He took the title of his father: "Elected king and hereditary Prince of the Swedes, Goths and Vandals." He chose for his chancellor, or Secretary of State, the wisest man of his realm, Axel Oxenstiern, only ten years older than himself.
Sweden had seen little of peace for fifty years. From the days of Gustavus I. endless war had prevailed. In the civil strife between rival branches of the same house, two kings had been overthrown. Gustavus inherited a blood-sprinkled throne, and, could he have foreseen it, was to be in almost perpetual warfare during his entire life.
To him came early the great passion which has made bad people good, and quite as often made good people bad. From early boyhood he had loved a girl, who became a handsome court lady, called Ebba Brahe. Her family were of the nobility, though not royal. It was from early youth his purpose to share his throne with the woman of his choice.
At Skokloster, Sweden, is preserved a fragment of their correspondence, including some most ardent letters from the young king. When he could not write to her, he sent the "forget-me-not" flower, which the girlish heart interpreted aright. He exhibited the symptoms of other lovers in writing sonnets to her, and at all times in seeking her society.
But his mother, Queen Christina, was a politician, and steadily set before him that it was his duty to strengthen his kingdom by marrying into a royal family which would become his friend in peace and his ally in war. On one occasion, when he was about leaving on a military campaign, the queen mother forced from him the promise that he would not write to Lady Ebba for two years. To this he agreed on the condition that, at the end of two years, all objection to their marriage would be withdrawn.
He had scarcely reached the seat of war until the old queen forced Ebba Brahe into a marriage with James de la Gardia, a polished noble gentleman, but not the choice of her young heart.
All through his life the heart of Gustavus turned with unutterable longing to the love of his youth. This is shown in several letters to his friend, Chancellor Oxenstiern.
We would like to believe that, at least up to his marriage, he remained the ideal lover, but truth compels us to say that he had a natural son, Gustav Gustavson, born in 1616, to a Dutch lady.
That was an age in which morality along sexual lines was unusual among royal men, but this one instance of immorality is the single instance that even the worst enemy of Gustavus can bring against his good name.
On November 28th, 1620, in the great palace of Stockholm, Gustavus was married to Eleanor Marie of Brandenburg. The marriage was one of great pomp, and Gustavus recognized his duty to the state by marrying into a strong Protestant royal family, and he also recognized his duty as a Christian to be a true husband and a good man.