Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/86

80 time fulfilled all the expectations which had been formed for her reign.

The Swedish people were anxious that Christina should marry, but she declined to sacrifice her independence. In 1649, however, she persuaded the Diet to accept as her successor the best of her suitors, Charles Gustavus of Palatine-Deux-Ponts, the son of the only sister of Gustavus Adolphus. In the following year she was crowned with great pomp.

About this time Christina's character seemed to undergo a remarkable change. She became wayward and restless, neglected her tried counsellors, and followed the advice of self-seeking favorites. So much discontent was aroused by her extravagance and fickleness that she at last announced her determination to abdicate.

After abdication in 1651 she left for foreign courts, where her eccentricities and daring disregard for conventionalities became the talk of Europe. Upon the whole her character presents a strange combination of faults and foibles, pushed to the most extravagant excess. She says of herself, 'that she was mistrustful, ambitious, passionate, haughty, impatient, contemptuous, satirical, incredulous, undevout, of an ardent and violent temper and extremely amorous.'

The violent temper was common to a large number of her paternal ancestors, but it is especially interesting to note that the change in her character was very similar to that of her uncle, Eric XIV., who' began his reign very well, and whose unstable temper did not display itself until he was about twenty-five years old. Magnus, his brother, likewise became insane at just about the same age. The inconsistencies of character which stand out so strongly in many of the members of this family have not been very common among royalty. They were found to be very common among the relations of Peter the Great, where they were considered related to a family neurosis. Here there is also a neurosis, so we have in the coincidence a very strong proof that much of the moral nature here inherited in the form of inconsistencies, as well as the mental, is subject to heredity.

Since Christina abdicated to her cousin, Charles Gustavus, we now take up the Palatine Deux-Pont dynasty of Sweden, which includes the characters numbered from 19 to 27 inclusive.

Charles Gustavus, it is to be remembered, was the best of the many suitors for the hand of the eccentric Christina, and although he, like all the others, failed to change her mind regarding her determination to remain single, her appreciation and regard for him were such that she succeeded in having the succession made in his name. The father to this new heir to the throne was likewise a man of excellent