Christina of Sweden removed her own crown in 1654. For the rest of her life, she insisted on being treated as a queen.

Raised to rule a powerful Protestant kingdom, Christina refused to marry, secured her cousin as heir, and secretly prepared to become Catholic. Rome welcomed her with a royal procession, but freedom brought unreliable income, political conflict, and new ambitions for a throne. Follow the queen who walked away from Sweden to discover what she gained, what her choices cost others, and why she never accepted the life of an ordinary former monarch.

Gilded Ruin tells the true lives of history's most scandalous, extraordinary women — the legends they built, what the gilding hid, and what it cost them.

0:00 The Queen Removes Her Crown
2:03 Raised to Be King
7:03 Liberty Above Crowns
13:05 A Queen Against Her Keepers
19:44 The Price of Magnificence
25:39 The Faith She Could Not Name
32:51 The White Robes at Uppsala
37:42 Christina Alexandra Enters Rome
44:14 Blood at Fontainebleau
51:17 Barred from Sweden
57:54 A Court Without a Country
1:05:57 The Last Sovereign

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