The walks in the neighbourhood of Elsinore are charming, particularly
that along the Strandrei, by the shore of the Sound--a succession of
country houses and fishing villages, and well-kept gardens bright with
flowers: they have a well-to-do prosperous air, as everything has in
Denmark. An hour’s walk brings you to a maisonette called Dahlsborg,
beyond which you turn to enter the forest of Egebæksvang, a favourite
summer drive of the Elsinorians.
A ten minutes’ walk, avoiding all dusty roads across the common or
waste land which runs down to the seashore--in England it would
have been the paradise of geese, cricketers and donkeys, but
here it is deserted, except by the sharpshooters, who keep up a
cross-fire, practising their targets from eight o’clock till six of an
evening--brings us to the Castle of Kronborg.
The road lies between two dirty stagnant ponds, dignified by the
appellation of Holger Dansk’s Spectacles: if they fitted his face,
he must have had one eye considerably larger than the other. Instead
of snoring away his time within the dungeons of Kronborg--his beard
growing into the marble table--he had far better employ his leisure
moments in cleaning out and sweetening his “brille”; but he only
appears, they say, when Mr. Sorensen (the Danish John Bull or Brother
Jonathan) really requires his services. Effectual drainage and sanitary
reforms are sadly behind-hand, and looked upon as new-fangled vagaries
by the inhabitants of the island of Zealand.
If in your early youth you have devoured the _Fabliaux et Contes_,
_King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table_, and other
legends of old Romaunce, you will recognize in Holger Dansk,[4] or
rather Augier le Danois, an old and favourite acquaintance. Some few
years since I brushed him up when I visited the ruins of _La Joyeuse
Garde_ and the classic sands of Avalon, on the coast of Brittany.
The French romancers assert him to be still confined at Avalon,
together with King Arthur, held in durance vile by the enchantments of
the fay Morgana. Occasionally she removes from his brow the Lethæan
crown, when his services are required to fight against the Paynim for
the good and welfare of Christendom.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG, DENMARK.]
Morgana, she of the Fata, was own sister to our good King Arthur. With
other mighty fairies, she assisted at the birth of Holger the Dane;
later she loved him. Seduced by her blandishments, he espoused her:
no good ever comes of marrying an old woman, be she mortal or fairy.
Holger the Dane slumbers in the dungeons of Kronborg, not at Avalon,
as the French would have it, no more than King Arthur, who we all
know received Christian burial at Glastonbury; but French romancers
do tell such wicked stories. Endless are the traditions, numerous the
ballads, of the exploits of this the favourite hero of Danish story:
when invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, exacting first
the promise of “a good dinner and plenty to drink,” he has frequently
come to the assistance of fair maidens in their trouble and distress,
and fought their battles with his enchanted sword, mounted on his good
steed, “Papillon.” Morgana, the fay, has never deserted entirely the
country of her beloved: she still sports and exercises her witcheries
to favoured mortals, when least expected, among the barren heaths and
wide-spreading moors of the ancient provinces of Jutland.
I have no intention, however, of visiting his prison down below: the
wind is cast, my limbs are rheumatic--let younger people be more
adventurous. But we pass the drawbridge and enter the second gate
of the castle. Verses in the Danish tongue by the Scotchman, Bishop
Kingo, and the more illustrious pen of Tycho Brahe, adorn the portals
and celebrate the erection of the buildings. There is one thing sure
in this world--monarchs never allowed their good works to be hid
in secret: on every side you see inscriptions, in letters of gold,
announcing how Christian V. restored this, and Frederic IV. whitewashed
that. But I must give you some account of the history of the castle.
There is no doubt but, from the earliest period of history, a castle of
some kind, built for the protection of the Sound, existed on the site
or near where the Kronborg now stands. In the year 1238 the preceding
fortress of Flynderborg--situated at the other end of the town, near
the Strandvei, named after the flounders, of which quantities are
taken in front of the batteries--was in a state of excellent repair.
This fortress being found unsuited to the exigencies of the times,
King Frederic II. determined to rebuild it on a scale of unprecedented
grandeur: the whole of the expenses were to be discharged from his
privy purse, and the building was to cost his subjects “not one penny.”
This was more easy of execution to Frederic, first crowned Protestant
sovereign of Denmark, than it would have proved to later monarchs. He
had made a good haul of suppressed monasteries, church lands, plate,
and treasure--was flush of money, and did not mind spending it. The
existing castle was then commenced in the year 1577, and completed in
the course of nine years. Bishop Kingo and Tycho Brahe both sung its
praises, and the talents of Rubens were called into play--somewhat
later I imagine--for the decoration of the chapel. The castle is
strongly fortified with double-bastion, moat, and rampart, after the
manner of preceding ages.
Kronborg possesses one great advantage over the other Danish buildings
of the Sixteenth Century: it is built of fine sandstone, the only
specimen in the kingdom. Though quadrangular and four-towered, it
is relieved from all appearance of formality by the quaint onion
pagoda-like minarets by which its towers are surmounted. The lofty
clock turret[5] too, rising from the centre, higher than those which
flank the corners, adds to the dignity of the building. Few castles in
the space of three hundred years have suffered so little from modern
additions and improvement: one tower has unfortunately been destroyed.
In an old engraving from Puffendorf of 1688, I see the original had
already been altered: it was an eyesore, but, in accordance with the
style of the remainder, capped and ornamented. It, however, fell into
decay during the reign of Frederic VI., at that unfortunate epoch
when taste was bad taste, and art atrocity: it was repaired--square
and hideous--a fearful monument of the age. Formerly it served as a
telegraph, now as a powder magazine; and unless it be blown up, or
the powder becomes damp, will, I fear, remain untouched. You enter
the interior court through a richly ornamented gateway, guarded by
statues and overhung by a beautiful oriel window, enriched with the
arms and ciphers of the founder. Opposite to you stands the chapel
(the works of Rubens have long since disappeared); the fittings of
the time of Christian IV. have been lately restored, but not too
carefully. It is curious to trace, as you can by the turret to the
right of the clock, the gradual transition from the Gothic to the
Renaissance. The whole of the ornaments are of the latter period; but
there is still occasionally a sort of feeling as if the architect was
not quite decided in his views: whether he was or not, Kronborg is
one of the most perfect specimens of its era--unspoiled, untouched,
and unrepaired--to be met with in Europe. It has long ceased to be
occupied as a royal residence. One side is alone retained for the use
of His Majesty; the rest is occupied by the General Commandant, the
officers, and the garrison. Above the entrance of the clock-tower,
surmounting the ornaments, appears the head of a huge mastiff, holding
in his fore-paws a heart-like shield, with the cipher of Frederic II.,
and below the favourite device of the King, “T. I. W. B., _Treu ist
Wiltbratt_.” The same Wildbratt, whose portrait is above, was the
favourite of King Frederic, and bit everybody save his royal master.
Over the other door appears the device of his good queen--good Queen
Sophia of Mecklenburg--“_Meine Hoffnung zu Gott allein_” (My hope
is in God alone). Within the dungeon of the corner tower, that of
the restoration--adjoining the wine-cellars of Christian IV., where
a jolly fat tun carved in stone above the entrance leaves no doubt
of its identity--was situated the torture-chamber in days gone by:
none of your papistical virgins, who enticed you to their arms, and
larded like a fricandeau, then stuck you brimful of pen-knives, but
good wholesome Protestant thumbscrews, boots, and wooden horses, and
scavengers’ daughters, such as Queen Bess of glorious memory, and
our earlier Tudor sovereigns, to say nothing of later Stuarts loved
to employ on their rebellious subjects who refused to convict their
masters, rightfully or wrongfully, and bring them to the block--and
very persuasive implements they were, I doubt not. In the centre of
the court once stood a fountain, tossing the water high in the air:
judging from the old engravings, it must have been very ornamental.
Some thirty or forty iron hooks, fastened into the wall, remain, once
the larder of King Frederic, hung, when game abounded, with deer, hare,
and capercailzie--like Bolton Abbey in the olden time--a pretty scene,
only too near the torture-chamber. After the peace of 1659, when Skaane
was lost to Denmark forever, the windows of Kronborg Castle, which
commanded a view of the Swedish coast, were walled up, to exclude a
sight which caused so many heart-burnings.
In 1588 was celebrated in the Castle of Kronborg the marriage by
procuration of King James VI. of Scotland with Anne, daughter of King
Frederic II. of Denmark. Anne was then in her fifteenth year. Marshal
Earl Keith acted as proxy. This marriage settled the vexed question of
the Orkney and Shetland Islands, pawned to Scotland when the Princess
Margaret married King James III. Christian III. meditated an expedition
against Mary of Guise, then Regent of Scotland, for their recovery
and later offered to repay the 50,000 florins for which they had been
pawned; but Dantzay, by order of Catherine de’Medici, put a spoke
into the arrangement, and they were never redeemed. We all know the
history of King James’s adventures, and how the real marriage took
place at Agershuus, in Norway. The royal couple then visited Denmark
and passed a month in the Castle of Kronborg, where they assisted
at the nuptials, 19th April, 1590, of the queen’s elder sister, the
Princess Elizabeth, with Henry Duke of Brunswick. Which were the
apartments occupied by King James and his bride during his residence
no one can say--the interior of the building has been much altered
since that period, the stories divided for the occupation of the
garrison--but in all probability it was the suite called the apartments
of Christian IV., now set apart for his present Majesty. They are not
remarkable for their size, but contain fine chimney-pieces, with the
cipher of the sovereign, and the doorways are ornamented with marble
and richly-carved ebony. Tales are still current in Elsinore of the
drinking-bouts held by King James and his brother-in-law, Prince
Christian in the halls of Kronborg--how they fell intoxicated under the
table, rolled into the ditch, etc.
On the exterior of the castle, called Frederic III.’s battery, under
the windows of the upper story, runs a cornice richly ornamented in the
style of the earlier part of the Seventeenth Century, in the divisions
of which are represented medallion portraits of certain personages of
the royal family of Denmark. Among them that of King James himself,
with his peaked beard side by side with the full features of his
consort Queen Anne: in the divisions of each side are sculptured two
Tudor roses, and in the ornamentation of the cornice is constantly
introduced the portcullis of the same family. The date of this cornice
is unknown; but it was in all probability put up to commemorate the
nuptials of the King of Scots with the Princess Anne of Denmark.
Luckily for James was it that the embassy of Lord Willoughby to
Kronborg took place some few years before his marriage, and that this
Scottish assumption of the English badge came not to the ears of the
Virgin Queen. Tudor he was in all right by his ancestress Margaret, in
the female line, and nearest heir to the English throne; but Elizabeth,
when the succession was mooted, brooked no child’s-play. How she would
have stormed had she known it, and sent a fleet perchance to intercept
the return of James to his dominions! and the youthful Anne might
have found a prison in Fotheringay, and a jailer in that exceedingly
unpleasant individual Sir Amyas Paulet. Such are the souvenirs of King
James I have met with in the chronicles of Kronborg.
One day, when on an excursion to the back slums of the town of
Elsinore, I came on a small narrow lane, dignified with the
appellation--in honour, I suppose, of the royal marriage--of Anna Queen
Street.
Having finished with pompous pageants and royal nuptials, we come to
a sadder period of Kronborg story. Scotland still mourns the fate,
and proclaims the innocence of Mary Stuart, the murdered Queen;
had she not been a Papist, England--yes, intolerant England--would
have long since done her justice. France, who, in the last century,
vented her venom, her calumny, against the Autrichienne, now exalts
the memory of Marie Antoinette to that of a saint and martyr. So, in
Denmark, all voices proclaim together the innocence, and deplore the
fate, of the youthful Queen of Christian VII., our English princess
Caroline Matilda. Here in Kronborg she was confined a prisoner, torn
from her palace in Copenhagen, half-dressed, in the middle of the
night, expecting daily to suffer the fate of Struensee and Brandt,
until the arrival of a fleet from England effected her liberation.
Accompanied by the Commandant one morning (General Lunding, the hero
of Fredericia--military men will tell you all about it), I visited the
apartments in which she was confined on her arrival--two small rooms on
the ground-floor, one overshadowed by the bastion, the other looking on
the courtyard of the castle. Later, I believe, the Commandant placed
his own apartment at her disposal; and in the small octagon closet of
the lighthouse turret, which terminates the apartments of Christian
IV., it is related how the captive queen passed hours and days with
anxious brow and straining eye, gazing at the waters of the Sound, in
momentary expectation of the appearance of the fleet from England, she
having received some secret tidings of its coming. No relics of her
incarceration here remain: the ancient furniture of the palace was
unluckily removed, destroyed, and neglected in Frederic VI.’s reign. He
detested Kronborg, and never visited Elsinore; these recollections of
his mother’s imprisonment were odious to him, and the royal apartments
fell into decay.
The ramparts of Kronborg are charming: before them the fishers
everlastingly ply their trade--flounders, and a fish called
“green-bone,” a horn-fish, are their prey. Had Shakespeare searched the
world round he never could have selected so fitting a locality for the
ghost-scene. I can see the ghost myself--pale moon, clouds flitting
o’er her, frowning castle, and the space necessary to follow him; but
the romance of Kronborg is over; her bastions are redolent with deep
purple violets, and the roseate buds of a statice--Krigskarl, or the
Warrior, they here call it--which looks as if it should be something
better, but will, I dare say, turn out common thrift after all. When
the fishing-boats return at sunset, a little girl runs down to the
shore side, and waits; as they pass by, a small flounder is thrown to
her from each boat; she gathers them up in her apron, and then returns
to the castle.