the son of a wine-merchant, by name Schumacher, but had risen by
his talents alone to the highest dignities. He was ennobled under
the name of Griffenfeldt, and was undoubtedly the ablest statesman
Denmark ever possessed. Eventually he was thrust from his high
position by an intrigue set on foot by German courtiers and backed
by foreign influence. He was accused of treason and kept in prison
from 1676 to 1698, the year before he died, to the great, perhaps
irreparable damage, of his native country. The principal witness
against him was a German doctor, Mauritius, a professional spy, who
had served the Danish Government in this capacity. The year after
the fall of Griffenfeld, he was himself arrested on a charge of
perjury, forgery, and high treason, and placed in the Blue Tower;
he was convicted and conducted to Bornholm, where he died. But
Griffenfeldt, who had been convicted on his false testimony, was
not liberated. Griffenfeldt's ability and patriotism cannot be
doubted, but his personal character was not without blemish; and it
is a fact that in his prosperity he disclaimed all connection with
his earlier friends, and even his near relations.
In Gert's place a tower-warder of the name of Johan, a Norwegian, was
appointed--a very simple man. The servants about court often made a
fool of him. The imprisoned young woman and her attendant did so the
first time after his arrival that the attendant had to perform some
menial offices upstairs. The place to which she had to go was not far
from the door of their prison. The tower-warder went down in the
meanwhile, and left the door open. They ran about and played. When
they heard him coming up the stairs, they hid themselves. He found
the prison empty, and was grieved and lamented. The young woman
giggled like a child, and thus he found her behind a door. Johan was
glad, and told me the story afterwards. I asked why he had not
remained with them. 'What,' he answered, 'was I to remain at their
dirty work?' There was nothing to say in reply to such foolish talk.
I had repose within my doors, and amused myself with reading, writing
and various handiwork, and began to make and embroider my shroud, for
which I had bought calico, white taffeta, and thread.
On April 7 a young lad escaped from the tower, who had been confined
on the lower story with iron fetters round his legs. This prisoner
found opportunity to loosen his fetters, and knew, moreover, that the
booby Johan was wont to keep the tower key under his pillow. He kept
an iron pin in readiness to unlock the door of the room when the
tower-warder was asleep; he opened it gently, took the key, locked in
the booby again, and quitted the tower. The simple man was placed in
confinement, but after the expiration of six weeks he was set at
liberty.
In his place there came a man named Olle Mathison, who was from
Skaane; he had his wife with him in the tower. Towards the end of
this year, on December 25, I became ill of a fever, and D. Mynchen
received orders to visit me and to take me under his care--an order
which he executed with great attention. He is a very sensible man,
mild and judicious in his treatment. Ten days after I recovered my
usual health.
In the beginning of the year 1680 Sitzel, Klemming's daughter, was
persuaded by Maren Blocks to betroth herself to one of the King's
body-guard. She left me on November 26. In her place I had a woman
named Margrete. When I first saw her, she appeared to me somewhat
suspicious, and it seemed to me that she was with child; however, I
made no remark till the last day of the month of January. Then I put
a question to her from which she could perceive my opinion. She
answered me with lies, but I interrupted her at once; and she made
use of a special trick, which it is not fit to mention here, in order
to prove her false assertion; but her trick could not stand with me,
and she was subsequently obliged to confess it. I asked her as to the
father of the child (I imagined that it was the King's groom of the
chamber, who had been placed in arrest in the prison governor's room,
but I did not say so). She did not answer my question at the time,
but said she was not so far advanced; that her size was owing rather
to stoutness than to the child, as it was at a very early stage.
This woman, before she came to me, had been in the service of the
prison governor's wife, and the prison governor had told me she was
married. So it happened that I one day asked her of her life and
doings; upon which she told me of her past history, where she had
served, and that she had had two bastards, each by a different
father; and pointing to herself, she added: 'A father shall also
acknowledge this one, and that a brave father! You know him well!' I
said, 'I have seen the King's groom of the chamber in the square, but
I do not know him.' She laughed and answered (in her mother-tongue),
'No, by God, that is not he; it is the good prison governor.' I truly
did not believe it. She protested it, and related some minute details
to me.
I thought I had better get rid of her betimes, and I requested to
speak with the prison governor's wife, who at once came to me. I
told her my suspicion with regard to the woman, and on what I based
my suspicion; but I made no remark as to what the woman had confessed
and said to me. I begged the prison governor's wife to remove the
woman from me as civilly as she could. She was surprised at my words,
and doubted if there was truth in them. I said, 'Whether it be so or
not, remove her; the sooner the better.' She promised that it should
be done, but it was not. Margrete seemed not to care that it was
known that she was with child; she told the tower-warder of it, and
asked him one day, 'Ole, how was it with your wife when she had
twins?' Ole answered: 'I know nothing about it. Ask Anne!' Margrete
said that from certain symptoms she fancied she might have twins.
One day, when she was going to sew a cloth on the arms of my
arm-chair, she said, 'That angel of God is now moving!' And as the
wife of the prison governor did not adhere to her word, and
Margrete's sister often came to the tower, I feared that the sister
might secretly convey her something to remove the child (which was no
doubt subsequently the case), so I said one day to Margrete: 'You say
that the prison governor is your child's father, but you do not
venture to say so to himself.' 'Yes!' she said with an oath, 'as if I
would not venture! Do you imagine that I will not have something from
him for the support of my child?' 'Then I will send for him,' I said,
'on purpose to hear what he will say.' (It was at that time a rare
occurrence for the prison governor to come to me.) She begged me to
do so; he could not deny, she said, that he was the father of her
child. The prison governor came at my request. I began my speech in
the woman's presence, and said that Margrete, according to her own
statement, was with child; who the father was, he could enquire if he
chose. He asked her whether she was with child? She answered, 'Yes,
and you are the father of it.' 'O!' he said, and laughed, 'what
nonsense!' She adhered to what she had said, protested that no other
was the child's father, and related the circumstances of how it had
occurred. The prison governor said, 'The woman is mad!' She gave free
vent to her tongue, so that I ordered her to go out; then I spoke
with the prison governor alone, and begged him speedily to look about
for another woman for me, before it came to extremities with her. I
supposed he would find means to stop her tongue. I told him the truth
in a few words--that he had brought his paramour to wait on me. He
answered, 'She lies, the malicious woman! I have ordered Totzloff
already to look about for another. My wife has told me what you said
to her the other day.' After this conversation the prison governor
went away. Peder Totzloff told me that an English woman had desired
to be with me, but could not come before Easter.
Four days afterwards Margrete began to complain that she felt ill,
and said to me in the forenoon, 'I think it will probably go badly
with me; I feel so ill.' I thought at once of what I had feared,
namely of what the constant visits of her sister indicated, and I
sent immediately to Peder Totzloff, and when he came to me I told him
of my suspicion respecting Margrete, and begged him to do his utmost
to procure me the English woman that very day. Meanwhile Margrete
went up stairs, and remained there about an hour and a quarter, and
came down looking like a corpse, and said, 'Now it will be all right
with me.' What I thought I would not say (for I knew that if I had
enquired the cause of her bad appearance she would have at once
acknowledged it all, and I did not want to know it), so I said, 'If
you keep yourself quiet, all will be well. Another woman is coming
this evening.' This did not please her; she thought she could now
well remain. I paid no regard to this nor to anything else she said,
but adhered to it--that another woman was coming. This was arranged,
and in the evening of March 15 Margrete left, and in her place came
an English woman, named Jonatha, who had been married to a Dane named
Jens Pedersen Holme.
When Margrete was gone, I was blamed by the wife of the prison
governor, who said that I had persuaded Margrete to affirm that her
husband was the father of Margrete's child.
Although it did not concern me, I will nevertheless mention the
deceitful manner in which the good people subsequently brought about
this Margrete's marriage. They informed a bookbinder's apprentice
that she had been married, and they showed both him and the priest,
who was to give them the nuptial benediction, her sister's marriage
certificate.[145]
[145] In the margin is added: 'Ole the tower-warder was cudgelled
on his back by the prison governor when Margrete was gone, and he
was charged with having said what Margrete had informed him
respecting her size.'
In the same year, on the morning of Christmas Day, God loosened D.
Otto Sperling's heavy bonds, after he had been imprisoned in the Blue
Tower seventeen years, eight months, twenty-four days, at the age of
eighty years minus six days. He had long been ill, but never confined
to his bed. Doctor Muenchen twice visited him with his medicaments. He
would not allow the tower-warder at any time to make his bed, and was
quite angry if Ole offered to do so, and implied that the doctor was
weak. He allowed no one either to be present when he laid down. How
he came on the floor on Christmas night is not known; he lay there,
knocking on the ground. The tower-warder could not hear his knocking,
for he slept far from the doctor's room; but a prisoner who slept on
the ground floor heard it, and knocked at the tower-warder's door and
told him that the doctor had been knocking for some time. When Ole
came in, he found the doctor lying on the floor, half dressed, with a
clean shirt on. He was still alive, groaned a good deal, but did not
speak. Ole called a prisoner to help him, and they lifted him on the
bed and locked the door again. In the morning he was found dead, as I
have said.
A.D. 1682, in the month of April, I was sick and confined to my bed
from a peculiar malady which had long troubled me--a stony matter had
coagulated and had settled low down in my intestines. Doctor Muenchen
used all available means to counteract this weakness; but he could
not believe that it was of the nature I thought and informed him; for
I was perfectly aware it was a stone which had settled in the duct of
the intestines. He was of opinion, if it were so, that the
medicaments which he used would remove it.[146] At this time the
doctor was obliged to travel with his Majesty to Holstein. I used the
remedies according to Doctor Muenchen's directions, but things
remained just as before. It was not till the following morning that
the remedies produced their effect; and then, besides other matter, a
large stone was evacuated, and I struck a piece out of it with a
hammer in order to see what it was inside; I found it to be composed
of a substance like rays, having the appearance of being gilded in
some places and in others silvered. It is almost half a finger in
length and full three fingers thick, and it is still in my
possession. When Doctor Muenchen returned, I sent him word how it was
with me. He was at the time with the governess of the royal children,
F. Sitzele Grubbe. Doctor Muenchen desired Totzloff to request me to
let him see the stone. I sent him word that if he would come to me,
he should see it. I would not send it to him, for I well knew that I
should never get it again.
[146] In the margin is added: 'Other natural matter was evacuated,
but the stone stuck fast in the duct, and seemed to be round, for I
could not gain hold of it with an instrument I had procured for the
purpose.'
A.D. 1682, June 11, I wrote the following spiritual song.
It can be sung to the melody, 'Siunge wii af Hiaertens-Grund.'[E59]
[E59] This tune is still in use in Denmark; it is known in the
Latin church as 'in natali Domini.'
I.
What is this our mortal life
Otherwise than daily strife?
What is all our labour here,
The servitude and yoke we bear?
Are they aught but vanity?
Art and learning what are ye?
Like a vapour all we see.
II.
Why, then, is thy anxious breast
Filled with trouble? Be at rest!
Why, then, dost thou boldly fight
The phantoms vain that mock thy sight?
Is there any, small or grand,
Who can payment duly hand
At the creditor's demand?
III.
Naked to the world I came,
And I leave it just the same;
The Lord has given and He takes;
It is well whate'er He makes.
To the Lord all praises be;
I will trust Him heartily!
And my near deliverance see.
IV.
One thing would I ask of Thee.
That Thy House I once may see,
And once more with song and praise
May my pious offering raise,
And magnify Thy grace received,
And all that Jesus has achieved
For us who have in Him believed.
V.
If Thou sayest unto me,
'I have no desire in thee,
There is no place for thee above;'
Oh Jesus! look Thou down in love!
Can I not justly to Thee say
'Let me but see Thy wounds, I pray:'
God's mercy cannot pass away.
On June 27, the Queen sent me some silk and silver, with the request
that I would embroider her a flower, which was traced on parchment;
she sent also another flower which was embroidered, that I might see
how the work should be done, which is called the golden work. I had
never before embroidered such work, for it affects the eyes quickly;
but I undertook it, and said I would do it as well as I could. On
July 9, I sent the flower which I had embroidered to the governess of
the royal children, F. Sitzele Grubbe, with the request that she
would present it most humbly to her Majesty the Queen. The Queen was
much pleased with the flower, and told her that it excelled the
others which certain countesses had embroidered for her.
I afterwards embroidered nine flowers in silver and silk in this
golden work, and sent them to the Queen's mistress of the robes, with
the request that she would present them most humbly to her Majesty
the Queen. The mistress of the robes assured me of the Queen's
favour, and told me that her Majesty was going to give me two silver
flagons, but I have not heard of them yet. In the same year I
embroidered a table-cover with floss silk, in a new design devised by
myself, and I trimmed it with taffeta and silver fringe; this also I
begged Lady Grubbe, the governess of the King's children, to present
most humbly to her Majesty, and it was graciously received. On
November 29, I completed the work which I had made for my death-gear.
It was embroidered with thread. On one end of the pillow I worked the
following lines:
Full of anxiety and care, in many a silent night,
This shroud have I been weaving with sorrowful delight!
On the other end I embroidered the following: (N.B. The pillow was
stuffed with my hair).
When some day on this hair my weary head will lie,
My body will be free and my soul to God will fly.
On the cloth for the head I embroidered:
I know full well, my Jesus, Thou dost live,
And my frail body from the dust wilt give,
And it with marvellous beauty will array
To stand before Thy throne on the great day.
Fulfilled with heavenly joy I then shall be,
And Thee, great God, in all Thy splendour see.
Nor unknown wilt Thou to mine eyes appear!
Help Jesus, bridegroom, be Thou ever near!
Her Majesty the Queen was always gracious to me, and sent me again a
number of silkworms that I might amuse myself with feeding them for
her, and I was to return what they spun. The virtuous Queen also sent
me sometimes oranges, lemons, and some of the large almanacs, and
this she did through a dwarf, who is a thoroughly quick lad. His
mother and father had been in the service of my deceased sister
Sophia Elizabeth and my brother-in-law Count Pentz.
The governess of the royal children, F. Sitzel Grubbe, was very
courteous and good to me, and sent me several times lemons, oranges,
mulberries, and other fruits, according to the season of the year.
A young lady, by birth a Donep, also twice sent me fruit.
The maids of honour once sent me some entangled silk from silkworms,
which they wanted to spin, and did not rightly know how to manage it;
they requested me to arrange it for them. I had other occupation on
hand which I was unwilling to lay aside (for I was busy collecting my
heroines), but nevertheless I acceded to their wish.[E60] My
captivity of nearly twenty years could not touch the heart of the
Queen Dowager (though with a good conscience I can testify before God
that I never gave her cause for such inclemency). My most gracious
hereditary King was gracious enough several times in former years to
intercede for me with his royal mother, through the high ministers of
the State. Her answer at that time was very hard; she would entitle
them 'traitors,' and, 'as good as I was,' and would point them to the
door. All the favours which the King's majesty showed me--the outer
apartment, the large window, the money to dispose of for
myself--annoyed the Queen Dowager extremely; and she made the King's
majesty feel her displeasure in the most painful manner. And as she
had also learned (she had plenty of informers) that I possessed a
clavicordium, this annoyed her especially, and she spoke very angrily
with the King about it; on which account the prison governor came to
me one day and said that the King had asked him how he had happened
to procure me a clavicordium. 'I stood abashed,' said the prison
governor, 'and knew not what to say.' I thought to myself, 'You know
but little of what is happening in the tower.' I did not see him more
than three times a year. I asked who had told the King of the
clavicordium. He answered: 'The old Queen; she has her spies
everywhere, and she has spoken so hardly to the King that it is a
shame because he gives you so much liberty;' so saying, he seized the
clavicordium just as if he were going to take it away, and said, 'You
must not have it!' I said, 'Let it alone! I have permission from his
Majesty, my gracious Sovereign, to buy what I desire for my pastime
with the money he graciously assigns me. The clavicordium is in no
one's way, and cannot harm the Queen Dowager.' He pulled at it
nevertheless, and wanted to take it down; it stood on a closet which
I had bought. I said, with rather a loud voice, 'You must let it
remain until you return me the money I gave you for it; then you may
do with it what you like.' He said, 'I will tell the King that.' I
begged him to do so. There was nothing afterwards said about it,[147]
and I still have the clavicordium, though I play on it rarely. I
write, and hasten to finish my heroines, so that I may have them
ready, and that no sickness nor death may prevent my completing them,
nor the friend to whom I confide them may leave me, and so they would
never fall into your hands, my dearest children.
[E60] 'I have in my imprisonment also gained some experience with
regard to caterpillars. It amused me at one time to watch their
changes. The worms were apparently all of one sort, striped alike,
and of similar colour. But butterflies did not come from all. It
was quite pretty to see how a part when they were about to change,
pressed against something, whatever it might be, and made
themselves steady with a thread (like silkworm's silk) on each
side, passing it over the back about fifty times, always at the
same place, and often bending the back to see if the threads were
strong enough; if not, they passed still more threads round them.
When this was done, they rapidly changed their form and became
stout, with a snout in front pointed at the end, not unlike the
fish called knorr by the Dutch; they have also similar fins on the
back, and a similar head. In this form they remain for sixteen
days, and then a white butterfly comes out. But of some
caterpillars small worms like maggots come out on both sides,
whitish, broad at one end and pointed at the other. These surround
themselves with a web with great rapidity, each by itself. Then the
worm spins over them tolerably thickly, turning them round till
they are almost like a round ball. In this it lies till it is quite
dried up; it eats nothing, and becomes as tiny as a fly before it
dies. Twelve days afterwards small flies come out of the ball, and
then the ball looks like a small bee-hive. I have seen a small
living worm come out of the neck of the caterpillar (this I
consider the rarest), but it did not live long, and ate nothing.
The mother died immediately after the little one had come out.'
It is perhaps not unnecessary to add that this observation, which is
correct as to facts, refers to the habits of certain larvae of wasps
which live as parasites in caterpillars.
[147] In the margin is added: 'The prison governor told me
afterwards that the King laughed when he had told his Majesty my
answer about the clavicordium, and had said, "Yes, yes."'
On September 24, M. Johan Adolf, my father confessor, was promoted;
he became dean of the church of Our Lady. He bade me a very touching
farewell, having administered the duties of his office to me for
nearly six years, and been my consolation. God knows how unwillingly
I parted with him.
At the beginning of this year H. Peder Collerus was my father
confessor; he was at the time palace-preacher. He also visited me
with his consolatory discourse every six weeks. He is a learned man,
but not like Hornemann.
On April 3, an old sickly dog was sent to me in the Queen's name. I
fancy the ladies of the court sent it, to be quit of the trouble. A
marten had bit its jaw in two, so that the tongue hung out on one
side. All the teeth were gone, and a thin film covered one eye. It
heard but little, and limped on one side. The worst, however, was,
that one could easily see that it tried to exhibit its affection
beyond its power. They told me that her Majesty the Queen had been
very fond of the dog. It was a small 'King Charles;' its name was
'Cavaillier.' The Queen expressed her opinion that it would not long
trouble me. I hoped so also.[E66b]
[E66b] This poem still exists, and is printed in the second volume
of Hofman's work on Danish noblemen. It is intended to convey an
account of her own and her husband's fate.
On August 12 of this year I finished the work I had undertaken, and
since my prefatory remarks treated of celebrated women of every kind,
both of valiant rulers and sensible sovereigns, of true, chaste,
God-fearing, virtuous, unhappy, learned, and steadfast women, it
seemed to me that all of these could not be reckoned as heroines; so
I took some of them out and divided them into three parts, under the
title, 'The Heroines' Praise.' The first part is to the honour of
valiant heroines. The second part speaks of true and chaste heroines.
The third part of steadfast heroines. Each part has its appendix. I
hope to God that this my prison work may come into your hands, my
dearest children. Hereafter I intend, so God will, to collect the
others: namely, the sensible, learned, god-fearing, and virtuous
women; exhibiting each to view in the circumstances of her life.[E61]
[E61] It has been stated already that a copy of the first part of
this work is still preserved. Amongst the heroines here treated of
are modern historical personages, as Queen Margaret of Denmark,
Thyre Danobod who built the Dannevirke, Elizabeth of England, and
Isabella of Castilia, besides mythical and classic characters, as
Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, Marpesia, Tomyris, Zenobia,
Artemisia, Victorina, etc. There existed not a few works of this
kind--we need only mention Boccacio's 'Donne Illustri,' in which
many of these last personages also occur.