{"product_id":"christina-queen-of-sweden-the-restless-life-of-a-european-eccentric-9781841157047","title":"Christina Queen of Sweden : The Restless Life of a European Eccentric","description":"\u003cp\u003eShe was born on a bitterly cold December night in 1626 and  in the candlelight  mistakenly declared a boy. On her fathers death six years later  she inherited the Swedish throne. She was tutored by Descartes  yet could swear like the roughest soldier. She was painted a lesbian  a prostitute  a hermaphrodite  and an atheist; in that tumultuous age  it is hard to determine which was the most damning label. She was learned but restless  progressive yet self-indulgent; her leadership was erratic  her character unpredictable. Sweden was too narrow for her ambition. No sooner had she enjoyed the lavish celebrations of her officialcoronation at twenty-three than she abdicated  converting to Catholicism (an act of almost foolhardy independence and political challenge) and leaving her cold homeland behind for an extravagant new life in Rome. Christina  Queen of Sweden  longed fatally for adventure. Freed from her crown  Christina cut a breath-taking path across spending madly  searching for a more prestigious throne to scale  stirring trouble wherever she went. Supported and encouraged in turn by the pope  the king of Spain  and Frances powerful Cardinal Mazarin  Christina settled at the luxurious Palazzo Farnese  where she established a lavish salon for Romes artists and intellectuals. More than once the cross-dressing queen was forced to leave town until a scandal died down. She loved to buckle on a sword and swagger like the men whose company she adored  but the greatest mystery in her life was the true nature of her elusive sexuality  which biographer Veronica Buckley explores with sensitivity and rigor. For a time it seemed there was nothing this extraordinary woman might fear attempting  until a bloody tragedy of her own making foreshadowed her downfall. Pairing painstaking research with a sparkling narrative voice and unerring sense of the age  Veronica Buckley reclaims a protean life that had been preserved mostly as myth. Christina was a child of her time  and her time was one of great Europe stood at a crossroads where religion and science  antiquity and modernity  peace and war all met. Christina took what she wanted from each to create the life she most desired  and she dazzled all who met her.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647904309301,"sku":"ByrdShop_184115704X","price":121.85,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781841157047.jpg?v=1781699597","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/christina-queen-of-sweden-the-restless-life-of-a-european-eccentric-9781841157047","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}