, Christina's father, the king, adored her. When the king noticed that the toddler clapped and giggled upon hearing the cannons booming the royal salute at Kalmar Castle, he made sure to take his young daughter with him often when he went on military reviews.

Christina was technically going to be the king of Sweden, and so Gustavus made sure that she was raised like one. But, as in all unhappy stories of princesses, Christina's devoted parent didn't stay in her life for long. The 30-year-s war was being fought across Germany and Central Europe, and when Christina was six years old, King Gustavus left to fight on behalf of Protestantism. If the king didn't know then that he was never going to return,

he at least prepared for the possibility, formerly securing Christina in the line of succession and making plans for her regency and her custody until she came of age. Her erratic mother, Maria Eleonora, was not to be included in either plan. To Axel Uxinsterna, one of the kingdom's most prominent statesman, the king said, quote, If anything happens to me, my family will merit your pity, the mother lacking in common sense, the daughter a minor, hopeless if they rule and dangerous, if others come to rule over them. The plan was that if Gustavus died, Christina's guardian would be the king's half-sister, Catherine, and the king's half-brother, Carl, would be the head of a regent council.

Lo and behold, the king was killed in battle. Maria Eleanor was so distraught at her husband's death that she refused to allow them to bury his body. For 18 months, she kept his casket open in a room, draped with black velvet, and the Dowager Queen, who had once been so cold and removed from any aspect of her child rearing, now became deeply invested in being a part of little Christina's life. Maria Eleanor, in a bid to reestablish her power, actually tried to ban the King's half-sister Catherine from the castle. In the end, it was Maria Eleanor who would be banished by Axel Oxensterna to Grypsholm Castle, 40 miles west of Stockholm.

Though Uncle Carl was head of the Regency Council in name, it was Axel Oxensterna who actually ran the nation while Christina was a child, and who helped shepherd her princely education the way her father had instructed. When Christina was 12, her guardian, her aunt Catherine, died. From that point on, Oxensterna appointed a group to be Christina's collective guardians, rather than giving her individual foster parents. The idea was that because Christina would go on to have so much power, she shouldn't be biased in favor of any nobleman and grow to pick favorites as an adult. Technically, the king of Sweden already at six years old, Christina received an absolutely phenomenal education.

She was tutored as if she were a boy in politics, philosophy, and theology, and to the point of fluency in seven languages not counting Swedish. Christina was very possibly the best educated woman of the entire 17th century. Axel Oxensternah even hired a French ballet troupe to teach Christina how to move gracefully. That lesson was the one that never quite took. Christina was never accused of being graceful. By the time she was an adult, she swore like a sailor, refused to brush her hair, neglected all sense of fashion or polite decorum.

She was uncomfortably blunt and outright refused things that she saw as feminine. From a young age, she was drawn to the Catholic doctrine, particularly the idea of celibacy. As a teenager, she was briefly, secretly engaged to her cousin Charles, but pretty quickly, Christina made it very clear to everyone around her that she had no intention of ever getting married. Christina's most important romantic relationship was with a girl named Eba Spar, the daughter of a political family.

Ebba arrived to court as a teenager to serve as one of Christina's ladies in waiting. The two were in-year. inseparable. They shared a bed and wrote effusive letters to each other. It's almost besides the point to ask if the relationship was explicitly sexual when it was so obviously romantic. Christina referred to Ebba as Belle, and when Ebba finally got married, it was to a man Christina selected who would keep Ebba close at court. I am not a queer scholar who can determine whether or not it's academically useful to call Christina a lesbian when she wouldn't have thought of herself in those terms. But it seems unnecessarily reductive and a little silly to discount what was obviously

a queer relationship. In terms of her leadership, Christina was more focused on the big picture than the details of policy in running Sweden. She wanted Stockholm to be a cultural center, and to that end, she created a theater in the palace and appointed the scholarship. Gayor Exchem to be court poet. He would go on to write a number of plays that Christina would actually perform in, in front of very small and very private audiences. Christina also corresponded with the famous philosopher René Descartes of, I Think Therefore I Am, fame. Descartes actually came to Swedish court, but it wasn't really a successful visit for a few reasons. First, Descartes and Christina did not get along in person, which might have had something to do with Christina's slightly uncouth manner.

But second, and maybe more important, Christina invited Descartes to give her lectures early in the chilly Swedish mornings. Descartes caught a chill, which turned into pneumonia, and then he died. Christina's other big-picture goal for Sweden was establishing peace, and ending the 30 years' war that had killed her father on any terms. Axel Uxensterna had slightly different feelings when it came to war. He and the queen began to butt heads as soon as she became of the age of majority. Axel wanted to end the war, too, but on their terms. At a larger peace conference in Ostrombroke,

the chancellor, Oksinsterna, sent his son, Johann, to negotiate. Christina, not satisfied that Joanne would push for peace hard enough, sent her own delegate. Peace was reached, but Oxensterna was a little bitter about how meager the territorial gains were for Sweden. But even political disagreements weren't the biggest problem that Queen Christina was having with her politicians. Her distaste for marriage, which had seemed like a youthful fixation, was now that she was the age of menchievous. a legitimate problem. Christina had reached the age of majority in 1644, but her official coronation was delayed because of war with Denmark.

She was crowned officially in 1650, and the clashes with her politicians reached new heights. Christina told her counsel, quote, I do not intend to give you reasons. I am simply not suited to marriage. In her mind, she was a successor in the spirit, of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Christina wouldn't want to marry a man,

which would simply mean siphoning her own power away and turning her husband into the kingdom's de facto ruler. Her counsel secretly thought, that's sort of the point. Christina did have one relationship with a man, a relationship that would come to define the rest of her life. It was a friendship, with the Jesuit secretary and interpreter

for the Portuguese embassioner, to Sweden. She and the ambassador spoke of religion and philosophy of Copernicus, Tikabrahe, Bacon, and Kepler. When Christina expressed her fascination with Catholicism, the secretary smuggled one of her letters to Italy and invited two more Jesuit scholars to sneak into Stockholm in disguise to chat with Christina. Not only did Christina not want to get married, she wanted to convert to Catholicism. Now that's all well and good for a person, but not a person who is the monarch of a country,

especially not since one of the terms of the peace treaty at Austrooestrück was that the religion of the ruler determines the religion of a kingdom. Christina, almost 27 years old, had reigned for nearly two decades. Her days were filled with 10 hours, of lessons and policy meetings on financial minutia. It was, in short, a hell of a lot of work for someone who didn't want the job. On June 6, 1654, Christina abdicated the Swedish throne on behalf of her cousin, Charles. For the ceremony, she wore all of her royal regalia atop of a simple white taffet gown. Her counsel, one by one, came up and removed the royal

items. But the final counselor who was supposed to remove Christina's crown wasn't able to do it. And so Christina stood in silence for a moment and then just took off her crown herself. She gestured for the new King Charles to come up and sit in the throne she vacated, but he politely refused and the two of them left the ceremony together. Three days later, Christina left Sweden. Christina's journey from Sweden was forcing her to travel through Denmark, still one of the country's enemies, until she cut her hair short, wore men's clothing, and posed under the fake name Count Donna to sneak across the border. While traveling through sympathetic Catholic kingdoms, Christina privately converted to Catholicism,

although she kept it a secret temporarily because she still needed alimony from the Swedish government, and she didn't want to compromise that. When she did eventually announce her conversion, it was at the palace of Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand Charles in Austria. He threw her a multi-day party so extravagant it nearly led to his financial ruin. That event is a good keystone for what Christina's life would look like as she continued around Europe,

attending parties, plays, and concerts at the behest of various Catholic nobleman. Finally, her travels took her to Rome, where Pope Alexander the 7th, an early adopter of having a mustache and a square little goatee unconnected to the mustache, welcomed her as a triumph. He threw her an opulent reception

that began with a procession with 6,000 onlookers crowding the streets to catch a glimpse of her. The rest of the parade included camels and elephants. It was the Roman equivalent of the Prince Ali song from Aladdin. The Pope was thrilled to have a monarch, even a former monarch, who publicly converted to Catholicism. Maybe it was the first step in Sweden coming back to the church, or maybe Christina could influence other royals to follow her lead. Christina entered the Vatican through gates specially designed by the sculptor

Bernini. Bernini also designed the coach that she wrote in. Christina would remain in Rome for a good portion of her adult life, only occasionally popping into other countries when there seemed like there might be an open position for a monarch, in the hopes that maybe she wouldn't have to financially rely on the Pope any longer. For a period, the most promising vacant position for Christina was the throne of Naples. It wasn't actually vacant. It was currently occupied by Spain, but it had gone back and forth between Spain and France, and Christina thought that she might be able to persuade France to sponsor her becoming Queen in Naples, if only to weaken their enemy. So Christina traveled to France to meet with the teenage King Louis XIV, and his mother, the regent, Queen Anne.

But their reaction was a little lukewarm. But Christina's time in France would, lead to what became one of the defining instance of her adult life. She caught a traitor in her midst, and the woman who had been raised to be king knew exactly what to do with him. Christina's court was staying in the grand apartments at the palace Fontainebleau outside of Paris. She had already met with Queen Anne about the whole Naples thing, and she was set to return back to Rome, but there were rumors of plague in Italy, and Christina figured that if she she stuck around France a little bit longer, she might persuade the French to hurry up with that military support. While she was there, Christina discovered that her master of the house, a man named

Rinaldo Monodeshi, had been copying her letters and sending them to the Pope. In short, it was a full betrayal behind her back. Around 1 p.m. one afternoon, she summoned Monodashi to her chambers, and publicly accused him with evidence of the letters. He denied wrongdoing, but Christina just rolled her eyes. She allowed him to receive confession, and though he and the priest both begged Christina for mercy, Christina didn't grant it. Monaldeshi was disloyal. And so, that very afternoon, she sentenced him to death. While Monodashi stood before Christina in her chambers, he was stabbed in the stomach and the neck by Christina's servants. The problem was Monodeshi was wearing chain mail, and the weapons didn't kill him, and so he was chased around

the adjoining room for several minutes until one of Christina's servants finally managed to stab him in the throat. Christina didn't regret it at all. The only thing she said she was sorry for was that she had been forced to undertake the execution at all. She didn't ask God's forgiveness. She asked God to forgive Monaldeshi. Though her, let's say, informal trial and execution was fully legal because he was a member of her court, the action made Christina massively unpopular, both in France and back in Rome, where Monaldeshi's family was politically important. The Pope, who had once thrown her a massive parade, now described Christina as, quote, a woman born of a barbarian, barbarously brought up and living with barbarous thoughts, with a ferocious and almost intolerable pride.

In July 1659, Christina moved to the Palazzo Riario in Trostovir, where she would live for the remainder of her life. She would return briefly to Sweden after cousin Charles died, thinking maybe there was a chance she might retake the throne again. But her Catholic conversion being non-negotiable, that was a no-go. While she was there, Christina tried to see her former love, Ebba Spar, but the Spar family prevented it. It was on her way back from another ill-fated trip to Sweden when Christina heard the news that Pope Alexander the 7th died

and that his replacement would be Pope Clement the 9th. Christina was delighted. She knew Clement the 9th. He had been her guest a number of times. She was so thrilled for her friend that she threw a massive party in her rented house, forgetting, it seems, that she was staying on the road temporarily in very Lutheran Hamburg, where they were not at all a fan of all the banners Christina hung in the street to celebrate a new pope. Christina's party had wine of flowing from fountains. The night ended with a riot and eight deaths, and Christina needing to flee out the back in disguise. She remained a troublemaker for the rest of her life. Though the next two popes would be against theater, with Pope Innocent the 11th forbidding women from acting, singing,

or wearing low-cut gowns, Christina just flat out ignored him and continued to hire female actors for her private theater. She also declared herself protectress of the Jews in Rome, and she was the one who pressured the Pope into banning the chasing of Jews through the streets during carnivals. Yep, that wasn't just a thing in Borat movies. That was Christina through her middle age,

enjoying art and culture, creating a hub for herself as the Catholic queen of the country. counterculture. One French writer visiting Rome wrote a fairly harsh description of Christina, but one that I will read because I think it paints such a compelling picture of the figure she cut as an adult. Quote, she is over 60 years of age, very small of stature, exceedingly fat and corpulent. Her complexion and voice and face are those of a man. She has a big nose, large blue eyes, blonde eyebrows and a double chin from which sprouts several tufts of beard. Her upper lip protrudes a little.

Her hair is a light chestnut color and only a palm's breath in length. She wears it powdered and standing on end, uncombed. She is very smiling and obliging. You will hardly believe her clothes. A man's jacket in black satin reaching to her knees and buttoned all the way down. A very short black skirt and men's shoes. a very large bow of black ribbons instead of a cravat and a belt tightly drawn under her stomach, revealing its retundity all too well.

Christina died at age 62, and though she requested a simple burial at the Pantheon, for all the trouble she caused, the Pope still wanted to use her as a PR opportunity from beyond the grave. Christina was one of three women buried in the Vatican Grotto, and she was buried with the honors of a pope in three coffins of cypress, lead, and oak, with her intestines in a high urn. Her body, wearing a silver mask draped with fur and jewels, was on display for four days. It was a strange burial for a strange woman, a women who replaced social cues and restrictions, with her own impulses, and turned whatever palace she was at into a party. That's the story of Queen, or should I say King, Christina of Sweden, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more

about how her story has been told in popular culture. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists, we have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire 2am, video on demand, this guy's boo-u-b-b-a-m-m-whatever. Lizzie McGuire.

And I'm like, wild bat you were with. It was like a first, like, closet moment from me where I was like... You're like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of them. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful. But I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like... But listen to Los Angeles on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast.

I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about. doing whatever it takes to be thoughts. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month and we all could not afford.

I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Several movies and operas and books have been written about Christina of Sweden. But one of the most interesting is the critically acclaimed 1933,

MGM film, Queen Christina, featuring the Swedish actress Greta Garbo. That movie made the incredibly Hollywood choice to turn Christina into a classic romantic heroine by inventing a male love interest, a Spanish ambassador whom she's unable to marry because he's Catholic. Of course, that has the added benefit of turning Christina's conversion to Catholicism into a move of love and not philosophy. I doubt the real Christina would have loved that twisting of her narrative, but I do think she would have liked Greta Garbo. You see, just like Christina herself,

there are rumors that Garbo was also queer, that she might have been bisexual or even gay. There's a scene in the film where Christina kisses her lady in waiting, Ebba, and although it's played completely platonically, Maybe secretly Garbo knew how the scene was supposed to be played. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood Tales.com.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists, we have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire 2am, video on demand. This guy's boobled.

2 a.m. Lizzie McGuire. And I'm like, a wild batch you were with. It was like a first closet moment from me where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful. But I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are.

I'm not like, but listen to Los Coltristas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.