Suddenly she burst into a merry but scarcely lady-like laugh. “Ha, ha, ha! this is too rare a joke, Karl,” she cried. “Lord Chancellor, Mathias, Torstenson!” she exclaimed, as these members of her council entered the apartment, “what think you? Here come dispatches from the Emperor of Germany begging that you, my council, shall consider the wisdom of wedding me to his son and thereby closing the war! His son, indeed! Ferdinand the Craven!”
“And yet, Madam,” suggested the wise Oxenstiern, “it is a matter that should not lightly be cast aside. In time you must needs be married. The constitution of the kingdom doth oblige you to.”
“Oblige!” and the young girl turned upon the gray-headed chancellor almost savagely. “Oblige! and who, Sir Chancellor, upon earth shall OBLIGE me to do so, if I do it not of mine own will? Say not OBLIGE to me.”
This was vigorous language for a girl of scarce fourteen; but it was “Christina’s way,” one with which both the Council and the people soon grew familiar. It was the Vasa(1) nature in her, and it was always prominent in this spirited young girl--the last descendant of that masterful house.
(1) Vasa was the family name of her father and the ancient king of Sweden.
But now the young Prince Karl Gustavus had something to say.
“Ah, cousin mine,” and he laid a strong though boyish hand upon the young girl’s arm. “What need for couriers or dispatches that speak of suitors for your hand? Am not I to be your husband? From babyhood you have so promised me.”
Christina again broke into a loud and merry laugh.
“Hark to the little burgomaster,” (1) she cried; “much travel hath made him, I do fear me, soft in heart and head. Childish promises, Karl. Let such things be forgotten now. You are to be a soldier--I, a queen.”
(1) Prince Charles Gustavus, afterward Charles XI., King of Sweden, and father of the famous Charles XII., was cousin to Christina. He was short and thick-set, and so like a little Dutchman that Christina often called him “the little burgomaster.” At the time of this sketch he had just returned from a year of travel through Europe.
“And yet, Madam,” said Mathias, her tutor, “all Europe hath for years regarded Prince Karl as your future husband.”