(1583–1654)
Oxenstierna was born on 16 June 1583, at Fånö in Uppland, the son of Gustaf Gabrielsson Oxenstierna (1551–1597) and Barbro Axelsdotter Bielke (1556–1624), as the oldest of nine siblings. His parents belonged to the ancient and influential high noble families of Oxenstierna and Bielke, both of which had held high offices in the state and the church for generations. After the death of her husband Gustaf, Axel's mother Barbro decided to let Axel and his brothers Christer and Gustaf finish their studies abroad. Thus, the brothers received their education at the universities of Rostock, Wittenberg and Jena. On returning home in 1603 he took up an appointment as valet de chambre (kammarjunkare) to King Charles IX of Sweden.
One of Oxenstierna's more unusual intellectual qualifications was his knowledge of the Scots language, reflecting the importance of the Scottish expatriate community in Sweden at that time. As Chancellor, he would regularly receive correspondence in Scots from his agent Sir James Spens, and he ventured into the language himself for an official letter to his Scottish counterpart, the Earl of Loudoun.
1606–1611: Diplomat and Privy Councillor
In 1606 he undertook his first diplomatic mission, to Mecklenburg and other German royal courts. While on diplomatic duty abroad, Oxenstierna gained appointment to the Privy Council (Riksrådet). Henceforth, Oxenstierna became one of the king's most trusted servants. In 1609 he travelled to Reval (present day Tallinn), on King Charles's behalf, to receive tributes from the city of Reval and the Estonian knighthood. Together with other councillors, Oxenstierna tried to warn the king of Denmark and the intentions of Danish King Christian IV. In 1610, Oxenstierna travelled to Copenhagen with the aim of preventing war with the neighbours, but unsuccessfully. The following year, Danish forces crossed the border, initiating the Kalmar War. In the fall of 1611, King Charles died. Around New Year 1611–12, the parliament had to deal with the situation. According to the rules, the 17-year-old Gustavus Adolphus had not reached the proper age to be considered adult enough to rule as king. However, the estates agreed to disregard those rules. In return, the young king agreed to ensure the nobles further privileges and appoint Axel Oxenstierna Lord High Chancellor of Sweden.
1612–1629: Lord High Chancellor and Governor-General
On 6 January 1612 Oxenstierna became Lord High Chancellor (Rikskansler) of the Privy Council. His controlling, organizing hand soon became apparent in every branch of the administration. Sweden was at the time troubled by three wars against Denmark (Kalmar War), Poland-Lithuania (Polish-Swedish War) and Russia (Ingrian War). Oxenstierna's first big task as Chancellor was to achieve peace in some of the wars. The war against Denmark was considered the most dangerous of the three as the enemy-controlled parts of Sweden itself. Negotiations began in Knäred and Oxenstierna was first Swedish plenipotentiary. The negotiations led to the Treaty of Knäred in 1613. For his efforts regarding these negotiations, Oxenstierna received the title of district judge in the hundred of Snävringe and, eventually, the barony of Kimito.
Oxenstierna was not only highly successful within the diplomacy. During these years, he was entrusted with various important assignments in which he succeeded, such as gathering money and troops for the attack in Prussia in 1626. He played the leading organizational and administrational role in Prussia, as he had done earlier in Livonia. He was in charge of, for example, tolls, fortifications and the entire state grain trade. During the latter part of the 1620s, Elbląg (German: Elbing), where Oxenstierna resided and from where he governed the Swedish parts of Prussia, became a major Swedish centre of power, second only to Stockholm.
1630–1636: Oxenstierna in the Thirty Years' War
When Sweden entered the Thirty Years' War in the summer of 1630, tolls from Oxenstierna-controlled Prussia, as well as food supplies acquired by Oxenstierna, were pivotal assets. He had also obtained credits from foreign businessmen, ensuring large sums of money making it possible to hire mercenary soldiers to the army used in Germany.
After the Battle of Breitenfeld on 7 September 1631, Oxenstierna received a summons to assist the king with his counsels and co-operation in Germany. During the king's absence in Franconia and Bavaria in 1632 he held the appointment of legatus in the Rhineland, with plenipotentiary authority over all the German generals and princes in the Swedish service. Although he never fought a battle, he frustrated all the efforts of the Spanish troops by using strategically successful regulations. He managed to conduct large reinforcements to King Gustavus through the heart of Germany in the summer of 1632.
In the Battle of Lützen (1632), on 6 November 1632, Gustavus Adolphus died. This meant that Oxenstierna became supreme commander of the Swedish troops in Germany, although he let his subordinate generals be responsible for the military operations on a lower level. He moved his headquarters to Mainz, which in practice became the new Swedish capital. Oxenstierna was now absolute ruler of the significant area that the Swedish army had conquered in Germany. He was offered the position as prince-elector of Mainz, but, after serious considerations, the offer was turned down.
When King Gustavus died in November 1632, his only legitimate and surviving child, Christina, was almost six years old. Until her declaration of majority at 18, a regency council ruled Sweden. This council was headed by Lord High Chancellor Oxenstierna, who wrote Instrument of Government (1634), a new constitution. During the years after the king's death, it became apparent that differences of opinion existed within the council. Some of Oxenstierna's colleagues recommended that Sweden should seek peace and withdraw from the war in Germany, not least after the defeat at Nördlingen in 1634. However, Oxenstierna's opinion, that Sweden should remain in the war to ensure compensation for the sacrifices made, prevailed. The, for the Swedish side, disastrous outcome at Nördlingen brought him, for an instant, to the verge of ruin and compelled him for the first time so far to depart from his policy of independence as to solicit direct assistance from France. But, well aware that Richelieu needed the Swedish armies as much as he himself needed money, he refused at the Conference of Compiègne in 1635 to bind his hands in the future for the sake of some slight present relief. In 1636, nevertheless, he concluded a fresh subsidy-treaty with France at Wismar. Swedish troops remained in Germany all the way until 1648 and the Thirty Years' War's end. Oxenstierna, however, left Germany and returned to Stockholm in 1636, after ten years duty as premier Swedish representative in Prussia and Germany.
1636–1654: Back in Sweden
Oxenstierna more directly claimed his place within the regency of Queen Christina and became the young queen's teacher in statesmanship. His presence at home dominated all opposition, and such was the general confidence for Oxenstierna, that for the next nine years his voice, especially as regarding foreign affairs, remained omnipotent in the Privy Council.
Torstenson War
In May 1643, the Swedish Privy Council decided to attack Denmark. The Torstenson War was at large parts the work of Oxenstierna. The purpose was to gain territories from Denmark and be released from the Danish Sound Dues. Another factor might have been a will to avenge the tough peace Treaty of Knäred in 1613. Whatever the reason, Oxenstierna considered the time was right to finally settle the score with Denmark. Swedish troops led by Field Marshal Lennart Torstensson attacked Danish Jutland from Germany, while Field Marshal Gustav Horn was in charge of the troops that attacked Scania.
In July 1644, Andries Bicker and Jacob de Witt were sent as envoy to Oxenstierna and the queen to mediate between Sweden and Denmark. Oxenstierna spoke High German, Christina Dutch. The outcome of the war was decided in the naval Battle of Fehmarn (1644) in October when the Royal Swedish Navy decisively defeated the Danish Navy. The defeat of the Danish Navy left the Danish isles open to a Swedish invasion, and Denmark sued for peace. The end of the war rested on the power of the Dutch naval dominance by Admiral Witte de With who arrived in the Sound in July to support the Dutch and Swedish point of view, a free passage. Oxenstierna was personally involved in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Brömsebro at a creek in Blekinge. Sweden gained Gotland, Saaremaa (Ösel), Jämtland, Härjedalen and for thirty years Halland. Sweden had unrestricted access to the North Sea and was no longer encircled by Denmark–Norway. Shortly after the peace treaty, Oxenstierna was created Count of Södermöre.
Queen Christina and her abdication
When Christina came of age, she tried to push Oxenstierna, her old mentor, aside. The relations between the two were not good and Oxenstierna always attributed the exiguousness of Sweden's gains under the Peace of Westphalia − Sweden gained only Western Pomerania, Usedom, Wollin, Wismar and Bremen-Verden − following the conference in Osnabrück to Christina's undue interference. When the queen, a few years later, wanted to abdicate, Oxenstierna at first opposed this because he feared mischief to Sweden from the unruly and adventurous disposition of her preferred successor, Charles X Gustav. The chancellor changed his mind about Charles Gustav, however, and gave Christina the help she needed to go through with her abdication. Oxenstierna died two months after the ascension of the new king.
Death
Oxenstierna died in Stockholm on 28 August 1654. He was interred in Storkyrkan, Stockholm on 18 March 1655. His body was then moved to Jäder Church close to the Oxenstierna estate at Fiholm, in present-day Eskilstuna Municipality, where a vault had been built in accordance with his wishes. In the vault, Oxenstiernska gravvalvet, several members of the Oxenstierna family have been buried, including Axel and his spouse Anna.
Properties
Oxenstierna was in possession of large estates and many mansions. During his life he owned palaces in, among others, Estonian Otepää, in Latvian Burtnieki, Ropaži and Valmiera, in Finnish Nousiainen (Nousis) and in Stockholm (Oxenstiernska Palace). The foremost of the mansions was Tidö Castle in Västmanland. In 1647, Wallonian merchant Louis De Geer, who had returned from a Swedish trading expedition to West Africa, gifted four enslaved Africans to Oxenstierna.
Impact and legacy
The modernization of Sweden
Axel Oxenstierna is perhaps most remembered for the establishment of a uniform administrative system. He was ever-present during the vast reforms of the 1610s and 1620s, when the Swedish government was hugely modernized and made more effective. This was necessary for the war policies that would build the Swedish Empire. Among the areas reformed were army and navy organization and recruiting, trade and industrial policies, regional and local administration, the system of higher education, and the judicial system. The boundaries of the administrative counties of Sweden still to a large extent follow the boundaries established by Oxenstierna in the 17th century.
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