so signal a mark of deference. Yet in the
romantic and chivalrous annals of the House of Vasa, scarcely any reign
is more remarkable than that of the sovereign to whom Christina ceded the
throne. In the course of the ensuing five years Charles Gustavus, at the
head of a chosen band of Swedish veterans, conquered Prussia, and
compelled the Great Elector to acknowledge himself to be a Swedish
vassal; invaded Poland, and commenced the partition of that republic;
allied himself to Rakoczy, to the terror of the House of Austria, and
attacked Denmark with such success that he crossed the Little Belt on the
ice and laid siege to Copenhagen, which was only saved by the mediation
of the Maritime Powers. Such was the splendid career of Charles Gustavus
between the period of his accession to the throne and the year 1660, when
he died, not having completed his thirty-eighth year. More than any of
his predecessors or of his successors on the Swedish throne, he may be
said to have held the Empire of the North; and the favour here shown to
Whitelocke indicates the importance attached by the Swedish Prince to
secure at least the goodwill of Cromwell during the prosecution of these
Extraordinary enterprises.]

[283] [Oxenstiern died about three months afterwards.]

[314] [It would be idle to speculate on the political motives which may
have combined with other reasons to induce Christina of Sweden to
conceive and execute this extraordinary design. Other sovereigns have
abdicated from the lassitude of age or the burden of unpopularity, or the
desire of ensuring the succession to their offspring; but the resignation
of a Queen in her twenty-ninth year, surrounded by able ministers and a
loyal people, and who had reigned with splendour and success, is an event
without a parallel in history. The explanation of it is to be found in
the eccentricity, the levity, the feverish curiosity, and the indomitable
love of independence and singularity which are to be traced in every part
of the Queen's character. She was a woman of powerful but ill-regulated
mind, capable at one time of sharing in the speculations of Descartes or
of applauding the exhortations of Whitelocke,--at another, of bowing to
the spiritual bondage of Rome, and even of committing the brutal murder
of Monaldeschi. The character of Cromwell pleased her by its adventurous
exploits and its arbitrary tendency, and her reception of the English
Embassy was as much the result of person