Ebook Celebrated Female Sovereigns

Had Christina moved in a private station, she had been merely regarded as a vain, clever, and very eccentric woman, and might have found many a parallel among her own sex; but being placed upon a throne, she appeared extraordinary, and even sometimes great; - and was certainly one of the most remarkable women who ever existed. She seems to have been endued by Nature with talents and dispositions which ought to have rendered her life happy, her reign glorious, and her memory illustrious: but ill-educated - at least ill-educated for the station for which she was destined - and destitute of virtue or common sense, her sex, her learning, and her splendid situation only served to render her more conspicuously wretched, ridiculous, and pitiable. As a woman, she passed through life without loving or being loved; and, as a queen, she sank into the grave uncrowned, unhonoured, and unlamented.

Christina of Sweden was the only daughter of the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden, surnamed the "Lion of the North," from his conquests and military achievements: her mother was Maria-Eleonora of Brandenburgh, daughter of the Elector John Sigismond.