OXENSTIERNA, AXEL, Count, an illustrious Swedish statesman, was b. at Fano, in Upland, June 16, 1583. He was originally educated for the church, and studied theol ogy as well as jurisprudence at Rostock, .Jena, and Wittenberg, in the last of which universities he took his degrees. Although he afterwards devoted himself to public affairs, he continued all his life to take a deep personal interest in religious questions, and labored zealously for the extension of the Protestant doctrines. After leaving the university, he visited most of the German courts, but returned to Sweden in 1603, and soon afterwards entered the service of Charles IX., who, in 1606, dispatched him as ambassador to the court of Mecklenburg. He became a senator in 1608—a dignity which had been enjoyed by thirteen of his predecessors in uninterrupted succession. Having displayed great prudence and wisdom in the settlement of certain disputes between the Livonian nobles and the town of Reval, he was appointed by Charles—now infirm from age—guardian of the royal family, and head of the regency. On the acces sion of Gustavus Adolphus (q.v.), in 1611, Oxenstierna was made chancellor; and in 1613, acted as minister-plenipotentiary in the negotiations for peace between Sweden and Penmark. In the following year lie accompanied his sovereign to Poland, and by the peace of Stolbova, in 1617, terminated hostilities between Sweden and Russia. His political sagacity was not less conspicuously shown in his successful efforts to prevent Gustavus from marrying Ebba Emile, a Swedish beauty, and in bringing about a match between his master and the princess Maria-Eleonora of Brandenburg. In 1621, on the departure of the king for the Polish war, he was charged with the administration of affairs at home, which he conducted with his invariable felicity; subsequently he was appointed governor-general of the conquered districts; and in 1629 concluded peace with the Poles on highly favorable conditions. For a while Oxenstierna strongly opposed the desire of Gustavus to take part in the "thirty years' war;" his hope being to see the latter arbiter of the n. of Europe; but when he found that the Protestant sympathies of the king were irrepressible, he set about collecting money and troops for the perilous enterprise, with all the quiet but wonderful activity and persistency that so remarkably characterized him. After •Gustavus had fairly entered on the bloody struggle, Oxenstierna joined him, and conducted most of the extensive and complicated diplomacy which the course of events entailed on Sweden. The death of Gustavus for
a moment him, but he instantly recovered, and heroically resolved to continue the contest with the imperialists, in spite of the visible disaffection of many of the Ger man Protestant princes, among others, of the elector of Saxony. The will of the dead monarch was sent to Stockholm; according to its conditions, the government—during the minority of Christina (q.v.)—was intrusted to five nobles, who empowered the chan cellor to prosecute the war. His difficulties were enormous, yet by indefatigable efforts he managed partly to allay the discontents, jealousies. and rivalries of the Protestant leaders. The disastrous defeat of the Swedes at Nordlingen in 1634, and the perplexi ties which followed it, would have stupitied most men in • the position of Oxenstierna, but it only called out more energetically his splendid diplomatic genius. Transferring the leadership of the Protestant forces to duke Bernhard (q.v.) of Weimar, he proceeded, in 1635, to France and Holland, and formed alliances with these countries. Returning to Germany, he assisted in quelling a mutiny among the Swedish troops at Magdeburg; put Pomerania in a state of defense, to resist the mediated attack of the elector of Bran denburg; renewed the treaty with Poland; and leaving Baner in command of the Swedes, returned to Stockholm in 1636, where he was received with the liveliest enthu siasm. He still continued, however, to direct ably the policy of the Protestants in Germany, till the peace of Westphalia. in 1648, put an end to the war. Oxenstierna's• son was one of the Swedish envoys who signed the treaty, and it is in a letter to him that the famous sentence of the statesman occurs, Nesms ma fili, quantilla prudentia homines regantur—(" You do not yet know, my son, with how little wisdom men are governed.") Christina, who had been declared of age in 1644, did not show a proper respect for the advice of Oxenstierna; and after site had—through mere feminine wil fulness—abdicated, in spite of all his protestations, he withdrew front public hie, and died Aug. 28, 1654, shortly after site had left Sweden. lie entertained a genuine affection for the daughter of his noble master, and in his last moments her name was upon his lips. Some treatises and historical fragments are attributed to him, and his " journal " has been published in the Stockholm Magazine. Sec Lundblad's ..Srehck. • 1'.utarch (2 vols. Stock. 1824); Fryxell's History of Gustavus Adolphus; and Gcijcr's tory of Sweden.
See CHRYSANTHEMUM.