Upon this he was quite silent, and I said: ‘You have given me a good preparation; now, in God’s name!’ Then I made my confession, and he administered his office and went away without any other farewell than giving me his hand. I learned afterwards that before M. Buck came to me he went to the prison governor, who was in bed, and begged him to tell Knud, who was at that time page of the chamber,[E50]what a sacramental woman I was; how I had dug a hole in the floor in order to speak with the doctor (which was an impossibility), and how I had practised climbing up and looking out on the square. He begged him several times to tell thisto the page of the chamber: ‘That is a sacramental woman!’[135]
In the end of April in the same year my door was opened one afternoon, and the prison governor came in with some ladies, who kept somewhat aside until he had said, ‘Here are some of the maids of honour, who are permitted to speak to you.’ There came in first a young lady whom I did not know. Next appeared the Lady Augusta of Glücksburg, whom I recognised at once, as she was but little altered. Next followed the Electoral Princess of Saxony, whom I at once recognised from her likeness to her royal father, and last of all our gracious Queen, whom I chiefly looked at, and found the lineaments of her countenance just as Peder Jensen had described them. I saw also a large diamond on her bracelet, and one on her finger, where her glove was cut. Her Majesty supported herself against the folding table as soon as she had greeted me. Lady Augusta ran up and down into every corner, and the Electoral Princess remained at the door. Lady Augusta said: ‘Fye, what a disgusting room this is! I could not live a day in it. I wonder that you have been able to endure it so long.’ I answered, ‘The room is such as pleases God and his Majesty, and so long as God will I shall be able to endure it.’ She began a conversation with the prison governor, who was half tipsy, and spoke with him about Balcke’s marriage, whose wedding with his third wife was taking place on that very day; she spoke against marrying so often, and the prisongovernor replied with various silly speeches. She asked me if I was plagued with fleas. I replied that I could furnish her with a regiment of fleas, if she would have them. She replied hastily with an oath, and swore that she did not want them.
Her question made me somewhat ironical, and I was annoyed at the delight she exhibited at my miserable condition; so when she asked me whether I had body or wall lice, I answered her with a question, and enquired whether my brother-in-law Hanibal Sehested was still alive? This question made her somewhat draw in, for she perceived that I knew her. She made no answer. The Electoral Princess, who probably had heard of my brother-in-law’s intrigues with Lady Augusta,[E51]went quickly up to the table (the book lay on it, in which Karen used to read, and which she had brought in with her), took the book, opened it and asked whether it was mine. I replied that it belonged to the woman whom I had taught to read, and as I gave the Electoral Princess her fitting title of Serene Highness, Lady Augusta said: ‘You err! You are mistaken; she is not the person whom you think.’ I answered, ‘I am not mistaken.’ After this she said no more, but gave me her hand without a word. The gracious Queen looked sadly on, but said nothing. When her Majesty gave me her hand, I kissed it and held it fast, and begged her Majesty to intercede for me, at any rate for some alleviation of my captivity. Her Majesty replied not with words, but with a flood of tears. The virtuous Electoral Princess cried also; she wept very sorrowfully. And when they had reached the anteroom and my door was closed, both the Queen and the Electoral Princess said, ‘It is a sin to treat her thus!’They shuddered; and each said, ‘Would to God that it rested with me! she should not stay there.’ Lady Augusta urged them to go away, and mentioned it afterwards to the Queen Dowager, who said that I had myself to thank for it; I had deserved to be worse treated than this.
When the King’s funeral was over, and the Queen Dowager had left the castle, I requested the prison governor that he should execute my message and solicit another clergyman for me, either the chaplain of the castle or the arsenal chaplain, or the one who usually attended to the prisoners; for if I could get no other than M. Buck, they must take the sin on their own heads, for that I would not again confess to him. A short time elapsed, but at length the chaplain of the castle, at that time M. Rodolff Moth, was assigned me. God, who has ever stood by me in all my adversity, and who in my sorrow and distress has sent me unexpected consolation, gave me peculiar comfort in this man. He consoled me with the Word of God; he was a learned and conversable man, and he interceded for me with his Majesty. The first favour which he obtained for me was, that I was granted another apartment on July 16, 1671, and Bishop D. Jesper’s postil.
He afterwards by degrees obtained still greater favours for me. I received 200 rix-dollars as a gift, to purchase such clothes for myself as I desired, and anything I might wish for to beguile the time.[136]
In this year her Majesty the Queen became pregnant, and her Majesty’s mother, the Landgravine of Hesse, came to be with her in her confinement. On September 6 her Serene Highness visited me in my prison, at first wishing to remain incognito. She had with her a Princess of Curland, who was betrothed to the son of the Landgravine; her lady in waiting, a Wallenstein by birth; and the wife of her master of the household. The Landgravine greeted me with a kiss, and the others followed her example. I did not at that time recognise the wife of the master of the household, but she had known me formerly in my prosperity at the Hague, when she had been in the service of the Countess Leuenstein, and the tears stood in her eyes.
The Landgravine lamented my hard fate and my unhappy circumstances. I thanked her Serene Highness for the gracious sympathy she felt with me, and said that she might help much in alleviating my fetters, if not in liberating me from them entirely. The Landgravine smiled and said, ‘I see well you take me for another than I am.’ I said, ‘Your Serene Highness’s deportment and appearance will not allow you to conceal your rank, were you even in peasant’s attire.’ This pleased her; she laughed and jested, and said she had not thought of that. The lady in waiting agreed with me, and said that I had spoken very justly in saying that I had recognised her by her royal appearance. Upon this the Landgravine said, ‘You do not know her?’ pointing to the Princess of Curland. She then said who she was, and afterwards who her lady in waiting was, and also the wife of the master of the household, who was as I have before mentioned. She spoke of the pity which this lady felt for me, and added ‘Et moy pas moins.’ I thanked her ‘Altessetrès-humblement et la prioit en cette occasion de faire voir sa généreuse conduite.’ Her Serene Highness looked at the prison governor as though she would say that we might speak French too long; she took off her glove and gave me her hand, pressing mine and saying, ‘Croyez-moy, je fairez mon possible.’ I kissed her Serene Highness’s hand, and she then took leave of me with a kiss.
The virtuous Landgravine kept her word, but could effect nothing. When her Majesty the Queen was in the perils of childbirth, she went to the King and obtained from him a solemn promise that if the Queen gave birth to a son I should receive my liberty. On October 11, in the night between one and two o’clock, God delivered her Majesty in safety of our Crown Prince. When all present were duly rejoicing at the Prince’s birth, the Landgravine said, ‘Oh! will not the captive rejoice!’ The Queen Dowager enquired ‘Why?’ The Landgravine related the King’s promise. The Queen Dowager was so angry that she was ill. She loosened her jacket, and said she would return home; that she would not wait till the child was baptised. Her coach appeared in the palace square. The King at length persuaded her to remain till the baptism was over, but he was obliged to promise with an oath that I should not be liberated. This vexed the virtuous Landgravine not a little, that the Queen should have induced her son to break his promise; and she persisted in saying that a king ought to keep his vow. The Queen Dowager answered, ‘My son has before made a vow, and this he has broken by his promise to your Serene Highness.’ The Landgravine said at last: ‘If I cannot bring about the freedom of the prisoner, at least let her, at my request, be removed to a better place,with somewhat more liberty. It is not to the King’s reputation that she is imprisoned there. She is, after all, a king’s daughter, and I know that much injustice is done to her.’ The Queen Dowager was annoyed at these words, and said, ‘Now, she shall not come out; she shall remain where she is!’ The Landgravine answered, ‘If God will, she will assuredly come out, even though your Majesty may will it not;’ so saying, she rose and went out.
On October 18 the lady in waiting, Wallenstein, sent for Peder Jensen Tötzlöff, and delivered to him by command a book entitled, D. Heinrich Müller’s ‘Geistliche Erquickstunden,’[E53]which he gave me with a gracious message from the Landgravine. On the same day I sent her Serene Highness, through Tötzlöff, my dutiful thanks, and Tötzlöff took the book back to the lady in waiting, with the request that she would endeavour to prevail on her Highness to show me the great favour of placing her name and motto in the book, in remembrance of her Highness’s generosity and kindness. I lamented my condition in this also, that from such a place I could not spread abroad her Serene Highness’s praise and estimable benefits, and make the world acquainted with them; but that I would do what I could, and I would include her Serene Highness and all her family in my prayers for their welfare both of soul and body. (This I have done, and will do, so long as God spares my life.)
On October 23 I received the book back through Tötzlöff, and I found within it the following lines, written by the Landgravine’s own hand:
1671.Ce qui n’est pas en ta puissanceNe doit point troubler ton repos;Tu balances mal à proposEntre la crainte et l’espérance.Laisse faire ton Dieu et ton roy,Et suporte avec passience ce qu’il résoud pour toy.Je prie Dieu de vous faire cette grâce, et que je vous puisse tesmoigner combien je suis,Madame, vostre très-affectionée à vous servir,Monogram
1671.
Ce qui n’est pas en ta puissanceNe doit point troubler ton repos;Tu balances mal à proposEntre la crainte et l’espérance.Laisse faire ton Dieu et ton roy,Et suporte avec passience ce qu’il résoud pour toy.
Ce qui n’est pas en ta puissanceNe doit point troubler ton repos;Tu balances mal à proposEntre la crainte et l’espérance.Laisse faire ton Dieu et ton roy,Et suporte avec passience ce qu’il résoud pour toy.
Je prie Dieu de vous faire cette grâce, et que je vous puisse tesmoigner combien je suis,
Madame, vostre très-affectionée à vous servir,
Monogram
The book is still in my possession, and I sent word through Tötzlöff to the lady in waiting to request her to convey my most humble thanks to her Highness; and afterwards, when the Landgravine was about to start on her journey, to commend me to her Serene Highness’s favour.
In the same year, 1671, Karen,Nils’daughter, left me on account of ill health. For one night a woman was with me named Margrete, who was a serf from Holstein. She had run away from her master. She was a very awkward peasant woman, so towards evening on the following day she was sent away, and in her place there came a woman named Inger, a person of loose character. This woman gave herself out as the widow of a non-commissioned officer, and that she had long been in service at Hamburg, and nursed lying-in women. It happened with her, as is often the case, that one seeks to obtain a thing, and that to one’s own vexation. Chresten had spoken for this woman with the prison governor, and had praised her before me, but the prison governor took upon another recommendation the before-mentioned Margrete. So long as there was hope that the Landgravine might obtain my freedom, this woman was very amenable, but afterwards she began bydegrees to show what was in her, and that it was not for nothing that she resembled Dina.
She caused me annoyance of various kinds, which I received with patience, thinking within myself that it was another trial imposed by God upon me, and Dina’s intrigues often came into my mind, and I thought, ‘Suppose she should devise some Dina plot?’ (She is capable of it, if she had only an instigator, as Dina had.) Among other annoyances, which may not be reckoned among the least, was this: I was one day not very well, having slept but little or not at all during the night, and I had lain down to sleep on the bed in the day; and she would give me no rest, but came softly past me in her socks, and in order to wake me teased a dog which I had,[137]so that he growled. I asked her why she grudged my sleeping? She answered, ‘I did not know that you were asleep.’ ‘Why, then,’ I said, ‘did you go by in your stockings?’ She replied, ‘If you saw that, then you were not asleep,’ and she laughed heartily by herself. (She sat always in front of my table with her back turned to me; whether it was because she had lost one eye that she sat in that position to the light, I know not.)
I did not care for any conversation with her, so I lay still; and when she thought I was asleep, she got up again and teased the dog. I said, ‘You tax my patience sorely; but if once my passion rises, you will certainly get something which will astonish you, you base accursed thing!’ ‘Base accursed thing,’ sherepeated to herself with a slight laugh. I prayed to God that he would restrain me, so that I might not lay violent hands on this base creature. And as I had the other apartment (as I have before mentioned),[138]I went out and walked up and down between four and five o’clock. She washed and splashed outside, and spilled the water exactly where I was walking. I told her several times to leave her splashing, as she spilled the water in all directions on the floor, so that I made my clothes dirty, and often there was not a drop of water for my dog to drink, and the tower-warder had to fetch her water from the kitchen spring. This was of no avail. One day it occurred to her, just as the bell had sounded four, to go out and pour all the water on the floor, and then come back again. When I went to the door, I perceived what she had done. Without saying a word, I struck her first on one cheek and then on the other, so that the blood ran from her nose and mouth, and she fell against her bench, and knocked the skin from her shin-bone. She began to be abusive, and said she had never in her life had such a box on her ears. I said immediately, ‘Hold your tongue, or you will have another like it! I am now only a little angry, but if you make me really angry I shall strike youharder.’ She was silent for the time, but she caused me all the small annoyance she could.
I received it all with gentleness, fearing that I might lay violent hands on her. She scarcely knew what to devise to cause me vexation; she had a silver thimble on which a strange name was engraved; she had found it, she said, in a dust-heap in the street. I once asked her where she had found some handkerchiefs which she had of fine Dutch linen, with lace on them, which likewise were marked with another name; they were embroidered with blue silk, and there was a different name on each. She had bought them, she said, at an auction at Hamburg.[139]I thought that the damage she had received on one of her eyes might very likely have arisen from her having ‘found’ something of that kind,[E54]and as I soon after asked her by what accident she had injured her eye, she undoubtedly understood my question well, for she was angry and rather quiet, and said, ‘What injury? There is nothing the matter with my eye; I can, thank God, see with both.’ I let the matter rest there. Soon after this conversation she came down one day from upstairs, feeling in her pocket, though she said nothing until the afternoon, when the doors were locked, and then she looked through all her rubbish, saying ‘If I only knew where it could be?’ I asked what she was looking for. ‘My thimble,’ she said. ‘You will find it,’ I said; ‘only look thoroughly!’ And as she had begun to look for it in her pockets before she had required it, I thought she mighthave drawn it out of her pocket with some paper which she used, and which she had bought. I said this, but it could not be so.
On the following day, towards noon, she again behaved as if she were looking for it upstairs; and when the door was closed she began to give loose to her tongue, and to make a long story about the thimble, where it could possibly be. ‘There was no one here, and no one came in except us two;’ and she gave me to understand that I had taken it; she took her large box which she had, and rummaged out everything that was in it, and said, ‘Now you can see that I have not got it.’ I said that I did not care about it, whether she had it or no, but that I saw that she accused me of stealing. She adhered to it, and said, ‘Who else could have taken it? There is no one else here, and I have let you see all that is mine, and it is not there.’ Then for the first time I saw that she wished that I should let her see in the same manner what I had in my cardbox, for she had never seen anything of the work which I had done before her time. I said, ‘I do not care at all what you do with your thimble, and I respect myself too much to quarrel with you or to mind your coarse and shameless accusation. I have, thank God, enough in my imprisonment to buy what I require, &c. But as you perhaps have stolen it, you now imagine that it has been stolen again from you, if it be true that you have lost it.’ To this she made no answer, so that I believe she had it herself, and only wanted by this invention to gain a sight of my things. As it was the Christmas month and very cold, and Chresten was lighting a fire in the stove before the evening meal, I said to him in her presence, ‘Chresten, you are fortunate if you are not, like me, accused of stealing, foryou might have found her thimble upstairs without having had it proclaimed from the pulpit; it was before found by Inger, and not announced publicly.’
This was like a spark to tinder, and she went to work like a frantic being, using her shameless language. She had not stolen it, but it had been stolen from her; and she cursed and swore. Chresten ordered her to be silent. He desired her to remember who I was, and that she was in my service. She answered, ‘I will not be silent, not if I were standing before the King’s bailiff!’The more gently I spoke, the more angry was she; at length I said, ‘Will you agree with me in one wish?—that the person who last had the thimble in her possession may see no better with her left eye than she sees with her right.’ She answered with an oath that she could see with both eyes. I said, ‘Well, then, pray God with me that she may be blind in both eyes who last had it.’ She growled a little to herself and ran into the inner room, and said no more of her thimble, nor did I. God knows that I was heartily weary of this intercourse.
I prayed God for patience, and thought ‘This is only a trial of patience. God spares me from other sorrow which I might have in its stead.’ I could not avail myself of the occasion of her accusing me of theft to get rid of her, but I saw another opportunity not far off. The prison governor came one day to me with some thread which was offered for sale, rather coarse, but fit for making stockings and night-waistcoats. I bought two pounds of it, and he retained a pound, saying, ‘I suppose the woman can make me a pair of stockings with it?’ I answered in the affirmative (for she could do nothing else but knit). When he was gone, she said, ‘There will be a pair of stockings for me here also, for I shall get no other pay.’ I said, ‘That issurely enough.’ The stockings for the prison governor were finished. She sat one day half asleep, and made a false row round the stocking below the foot. I wanted her to undo it. ‘No,’ said she, ‘it can remain as it is; he won’t know but that it is the fashion in Hamburg.’[140]
When his stockings were finished, she began a pair for herself of the same thread, and sat and exulted that it was the prison governor’s thread. This, it seemed to me, furnished me with an opportunity of getting rid of her. And as the prison governor rarely came up, and she sent him down the stockings by Tötzlöff, I begged Tötzlöff to contrive that the prison governor should come up to me, and that he should seat himself on the woman’s bed and arrange her pillow as if he wanted to lean against it (underneath it lay her wool). This was done. The prison governor came up, took the knitting in his hand, and said to Inger, ‘Is this another pair of stockings for me?’ ‘No, Mr. Prison governor,’ she answered, ‘they are for me. You have got yours. I have already sent you them.’ ‘But,’ said he, ‘this is of my thread; it looks like my thread.’ She protested that it was not his thread. As he went down to fetch his stockings and the scales, she said to me, ‘That is not his thread; it is mine now,’ and laughed heartily. I thought, ‘Something more may come of this.’
The prison governor came with the scales and his stockings, compared one thread with the other, and the stockings weighed scarcely half a pound. He asked her whether she had acted rightly? She continued to assert that it was her thread; that she had bought it in Hamburg, and had brought it here. The prison governor grew angry, and said that she lied, and calledher a bitch. She swore on the other hand that it was not his thread; that she would swear it by the Sacrament. The prison governor went away; such an oath horrified him. I was perfectly silent during this quarrel. When the prison governor had gone, I said to the woman, ‘God forbid! how could you say such words? Do you venture to swear a falsehood by the Sacrament, and to say it in my presence, when I know that it is the prison governor’s thread? What a godless creature you are!’ She answered, with a half ridiculous expression of face, ‘I said I would take the Sacrament upon it, but I am not going to do so.’ ‘Oh Dina!’ I thought, ‘you are not like her for nothing; God guard me from you!’ And I said, ‘Do you think that such light words are not a sin, and that God will not punish you for them?’ She assumed an air of authority, and said, ‘Is the thread of any consequence? I can pay for it; I have not stolen it from him; he gave it to me himself. I have only done what the tailors do; they do not steal; it is given to them. He did not weigh out the thread for me.’ I answered her no more than ‘You have taken it from him; I shall trouble myself no more about it;’ but I begged Tötzlöff to do all he could that I should be rid of her, and have another in her place of a good character.
Tötzlöff heard that Karen had a desire to return to me; he told me so. The prison governor was satisfied with the arrangement. It was kept concealed from Inger till all was so settled that Karen could come up one evening at supper-time. When the prison governor had unlocked the door, and had established himself in the inner room, and the woman had come out, he said: ‘Now, Inger, pack your bundle! You are to go.’ ‘Yes, Mr. Prison governor,’ she answered, and laughed, and brought the food to me, and told me whatthe prison governor had said, saying at the same time, ‘That is his joke.’ ‘I heard well,’ I answered, ‘what he said; it is not his joke, it is his real earnestness.’ She did not believe it; at any rate she acted as if she did not, and smiled, saying, ‘He cannot be in earnest;’ and she went out and asked the prison governor whether he was in earnest. He said, ‘Go! go! there is no time for gossip!’ She came into me again, and asked if I wished to be rid of her. I answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘Why so?’ she asked. I answered: ‘It would take me too long to explain; the other woman who is to remain here is below.’ ‘At any rate,’ said she, ‘let me stay here over the night.’ (‘Ah, Dina!’ I thought.) ‘Not a quarter of an hour!’ I answered; ‘go and pack your things! That is soon done!’ She did so, said no word of farewell, and went out of the door.
Thus Karen came to me for the third time, but she did not remain an entire year, on account of illness.[141]
In the year 1673 M. Moth became vice-bishop in Fyn. I lost much in him, and in his place came H. Emmeke Norbye, who became court preacher, and who had formerly been a comrade of Griffenfeldt; but Griffenfeldt did not acknowledge him subsequently, so that he could achieve nothing for me with Griffenfeldt.[E55]He one day brought me as answer (when I sent him word among other things that his Majesty would be gracious if only some one would speak for me), ‘It would be as if a pistol had been placed at the King’s heart, and he were to forgive it.’
In the same year my sister Elisabeth Augusta sent me a message through Tötzlöff and enquired whether I had a fancy for any fruit, as she would send me some. I was surprised at the message, which came to me from my sister in the tenth year of my captivity, and I said, ‘Better late than never!’ I sent her no answer.
One funny thing I will yet mention, which occurred in the time of Karen,Nils’daughter. Chresten, who had to make a fire in the stove an hour before supper (since it had no flue), so that the smoke could pass out at the staircase door before I supped, did not come one evening before six o’clock, and was then quite tipsy. And as I was sitting at the time near the stove in the outer apartment on a log of wood, which had been hewed as a seat, I said it was late to make the fire, as he must now go into the kitchen. He paid no attention to my gentle remark, until I threatened him with hard words, and ordered him to take the wood out. He was angry, and would not use the tongs to take the wood out, nor would he permit Karen to take them out with the tongs; but he tore them out with his hands, and said, ‘Nothing can burn me.’ And as some little time elapsed before the wood was extinguished, he began to fear that it would give little satisfaction if he so long delayed fetching the meal. He seated himself flat on the ground and was rather dejected; presently he burst out and said, ‘Oh God, you who have had house and lands, where are you now sitting?’ I said, ‘On a log of wood!’ He answered, ‘I do not mean your ladyship!’ I asked, ‘Whom does your worshipmean, then?’ He replied, ‘I mean Karen.’ I laughed, and said no more.
To enumerate all the contemptuous conduct I endured would be too lengthy, and not worth thetrouble. One thing I will yet mention of the tower-warder Chresten, who caused me great annoyance at the end of this tenth year of my imprisonment. Among other annoyances he once struck my dog, so that it cried. I did not see it, but I heard it, and the woman told me it was he who had struck the dog. I was greatly displeased at it. He laughed at this, and said, ‘It is only a dog.’ I gave him to understand that he struck the dog because he did not venture to strike me. He laughed heartily at the idea, and I said, ‘I do not care for your anger so long as the prison governor is my friend’ (this conversation took place while I was at a meal, and the prison governor was sitting with me, and Chresten was standing at the door of my apartment, stretching out his arms.) I said, ‘The prison governor and you will both get into heavy trouble, if I choose. Do you hear that, good people?’ (I knew of too many things, which they wished to hide, in more than one respect.) The prison governor sat like one deaf and dumb, and remained seated, but Chresten turned away somewhat ashamed, without saying another word. He had afterwards some fear of me, when he was not too intoxicated; for at such times he cared not what he said, as regards high or low. He was afterwards insolent to the woman, and said he would strike the dog, and that I should see him do so. This, however, he did not do.
Chresten’s fool-hardiness increased, so that Peder Tötzlöff informed the prison governor of his bad behaviour, and of my complaints of the wild doings of the prisoners, who made such a noise by night that I could not sleep for it, for Chresten spent the night at his home, and allowed the prisoners to do as they chose. Upon this information, the prison governor placed a padlock upon the tower door at night, so that Chrestencould not get out until the door was unlocked in the morning. This annoyed him, and he demanded his discharge, which he received on April 24, 1674; and in his place there came a man named Gert, who had been in the service of the prison governor as a coachman.
In this year, the —— May, I wrote a spiritual ‘Song in Remembrance of God’s Goodness,’ after the melody ‘Nun ruhen alle Wälder.’
I.My heart! True courage find!God’s goodness bear in mind,And how He, ever nigh,Helps me my load to bear,Nor utterly despairTho’ in such heavy bonds I lie.II.Ne’er from my thoughts shall strayHow once I lingering layIn the dark dungeon cell;My cares and bitter fears,And ridicule and tears,And God the Lord upheld me well.III.Think on my miseryAnd sad captivityThro’ many a dreary year!Yet nought my heart distresses;The Lord He proves and blesses,And He protects me even here!IV.Come heart and soul elate!And let me now relateThe wonders of God’s skill!He was my preservationIn danger and temptation,And kept me from impending ill.V.The end seemed drawing near,I wrung my hands with fear,Yet has He helped me e’er;My refuge and my guide,On Him I have relied,And He has ever known my care.VI.Thanks to Thee, fount of good!Thou canst no evil brood,Thy blows are fatherly;When cruel power oppressed me,Thy hand has ever blessed me,And Thou has sheltered me!VII.Before Thee, Lord, I lie;Give me my libertyBefore my course is run;Thy Gracious Hands extendAnd let my suffering end!Yet not my will, but Thine, be done.
I.
My heart! True courage find!God’s goodness bear in mind,And how He, ever nigh,Helps me my load to bear,Nor utterly despairTho’ in such heavy bonds I lie.
II.
Ne’er from my thoughts shall strayHow once I lingering layIn the dark dungeon cell;My cares and bitter fears,And ridicule and tears,And God the Lord upheld me well.
III.
Think on my miseryAnd sad captivityThro’ many a dreary year!Yet nought my heart distresses;The Lord He proves and blesses,And He protects me even here!
IV.
Come heart and soul elate!And let me now relateThe wonders of God’s skill!He was my preservationIn danger and temptation,And kept me from impending ill.
V.
The end seemed drawing near,I wrung my hands with fear,Yet has He helped me e’er;My refuge and my guide,On Him I have relied,And He has ever known my care.
VI.
Thanks to Thee, fount of good!Thou canst no evil brood,Thy blows are fatherly;When cruel power oppressed me,Thy hand has ever blessed me,And Thou has sheltered me!
VII.
Before Thee, Lord, I lie;Give me my libertyBefore my course is run;Thy Gracious Hands extendAnd let my suffering end!Yet not my will, but Thine, be done.
In this year, on July 25, his royal Majesty was gracious enough to have a large window made again in my inner apartment; it had been walled up when I had been brought into this chamber. A stove was also placed there, the flue of which passed out into the square. The prison governor was not well satisfied at this, especially as he was obliged to be present during the work; this did not suit his laziness. My doors were open during the time; it was twelve days before the work was finished. He grumbled, and did not wish that the window should be made as low as it had been before I was imprisoned here; I persuaded the mason’s journeyman to cut down the wall as low as it had before been, which the prison governor perceived from thepalace square, and he came running up and scolded, and was thoroughly angry. But it was not to be changed, for the window-frame was already made. I asked him what it mattered to him if the window was a stone lower; it did not go lower than the iron grating, and it had formerly been so. He would have his will, so that the mason walled it up a stone higher while the prison governor was there, and removed it again afterwards, for the window-frame, which was ready, would not otherwise have fitted.
In the same year Karen,Nils’daughter, left me for the third and last time, and in her stead came a woman named Barbra, the widow of a bookbinder. She is a woman of a melancholy turn. Her conscience is aroused sometimes, so that she often enumerates her own misdeeds (but not so great as they have been, and as I have found out by enquiry). She had two children, and it seems from her own account that she was to some extent guilty of their death, for she says: ‘Who can have any care for a child when one does not love its father?’ She left her husband two years before he died, and repaired to Hamburg, supporting herself by spinning; she had before been in the service of a princess as a spinning-maid. Her father is alive, and was bookbinder to the King’s Majesty; he has just now had a stroke of paralysis, and is lying very ill. She has no sympathy with her father, and wishes him dead (which would perhaps be the best thing for him); but it vexes me that she behaves so badly to her sister, who is the wife of a tailor, and I often tell her that in this she is committing a double sin; for the needy sister comes from time to time for something to eat. If she does not come exactly on the evening which she has agreed upon, she gets nothing, and the food isthrown away upstairs. When at some length I place her sin before her, she says, ‘That meat is bad.’ I ask her why she let it get bad, and did not give it in time to her sister. To this she answers that her sister is not worthy of it. I predict evil things which will happen to her in future, as they have done to others whom I enumerate to her. At this she throws back her head and is silent.
At this time her Majesty the Queen sent me some silkworms to beguile the time. When they had finished spinning, I sent them back to her Majesty in a box which I had covered with carnation-coloured satin, upon which I had embroidered a pattern with gold thread. Inside, the box was lined with white taffeta. In the lid I embroidered with black silk a humble request that her Majesty would loose my bonds, and would fetter me anew with the hand of favour. Her Majesty the virtuous Queen would have granted my request had it rested with her.
The prison governor became gradually more sensible and accommodating, drank less wine, and made no jokes. I had peace within my doors. The woman sat during the day outside in the other apartment, and lay there also in the night, so that I began not to fret so much over my hard fate. I passed the year with reading, writing, and composing.
For some time past, immediately after I had received the yearly pension, I had bought for myself not only historical works in various languages, but I had gathered and translated from them all the famous female personages, who were celebrated as true, chaste, sensible, valorous, virtuous, God-fearing, learned, and steadfast; and in anno 1675, on January 9, I amused myself with making some rhymes to M. ThomasKingo, under the title, ‘To the much-famed Poet M. Thomas Kingo, a Request from a Danish Woman in the name of all Danish Women.’ The request was this, that he would exhibit in befitting honour the virtuous and praiseworthy Danish women. There are, indeed, virtuous women belonging to other nations, but I requested only his praise of the Danish. This never reached Kingo; but if my good friend to whom I entrust these papers still lives, it will fall probably into your hands, my beloved children.
In the same year, on May 11, I wrote in rhyme a controversial conversation between Sense and Reason; entitled, ‘Controversial Thoughts by the Captive Widow, or the Dispute between Sense and Reason.’
Nothing else occurred this year within the doors of my prison which is worth recording, except one event—namely, when the outermost door of the anteroom was unlocked in the morning for the sake of sweeping away the dirt and bringing in fresh water, and the tower-warder occasionally let it stand open till meal-time and then closed it again, it happened that a fire broke out in the town and the bells were tolled. I and the woman ran up to the top of the tower to see where it was burning.
When I was on the stairs which led up to the clock-work, the prison governor came, and with him was a servant from the silver-chamber. He first perceived my dog, then he saw somewhat of the woman, and thought probably that I was there also; he was so wise as not to come up the stairs, but remained below at the lowest holes, from whence one can look out over the town, and left me time enough to get down again and shut my door. Gert was sorry, and came afterwards to the door and told me of his distress. I consoled him, and saidthere was nothing to fear. Before the prison governor opened the door at noon, he struck Gert with his stick, so that he cried, and the prison governor said with an oath, ‘Thou shalt leave.’ When the prison governor came in, I was the first to speak, and I said: ‘It is not right in you to beat the poor devil; he could not help it. The executioner came up as he was going to lock my door, and that made him forget to do so.’ He threatened Gert severely, and said, ‘I should not have minded it so much had not that other servant been with me.’
The words at once occurred to me which he had said to me a long time before, namely that no woman could be silent, but that all men could be silent (when he had asserted this, I had thought, if this be so, then my adversaries might believe that I, had I known of anything which they had in view, should not have been able to keep silence). So I now answered him thus: ‘Well, and what does that signify? It was a man; they can all keep silence; there is no harm done.’ He could not help laughing, and said, ‘Well, you are good enough.’ I then talked to him, and assured him that I had no desire to leave the tower without the King’s will, even though day and night all the tower doors were left open, and I also said that I could have got out long ago, if that had been my design. Gert continued in his service, and the prison governor never told Gert to shut me in in the morning.[142]
At this time I had bought myself a clavicordium, and as Barbra could sing well, I played psalms and shesang, so that the time was not long to us. She taught me to bind books, so far as I needed.[E56]
My father confessor, H. Emmeke, became a preacher at Kiöge anno 1676. In the same year my pension was increased, and I received yearly 250 rix-dollars. It stands in the order that the 200 rix-dollars were to be used for the purchase of clothes and the remaining fifty to buy anything which might beguile the time.[E57]God bless and keep his gracious Majesty, and grant that he may live to enjoy many happy years.
Brant was at this time treasurer.
On December 17 in this same year Barbra left me, and married a bookbinder’s apprentice; but she repented it afterwards. And as her husband died a year and a half after her marriage, and that suddenly,suspicionfell upon Barbra. She afterwards went to her brother’s house and fell ill. Her conscience was awakened, and she sent for Tötzlöff and told almost in plain terms that she had poisoned her husband, and begged him to tell me so. I was not much astonished at it, for according to her own account she had before killed her own children; but I told Peder Tötzlöff that he was not to speak of it; if God willed that it should be made known, it would be so notwithstanding; the brother and the maid in the house knew it; he was not to go there again, even if she sent a message to him. She became quite insane, and lay in a miserable condition. The brother subsequently had her removed to the plague-house.
In Barbra’s place there came to me a woman named Sitzel, daughter of a certain Klemming; Maren Blocks had brought about her employment, as Sitzel owed hermoney. She is a dissolute woman, and Maren gave her out as a spinster; she had a white cap on her head when she came up. Sitzel’s debt to Maren had arisen in this way: that Maren—since Sitzel could make buttons, and the button-makers had quarrelled with her—obtained for her a royal licence in order to free her from the opposition of the button-makers, under the pretext that she was sickly. When the door was locked in the evening, I requested to see the royal licence which Maren had obtained for her. And when I saw that she was styled in it the sickly woman, I asked her what her infirmity was. She replied that she had no infirmity. ‘Why, then,’ I asked, ‘have you given yourself out as sickly?’ She answered, ‘That was Maren Block’s doing, in order to get for me the royal licence.’ ‘In the licence,’ I said, ‘you are spoken of as a married woman, and not as a spinster; have you, then, been seduced?’ She hung her head and said softly, ‘Yes.’
I was not satisfied. I said, ‘Maren Block has obtained the royal licence for you by lies, and has brought you to me by lies; what, then, can I expect from your service?’ She begged my pardon, promised to serve me well, and never to act contrary to my wishes. She is a dangerous person; there is nothing good in her; bold and shameless, she is not even afraid of fighting a man. She struck two button-makers one day, who wanted to take away her work, till they were obliged to run away. With me she had no opportunity of thus displaying her evil passions, but still they were perceptible in various ways. One day I warded off a scuffle between her and Maren Blocks; for when Maren Blocks had got back the money which she had expended on the royal licencefor Sitzel, she wanted to remove her from me, and to bring another into her place; but I sent word to Maren Blocks that she must not imagine she could send me another whom I must take. It was enough that she had done this time.[143]
In the place of H. Emmeke Norbye, H. Johan Adolf Borneman became palace-preacher; a very learned and sensible man, who now became my father confessor, and performed the duties of his office for the first time on April 10, 1677.
On October 9, in the same year, my father confessor was Magister Hendrich Borneman, dean of the church of Our Lady (a learned and excellent man), his brother H. Johan Adolf Borneman having accompanied the King’s Majesty on a journey.
I have, thank God, spent this year in repose: reading, writing, and composing various things.
Anno 1678 it was brought about for me that my father-confessor, H. Johan Adolf Borneman, should come to me every six weeks and preach a short sermon.
In this year, on Easter-Day, Agneta Sophia Budde was brought to the tower. Her prison was above my innermost apartment. She was accused of having designed to poison the Countess Skeel; and as she was a young person, and had a waiting-woman in her attendance who was also young, they clamoured to such an extent all day that I had no peace for them. I said nothing, however, about it, thinking she would probably be quiet when she knew that her life was atstake. But no! she was merry to the day on which she was executed![144]
In the same year, on the morning of July 9, the tower-warder Gert was killed by a thief who was under sentence of death, and to whom he had allowed too great liberty. I will mention this incident somewhat more in detail, as I had advised Gert not to give this prisoner so much liberty; but to his own misfortune he paid no attention to my advice. This thief had broken by night into the house of a clergyman, and had stolen a boiling-copper, which he had carried on his head to Copenhagen; he was seized with it at the gate in the morning, and was placed here in the tower. He was condemned to be hanged (he had committed various other thefts). The priest allowed the execution to be delayed; he did not wish to have him hanged. Then it was said he was to go to the Holm; but he remained long in prison. At first, and until the time that his going to the Holmwas talked of, he was my neighbour in the Dark Church; he behaved quite as a God-fearing man, read (apparently) with devotion, and prayed to God for forgiveness of his sins with most profound sighs. The rogue knew that I could hear him, and I sent him occasionally something to eat. Gert took pity on him, and allowed him to go by day about the basement story of the tower, and shut him up at night again.
Afterwards he allowed him also at night to remain below. And as I had seen the thief once or twice when my door stood open, and he went past, it seemed to me that he had a murderous countenance; and for this reason, when I heard that the thief was not placed of an evening in the Dark Church, I said to Gert that he ventured too far, in letting him remain below at night; that there was roguery lurking in him; that he would certainly some day escape, and then, on his account, Gert would get into trouble. Gert was not of opinion that the thief wished to run away; he had no longer any fear of being hanged; he had been so delighted that he was to go to the Holm, there was no danger in it. I thought ‘That is a delight which does not reach further than the lips,’ and I begged him that he would lock him up at night. No; Gert feared nothing; he even went farther, and allowed the thief to go up the tower instead of himself, and attend to the clock-work.
Three days before the murder took place, I spoke with Gert, when he unlocked my door in the morning, of the danger to which he exposed himself by the liberty he allowed the thief, but Gert did not fear it. Meanwhile my dog placed himself exactly in front of Gert, and howled in his face. When we were at dinner, the dog ran down and howled three times atthe tower-warder’s door. Never before had I heard the dog howl.
On July 19 (as I have said), when Gert’s unfortunate morning had arrived, the thief came down from the clock-work, and said that he could not manage it alone, as the cords were entangled. The rogue had an iron rod ready above, in order to effect his project. Gert went upstairs, but was carried down. The thief ran down after Gert was dead, opened his box, took out the money, and went out of the tower.
It was a Friday, and the bells were to be rung for service. Those whose duty it was to ring them knocked at the tower door, but no one opened. Tötzlöff came with the principal key and opened, and spoke to me and wondered that Gert was not there at that time of the day. I said: ‘All is not right; this morning between four and five I was rather unwell, and I heard three people going upstairs and after a time two coming down again.’ Tötzlöff locked my door and went down. Just then one of the ringers came down, and informed them that Gert was lying upstairs dead. When the dead man was examined, he had more than one wound, but all at the back of the head. He was a very bold man, courageous, and strong; one man could not be supposed to have done this to him.
The thief was seized the same evening, and confessed how it had happened: that, namely, a prisoner who was confined in the Witch Cell, a licentiate of the name of Moritius, had persuaded him to it. This same Moritius had great enmity against Gert. It is true that Gert took too much from him weekly for his food. But it is also true that this Moritius was a very godless fellow; the priest who confesses him gives him nogood character. I believe, indeed, that Moritius was an accessory, but I believe also that another prisoner, who was confined in the basement of the tower, had a hand in the game. For who should have locked the tower-door again after the imprisoned thief, had not one of these done so? For when the key was looked for, it was found hidden above in the tower; this could not have been done by the thief after he was out of the tower. The thief, moreover, could not have unlocked Gert’s box and taken his money without the knowledge of Moritius. The other prisoner must also have been aware of it. It seems to me that it was hushed up, in order that no more should die for this murder; for the matter was not only not investigated as was befitting, but the thief was confined down below in the tower. He was bound with iron fetters, but Moritius could speak with him everyday: and for this reason the thief departed from his earlier statement, and said that he alone had committed the murder. He was executed on August 8, and Moritius was taken to Borringholm, and kept as a prisoner there.[E55b]
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 thestairs, 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 meon 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, whoat 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 herown 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 Tötzlöff 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 Tötzlöff 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 Tötzlöff, 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 hadenquired 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]
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 München 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, andimplied 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 München 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 München’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 strucka 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 München 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 München desired Tötzlöff 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.
A.D.1682, June 11, I wrote the following spiritual song.
It can be sung to the melody, ‘Siunge wii af Hiærtens-Grund.’[E59]