prison and prevented the woman from going out, saying to me, 'I am to
salute you from the Major-General von Alfeldt; he says all will now
soon be well, and you may console yourself. Yes, yes, all will now
soon be well!' I behaved as if I received his words in their apparent
meaning, and I begged him to thank the Major-General for his
consolation; and then he repeated the same words, and added, 'Yes,
indeed! he said so.' I replied with a question: 'What may it arise
from that the Major-General endeavours to cheer me? May God cheer him
in return! I never knew him before.' To this the prison governor made
no answer at all. While the prison governor was talking with me, the
coachman was standing behind him, and showed by gestures how the
prisoner had been bound hand and foot, that he had a beard and a
calotte on his head, and a handkerchief round his neck. This could
not make me wiser than I was, but it could indeed grieve me still
more. At the evening meal the woman was again prevented speaking with
the coachman, and the coachman again made the same signs, for the
prison governor was standing in his usual place; but he said nothing,
nor did I.[79] On the following morning the Doctor was again brought
up for examination, and the prison governor behaved as before. As he
stood there ruminating, I asked him who the prisoner below was. He
answered that there was no one below. I let the matter rest for the
time, and as we proceeded to speak of other things, the woman slipped
out to Peder, who told her quickly who it was. Some days went by in
the same manner. When sentence had been pronounced on the Doctor, and
his execution was being postponed,[80] and I said nothing to the
prison governor but when he accosted me, he came in and said: 'I see
that you can judge that there is a prisoner below. It is true, but I
am forbidden to tell you who it is!' I answered: 'Then I do not
desire to know.' He began to feel some compassion, and said: 'Don't
fret, my dear lady; it is not your husband, nor your son, nor
daughter, nor brother-in-law, nor any relative; it is a bird which
ought to sing,[81] and will not, but he must, he must!' I said: 'I
ought to be able to guess from your words who it is. If the bird can
sing what can ring in their ears, he will probably do so; but he
cannot sing a melody which he does not know!' Upon this he was
silent, and turned away and went out.
[79] In the margin is added: 'When the prison governor was singing
to himself on those first days, he said, "You must sing, my bird;
where is your velvet robe?" laughing at the same time most
heartily. I inferred from that song who it was.'
[80] In the margin is added: 'In order to grieve the Doctor and to
frighten him, the prison governor unlocked his cell early on the
morning after sentence had been passed, and behaved as if the
priest were coming to him.'
[81] That is, give information.
By degrees all became quiet with regard to the Doctor, and no more
was said about the matter, and the prison governor came in from time
to time when the door was opened, and often made himself merry with
the woman, desiring her to make a curtsey to him, and showing her how
she should place her feet and carry her body, after the fashion of a
dancing-master. He related also different things that had occurred in
former times, some of them evidently intended to sadden me with the
recollection of my former prosperity: all that had happened at my
wedding, how the deceased King had loved me. He gave long accounts of
this, not forgetting how I was dressed, and all this he said for the
benefit of no one else but myself, for the woman meanwhile stood on
the stairs talking with the tower warder, the coachman, and the
prisoner Christian.
Maren Blocks, who constantly from time to time sent me messages and
kept me informed of what was going on, also intimated to me that she
was of opinion that I could practise magic, for she wrote me a slip
of paper[82] with the request that I should sow dissension between
the Lady Carisse and an Alfelt, explaining at length that Alfelt was
not worthy of her, but that Skinckel was a brave fellow (Carisse
afterwards married Skinckel). As the letter was open, the coachman
knew its contents, and the woman also. I was angry at it, but I said
nothing. The woman could easily perceive that I was displeased at it,
and she said, 'Lady, I know well what Maren wishes.' I replied, 'Can
you help her in it?' 'No,' she declared, and laughed heartily. I
asked what there was to laugh at. 'I am laughing,' said she, 'because
I am thinking of the clever Cathrine, of whom I have spoken before,
who once gave advice to some one desiring to sow discord between good
friends.' I enquired what advice she had given. She said that they
must collect some hairs in a place where two cats had been fighting,
and throw these between the two men whom it was desired to set at
variance. I enquired whether the trick succeeded. She replied, 'It
was not properly tried.' 'Perhaps,' I said, 'the cats were not both
black?' 'Ho, ho!' said she, 'I see that you know how it should be
done.' 'I have heard more than that,' I replied; 'show her the trick,
and you will get some more sugar-candy, but do not let yourself be
again cheated of it by Peder as you were lately. Seriously, however,
Peder must beg Maren Blocks to spare me such requests!' That she as
well as Maren believed that I could practise magic was evident in
many ways. My own remarks often gave cause for this. I remembered how
my deceased lord used to say (when in his younger days he wished to
make anyone imagine that he understood the black art), that people
feared those of whom they had this opinion, and never ventured to do
them harm. It happened one day at the mid-day meal, when the prison
governor was sitting talking with me, that the woman carried on a
long conversation on the stairs with the others respecting the
witches who had been seized in Jutland, and that the supreme judge in
Jutland at that time sided with the witches and said they were not
witches.[E33] When the door was locked we had much talk about
witches, and she said, 'This judge is of your opinion, that it is a
science and not magic.' I said, as I had before said, that some had
more knowledge than others, and that some used their knowledge to do
evil; although it might happen naturally and not with the devil's
art, still it was not permitted in God's Word to use nature for evil
purposes; it was also not fair to give the devil the honour which did
not belong to him. We talked on till she grew angry, laid down and
slept a little, and thus the anger passed away.
[82] In the margin is added: 'Peder had some time before thrown
into me eight ducats in a paper, saying, as he closed the door,
"Your maid!" And as the woman knew it, I gave her one of them and
Peder one. I know not whether my maid had given him more; she had
many more concealed on her person.'
[E33] The name of this judge was Villum Lange, and it is a curious
coincidence that a letter from him of a somewhat later time (1670),
has been found in one of the archives, in which he speaks of this
very affair, and in which he expresses himself very much in the
sense here indicated.
Some days after she said: 'Your maid is sitting below in the prison
governor's room, and asks with much solicitude after you and what you
are doing. I have told Peder of what you have sewed, and of the
ribbons you have made, but he has promised solemnly not to mention it
to anyone except to Maren, Lars' daughter; she would like so much to
be here with you.' I replied: 'It would be no good for her to sit
with me in prison; it would only destroy her own happiness; for who
knows how long I may live?' I related of this same waiting-maid that
she had been in my employ since she was eight years old, all that I
had had her taught, and how virtuous she was. To this she replied,
'The girl will like to see what you have sewed; you shall have it
again directly.' I handed it to her, and the first time the doors
were unlocked she gave it to the prison governor, who carried it to
the Queen. (Two years afterwards the prison governor told me this
himself, and that when the King had said, 'She might have something
given her to do,' the Queen had answered, 'That is not necessary. It
is good enough for her! She has not wished for anything better.') I
often enquired for the piece of sewing, but was answered that Peder
was not able to get it back from the girl.
Late in the autumn the prison governor began to sicken: he was ill
and could not do much, so he let the coachman frequently come alone
to lock and unlock both the doctor's door below and mine. The iron
bars were no longer placed before the outermost prison below, but
four doors were locked upon me. One day, when Peder was locking up,
he threw me a skein of silk,[83] saying, 'Make me some braces for my
breeches out of it.' I appeared not to have heard, and asked the
woman what it was that he had said. She repeated the same words. I
behaved as if I did not believe it, and laughed, saying, 'If I make
the braces for him, he will next wish that you should fasten them to
his breeches.' A good deal of absurd chatter followed. As meal-time
was approaching, I said to the woman, 'Give Peder back his silk, and
say that I have never before made a pair of braces; I do not know how
they are made.' (Such things I had to endure with smiles.)
[83] In the margin is added: 'As my linen was washed in the
servants' hall, it once happened that a maid there must unawares
have forgotten a whole skein of thread in a clean chemise, at which
I said to the woman: "You see how the ravens bring me thread!" She
was angry and abused me; I laughed, and answered her jestingly.'
At the time that our former palace here in the city (which we had
ceded by a deed when we were imprisoned at Borringholm) was pulled
down, and a pillar (or whatever it is) was raised to my lord's shame,
the prison governor came in when he unlocked at noon, and seated
himself on my bed (I was somewhat indisposed at the time), and began
to talk of former times (I knew already that they were pulling down
the palace), enumerating everything the loss of which he thought
might sadden me, even to my coach and the horses. 'But,' he said,
'all this is nothing compared with the beautiful palace!' (and he
praised it to the utmost); 'it is now down, and not one stone is left
on another. Is not that a pity, my dear lady?' I replied: 'The King
can do what he will with his own; the palace has not been ours for
some time.' He continued bewailing the beautiful house and the garden
buildings which belonged to it. I asked him what had become of
Solomon's temple? Not a stone of that beautiful building was now to
be found; not even could the place be pointed out where the temple
and costly royal palace had once stood. He made no answer, hung his
head, and pondered a little, and went out. I do not doubt he has
reported what I said. Since that day he began to behave himself more
and more courteously, saying even that His Majesty had ordered him to
ask me whether I wished for anything from the kitchen, the cellar, or
the confectioner, as it should be given me; that he had also been
ordered to bring me twice a week confectionery and powdered sugar,
which was done.[84] I begged the prison governor to thank the King's
Majesty for the favour shown me, and praised, as was proper, the
King's goodness most humbly. The prison governor would have liked to
praise the Queen had he only been able to find cause for so doing; he
said, 'The Queen is also a dear Queen!' I made no answer to this. He
came also some time afterwards with an order from the King that I
should ask for any clothes and linen I required: this was written
down, and I received it later, except a corset, and that the Queen
would not allow me. I never could learn the cause of this. The Queen
also was not well pleased that I obtained a bottle-case with six
small bottles, in which was sprinkling-water, headwater, and a
cordial. All this, she said, I could well do without; but when she
saw that in the lid there was an engraving representing the daughter
of Herod with the head of St. John on a charger, she laughed and
said, 'That will be a cordial to her!' This engraving set me thinking
that Herodias had still sisters on earth.
[84] In the margin is added: 'I wrote different things from the
Bible on the paper in which the sugar was given me. My ink-bottle
was made of the piece of pewter lid which the woman had found, the
ink was made from the smoke of the candle collected on a spoon, and
the pen from a fowl's feather cut by the piece of glass. I have
this still in my possession.'
The prison governor continued his politeness, and lent me at my
desire a German Bible, saying at the same time, 'This I do out of
kindness, I have no order to do so; the Queen does not know it.' 'I
believe that,' I replied, and thanked him; but I am of opinion that
the King knew it well. Some days afterwards Maren Blocks sent for her
prayer-book back again. I had taught the woman a morning and evening
prayer by heart, and all the morning and evening hymns, which she
repeated to me night and morning. I offered to teach her to read if
she would procure an A B C. She laughed at this jeeringly, and said,
'People would think me crazed if I were to learn to read now.' I
tried to persuade her by argument, in order that I might thus get
something to beguile the time with; but far from it; she knew as much
as she needed. I sought everywhere for something to divert my
thoughts, and as I perceived that the potter, when he had placed the
stove, had left a piece of clay lying outside in the other room, I
begged the woman to give it to me.
The prison governor saw that she had taken it, but did not ask the
reason. I mixed the clay with beer, and made various things, which I
frequently altered again into something else; among other things I
made the portraits of the prison governor and the woman, and small
jugs and vases. And as it occurred to me to try whether I were able
to make anything on which I could place a few words to the King, so
that the prison governor should not observe it (for I knew well that
the woman did not always keep silence; she would probably some time
say what I did), I moulded a goblet over the half of the glass in
which wine was brought to me, made it round underneath, placed it on
three knobs, and wrote the King's name on the side--underneath the
bottom these words ... il y a un ... un Auguste.[E34]
[E34] The words 'under the bottom ... to ... Auguste,' inclusive,
have been struck out in the MS., and it has been impossible to read
more than what here is rendered. In the Autobiography, where the
same occurrence is related, Leonora says that she put on it the
names both of the King and of the Queen; that on the bottom she
wrote to the Queen, and that it was the Queen who discovered the
inscription; from which it would appear that the Queen at all
events was included in her ingeniously contrived supplique.
I kept it for a long time, not knowing in what way I could manage to
get it reported what I was doing, since the woman had solemnly sworn
to me not to mention it: so I said one day: 'Does the prison governor
ask you what I am doing?' 'Yes, indeed he does,' she replied, 'but I
say that you are doing nothing but reading the Bible.' I said: 'You
may ingratiate yourself in his favour and say that I am making
portraits in clay; there is no reason that he should not know that.'
She did so, and three days after he came to me, and was quite gentle,
and asked how I passed my time. I answered, 'In reading the Bible.'
He expressed his opinion that I must weary of this. I said I liked at
intervals to have something else to do, but that this was not allowed
me. He enquired what I had wanted the clay for, which the woman had
brought in to me; he had seen it when she had brought it in. I said,
'I have made some small trifles.' He requested to see them. So I
showed him first the woman's portrait; that pleased him much, as it
resembled her; then a small jug, and last of all the goblet. He said
at once: 'I will take all this with me and let the King see it; you
will perhaps thus obtain permission to have somewhat provided you for
pastime,'[85] I was well satisfied. This took place at the mid-day
meal. At supper he did not come in. The next day he said to me:
'Well, my dear lady, you have nearly brought me into trouble!' 'How
so?' I asked. 'I took the King a petition from you! the Queen did not
catch sight of it, but the King saw it directly and said, "So you are
now bringing me petitions from Leonora?" I shrank back with terror,
and said, "Gracious King! I have brought nothing in writing!" "See
here!" exclaimed the King, and he pointed out to me some French
writing at the bottom of the goblet. The Queen asked why I had
brought anything written that I did not understand. I asserted that I
had paid no attention to it, and begged for pardon. The good King
defended me, and the _invention_ did not please him ill. Yes, yes, my
dear lady! be assured that the King is a gracious sovereign to you,
and if he were certain that your husband were dead, you would not
remain here!' I was of opinion that my enemies well knew that my
husband was dead. I felt that I must therefore peacefully resign
myself to the will of God and the King.
[85] In the margin is added: 'The prison governor told me
afterwards that the clay things were placed in the King's
art-cabinet, besides a rib of mutton, which I used as a knife,
which he also gave to the King; hoping (he said) in this way to
obtain a knife for me.'
I received nothing which might have beguiled the time to me, except
that which I procured secretly, and the prison governor has since
then never enquired what I was doing, though he came in every
evening and sat for some time talking with me; he was weak, and it
was a labour to him to mount so many steps. Thus we got through the
year together.
The prison governor gradually began to feel pity for me, and gave me
a book which is very pretty, entitled 'Wunderwerck.'[E35] It is a
folio, rather old, and here and there torn; but I was well pleased
with the gift. And as he sat long of an evening with me, frequently
till nine o'clock, talking with me, the malicious woman was
irritated.[86] She said to Peder, 'If I were in the prison governor's
place, I would not trust her in the way he does. He is weak; what if
she were now to run out and take the knife which is lying on the
table outside, and were to stab him? She could easily take my life,
so I sit in there with my life hanging on a thread.'
[E35] This book was doubtless the German translation of Conr.
Lycosthenes' work, 'Prodigiorum ac Ostentorum Chronicon.' It is an
amusing illustrated volume, much read in its time. The translation
in question appeared in Basle, 1557.
[86] In the margin is added: 'The day that the prison governor had
taken away the clay things the woman was very angry with me,
because I gave him a small jug which I had made; she said it was
made in ridicule of her, the old slut with the jug! I ought to have
given him the cat which I had also made. I said, "I can still do
so."'
Absurd as the idea was, the knife was not only in consequence hidden
under the table, but the prison governor for a long time did not
venture to come to me, but sat outside by my outermost door and
talked there just as long as before, so that I was no gainer.[87] (I
did not know what the woman had said till three years afterwards,
when it was mentioned by the prisoner Christian, who had heard the
woman's chatter.)
[87] In the margin is added: 'At first when the prison governor's
fear was so great, he did not venture to be alone in the outer
room. Peder and the tower warder were not allowed both to leave him
at the same time. I did not know the reason for this.'
One day when the prison governor intended to go to the holy
communion, he stood outside my outermost door and took off his hat,
and begged for my forgiveness; he knew, he said, that he had done
much to annoy me, but that he was a servant. I answered, 'I forgive
you gladly!' Then he went away, and Peder closed the door. The woman
said something to Peder about the prison governor, but I could not
understand what. Probably she was blaming the prison governor, for
she was so angry that she puffed; she could not restrain her anger,
but said: 'Fye upon the old fool! The devil take him! I ought to beg
pardon too? No' (she added with an oath), 'I would not do it for
God's bitter death! No! no!' and she spat on the ground. I said
afterwards: 'What does it matter to you that the prison governor asks
me for my friendship? Do you lose anything by it? If you will not
live like a Christian and according to the ordinances of the Church,
do not at any rate be angry with one who does. Believe assuredly that
God will punish you, if you do not repent of what evil you have done
and will not be reconciled with your adversaries before you seek to
be reconciled with God!'
She thought that he had done nothing else than what he was ordered to
do. I said, 'You good people know best yourselves what has been
ordered you.' She asked, 'Do I do anything to you?' I answered, 'I
know not what you do. You can tell any amount of untruths about me
without my knowing it.' Upon this she began a long story, swearing by
and asserting her fidelity; she had never lied to anyone nor done
anyone a wrong. I said: 'I hear; you are justifying yourself with the
Pharisee.' She started furiously from her seat and said, 'What! do
you abuse me as a Pharisee?' 'Softly, softly!' I said; 'while only
one of us is angry, it is of no consequence; but if I get angry also,
something may come of it!' She sat down with an insolent air, and
said, 'I should well imagine that you are not good when you are
angry! It is said of you that in former days you could bear but
little, and that you struck at once. But now'----(with this she was
silent). 'What more?' I said. 'Do you think I could not do anything
to anyone if I chose, just as well as then, if anyone behaved to me
in a manner that I could not endure? Now much more than then! You
need not refuse me a knife because I may perhaps kill you; I could do
so with my bare hands. I can strangle the strongest fellow with my
bare hands, if I can seize him unawares, and what more could happen
to me than is happening? Therefore only keep quiet!'
She was silent, and assumed no more airs; she was cast down, and did
not venture to complain to the prison governor. What she said to the
others on the stairs I know not, but when she came in, when the room
was locked at night, she had been weeping.[88]
[88] In the margin is added: 'Some time after this dispute I had a
quarrel with her about some beer, which she was in the habit of
emptying on the floor, saying, "This shall go to the subterraneous
folk." I had forbidden her to do so, but she did it again, so I
took her by the head and pushed it back with my hand. She was
frightened, for this feels just as if one's head was falling off. I
said, "That is a foretaste."'
On Sunday at noon I congratulated[E36] the prison governor and said:
'You are happy! You can reconcile yourself with God, and partake of
His body and blood; this is denied to me (I had twice during two
years requested spiritual consolation, but had received in answer
that I could not sin as I was now in prison; that I did not require
religious services). And as I talked upon this somewhat fully with
the prison governor, I said that those who withheld from me the
Lord's Supper must take my sins upon themselves; that one sinned as
much in thought as in word and deed; so the prison governor promised
that he would never desist from desiring that a clergyman should come
to me; and asked whom I wished for. I said: 'The King's Court
preacher, whom I had in the beginning of my troubles.' He said: 'That
could scarcely be.' I was satisfied whoever it was.
[E36] This custom of congratulating persons who intend to
communicate, or just have done so, is still retained by many of the
older generation in Denmark.
A month afterwards I received the holy communion from the German
clergyman, M. Hieronimus Buk, who behaved very properly the first
time, but spoke more about the law than the gospel. The prison
governor congratulated me, and I thanked him, for he had brought it
about.
1665. In this year, on Whitsun-eve, the prison governor ordered
May-trees to be placed in my inner prison, and also in the anteroom.
I broke small twigs from the branches, rubbed off the bark with
glass, softened them in water, laid them to press under a board,
which was used for carrying away the dirt from the floor, and thus
made them flat, then fastened them together and formed them into a
weaver's reed. Peder the coachman was then persuaded to give me a
little coarse thread, which I used for a warp. I took the silk from
the new silk stockings which they had given me, and made some broad
ribbons of it (The implements and a part of the ribbons are still in
my possession.) One of the trees (which was made of the thick end of
a branch which Peder had cut off) was tied to the stove, and the
other I fastened to my own person. The woman held the warp: she was
satisfied, and I have no reason to think that she spoke about it, for
the prison governor often lamented that I had nothing with which to
beguile the time, and he knew well that this had been my delight in
former times, &c.[89]
[89] In the margin is added: 'I made the snuffers serve as
scissors. When Balcke came to me and brought me at my desire
material for drawers, and requested to know the size, I said I
could make them myself. He laughed, and said, "Who will cut them
out?" I replied I could do it myself with the snuffers. He begged
to see me do it, and looked on with no little astonishment.'