A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654 Vol II (of 2), by Ambassador Bulstrode Whitelocke. Published by Charles Morton, revised by Henry Reeve, 1855.

A record of the negotiations of the treaty between Queen Christina’s Sweden and Oliver Cromwell’s England. You can read more about the treaty at the British Embassy in Sweden.

From the British Embassy in Sweden:

The Treaty was negotiated in Uppsala by a Puritan lawyer, Bulstrode Whitelocke, who was sent as English Ambassador to Sweden in 1653/54.

There is, even today, dispute about Whitelocke’s character and achievement. By some accounts he was a classic Vicar of Bray, bending to every political wind. He prospered under Charles I; held the Great Seal of the Commonwealth under Cromwell - making him the equivalent of Lord Chancellor; and then survived the Restoration, managing to get himself included in the Act of Pardon and Oblivion (without which he would have been hanged, and his property confiscated). Thomas Carlyle, writing in the 1840s, considered Whitelocke not just a trimmer, but a bore, objecting even to the occasional “poetic friskiness” in Whitelocke’s diaries “as if the hippopotamus should show a tendency to dance”.

Others — and notably his fullest modern biographer, Ruth Spalding — are inclined rather to praise Whitelocke’s learning, energy, intelligence and independence of character. Certainly the diary he kept of his Embassy to Sweden is a fascinating document, and one of the fullest existing accounts of that period.

I haven’t been able to get Volume I yet, but this work stands very well on its own. There are diplomatic machinations, a wedding, an account of the abdication of Queen Christina, and a shipwreck!

I found it quite readable, though sometimes a bit heavy-handed with the Calvinism.

Thanks to Louise Pryor for post-processing this text!

Then according to his promise he presented her Majesty with an English Bible, of a very fair print and richly bound; and upon that they had this discourse:–

Whitelocke. If your Majesty would be pleased to spend some time in reading this Bible, and comparing it with those in other languages, it would be a great help to your understanding of the English, if your Majesty have any further thoughts thereof.

Queen. My desire still is to gain the English tongue, and I think this which you mention will be a good way to learn it. I ask your pardon that you staid so long before you came in to me; nobody told me of your being without, and I am ashamed of this incivility.

Whitelocke. The incivility, Madam, is on my side, by interrupting your greater affairs; but I come not now as an ambassador, but as a particular servant to bring this Bible to your Majesty.

Queen. It is a noble present, and there was the less reason to make you stay for admittance with it.

Whitelocke. This book was presented to me by an English doctor, with a letter mentioning the text that the Beræans were accounted the more noble because they received the word with gladness, as I hope your Majesty will.

Queen. I receive it from you with much thankfulness, and shall gladly make use of it as the best of books.

Whitelocke. Your Majesty, by often reading it, and comparing it with other Bibles, will not only thereby gain advantage as to the language, but the highest comfort to your soul.

Queen. I have used to read much in the Bible, and take great contentment in it.

Whitelocke. Your Majesty will find more contentment and comfort in the study of this book than of all other books whatsoever, and therefore I do humbly recommend the often reading of it to your Majesty.

Queen. I doubt you have an ill opinion of me that you so earnestly persuade me to this, as if you thought me too backward in it.

It is not pretended that this volume is a work of inspiration, or that any portion of it has been revealed by accommodating “Spirits” through the “Medium” of those crack-brained masculine women, or addle-headed feminine men who profess to act as go-betweens from Earth to the Spirit World.

No part of it has been “rapped” out by uneasy tables, or thumped out by dancing chairs; Doctor Franklin didn’t dictate it; Lord Byron didn’t write it; Napoleon wasn’t consulted about it; Cardinal Richelieu didn’t have a finger in it; George the Third hadn’t anything to do with it; Shakspeare didn’t suggest anything in it; and Benedict Arnold didn’t know anything about it.

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