and in 1626 sent to Kexholm as a prisoner. Career He was pardoned 14 years later, in 1640 through Count Per Brahe, the governor of Swedish Finland. He then went to Stockholm to obtain employment in government service. In August 1640, Messenius was arrested at the Danish border and put in Stockholm jail. The councils instructed him to go to Poland and find the manuscript Scandia illustrata, left there by his mother after his father's death. Messenius was able to fulfill this mission, and found a number of curious Swedish documents. Arnold Johan was instructed to write an official history of Sigismund and Charles IX's reign and won the generous patronage of the admiral Carl Carlsson Gyllenhielm. In 1645 he was appointed royal historian by Queen Christina, and raised to the peerage. However, he had not the talent of his father for history, nor his critical instinct, nor the qualities of perseverance and willingness to do hard work. When Christina ordered him, after a scandal, to supply his sister with some of his fiefs, their animosity began. Subsequently, in 1649 and 1650 he made connections with opposition leaders known as the "Messen conspiracy", and Swedish noblemen were alarmed. Death Messenius wrote some satires on Axel Oxenstierna and accused Christina of serious misbehavior and being a Jezebel, for which he was beheaded in Stockholm, together with his 17-year-old son. References 17th-century Swedish historians Swedish satirists Writers from Gdańsk 1607 births 1651 deaths People executed by Sweden by decapitation 17th-century executions by Sweden 17th-century Swedish writers 17th-century male writers Executed Swedish people People of the Swedish Empire Christina, Queen of Sweden