Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg - Birth of Christina

Birth of Christina

With the renewal of the war with Poland, Gustavus Adolphus had to leave his wife again. It is likely that she gave way to hysterical grief, as we know she did in 1627, and it is probably for this reason that the king let his queen join him in Livonia after the Poles had been defeated in January 1626. By April, Maria Eleonora found she was again pregnant. No risks were taken this time and the astrologers predicted the birth of a son and heir. During a lull in the warfare, Gustavus Adolphus hurried back to Stockholm to await the arrival of the baby. The birth was a difficult one. On 7 December, a baby was born with a fleece, which enveloped it from its head to its knees, leaving only its face, arms and lower part of its legs free. Moreover, it had a large nose and was covered with hair. Thus, it was assumed the baby was a boy, and so the King was told. Closer inspection, however, learned that the baby was a girl. Gustavus Adolphus' half-sister Catherine to inform him that the child was a girl. She "carried the baby in her arms to the king in a condition for him to see and to know and realise for himself what she dared not tell him". Gustavus Adolphus remarked: "She is going to be clever, for she has taken us all in." His disappointment did not last long, and he decided that she would be called Christina after his mother. He gave orders for the birth to be announced with all the solemnity usually accorded to the arrival of a male heir. This seems to indicate that Gustavus Adolphus, at the age of 33, had little hope of having other children. Maria Eleonora's state of health seems to be the most likely explanation for this. Her later portraits and actions, however, do not indicate that she was physically fragile.

Shortly after the birth, Maria Eleonora was in no condition to be told the truth about the baby's sex, and the king and court waited several days before breaking the news to her. She screamed: "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!" She may have suffered from a post-natal depression. In her agitated state, the queen tried to injure the child.

In Christina's early childhood, she repeatedly met with accidents. Once a beam fell mysteriously upon the cradle. Another time, she "accidentally" fell off the stairs. On another occasion the nursemaid was blamed for dropping the baby onto a stone floor, injuring a shoulder that ever afterwards remained a little crooked.

In the year after Christina's birth, Maria Eleonora was described as being in a state of hysteria owing to her husband's absences. In 1632 Gustavus Adolphus described his wife as being "a very sick woman". There was some excuse for her; she had lost three babies and still felt herself an isolated foreigner in a hostile land, even more so after 1627 when her brother joined Sweden's enemies. Meanwhile, her husband's life was constantly in danger when he was on campaign. In 1627 Gustavus Adolphus was both ill and wounded. Two years later he had a narrow escape at Stuhm.

Gustavus Adolphus was devoted to his daughter and tried to rear Christina as a boy. At the age of two, she clapped her hands and laughed with joy when the great cannons of Kalmar Castle boomed out the royal salute. Afterwards, Gustavus Adolphus often took his daughter with him to military reviews. Maria Eleonore showed little affection for her daughter and was not allowed any influence in Christina's upbringing. The princess was placed in the care of Gustavus Adolphus' half-sister Catherine and the Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna.

In 1630 Gustavus Adolphus concluded that Habsburg designs for Baltic supremacy threatened Sweden's very existence and also its religious freedom. Before he left to join the Thirty Years War, he discussed a possible regency with members of the government and admitted to them that his wife was "a miserable woman". Even so, Gustavus Adolphus could not bring himself to nominate a regency council in which her name did not appear. To Axel Oxenstierna, he confessed: "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."