‘Only God hath power over me’: Christina of Sweden’s Godly Sovereignty' - Progress Review Tyler Horton

The controversial life of Queen Christina of Sweden (r. 1632-1654) is filled with scandal, contradictions, and ambiguity. As Sweden’s first queen regnant, she is renowned as a woman of exceptional intelligence and capability who cultivated a reputation as ‘The Minerva of the North.’ At the same time, however, Christina’s refusal to marry or have children in addition to her shocking abdication and subsequent conversion to Catholicism led her contemporaries to characterise her at varying points as a ‘great princesse,’ ‘a prodigious monster,’ and ‘an hermaphrodite.’ Rather than focusing on the way Christina is portrayed by her contemporaries, in this presentation I will analyse how Christina represented herself as a legitimate and powerful monarch throughout her lifetime. I argue that Christina’s understanding of sovereignty and divine right was central to this endeavour, which is evident in the complex rhetorical strategy she used to construct her royal image. Drawing on both religious and gendered discourses, Christina portrayed herself as a godly queen whose divinely ordained sovereignty was eternal and irrevocable regardless of her sex or her decision to relinquish the throne.