the forests, brooding over problems of state and feeling no
fatigue or fear. And indeed why should she fear, who was beloved by all
her subjects?

When her eighteenth year arrived, the demand for her coronation was
impossible to resist. All Sweden wished to see a ruling queen, who might
marry and have children to succeed her through the royal line of her
great father. Christina consented to be crowned, but she absolutely
refused all thought of marriage. She had more suitors from all parts of
Europe than even Elizabeth of England; but, unlike Elizabeth, she
did not dally with them, give them false hopes, or use them for the
political advantage of her kingdom.

At that time Sweden was stronger than England, and was so situated as to
be independent of alliances. So Christina said, in her harsh, peremptory
voice:

"I shall never marry; and why should you speak of my having children! I
am just as likely to give birth to a Nero as to an Augustus."

Having assumed the throne, she ruled with a strictness of government
such as Sweden had not known before. She took the reins of state into
her own hands and carried out a foreign policy of her own, over the
heads of her ministers, and even against the wishes of her people. The
fighting upon the Continent had dragged out to a weary length, but the
Swedes, on the whole, had scored a marked advantage. For this reason the
war was popular, and every one wished it to go on; but Christina, of
her own will, decided that it must stop, that mere glory was not to be
considered against material advantages. Sweden had had enough of glory;
she must now look to her enrichment and prosperity through the channels
of peace.

Therefore, in 1648, against Oxenstierna, against her generals, and
against her people, she exercised her royal power and brought the Thirty
Years' War to an end by the so-called Peace of Westphalia. At this time
she was twenty-two, and by her personal influence she had ended one of
the greatest struggles of history. Nor had she done it to her country's
loss. Denmark yielded up rich provinces, while Germany was compelled to
grant Sweden membership in the German diet.

Then came a period of immense prosperity through commerce, through
economies in government, through the improvement of agriculture and the
opening of mines. This girl queen, without intrigue, without descending
from her native nobility to peep and whisper with shady diplomats,
showed herself in reality a gre