Christina was the daughter of King Gustavus II Adolphus, one of the great military heroes of Swedish history. Entering the Thirty Years' War in 1630 when the "Protestant Cause" was at its lowest ebb, Gustavus Adolphus won a succession of sweeping victories over the armies of the Catholic Holy Roman Empire, culminating in the triumphs of Breitenfeld (1631) and Lützen (1632). At this second battle, however, Gustavus was killed, and although his generals fought on through the following two decades, none could quite match him for strategic daring or tactical elan. At his death Christina, his only child, inherited his throne. For the immediate future, power went to her regent, Axel Oxenstierna, a brilliant politician who continued Gustavus's active policy in northern Europe. He negotiated favorable terms for Sweden in its war against Denmark, settled at Bromsebro in 1644. By winning title to extensive south Baltic lands and ports for Sweden in the general pacification of Westphalia (1648), Oxenstierna showed unmistakably that Christina's Sweden had become the major power of northern Europe.
Not until December 1644, her 18th birthday, did Christina become queen in her own right, though by then she had been attending meetings of the Regency Council for two years.
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