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NH 03574 603-869-3978 1-877-u~:s-n-INN (537-2466) - A LESBIAN PARADISE 1_00 Acres - Pool Hot Tub 0 Trails wwwuhighlandsinn-nh.com vacationahlghlandsinn-nh.com Nancy Ellen Judd, MA Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor COUNSELING AND PSYCHOTHEHAPY §802§863.2084 2 CHURCH STREET, BURLINGTOMVT 05401 TEENS I ADULTS I INDIVIDUALS | COUPLES s a young queen, Christina» entertained the French ambassador by having a group of her proper, Lutheran ladies- ln-waiting sing to him in French. They sang a dirty soldier’s song with- out understanding a word of it, although Christina herself certainly did. She was 18 and had been the queen of Sweden since she was six, but until her eighteenth birthday a council of regents had rim the country in her place. If they expected to con- tinue managing-Christina and there- fore the country after she reached her majority, this incident made it clear Christina would be her own woman. She was born in December of 1626 to King Gustavus Adolphus and his wife Maria Eleanora, a beau- tiful but mentally unstable woman; When the king was killed in battle, he had left detailed instructions about how the princess was to be raised and - v educated in preparation for her role as Queen of Sweden. Her education was suitable for a young prince and included long hours of study and intense exercise, usually denied girls in the seventeenth century. . Those around her supposed that she would drop her tomboy ways when she grew older and began to want a husband. But Christina consid- ered herself ugly and it was said that she “hated mirrors _because they had , nothing agreeable to show her.” She was also very self-conscious of her physique because one shoulder was higher than the other. (When Swedish actress Greta Garbo played the young queen in a 1933 film, she protested . against how glamorous the characteri- zation was; the Swedes had no romantic ideas of their. cross-dressing queen.) ' As a young woman she ’ came to have an aversion to marriage although her biographers go to great lengths to convince themselves she was lovers with one or two of her court ‘favorites.’ Much happened in the first months of her actual reign. Her cousin and intimate friend since childhood, Maria, became engaged ‘ and left Christina’s court. They had been raised together, and Christina was also friends — some say lovers — with Maria’s fiance as well. They _could not marry without the Queen’s permission, which she gave without flinching although both friends would thus be unavailable to her. Christina ~ also suffered several severe bouts of illness in a short time due to the stress of ruling a country that had been con- tinually at war since before she was born. She was constantly wrangling with the government over peace treaties. Rlos Royalty In the midst of all this tur- moil, Ebba Sparre arrived at court. The same age as Christina, she_ became the queen’s ward when her father died some months earlier. She and Christina immediately formed a relationship that was unusual because Christina was not inclined to have women friends. Ebba found the usual conventions of femininity tiresome and foolish. Perhaps Ebba’s kindness and affection for the stressed-out young queen soothed Lnri"tina’s usual aggressiveness. At any rate, Ebba remained Christina’s constant companion for the next nine years until they were 28 when Christina abdicated. It was the custom for unmarried people to sleep with friends of the same sex, and Ebba ‘was Christina’s bedmate. Christina told the Spanish ambassador that she was in love with Ebba, and itwas later gossiped that she had “hidden the beautiful Ebba Sparre in her bed and associated with her in a special way.” Christina’s nickname for Ebba was ‘Belle’ — French for beautiful. In 1654, Christina abdicat- ed and her cousin Charles became the king. At the time she claimed that her real reason for abdicating was her aversion to marriage. A monarch must produce an heir, and between her dis- inclination and her oflen poor health, Christina didn’t think she would be able to do that. She also insisted that she wanted a quiet life that being a » monarch did not allow. After she left Sweden, Christina went to Europe where she converted to Catholicism — which was illegal in Sweden — and made a big stir wherever she went. “Oh, how happy I would be if it were permitted for me to see you, Belle,” Christina wrote the next year from Rome, “but I am condemned to the fate of loving you always, esteem- ing you always and never seeing you.” In the midst of another round of festivities in Brussels Christina wrote, “...I will carry with me even after death the noble passion and tender- ness that I have always shown to you.” , some would say dissolute, behaving %% After five or six years of , travel, intrigues both political and otherwise, a lot of partying and gen- 1 ‘ erally shocking behavior in Europe, Christina went back to Sweden in the I fall of 1660. Her cousin, King Charles X, had died earlier in the year, leaving as king a sickly boy of six, and she had to sort out her finan- _‘ cial affairs. While in Sweden she flamboyantly flaunted her ' Catholicism in the face of the stoic and conservative Swedes, going to mass far more often in Stockholm than she had ever bothered to in Rome. _ By this time, her cousin Maria’s husband was the chancellor of Sweden. Christina’s old favorite had remained bitter over an old argu- , ‘ merit and now prevented her from seeing Ebba during her visit. They had written back and forth about the possibility of Ebba visiting Christina “I am condemnyedai to the fate of loving you always, , esteeming you always and never seeing you. fitsaaerr ‘ mirissirza to has eomparaioaa, fibers in was ' in Germany perhaps, but Ebba was v_ already in poor health at the time and?‘ died two years later in 1662 without: having seen Christina again. Christina lived until 1689,? wandering between Germany and Rome. She lived a capricious life, asshe pleased and making as man)’ friends as enemies along the way until she died of a stroke at the age of 62. V " Francesca Susanna is a writer inter-_ ' _ested in lesbians through history. Sh? lives in Burlington.