Background
Oxenstierna was born on June 16, 1583 in Fånö, Uppland, Sweden, the son of Gustaf Gabrielsson Oxenstierna (1551-1597) and Barbro Axelsdotter Bielke (1556-1624), as the oldest of nine siblings.
Oxenstierna was born on June 16, 1583 in Fånö, Uppland, Sweden, the son of Gustaf Gabrielsson Oxenstierna (1551-1597) and Barbro Axelsdotter Bielke (1556-1624), as the oldest of nine siblings.
Oxenstierna was educated at Rostock, Wittenberg and Jena universities.
In June 1609 Oxenstierna became a member of the Swedish council of state. His aptitude for business and his strong personality soon made him the leading member of that body; and Gustavus II Adolphus, on his accession as king in 1611 found it expedient to appoint Oxenstierna chancellor (January 1612) - an office which he held continuously for the next forty-two years. The intimate and cordial collaboration between Oxenstierna and Gustavus was one of the great partnerships of history. It made possible the reconciliation of the Swedish aristocracy to the monarchy, which was one of the great achievements of the reign. Oxenstierna was a great administrative reformer, and both the local and central governments were reorganized and developed along more modern lines as a result of his initiative. He had also the main direction of foreign policy, and bore the principal share in the negotiation of Sweden's agreements with foreign powers, from the peace of Knäred (1613) to the truce of Altmark (1629). From 1626 to 1631 he was governor-general of Swedish-occupied Prussia; and it was he who organized the collection of tolls in Prussian harbors which from 1627 to 1635 provided indispensable resources for the Swedish war effort. In 1631 he joined his master in Germany, and there, on occasion, in addition to the conduct of Swedish foreign policy, he took command of the Swedish armies with success. When Gustavus fell at Lützen (November 6, 1632), the whole responsibility for the German venture fell upon Oxenstierna; and it is no small tribute to his energy and ability that he succeeded in preserving much of the authority which the king had exercised. He negotiated with electors on a footing of equality, and for a while there was an idea of making him elector of Mainz. His creation of the League of Heilbronn (1633) realized, at least in part, Gustavus' ideal of a corpus evangelicorum, or Protestant alliance, and Oxenstierna was its first and only director. The disintegration of German Protestantism after the disaster at Nördlingen (1634), however, destroyed the League, and for the next two years Oxenstierna grappled with appalling military and political difficulties. He was even for some time the virtual prisoner of his unpaid and mutinous soldiery. His courage and skill brought Sweden through this crisis; and from 1638 (when he renewed the alliance with France) he was the most powerful advocate of a continuance of the war until peace could be extorted on favorable terms. To this determination were due, in great measure, Sweden's large gains at the peace of Westphalia in 1648. As chancellor, Oxenstierna was one of the five regents during the minority of Gustavus' daughter Christina, and he was probably responsible for the Form of Government accepted by the diet in 1634. After his return to Sweden in 1636 he was for the next eight years the real ruler of the country. It was he who was responsible for the sudden attack on Denmark in 1643, and who dictated the highly advantageous peace of Brömsebro (1645) which ended that war. His relations with Christina, after she assumed the government, were not always cordial, for she feared him as the leader of an aristocracy jealous of the Crown and unjustly suspected him of republican tendencies; he, in turn, disapproved of her foreign policy, her arrangements for the succession, and, ultimately, of her abdication. In spite of a hostile faction at court, however, he managed to maintain his authority, and after about 1650 his relations with the Queen improved considerably. When he died on August 28, 1654, his son Erik succeeded him as Chancellor.
Member of the Swedish Privy Council (1609)
Oxenstierna's greatness consisted in his extraordinary mastery of every aspect of public service, his splendidly equable and courageous temper, his shrewd insight, and the adamantine integrity of his character. He shares with Gustavus Adolphus the merit of being the architect of Sweden's brief period of greatness.
On 5 June 1608 Axel Oxenstierna married Anna �
kesdotter Bååt, the daughter of nobleman �
ke Johansson Bååt and Christina Trolle. The wedding took place at Fiholm Castle, owned by the Oxenstierna family. They had 13 children, of which five survived their childhoods.
He was a Count and a Swedish statesman.