Page "Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg" Paragraph 18

In 1630 Gustavus Adolphus concluded that Habsburg designs for Baltic supremacy threatened Sweden's very existence and also its religious freedom.

Before he left to join the Thirty Years War, he discussed a possible regency with members of the government and admitted to them that his wife was " a miserable woman ".

Even so, Gustavus Adolphus could not bring himself to nominate a regency council in which her name did not appear.

To Axel Oxenstierna, he confessed: " If anything happens to me, my family will merit your pity, the mother lacking in common sense, the daughter a minor-hopeless, if they rule, and dangerous, if others come to rule over them.