Vulgar History - International, part 14： Kristina, The Queer Swedish Monarch (pt 1⧸4)

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00:01:00.000 hello welcome to the vulgar history podcast a feminist women's history comedy podcast

00:01:11.880 my name is ann foster and this is our international season tits out sans frontiers etc

00:01:19.020 so this is where we've been looking at women from various places around the world and also

00:01:24.740 looking at different well as much as possible as much as i was able to while also you know

00:01:29.700 finding the scandalous stories that are the main thing that this podcast is about trying to get

00:01:34.560 into different kinds of people so we've been we've looked so far at people um you know uh

00:01:40.500 ronnie did it like that was disability representation and jinga like did some

00:01:44.980 stuff when she was an older person so that's representation of people of various different

00:01:48.300 ages we've gotten into well gender stuff i guess with and jinga also with catalina de aroso 1.00

00:01:53.120 with the chevalier day on last time we were getting into a story of a fabulous trans woman

00:01:58.560 And this week, we're looking at Christina of Sweden, where there's also there's certainly gender stuff going on here. And I guess I'll just give the usual. Well, as for the last couple episodes, like the the protocol that I'm using on this podcast is I look at when trying to figure out pronouns, for instance, for Christina, she wrote an unpublished memoir, in which she describes herself as a woman and female.

00:02:28.560 so we're using she her pronouns for christina but some sources use other pronouns for her and i

00:02:35.200 think that's just as possible and just as appropriate she certainly had a complicated

00:02:41.000 relationship with her own gender and also with her own sex so we're going to be talking a bit 0.93

00:02:47.140 in her story about intersex traits because she seemingly probably had some intersex traits as

00:02:56.660 well um she's quasi she's one of the more famous people have done in this podcast which kind of

00:03:03.000 just tells you like how obscure we're getting in this podcast that christina sweden is like one of

00:03:07.540 the more famous but i totally don't have a scope of understanding of who is famous to like not me

00:03:13.260 and not podcast listeners like did you know there's people in the world who don't know about

00:03:17.720 fredigand or francis howard anyway christina sweden there's been um two fairly major movies

00:03:24.900 about it there's one from the 1930s starring Greta Garbo also a um queer icon also Swedish

00:03:32.500 playing Christina of Sweden and then there's a movie from a few years ago called The Girl King

00:03:37.780 so um a lot of what's known or what's kind of talked about Christina is like was she a lesbian

00:03:44.460 and I'm here to tell you like maybe and maybe um there's a lot of things about her gender

00:03:51.900 and her sexuality that like we don't know and it's just a more complicated question with her

00:03:57.640 than for some other people we've looked at so I'm not here to like um what's it called in a doctor

00:04:03.540 to like diagnose her exactly what was in her heart um but I'm just going to kind of tell you

00:04:11.460 about what she did and who she did it with and what she thought about things and I hope that if

00:04:16.640 you see yourself in her then good and that's legitimate and like truly i don't 0.94

00:04:24.300 she when you're looking at the like um umbrella of like all the identities in the queer

00:04:29.600 rainbow it's like was she um did she have intersex traits was she a cis woman was she

00:04:37.540 a lesbian was she asexual she um it's like lots of things are possible we're gonna go

00:04:46.520 through her story it is interesting as you can probably ascertain from what everything i've just

00:04:52.740 said so um my main sources for this actually no first i want to say that this story was suggested

00:04:59.640 by several people the two that i could find just by going back through my dms so for sure kim who

00:05:05.340 is our official swedish cultural liaison you'll remember kim she also suggested and helped me with

00:05:10.960 pronunciation and some cultural stuff in the cecilia episode um and then also courtney is

00:05:19.140 another tits of brigade member who suggested christina i'm sure other people did this was

00:05:22.380 like a popular suggestion i listened to the queer is fact podcast about her and that was one where

00:05:28.900 they um based on their research they decided to use he him pronouns so like again like with

00:05:34.300 christina it's like lots of things are possible i also listened to the royal diaries unlocked

00:05:40.660 podcast because yes christina of sweden was the heroine of one of the royal diaries books

00:05:46.080 i think it's called the girl king as well um and they got into talking about i'm a bit i'm like i

00:05:54.160 don't know five to ten years too old to have like read like been there when royal diaries were having

00:05:58.680 a moment but so they described what the book is like and that was helpful for me but the main

00:06:03.320 source i used is a biography called christina queen of sweden the restless life of a european

00:06:08.880 eccentric by veronica buckley which uh really um it uses a lot of understanding from christina's

00:06:16.220 own like unpublished memoirs so i got some of her words some of what she thought about things

00:06:20.380 in a better context so and also wikipedia ever helpful oh and then also for learning just for

00:06:28.280 myself to better appreciate the intersex issues i really found it really helpful to listen to

00:06:37.800 there was an episode of getting curious with jonathan van ness a podcast i super enjoy i love

00:06:42.540 i love this podcast i love the way that jonathan gets people's get people to open up um and explain

00:06:49.080 all these really interesting scientific based things anyway so there was an episode of the

00:06:53.000 podcast called how can we put the eye in lgbtqia plus with alicia roth wagel and alicia roth wagel

00:07:00.560 is a woman with intersex traits and she really explains things in a really granular way so

00:07:08.320 also just for um to get into where does this fit into other people we've been talking about

00:07:14.720 so for instance so Catalina de Arauso was born in 1592 died in 1650 Christina of Sweden was born

00:07:24.200 in 1626 so it's a similar similar-ish time period of this kind of like colonization of the new world

00:07:33.700 has been going on for like several decades by now um this is certainly in the time period of

00:07:38.800 the 30 years war which it's a podcast you couldn't see me just roll my eyes but like

00:07:44.280 we'll get into it la voisin our famous um french abortionist poisoner she was born 1640

00:07:53.240 so yeah christina's just kind of up here in the middle of things and she's the grand

00:07:57.800 niece i believe of cecilia of sweden so they're like cecilia of sweden was almost 100 years

00:08:05.580 before her so definitely a relative but not still around tragically when christine was doing her

00:08:12.740 story because i think they would have hit it off anyway so christina was born in the royal castle

00:08:18.660 tre kroner on december 18 1626 her parents were the swedish king gustavus adolphus who we're just

00:08:27.720 gonna call gustav for now and his wife who was german maria eleonora christina was their first

00:08:35.680 child to survive infancy following a stillborn girl five years beforehand another daughter also

00:08:41.640 called princess christina who had been born three years before this but she died after one year so

00:08:46.960 We're in like a My Sweet Audrina situation where it's like there was the first Christina

00:08:51.100 and now she's the second Christina.

00:08:52.820 Gustav and Maria Eleonora had also had a stillborn son one year before.

00:08:57.660 Gustav is part of the Vasa dynasty that was begun with his, I think, grandfather from

00:09:04.480 the Ski Ski revolution, Cecilia's dad, like Gustav the first.

00:09:08.860 So the Vasa dynasty had just been around for like a minute.

00:09:11.900 And it's that thing of like, oh my God, we need heirs.

00:09:14.480 And especially because this is like religious wars were going on, Catholics vs. Protestants, in their case, they're Lutherans.

00:09:21.600 And, you know, you want to make sure that you have a Lutheran heir because otherwise like a Catholic might take over and that's just like complicated for war reasons.

00:09:28.740 So everyone was just like really stressed out about there not being an heir yet.

00:09:34.440 um maria eleonora we're going to talk about her a lot this episode because it's interesting and

00:09:40.840 also because her influence was really crucial in how christina developed largely her hatred of

00:09:47.740 women so um maria eleonora so just to recap like she had had a stillborn girl five years ago

00:09:54.800 then she had a daughter who died two years ago one year ago she had a son who was stillborn so 0.85

00:10:01.200 she's got a lot of like postpartum grief slash perpetual pregnancy going on and everyone as you 1.00

00:10:06.720 might now expect based on other stories i've told you like juana of castile thought she was insane 1.00

00:10:12.460 because she was having understandable human reactions to this stuff she also was like 0.99

00:10:16.900 unhappy being in sweden she didn't like swedish culture language weather she was just like not

00:10:23.760 happy in every way also notice or also note that um maria eleonora's own three youngest siblings

00:10:30.760 had also died not in this time period but like within the first years of their lives so just

00:10:35.420 like her experience of like little babies was mostly death by now so actually yeah so let's 0.95

00:10:42.180 talk about maria eleonora so flashback to her pregnancy that she had just before christina 0.84

00:10:48.900 that's the stillborn son in her ongoing grief and just like misery she became like really sort of

00:10:55.100 like unhealthily dependent and attached to her husband Gustav who is often away in military

00:11:02.780 campaigns in what would become the 30 years war but at this point was just the six and a half

00:11:07.180 years war oh yeah and then while she was pregnant her younger brother died age 21 and then her

00:11:13.180 mother died so this is just like a cacophony of sad things like it makes sense to me that she

00:11:20.240 just inherently connect pregnancy and children with death because that kept happening so when

00:11:26.020 she was feeling better i guess like less morning sicknessy or less depressed gustav came to town

00:11:32.740 and he brought her with him to inspect the swedish fleet in the harbor so they did this from their

00:11:38.020 own smaller yacht so not quite sure what a 1600s swedish yacht looks like something fancy but then

00:11:44.980 a sudden squall like a storm hit and the yacht nearly capsized and so this went on for like

00:11:50.700 quite a period of time maria eleonora already not doing great when it finally like i don't know

00:11:58.420 stabilized she was carried off the boat and then she went into premature labor and the son was

00:12:04.200 stillborn so maria eleonora's psychological makeup at this point like not great and especially

00:12:14.240 because it's like they needed an heir um this was especially important because gustav's younger

00:12:18.860 brother had been killed in battle leaving his cousin the polish king sigismund the third who

00:12:24.000 was gustav's cousin was next in line and he already had two adult sons so that's like appealing but

00:12:30.260 um sigismund slash the country of poland were catholic sweden was lutheran so this was like

00:12:35.400 not ideal so they just like need another baby yeah so maria eleanora was you know quote going mad

00:12:42.080 from all the stuff like aka just like behaving like a lot of people would given this sequence 1.00

00:12:48.400 of events um apparently at this point she started becoming even more increasingly erratic so she is

00:12:54.220 definitely dealing with depression and or maybe some bipolar type stuff in that she would vacillate

00:13:00.500 between being really sad and then having manic amounts of energy during which time she would

00:13:05.040 spend way too much of the royal treasury funds on um sweet treats for herself um and lavish gifts

00:13:11.620 for her friends so just like i don't know if that was you know like that's what she was doing

00:13:17.020 there's gonna be a lot of like did this person have this like specific mental health diagnosis

00:13:22.020 we understand now like who knows like maybe she just like giving her friends gifts anyway

00:13:27.700 and she became even more intensely devoted to her husband so it's this kind of like

00:13:32.560 oh i wouldn't say codependent because gustav didn't care about her so it's more just like

00:13:37.700 she was dependent i guess um she once wrote when i know that my most beloved lord is coming then

00:13:43.080 all my sickness and panic fall away and yeah so gustav unlike the jane seymour memorial award

00:13:49.800 winning partners of inez de castro or her m sultan did not seem to reciprocate those feelings and he

00:13:54.640 just kind of was putting up with her at this point maria eleanor also started having some other

00:14:00.740 symptoms that were maybe psychosomatic or maybe potentially she'd had like a stroke or something

00:14:06.680 during one of her traumatic labor experiences but so from this point on her use of language was

00:14:12.760 becoming weird like her first language was german and she'd never been amazing at speaking swedish

00:14:17.900 but by this point apparently even her german was not great like she just didn't seem to know words

00:14:24.420 and her handwriting also got worse and worse which could also be depression or it could be

00:14:29.080 some sort of like brain anyway she's not doing great um and i'm sure it didn't help but everyone

00:14:34.240 around her was just like but when are you gonna have a son who will be the heir so fyi if you're

00:14:39.460 wondering like oh but is there like reproductive based infertility issues well not on gustav's side

00:14:44.780 because he had already had a son out of wedlock with a dutch woman named margaretta and so margaretta

00:14:51.280 and the son lived on an estate given to them by the king along with her husband so it's one of

00:14:56.800 those situations where it's like the mistress is also married so the son the illegitimate son

00:15:02.140 named after the dad easy name to remember gustav gustavson so he was nine years old by this point

00:15:08.520 gustav was proud of him his existence was not secret at all but this is like a culture in an

00:15:12.960 era where it's just like yeah it's the king's illegitimate son no big deal there were rumors

00:15:16.880 that gustav and margaretta were still lovers who knows maybe they were um but spoiler this is not

00:15:22.540 the first time in the story it is very unclear if two people were lovers and i think in an earlier

00:15:27.940 episode I had said that my general uh rule of thumb is like if it seemed like two people were

00:15:33.040 sleeping together like I'm just gonna assume they were because it can get really complicated like

00:15:38.480 it's like why wouldn't they have been in this story I'm gonna tread more cautiously especially

00:15:45.940 when we get to Christina being an older person and who were her lovers potentially because it's

00:15:51.440 just we'll get to it so anyway Gustav and Margareta were maybe still lovers maybe weren't

00:15:56.940 frankly, Gustav seems really busy being at war all the time. So he never spoke poorly about his

00:16:01.940 wife in public, but behind closed doors. He referred to her with the Latin term

00:16:06.060 malum domesticum, which means like his cross to bear. Like, uh, what's the word? I don't know,

00:16:15.120 like his cross to bear. Anyway, so Maria Eleonora, still literally a woman in her 20s, 0.80

00:16:21.480 very young, um, was treated like a child who was annoying everyone, which I'm sure just made her

00:16:26.600 more depressed frankly and then the plague arrived because things weren't dire enough

00:16:33.760 so mark that off of your vulgar history bingo cards and so gustav's troops all started dying

00:16:39.160 of plague and then he got the news that his mother had died too but then hopeful news maria

00:16:45.620 eleonora was pregnant again everyone including the astrologers predicted a boy but it's is it

00:16:51.300 the sort of thing where it's like if you don't give the prediction that the king wants you would

00:16:55.140 kill you or whatever like who is going to not predict a boy given literally everything that

00:16:59.820 was going on but the astrologers also foresaw death like if the son lived then the father might 0.98

00:17:05.400 die and i guess gustav was ill at this point not sure if it's plague or something else so that also

00:17:10.560 seems like maybe just a good guess sort of thing anyway so december this is christina about to be

00:17:18.100 born so as night felt maria eleonora began her labor it was rough and she was physically weak

00:17:25.000 for lots of reasons including the fact that she was like really unhealthy and depressed um as the

00:17:31.040 clocks neared 11 a baby was born and the baby was christina the second not queen christina the second

00:17:38.360 but like the second princess christina she was born covered with a call which you'll remember

00:17:44.600 from level zen is kind of like sometimes babies are born with them i remember those were like

00:17:48.920 valuable for like gamblers or something so it's like uh it's considered lucky to be born with a

00:17:54.880 call but also it's dark everyone was stressed everyone wanted the baby to be a boy so they

00:18:00.960 looked at the baby the way the doctors still do today like look between the legs what are the

00:18:06.700 genitals looking like and the midwives were like yeah it's a boy and maria eleanor was so happy

00:18:14.780 she was so happy that it was a boy it was alive they told gustav he was so happy the castle rang

00:18:19.620 out with happy shouts um but of course this child was not a boy asterix or was it it was

00:18:26.620 christina so by the morning the midwives were like are bad actually it's a girl and i think

00:18:33.440 what actually happened everyone was afraid to tell gustav what happened eventually was his sister

00:18:39.580 katarina who shows up later and it's cool i think just everyone's just like what to do so katarina

00:18:43.920 just like picked up the baby baby christina carried the baby down to gustav and just kind of like held

00:18:48.420 the baby out like with no pants on to be like regard like behold like god another just like 1.00

00:18:54.580 fucked up gender reveal so this is where the discussion about like did christina have 0.97

00:19:02.900 intersex characteristics this is where it comes from so why did they think that the baby was a boy 0.86

00:19:09.800 initially in her own memoir which like we're gonna learn about christina and what she's like

00:19:15.060 but a couple of things to know about her is that she was like very full of herself and she also

00:19:21.020 hated women anyway so in her own unpublished memoir she suggests that the call might have 1.00

00:19:27.440 like covered up the genitalia which is not how calls work she also said that she was more hairy 0.84

00:19:32.980 than most babies and her cry was so powerful everyone assumed she was a boy and i just like

00:19:37.640 to discount all of those things because christina didn't know she's talking about

00:19:40.820 the power of a baby's cry does not reflect sex nor gender and babies are sometimes born covered

00:19:48.620 with hair and that also does not reflect sex nor gender so okay so first off I asked my friend

00:19:57.580 who you might recall from other episodes with some gynecological questions I asked my friend

00:20:02.280 who's an OBGYN I was just like here's what happened I thought it was a boy by the morning

00:20:06.280 thought it was a girl here's kind of like the clues we know of like what do you think and so

00:20:09.480 my friend says oh and this is also just to note christina did like as a teenager slash woman 0.97

00:20:17.600 did menstruate so she clearly had internal female organs so my friend says um she was probably an 1.00

00:20:26.280 xx woman a lot of baby girls actually have very puffy labia and when you look quickly it can look 0.98

00:20:31.380 like a boy but there's no penis so an experienced midwife should have recognized it was a girl

00:20:35.380 possibly it was night the call was obscuring things the candlelight was dim and the midwife 0.99

00:20:39.580 was sleeping and some junior midwife was doing the midnight birth and fuck things up alternatively

00:20:44.560 maybe the mother had a testosterone secreting ovarian tumor or something and the baby was hairy 0.79

00:20:49.560 and male looking but then as the hormones coming through the mother wore off it looked more female

00:20:53.580 but that would take longer than 24 hours and more like days or weeks so here's what we know

00:20:58.640 christina thought was a boy by the morning thought it was a girl she menstruated so she's got so

00:21:04.720 probably was an XX woman. So this is the part of the episode where we're going to talk about 0.54

00:21:10.100 intersex things. So this information I'm going to read is now from Interact Advocates for

00:21:16.460 Intersex Youth website. So intersex is an umbrella term for differences in sex traits or reproductive

00:21:23.580 anatomy. Intersex people are born with these differences or develop them in childhood.

00:21:28.820 There are many possible differences in genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes compared

00:21:34.200 to the usual two ways that human bodies develop. Some intersex traits are noticed at birth. Others

00:21:39.960 don't show up until puberty or later in life. Intersex people often face shame or are forced

00:21:45.120 or coerced into changing their bodies, usually at a very young age. Most surgeries to change

00:21:49.500 intersex traits happen in infancy. Then there's a question here in their frequently asked questions

00:21:54.360 that says, is intersex the same thing as hermaphrodite? No. Hermaphrodite should never be

00:22:00.300 use to describe an intersex person some intersex people have reclaimed this word for themselves

00:22:04.640 but it is usually considered a slur there are many ways to have an intersex body but it is not

00:22:09.900 possible for one person to have both a fully developed penis and vagina the h word comes 0.89

00:22:15.540 from mythology it might suggest that intersex people are monsters or not of this world many 0.95

00:22:20.920 intersex people still see this slur used in their medical records so note that christina

00:22:26.560 was referred to like this in her own memoir she she clarifies like no i am not a hermaphrodite

00:22:34.080 this is also a term that was used for last week's main character the chevalier deon as well so it's

00:22:41.120 just a term from mythology that is not a way that a person's body ever actually develops

00:22:47.460 so how many intersex people are born each year what are the statistics even in countries where

00:22:53.380 most births happen in hospital these are hard questions to answer this is largely because no

00:22:57.520 one is required to track this information and also in most places where hospitals record births

00:23:02.940 there's a birth certificate with two little check boxes male or female and so people born with

00:23:09.760 visually apparent upon birth intersex characteristics like christina seems to have had

00:23:14.940 chances are they're going to be recorded as either male or female so we don't know what those numbers

00:23:19.760 are. So about 1.7% of people born are intersex. Compare that to a 0.3% chance of having identical

00:23:29.000 twins. So intersex, more common than having identical twins. And I think that it's a similar 0.95

00:23:36.400 percentage to how many people are born with red hair or born with green eyes. One in 2,000 babies,

00:23:42.400 0.05% of humans are born with genital differences that a doctor might suggest changing with

00:23:48.160 unnecessary surgery so that can be if on kind of both ends there's kind of like the typical

00:23:54.480 presentation of like a penis and the other side is a typical like visual appearance of vagina 1.00

00:24:00.740 there's a lot that's in the middle so it could be like a girl with a atypically large clitoris or 0.98

00:24:06.740 boy with a penis that's like formed in a different way so there's lots of things that are in between 0.96

00:24:11.800 the two things the two ends of this binary spectrum um there is no way to look intersex 0.98

00:24:18.720 every person is different there are over 40 medical terms for the different ways sex anatomy

00:24:23.360 might develop so um and that's all from the interact advocates.org website which i'm going

00:24:30.360 to put a link to in the show notes so as i said in the last episode about la chevaliere d'on i

00:24:35.520 didn't mention the possibility that she may have had intersex traits based on the medical description

00:24:41.300 of her body after her death including the anatomical drawing that's currently in the

00:24:46.000 collection of the british museum so the person who examined her after her death described her 0.57

00:24:51.840 appearance as being she had male organs perfectly formed that's a quote along with feminine

00:24:57.120 characteristics such as quote unusual roundness in the formation of the limbs the throat was by 1.00

00:25:02.380 no means masculine breast remarkably full arms hands and fingers those of a stout female legs

00:25:08.740 and feet corresponding with the arms so like what does this mean so like as i just explained like

00:25:15.840 intersex can be lots of different things it can be the visual appearance of the genitalia is not

00:25:21.960 typical to male or female it can also be that it is typical to male or female but like the xx or xy

00:25:28.920 chromosomes are different there's other internal organ differences so um this is from amnesty

00:25:34.920 International's website, amnesty.org, where there's a question of, is transgender the same

00:25:40.860 thing as intersex? So they say, being intersex has nothing to do with being transgender. Our

00:25:46.140 physical sexual characteristics have nothing to do with how we consider our gender identity or

00:25:50.280 with who we are attracted to. The word transgender or trans is an umbrella term for people whose

00:25:55.800 gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. The word intersex relates

00:26:00.700 to physical sexual characteristics and not to an internal sense of identity an intersex person may

00:26:06.160 also identify as trans but they are separate things because gender and sex are separate

00:26:10.700 an intersex person may be straight gay lesbian bisexual or asexual and may identify as female

00:26:16.520 male both or neither so for instance like with last week's discussion so la chevalier considered

00:26:23.560 herself a woman so she was a woman she may also have had intersex traits and seems to have been

00:26:33.520 trans and like we don't know what her love life was like so like all these different issues

00:26:37.600 i don't know i just know that she was a woman and maybe also maybe also was intersex um like

00:26:45.360 anything else other than like she was a woman is just guesses at this point because it has to do

00:26:50.380 like well what chromosomes did she have like what was her internal like body organs like like we're

00:26:56.060 getting to a lot of um and i'm i'm happy to talk about all this and please reach out and correct me

00:27:00.860 as someone did when someone i really value this that someone from the tits out brigade mentioned 0.94

00:27:05.620 why didn't you mention that le chevalier might have been intersex and i thought oh shit i really 0.61

00:27:09.800 showed up so that's why i wanted to bring this up today but then with christina it these think

00:27:16.060 these questions all arise as well because of because of the way that she was born and assigned

00:27:23.080 male at birth and then the next day was reassigned female so at the very least seems like she had

00:27:30.440 non-typical presenting genitalia that they first understood in one way and then by the next day

00:27:36.540 they understood in a different way so christina could very well have been intersex it seems like

00:27:43.240 she probably was given this confusion over her birth some of the sources are just like everyone 0.89

00:27:47.260 wanted it to be a boy so much they just like hallucinated a penis or i don't know anyway so

00:27:54.260 this is just kind of like this is the beginning of a story in which her relationship with gender is

00:27:59.320 like choose your own adventure but then yeah the the rumors kind of kept sticking to her because

00:28:07.080 when she becomes a grown-up person which we're going to talk about not in this episode but in

00:28:11.600 later episodes or i guess maybe at the end of this episode she um wore pants and she like acted 0.99

00:28:18.560 like quote masculine so people were just like for a woman to act this way like it's just like well 1.00

00:28:25.600 then her genitals must match this behavior surely and so that's where so it wasn't like people were

00:28:31.160 thinking like oh does she have intersex traits people were just like if you act manly then you

00:28:37.000 must genetically be a man and then it's like the chevalier day on all over again where it's just 0.98

00:28:41.600 people are just like we need to see the genitals like that will answer all the questions and in 0.99

00:28:44.920 her case i feel like it would not so anyway yeah so her aunt katarina grabbed the baby like did 0.98

00:28:51.620 this like gender reveal to the dad um legend has it and by legend i mean christina's own book

00:28:57.260 he was very happy and he said she'll be clever she has made fools of us all but this is a story

00:29:03.620 christina says she was told a hundred times by her aunt and others but she was a baby at the time

00:29:08.140 and not like a reliable witness and also she had reasons to want to make it seem like her father

00:29:15.440 really loved her and thought she was great because in fact having a daughter was very bad news in

00:29:21.340 the exact same way it had been very bad news when anne boleyn had a daughter around 100 years before

00:29:25.400 in england because the country very much needed a son um also note gustav when she was born was

00:29:32.480 also incredibly ill with a fever so it's possible he didn't actually say anything her mom maria

00:29:39.020 eleonora wasn't told right away because so she just like i don't know whatever went to sleep

00:29:43.220 being like yeah i have a son he's alive everyone was just like oh she's too fragile to be able to

00:29:48.180 to absorb the devastating news that the baby is not a boy so not sure how long they waited

00:29:54.320 but when they told her as they expected she was inconsolable she rejected christina entirely

00:30:01.000 and just kind of continued on with her own mental collapse so gustav recovered from his fever slash

00:30:09.540 illness and then he you know put on maybe a genuinely happy face to plan all the festivities

00:30:14.800 to celebrate the birth of a royal baby because at least they had one alive heir so she's christened

00:30:21.320 christina which is the name that her predecessor her dead older sibling had had christina is also

00:30:28.520 the name of gustav's mother and grandmother and also the name of a finnish noblewoman he had once

00:30:33.140 been in love with her middle name was augusta maybe as a version of his name gustav but note

00:30:39.280 that uh maria eleonora had not gotten on well with gustav's mother the og christina so naming this

00:30:45.340 baby she hated after women she hated was either very fitting or just made everything worse as

00:30:51.540 noted earlier christina was the best and only potential heir to its family so aunt you might

00:30:58.320 be like what about aunt katerina did she have children she did but here's the thing katerina

00:31:03.320 and her children weren't allowed to inherit because she had married a non-lutheran so even

00:31:08.900 though christina was just a little baby gustav entered all the paperwork and announcements and

00:31:14.300 everything were made so everyone knew she was the heir before he set out to continue fighting in

00:31:18.340 what was now the eight years war he also left instructions um should he be killed that christina

00:31:24.900 should receive an education of the type normally only afforded to boys and in fact he died november

00:31:30.800 6 1632 um so six years after she was born he died on the battlefield and so she was now the little

00:31:36.740 six-year-old new monarch and so like in some other stories we've done in this show where the

00:31:43.660 swedish version of the word king meant monarch like ruling person and queen meant like the female

00:31:49.500 wife of the king so there wasn't a word that meant like woman who is the monarch so she was

00:31:56.820 like technically the girl king which is why that's why the royal diaries book is called that 0.91

00:32:01.580 that's why the movie from a few years ago is called that but remember how maria eleonora had

00:32:07.260 been so like attached to gustav is like the one thing preventing her from going completely insane

00:32:12.920 so his death hit her very badly as you might have imagined as per usual swedish tradition

00:32:19.100 his body was cleaned and embalmed so he was killed on the battlefield right so he wasn't like in the

00:32:23.980 same place where she was one of the witnesses of these rights was his illegitimate son christina's

00:32:30.000 half-brother gustav gustavson who is now 16 years old and who had been fighting with the swedish

00:32:34.800 army um the body of gustav was then escorted back to sweden not on skis but i'm gonna have to imagine

00:32:42.220 a sled because it is winter in sweden so maybe the people escorting it were on skis i just feel

00:32:48.540 like skis play a big role in this family so they reached the castle where maria eleonora was living

00:32:54.460 and she wept uncontrollably which is like even if everyone wasn't being like she's so crazy like

00:33:01.300 an understandable reaction to the battlefield death of your husband the king so as part of the

00:33:08.040 like traditional swedish embalming process his heart had been removed to be preserved separately

00:33:12.320 and in a goth proto Mary Shelley moment Maria Eleonora took it and placed it in a golden casket

00:33:19.320 to keep it with her which she did constantly she also sort of put it on like an altar hanging above

00:33:25.400 her bed with like candles around it as sort of like a bedtime light and so she began planning

00:33:30.900 an elaborate funeral using her usual overspending ways this is just seems to be like I relate to it

00:33:36.920 and this is a bit Anne of Denmark to me it's just like when you're depressed it's like going to

00:33:41.340 shopping spree and maybe feel better for five minutes for various snow and ice reasons the

00:33:47.020 body remained with her until july remember he had died the previous november so just like the ground

00:33:53.040 was too frozen to bury him because it's sweden so then the whole entourage sailed over to a castle

00:34:02.340 in new shipping for his official burial slash funeral christina joined them there from where

00:34:09.140 she'd been living all this time with her aunt princess katerina and her cousins christina and

00:34:14.820 her mother had not seen each other for 15 months not that either of them minded that because they

00:34:20.660 hated each other and will for their whole lives so i forgot to say this earlier but about christina 0.64

00:34:26.320 she was like physically she was small like short petite small proportioned like her mother was she 0.94

00:34:33.920 had very big blue eyes and a big long nose also like her mother uh she had some sort of thing 1.00

00:34:40.480 with her shoulders which was like sometimes a thing that just like happens to shoulders uh where 0.98

00:34:46.200 they were like not even like one was higher up than the other one she would later claim this was 0.99

00:34:51.040 because her mother had dropped her on purpose as a baby or she also claimed that assassins from a

00:34:57.540 rival nation had dropped her as a baby anyway she was always self-conscious about this shoulders

00:35:03.080 situation and in all the portraits of her she'd pose like tilted to the side to try and like hide

00:35:07.880 that so she had this whole time been living with her aunt katerina and her husband johan who is

00:35:14.400 count johan casimir of pwaltz zeibrucken and her five cousins who were like similar age to her

00:35:20.960 so she was fourth in age to this group so there are two girls who were on either side of her age

00:35:27.760 wise the older cousin was maria euphrosyne and the other and i i have used to saying that because

00:35:35.400 maria euphrosyne is gonna do a bunch of stuff later her other cousin was eleonora katerina

00:35:41.680 um then her eldest cousin 10 years older was countess christina this is like the fourth

00:35:47.780 christina in the story christina magdalena there was an older boy cousin named carl gustav

00:35:53.300 who if i tell you i'm gonna start calling him kg like you know he's gonna be in the story a lot

00:35:59.480 because that's the only time i give people a cute nickname kg was there and little baby adolf a name

00:36:06.840 i have to really emphasize was just a normal name in the 1600s and didn't have any connotations of

00:36:14.920 you know world war ii nazism um yeah so christina mother reunited the attendants set out gustav's

00:36:21.060 body in the castle but maria eleonora now refused to bury him at all she had his embalmed body

00:36:26.860 placed in her own bedroom the coffin was open so she could i don't know look at him snuggle with

00:36:33.000 him she kept the like heart lamp going as well so time kept passing it was now over a year after his

00:36:39.740 death and the swedish parliament men were like can we bury him ever but no she would not let them

00:36:47.360 and in fact finally against her protests the body was interred july 1634 19 months after his death

00:36:55.680 christina seven years old the girl king attended this ceremony and he hadn't been buried for a

00:37:01.580 day before maria eleanor was begging for the coffin to be opened again asking that he not be

00:37:06.160 buried so long as she lived but they were like yeah no crazy lady and so with him like his corpse

00:37:13.320 now buried she turned her intense attention towards her long neglected daughter christina

00:37:19.360 in a section that i have titled the mummy dearest era so maria eleonora dismissed and katerina

00:37:27.880 she was just like i don't need you anymore i'm gonna personally now care for christina who's

00:37:32.700 seven years old maria eleonora said christina looked just like her father and never let her

00:37:37.260 out of her sight christina escaped during the day to like do whatever she could to get away

00:37:42.900 from her mother's intense attention so christina liked to go read books to ride horses but at night

00:37:49.780 she was trapped and had to share her mother's like room with her this like goth mausoleum of

00:37:55.380 a room with her father's embalmed heart hanging above the bed at around the same time christina

00:38:00.760 started getting sick a lot in what seems like could be anxiety psychological things manifesting

00:38:08.840 as physical symptoms because this is like quite a situation to be living in meanwhile so the 0.60

00:38:14.500 swedish parliament men were like do we really want this like little girl to be the new king

00:38:18.600 and they're like there's kind of no option because gustav is dead now and the continuation of the

00:38:24.980 vasa dynasty was important and she was the only way for that to happen so as you might expect

00:38:29.920 there was some opposition to a female ruler but behind the scenes she had enough supporters

00:38:34.540 and the fact that she apparently looked so much like her father seemed to convince other people

00:38:39.800 they're like he's like being not that they were like he's been reincarnated but they're like

00:38:43.960 this is like reassuring so she was elected queen because this was a situation that i don't other

00:38:49.860 podcasts probably talk about this but they like elected their monarchs they weren't just like

00:38:55.600 appointed anyway so she became king of the swedes goths and vandals great princess of finland duchess

00:39:01.880 of estonia and coralia and lady of ingria and so she had been raised to understand that being monarch

00:39:09.540 was like her divine right in the sense of like god made her this so her right to rule was like

00:39:17.460 absolute um god himself had put her in this throne in this place this explains a lot about

00:39:22.780 her behavior later and montage so for the next 12 years like until she was 18 and although she

00:39:31.360 was king five men ruled in her name chief among them another main character in this podcast

00:39:36.160 axel oxengrina who had also been her father's right-hand man and was honestly like you want

00:39:43.660 him to be like a sketchy um like shifty you know conniving person but he was just like really good

00:39:49.180 at this job so yeah really not as schemey as you might assume he would have been but of course

00:39:54.580 she's this young princess slash king there was a lot of talk about who would be the best person

00:39:59.780 to marry her too in that alliance building sort of way and everyone at this point's first choice

00:40:04.140 was her cousin Friedrich Wilhelm who was 13 years old when she was seven he was the son of the

00:40:09.620 elector of Brandenburg and was going to inherit the Duchy of Pomerania I do not know where any

00:40:14.660 of those places are but sounds impressive and importantly this had been Gustav's plan in the

00:40:19.460 first place before he died and Maria Eleonora had at that time supported this match as well

00:40:23.680 so what's crucial about this so as much as i want to like trust what christina said in her own

00:40:30.280 memoir she was savvy about pr things so when she was writing her own story slash like living her

00:40:38.500 life she tried to make it seem like her father had always intended for her to be monarch on her

00:40:42.660 own and not to get married but in fact her father had been planning her marriage alliance when she

00:40:47.940 was seven years old and probably because he had been assuming that you know she would have a

00:40:54.900 regent until she was 18 then she'd get married and then her husband would be the actual king

00:40:58.440 so like there wouldn't actually be a girl ruler i think was what gustav was maybe up to but she

00:41:03.000 that didn't serve what she wanted to do later but the thing is so the people in sweden except for 0.99

00:41:08.280 her were like let's marry her to this guy friedrich but the german princes didn't want to

00:41:13.160 agree to this match for 30 years war related reasons in that they didn't know if they and

00:41:18.860 the swedes would even get along by the time christine was old enough to get married so they

00:41:23.280 didn't want to like lock this down another option was the archduke ulrich in denmark a man in his

00:41:29.920 early 20s and he was the son of the danish king christian the fourth and so axel oxenherna was

00:41:37.560 not into this match but maria eleonora at this point was and christian wanted to put a wedge

00:41:43.300 between maria eleonora and axel oxen herna so this was all going according to his plan to like 1.00

00:41:49.560 use maria to like get in the way maria eleonora didn't like axel either was happy to find a 0.98

00:41:57.060 powerful ally against him and she also preferred this match because christina was a monarch and 0.99

00:42:02.040 she felt only marriage to another monarch would do the other guy friedrich was the son of the

00:42:08.660 elector of brandenburg and he would inherit the duchy of pomerania so not like literally a king

00:42:12.920 also fun fact before he died well i guess before he went on the trip that like where he died on it

00:42:18.140 gustav had um said that christina should be taken away from her mother and that maria eleonora was

00:42:23.880 not to be permitted to have any influence over her presumably because gustav didn't like maria

00:42:29.420 Eleonora and thought she was insane. So the senators were like, uh, so should we do that

00:42:35.020 or not? Um, and this is where, so this is the part of the story where she had been with Katerina,

00:42:40.420 but then she's with Maria Eleonora again. And she was left with her mother for two years living in

00:42:45.280 the like embalmed heart room while the parliamentarians were just kind of like,

00:42:49.920 what should we do? So Maria Eleonora kept planning memorials, like a new tomb or a new chapel, 0.90

00:42:55.980 then a new castle and then a whole new city like all these things to commemorate Gustav but no

00:43:00.300 stone was ever laid for any of these things she was just coming up with plans and wanting to spend

00:43:04.360 money yeah well I think another reason why Gustav wanted Christina kept away from her mother was 0.91

00:43:09.060 the fact that Maria Eleonora who was German as I mentioned before hated Sweden its language its 0.63

00:43:13.540 people and its customs and so the senators were like we should probably avoid having the like 0.68

00:43:18.740 girl king of sweden raised around someone who like hates sweden so much finally when christina 1.00

00:43:26.020 was 10 axel oxen herna removed her from her mother's care and sent her back to her aunt

00:43:31.040 katerina and her cousins at this point maria eleonora herself was removed from the gothic 0.61

00:43:36.860 castle of like heart worship and she was placed under guard on the island castle of gripsolm

00:43:43.520 50 miles away so christina and this is where i think the royal diaries book takes place it's

00:43:48.740 like her growing up with her cousins so she went she was schooled with her cousins who are all

00:43:53.300 similar age to her and they all did the same coursework which is notable because later on

00:43:57.160 christina would claim she was a genius far superior to other children of her same age but like

00:44:02.040 she and her cousins all did the same classwork she was like fine her favorite thing to study

00:44:08.320 were stories of the ancient world especially julius caesar and alexander the great with whom

00:44:12.400 she identified. She saw herself as the next in a long line of great and very smart kings who would

00:44:17.520 be extremely successful and significant. Her room was hung with tapestries of Alexander the Great's

00:44:23.180 exploits, like people nowadays might put up posters of like BTS. She was just like an Alexander the 0.83

00:44:29.600 Great stan. She was already, aged 11, entirely settled into a frame of mind that she would keep 0.92

00:44:36.040 for the rest of her life namely that women inherently were awful except for her because 0.94

00:44:42.820 she was not like other girls and it sounds like this is what she's like in the royal diaries book 0.99

00:44:47.620 just like an unsufferable brat who's just like i'm not like other girls so she just assumed she

00:44:54.320 also assumed she was smarter and more clever than anyone else around her not just girls and women

00:44:57.680 but like anyone because she had read about alexander the great and julius caesar and because 0.53

00:45:02.620 she was the king um everyone like humored her in this and pretended like she was smarter than

00:45:09.000 everybody else so it's kind of like an emperor's new clothes scenario where like she thought she

00:45:13.380 was great and everyone's like yeah no you're great and she wasn't but no one would tell her

00:45:16.560 that except for me now so she spent time with Axel Oxenherna who's kind of like the main

00:45:22.980 regent at this point so and he was the person running the country she admired his stories of

00:45:29.980 war and learn from him about, like, statecraft and things.

00:45:32.940 Although, spoiler, those lessons didn't stay. 1.00

00:45:35.400 So another influence, her misogyny, like, Christina hated women and girls and all female 1.00

00:45:43.340 things. 1.00

00:45:44.840 And this wasn't just, like, because her mother had sort of traumatized her in those years

00:45:50.020 that they lived together, but she just kind of thought all women were, like, her mother

00:45:53.820 were sort of like i don't know fragile like shopaholics who like had embalmed hearts in the

00:46:00.400 rooms but spending all this time with axel oxen herna probably also rubbed off in her because he 1.00

00:46:06.540 wrote a letter to the senate saying christine is not like other members of her sex she is stout

00:46:11.580 hearted and of good understanding so clearly she's being regularly congratulated for being

00:46:16.160 not like other girls so of course she would like really strongly make that her defining trait

00:46:21.360 to herself and this is where we can get into like is this a gender dysphoria situation is Christina

00:46:28.940 a trans man and maybe certainly she was not exposed to other ways of being a woman besides

00:46:40.480 like the court ladies around her I guess which is not to say that she wasn't also a trans man but 0.73

00:46:46.680 she just like hated women so in terms of like being a girl and a king the one potential role

00:46:53.540 model she had was queen elizabeth the first who lived about 100 years before all of this and but

00:46:59.500 christina didn't like look up to her as a role model she more was jealous of her but there's 0.95

00:47:04.700 there's similarities right like she had that famous speech where she's like you know i might 1.00

00:47:07.640 just have a woman's body but i have the heart and stomach of a king the difference between that and 0.98

00:47:12.100 what christina said and thought was elizabeth said that like to an army before a battle and

00:47:18.000 christina just said this all the time to everybody england was a protestant country like sweden the

00:47:22.560 tudor dynasty had also been fragile like the vases were so in sweden elizabeth was like remembered as

00:47:28.460 a great heroine and in fact there were still some people alive who had been alive when she was

00:47:32.800 for instance christina's great aunt cecilia had been best friends with elizabeth for a while

00:47:37.980 as you'll recall cecilia had died when christina was four so they i don't know if they would have

00:47:43.940 met each other but that's how close christina was to like people who had actually known elizabeth

00:47:48.980 the first so both of them had spent some time trapped elizabeth had been in prison as a young

00:47:53.920 woman christina had been trapped with her mother in the like castle of death but rather than to aim

00:48:00.200 to like emulate elizabeth christina was jealous of her and wanted to show her up and be better

00:48:05.220 than her christina herself like and elizabeth the fact that she very recently had lived and like was 0.99

00:48:10.400 an effective and popular leader was kind of proof that like women could be okay monarchs but christina

00:48:17.600 was like no women are terrible women are terrible at leading elizabeth was an exception and so will

00:48:23.740 i be so christina wrote in her unpublished memoir later as an adult she wrote as a young girl i had 0.80

00:48:30.640 an overwhelming aversion to everything that women do or say i couldn't bear their tight-fitting

00:48:35.640 fussy clothes i took no care of my complexion or my figure or the rest of my appearance i never wore

00:48:40.680 a hat or a mask and scarcely ever wore gloves i despised everything belonging to my sex hardly

00:48:46.140 excluding modesty and propriety i couldn't stand long dresses and i only wanted to wear short skirts

00:48:51.380 what's more i was so hopeless at all the womanly crafts that no one could ever teach me anything

00:48:55.580 about them i want to note at this point that christina didn't brush her hair and this is an

00:49:00.940 era where it's like okay whatever like everyone's wearing wigs but who cares but she just became 0.62

00:49:05.120 famous for this like really really messy hair because she's just like i'm not like other girls

00:49:10.420 i don't brush my hair so everything she's mentioning there is like she didn't like

00:49:15.900 dresses she didn't like fussy clothes she didn't like skincare she didn't like gloves like she's

00:49:22.780 not saying i don't like my woman body she's saying i don't like these like traditionally feminine 0.99

00:49:28.160 things so like this could be gender dysphoria this could be her being like a tomboy could be 1.00

00:49:34.960 her feeling constrained by the only image of femininity she was exposed to she could be non-binary

00:49:41.040 like she could be like part of all those things or all of those things i don't know but she just

00:49:46.420 like hated women a lot christina and she also continued to be ill frequently and it seems like

00:49:53.360 a lot of these were like emotional in origin so in the biography by veronica buckley the author

00:49:59.820 wrote christina spent her days more or less charging at the world infuriating and exhausting

00:50:05.080 those around her so she was kind of a nightmare person as i think you probably have gleaned from

00:50:10.920 everything i've said so far um 1638 after three years of living with her aunt princess katerina

00:50:16.760 aunt princess katerina died and so the cousins were moved to a different castle except for the

00:50:21.900 youngest girl cousin maria euphrosyne who stayed with christina for the next four years as a

00:50:26.840 companion and i wrote poor her christina's tutor died when she was 16 and so she was at that point

00:50:33.880 left to her own devices which i think we can all glean by now is not the best of ideas because her

00:50:38.420 own devices were well you know what it makes for a good story so now we get into love story

00:50:45.340 or potential love story part one so her cousin carl gustav aka kg who she'd grown up with an

00:50:52.720 aunt princess katerina's house was now becoming a war hero um this is at the point where christina

00:50:57.540 is 15 and he is 19 and so they met again after some time and it turned into maybe a first love

00:51:07.020 crush thing between first cousins which at this point was like okay for royals so but it seems

00:51:13.920 like what christina liked best about this was not the like love story of it but the fact that it

00:51:17.840 offered her an excuse to scheme and um sneak around because they were not allowed to be alone 1.00

00:51:24.020 unchaperones they sent secret sexy letters between themselves um delivered by maria ufrosyne who was

00:51:30.400 kg's sister and christina's cousin and friend one of the reasons why they had to sneak around was

00:51:35.940 also because Axel Oxenherna probably wouldn't have approved of this match because he didn't

00:51:40.340 trust KG's schemey relatives and family who he suspected were manipulating Christina for their

00:51:44.720 own advancement. And I just have to mention, throughout her life, a lot of people manipulated

00:51:49.680 Christina for their own advancement, and she was too proud to ever admit when that happened to her,

00:51:53.960 but happened to her a lot. And then also Axel Oxenherna was the head of her regency council

00:51:58.220 and would have to approve whoever she wanted to marry. Meanwhile, a job had opened up as a member

00:52:04.200 of the regency council kg was a strong candidate he had no other employment and wanted the job

00:52:09.280 the senators were like christina do you want to nominate him for this position and she was like

00:52:13.920 oh time for some clever scheming for no reason so i've been watching recently past seasons of

00:52:21.220 survivor which frankly i recommend but christina reminds me of sometimes there's players on

00:52:26.840 survivor who are just like not strategic and not smart but they think they are but all they do is

00:52:32.840 just like random chaotic moves that they mistake for being actually really smart and that's kind

00:52:38.280 of what she was up to so christina had come to resent axel oxenherna and how much power he had

00:52:44.180 because she thought she was the best person ever how dare he tell her what to do etc you'd think

00:52:49.760 she would be in favor of bringing kg because that would annoy axel oxenherna but she like

00:52:55.320 overthought this she was like what if i don't bring in kg because that would trick axel into

00:53:00.580 thinking that christina sided with him when she didn't really so all of her plans are overly

00:53:06.300 complicated with like like this and in general we're all bad plans so she refused to nominate 0.91

00:53:13.240 kg for the position and everyone was confused she thought this made her look smart and clever 0.99

00:53:18.120 but actually it made her look immature and foolish and like an asshole all of which she was so if 0.99

00:53:25.040 you're like wait but where's her mother been all this time so maria eleonora like as christina was 1.00

00:53:32.980 just sort of like terrorizing royal court as a teenager maria eleonora who's like i forget she's 0.98

00:53:41.080 so she's 40 years old she's like not old at all been through it so she's still trapped on the 0.75

00:53:47.140 island castle of grips home she'd been there for four years not alone her ladies in waiting were

00:53:52.320 with her she was not allowed to visit her daughter brackets who didn't want to see her anyway 0.96

00:53:58.160 maria eleonora started a secret pen pal relationship with king christian of denmark

00:54:05.540 and denmark being at this point the enemy of sweden and so maria eleonora was kind of working 0.99

00:54:13.140 on just like an escape from captivity in like the most glorious like fuck you sweden way because 0.98

00:54:18.100 remember she hates sweden she's always hated sweden frankly sweden has not treated her well 0.99

00:54:22.600 can't blame her so she was very beautiful 40 years old and so she won the heart of the man

00:54:28.920 who was supposed to be her captor marshal nielsen and marshal nielsen helped her get passage on a

00:54:34.720 danish sailing ship back to the mainland rumors had it she was heading off to see christian

00:54:39.240 who was her lover he was probably not her lover given that i don't know if they had ever met

00:54:46.740 before christian was also 23 years older than her married and had 12 children his wife had left him

00:54:53.520 for a german count so like want to learn about that wife so maria eleanor arrived he was like

00:55:00.300 oh wait a minute you're like absolutely unbearable to have around and started to find ways to get

00:55:06.100 rid of her because he did not like her um this took two years for him to figure out how to get 1.00

00:55:12.200 rid of her during which time so maria eleanor because she had like effectively defected to 1.00

00:55:18.260 denmark she'd been cut off from getting her like royal allowance as like the dowager queen or

00:55:23.620 whatever christian had arranged that she started getting her income again so then he finally

00:55:28.480 kicked her out she spent four years with her nephew friedrich remember the one who christina

00:55:33.560 was gonna maybe be married to in brandenburg until she finally returned to stockholm and

00:55:38.900 christina was there fully grown and by this point she was the reigning monarch in her own name

00:55:44.120 because she was 18 years old so 1644 aged 18 christina was declared an adult although the

00:55:51.300 coronation was postponed because of war related reasons now in terms of like the gender stuff

00:55:57.720 i'm just going to quote from veronica buckley's biography again christina walked like a man sat 1.00

00:56:02.240 and rode like a man and could eat and swear like the roughest soldier her voice was deep and gruff

00:56:07.000 and her temper warm which means um bad tempered a warm temper to me sounds nice but now they mean 0.98

00:56:13.120 she was mean christina's servants were no strangers to blows or bruises she liked best to

00:56:17.420 talk of manly things and whenever she spoke of military action she adopted a sort of marshal 0.82

00:56:21.520 pose planting one foot in front of the other which again it's like is this this sort of gender 1.00

00:56:28.880 exploration was more allowed for a rich queen than it would be for like a less rich anybody else 1.00

00:56:38.440 i think so yeah she's behaving not in the typical female ways and this is kind of where people are 1.00

00:56:46.500 just like but what is her genitalia this kind of i think this is part of where that stuff comes from 0.98

00:56:52.080 she also wanted to get rid of axel oxen herna once and for all because even though he was like

00:56:57.220 really good and talented and had been like effectively running a country for 30 years

00:57:00.660 she was jealous of how much power he had the major issue between them was what is now the 26 years

00:57:07.020 war which he wanted to keep fighting and she wanted to end it with a peace agreement so

00:57:11.800 the what would become the 30 years war like spoiler it goes on for four more years

00:57:16.840 is i asked a friend of the podcast lenoa johnson who knows about this stuff i was like can you

00:57:21.780 please just tell me what it is because i don't care about military history but like for context

00:57:26.860 I need to understand it and it's effectively just like the Habsburgs fighting against some other

00:57:32.760 people and it's like a war of religion and Sweden's involvement was mostly like the war was taking

00:57:38.740 place like in Sweden but Sweden wasn't like a major force in this battle anyway so she wanted

00:57:46.660 to end the war because like me she found wars boring Axel Oxenherna was like you're a nightmare 0.99

00:57:52.800 person like please stop being an asshole and the strain of this mutual dislike triggered her 0.97

00:57:59.180 various illnesses so this is sort of like where she's like relatable maybe the only way in which 0.99

00:58:05.020 she's relatable is christina is like running around just being a nightmare just like so like 0.99

00:58:11.060 brash and like confident and like a dick to everybody but like she also had these psychosomatic 0.99

00:58:20.200 illnesses like the strain of all of this really got to her so she claimed the cause yeah so she 0.98

00:58:27.800 had fallen seriously ill by the time she was um within a year of turning 18 she had fallen

00:58:32.540 seriously ill she claimed the cause of her illness was the great exhaustion of being monarch but

00:58:37.520 honestly she kind of wasn't doing anything as monarch because she was um yeah busy just trying

00:58:47.560 to undermine everybody all the time anyway she recovered from that illness then got the measles

00:58:51.720 then got better and all of her choices that she was making as monarch just seemed entirely just

00:58:57.160 to be the opposite of what axel would have done for instance he didn't like the french so she

00:59:01.920 decided the french were her favorite people like that sort of thing just like real mature christina

00:59:06.440 yeah so the first main grifter the first of numerous grifters that would enter her life

00:59:11.900 is monsieur mark duncan de saracens who was veron kaboke describes brawler and seducer extraordinaire

00:59:19.340 former gentleman of constantinople future catholic aristocrat currently

00:59:23.340 huguenot diplomat at large so he's just this like sexy french guy and christine is like i love your

00:59:29.700 energy i love france now because excel hates it and he just like saw how easy it would be to

00:59:35.560 manipulate her because she was like so sheltered and naive and um wanted would listen to anyone

00:59:42.480 who told her she was the greatest so she sent him to paris to assist sweden's minister there

00:59:47.460 and the minister already there was someone who had been appointed by axel i'm not sure if the

00:59:51.820 other guy was good at the job but at least he was better than monsieur mark duncan was because mark

00:59:57.240 peaced out and just like wandered away when he was in paris never to return christina gave him

01:00:04.140 i forget just like lots of money or like some another better job because she just like would

01:00:08.120 not accept that she had been tricked by somebody so she just kept treating him like he was great

01:00:13.060 because she just couldn't accept that she could have made a mistake or had bad judgment and

01:00:18.500 throughout her life as we will see she repeatedly falls victim to people like mark duncan who were

01:00:23.360 not even good grifters like just wildly unsubtle obviously con men but she really liked being

01:00:29.480 sneaky and they appealed to that thing so after mark dungan wandered away she chose a new

01:00:35.460 representative in paris who was a guy named count magnus gabriel de la gardie magnus gonna become

01:00:41.520 a recurring character so magnus was a swedish slash french person vaguely related to her he was

01:00:47.840 tall and handsome and french so axel hated him because axel hated the french um christina liked

01:00:53.000 him because she liked the french and she liked people who axel hated she named him colonel of

01:00:58.200 her guard which was a questionable choice because he was young and inexperienced and she was only

01:01:04.840 doing it because it would annoy axel and she kind of had a crush on him but guess who magnus was

01:01:10.800 actually into not christina he was into her cousin slash companion maria euphrosini he proposed to

01:01:18.500 her maria euphrosini she accepted and then christina appointed him ambassador extraordinary

01:01:24.060 to france which is a fake job if you're like what's the ambassador extraordinary a fake job

01:01:30.240 she just invented but that was basically just so that he she would make him leave town because she

01:01:35.760 just like manipulating people kg was also around by the way her cousin and he's um still in love

01:01:42.300 with her just like bear in mind he's still wandering around anyway magnus left for paris

01:01:46.800 and christina went to her room and cried because she missed him he returned after seven months

01:01:51.220 and he married Maria Euphrosini in a lavish wedding, which Christina unsurprisingly made 1.00

01:01:55.960 all about her because she was a messy bitch who lived for drama and she had yet to comprehend 1.00

01:02:00.900 that other people besides her had feelings. Does she ever comprehend this? Stay tuned. 1.00

01:02:08.040 So now we move on to her second potential lover, which is her lesbian moment. So 0.98

01:02:13.720 with Magnus gone, well with Magnus off the market, Magnus married to Maria Euphrosini,

01:02:19.840 christina turned her romantic attention not to kg who's just like floating around loving her

01:02:24.760 but rather to her lady-in-waiting ebba spare so because ebba was so beautiful and christina liked

01:02:31.980 french things she renamed her belle so i'm gonna call her ebba frankly because i don't know if ebba

01:02:41.720 wanted to be called belle by christina so ebba and christina were around the same age but entirely 0.96

01:02:46.600 different personalities bell is timid and feminine with zero interest in academics aka similar to 1.00

01:02:52.260 maria eleonora which you'd think would be the sort of person christina would hate the most 1.00

01:02:57.160 but she was very fond of her so the two shared a bed which is not necessarily a sexy thing

01:03:03.880 because people in the ladies-in-waiting would share beds because it was sweet and it was cold 0.98

01:03:08.640 but it could have been a sexy thing and christina made it be a sexy thing because she started around 1.00

01:03:13.800 making double entendres about it and basically forcing everyone to gossip that the two women 1.00

01:03:17.820 were lovers because she just like wanted everyone to be like scandalized by her so in front of the

01:03:23.940 English ambassador Christina said um that Ebba's inside was as beautiful as her outside which made

01:03:30.600 everybody blush and be shocked um before long her bad jokes turned into fact and everyone believed 0.99

01:03:36.520 that she and Ebba were lesbians or this is again where they're like but what if Christina 1.00

01:03:41.620 has intersex traits and this is like proof that christina is actually like

01:03:47.020 trans or whatever so it's a in that way are they a heterosexual couple anyway christina

01:03:54.160 this is the thing like people speculated about her but she like instigated some of it and like

01:04:00.680 made people do it like she what's the word she inspired them to do it so this is when all the 0.77

01:04:05.880 previous stuff came up like um everyone was just solving the mystery of like the genitalia so like

01:04:11.440 they're like she walked like a man she refused to marry kg who was handsome and loved her why did

01:04:16.020 she wear flat shoes like she must be secretly a man or have intersex traits or be a lesbian

01:04:22.720 everyone's just like what does it mean why doesn't you brush her hair and christina loved the attention 1.00

01:04:26.560 she fueled the gossip by being like i could not bear to be used by a man the way a peasant uses

01:04:31.960 his fields which is her saying like i don't want to like be you know like a brute mare for some

01:04:39.020 dude but also this is like in terms of the lesbian love story like is this her and ebba being in love

01:04:47.120 or even having a sexual relationship or is christina just using this for like gossip to 0.99

01:04:52.240 like people talking about her and she actually is like an asexual person unclear even if we go with 0.99

01:04:57.680 the interpretation that this is like a cute little love story of two lesbians in sweden um it's also 0.88

01:05:03.340 not that because christina was rude to ebba as well because she was just a prop for the christina

01:05:08.720 show for instance one day she and ebba went to visit some french guy who was visiting and they

01:05:13.900 found him in bed reading an erotic book christina knew it was an erotic book but ebba didn't know

01:05:19.140 that so christina was like ebba can you read this out loud and ebba didn't she started to read out

01:05:23.300 loud but she didn't realize what kind of book it was until she started reading and christina was

01:05:26.480 just like aha lol i made you read an erotic book out loud isn't this funny and i'm sure the french

01:05:31.780 guy was like haha as well also sign out ebba and this also might speak to christina's motivations

01:05:38.140 here was engaged to the son of axel oxen herna whose name was binked so this might be christina 0.99

01:05:46.060 trying to fuck things up to go up against axel or like to ruin that marriage or something so she

01:05:50.880 convinced ebba to call off the engagement and rather to marry jacob the younger brother of 0.97

01:05:56.020 magnus who is the one who christina had the crush on and then married maria euphrasini

01:06:00.900 so a gossipy story went around that during ebba's wedding christina ordered all the guests to strip

01:06:06.060 nude and dance or have an orgy which could have happened but even if it didn't the fact people 1.00

01:06:12.500 believe that gossip shows what kind of reputation christina was like literally intentionally building 0.99

01:06:17.840 for herself not sure why so ebba and jacob were not a happy couple partly because even after they

01:06:24.580 were married ebba kept living with christina ebba wound up having three children all of whom died in

01:06:29.900 infancy within a few years jacob died also making her a widow and then ebba declined into illness 0.78

01:06:35.700 and sadness as christina continued treating her like a pet which maybe contributed to her illness

01:06:41.540 and or sadness i'm sorry that wasn't a cute lesbian love story but could it have ever been

01:06:47.400 when christina is involved yeah so axel oxenherna and everybody were like christina like please

01:06:53.180 marry somebody so you can have an heir like an alliances like what is happening and she was like

01:06:58.640 okay i guess i'll marry kg kg was like oh my god really finally huzzah but then christina like went

01:07:05.340 to see him secretly and she was like i'm not actually planning to marry you this is all a

01:07:08.620 ruse to increase your public standing so i can appoint you commander-in-chief so she and kg had

01:07:14.280 a sit down with other people there like magnus was there to dtr to find the relationship in which

01:07:19.900 she was like i won't ever marry you unless one day i need to for political reasons so in approximately

01:07:25.920 five years i will give you a final answer vis-a-vis are we going to get married and in the meantime

01:07:31.980 you can write love letters to me if you want but please don't send them to me you can send them to

01:07:36.320 your father who is my uncle who will pass them along and also please go to germany

01:07:41.580 and then he had to pretend that she had agreed to marry him for political reasons but also 0.99

01:07:48.100 because of in case if she died he would be her heir so like christina what the fuck anyway kg 0.99

01:07:55.160 fell ill plagued with headaches and fainting fits and who can blame him like the emotional fuckery 0.99

01:08:00.740 he decided to just go off and be a soldier because like you know work out some aggression

01:08:05.840 as they had decided he sent letters back to her visa via in between other people magnus wrote

01:08:13.280 back um encouraging him don't give up on christina but like come on like she's clearly never gonna

01:08:19.180 marry him but also like who knows what christina was up to if she married kg it would be the 0.98

01:08:23.900 ultimate fuck you to axel oxen herna which you'd think she would like but she did not do this um 1.00

01:08:29.320 even though the marriage would also bring new fortune and privileges to her 1.00

01:08:31.900 cousins and the family who had raised her,

01:08:33.700 which you'd think she would also like because Axel wouldn't like it.

01:08:37.200 So it might've been her idolization of slash rivalry with Queen Elizabeth

01:08:43.460 the first who had never married.

01:08:44.780 Like Christina just was determined to never get married.

01:08:49.200 And that might've been just sort of like her, 0.91

01:08:53.180 she wanted to be like,

01:08:54.140 I am the special one. 0.97

01:08:55.100 I don't want a man to take away my power,

01:08:56.600 which is kind of like what Elizabeth the first was doing. 0.98

01:08:58.180 but also she like really really really did not want to have children which would as soon as she

01:09:04.660 married a man like that would be what was expected of her but anyway she kept stringing him along

01:09:10.860 never expected his overtures for a romantic relationship and that's where we're going to

01:09:16.380 leave things for today because this is a fucking long amazing story and i can't even predict right

01:09:22.540 now i was thinking this is gonna be a two-parter now i feel like this could be like a three-parter

01:09:26.980 it could it could become our first ever four-parter there's just like honestly i got

01:09:32.860 halfway through what i thought i was going to get through in this episode so like stay tuned for

01:09:38.020 more les reminders pour vous first of all if you haven't looked at the vulgar history store in a

01:09:45.320 minute i encourage you to take a look because there is a new design there which is the affair

01:09:50.040 of the necklace the necklace the t-shirt i worked with this amazing artist hero chabert

01:09:55.700 who created a beautiful graphic that's like so when you wear the t-shirt it looks like you're

01:10:00.860 wearing the jean de lamotte ugly necklace but on a t-shirt it looks cute so you can find that there

01:10:06.840 when you're looking at vulgarhistory.store remember you can always use code tits out for

01:10:10.480 free us shipping or tits out 10 for 10 off also for the month of june 2022 when you buy any of

01:10:18.020 the stuff from the mary toft collection um i'm going to be donating those proceeds to the national

01:10:23.020 network of abortion funds and vulgarhistory.com is a place you can go there's a form where you

01:10:30.520 can give me feedback or suggest people you think would be good to talk about on the show if you

01:10:34.720 have hung out with llamas um that's where you can send me pictures of you hanging out with llamas

01:10:38.620 which someone just did and it made my life if you go to bookshop.org slash shop slash vulgar history

01:10:43.800 that's where when you shop for books they're using that link then a little bit goes to help support

01:10:48.400 the show there's also patreon um if you go to patreon.com and foster writer that's where if you

01:10:54.060 pledge as little as one dollar a month you get early access to all new episodes um free of

01:10:59.620 advertisements and when you pledge um at least five dollars a month then you get access to all 0.94

01:11:05.900 the bonus content so that's like so this asshole the episode's about men in history who are terrible

01:11:10.680 this month in honor of christina i'm going to be doing alexander the great a person i don't know

01:11:15.200 anything about so i'm gonna be learning about him and also in there that's where you get the

01:11:20.160 vulgar peace theater episodes where i'm joined with alice and epstein and lana wood johns to

01:11:24.340 talk about movies and this month in fact we're talking about the girl king the movie about

01:11:29.280 christina that makes her and ebba's story look like a cute lesbian love story so we'll see what

01:11:34.580 we think about that and also the most important thing is you're listening to this and i love you

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01:12:06.880 together yeah so follow us on instagram at vulgar history pod twitter at vulgar history and until

01:12:12.280 then, my friends, keep your pants 1.00

01:12:14.260 on and your tits out. 1.00

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Vulgar History - June 22, 2022

International, part 14： Kristina, The Queer Swedish Monarch (pt 1⧸4)

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Transcript