[314] [It would be idle to speculate on the political motives which may have combined with other reasons to induce Christina of Sweden to conceive and execute this extraordinary design. Other sovereigns have abdicated from the lassitude of age or the burden of unpopularity, or the desire of ensuring the succession to their offspring; but the resignation of a Queen in her twenty-ninth year, surrounded by able ministers and a loyal people, and who had reigned with splendour and success, is an event without a parallel in history. The explanation of it is to be found in the eccentricity, the levity, the feverish curiosity, and the indomitable love of independence and singularity which are to be traced in every part of the Queen's character. She was a woman of powerful but ill-regulated mind, capable at one time of sharing in the speculations of Descartes or of applauding the exhortations of Whitelocke,--at another, of bowing to the spiritual bondage of Rome, and even of committing the brutal murder of Monaldeschi. The character of Cromwell pleased her by its adventurous exploits and its arbitrary tendency, and her reception of the English Embassy was as much the result of personal predilection as of policy. Whitelocke amused her by his somewhat pedantic erudition, and flattered her vanity, but he seems scarcely to have divined the extraordinary variations of her character.] JUNE. _June 1, 1654._ [SN: Whitelocke embarks in the Amarantha, and sails.] Having been part of yesterday and all the last night upon the water, this morning, about seven o'clock, Whitelocke and all his company came to the Dollars, and, without setting foot on shore, they went on board the ship 'Amarantha,' lying there to expect them. And although this was not usual, but passengers generally stay some time at this place till their ships be ready, and to make provisions for their voyage, and spend some money at the cabaret here; yet Whitelocke seeing the wind fair, and having all his company together in the boats, was unwilling to let them be scattered by going on shore, which might be troublesome and retard his voyage by getting them all together again. For these reasons he commanded all his people to go forthwith aboard the ship, as he himself did, at which Vice-Admiral Clerke wondered, and said he had not seen the same done before.