Leonora Christina Ulfeldt - Imprisonment

Imprisonment

She was taken to a holding cell, and thrice cross-examined by court officials, but refused to attest to any crimes on her husband's part, or to join her signature to his abandoning their family's lands in return for her freedom. Finally she consented to the forfeiture upon the promise that Ulfeldt would be set free. But she was betrayed, he was condemned and a writ was issued for his execution and the exile of their children. Once again he escaped, and joined his children abroad, although she was not at first told this and was compelled to watch as he was burned in effigy. She was never to see her husband again, and there is no evidence that he sought her freedom or reunion with her prior to his death.

For the next twenty-two years she remained in the custody of the Danish state, incarcerated without charge or trial in Copenhagen Castle's infamous Blue Tower (Danish, Blåtårn). She lived under meagre and humiliating conditions for the daughter of a king, and was for years deprived of almost all comforts. During these years she perforce showed great stoicism and ingenuity. She wrote that her cell was small, filthy, foul, infested with fleas, and that the rats were so numerous and hungry that they ate her night candle as it burned. She learned to piece together pages for writing from the wrappers on the sugar that she was given, and to make ink for her fowl's quill by capturing the candle's smoke on a spoon. Slowly she adjusted to her plight, ceased longing for revenge or death, and developed a mordant humor. She studied the vermin who were her only companions, recording her observations and conjectures about their instincts. When she heard that her husband had died abroad, she marvelled that she felt only relief that he had finally eluded his persecutors.

The few human interactions she was permitted were equally humiliating, when not dangerous. The tower warden was wont to visit her at night when he was drunk, and she was saved from his advances on one occasion only because he slumbered off in mid-embrace. Maid servants were sent to clean her cell and watch her from an outer room, sending reports on her words and pastimes to the Queen. But such women as worked in prisons were apt to be hard and insolent. Leonora Christina fended off harassment from one serving wench only by threatening to kill her with her bare hands.

She only received less harsh treatment and more amenities following the death of Frederick III early in 1670. The new king, Christian V, sent his ministers to solicit his mother's consent to free the prisoner. But, if Leonora Christina's account is to be believed, the Queen Dowager rejected their entreaties with rebuke.

When a group of ladies of rank visited her incognito for their amusement one evening, she immediately recognized one of them as "Lady Augusta of Glucksburg", who had been wed in Copenhagen in June 1651 to her cousin Ernest Günther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg). She deduced that the others were her nephew's Queen, Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), and his sister Anne Sophie, wife of the Electoral Prince Johan Georg of Saxony. They shed tears of pity once they saw her plight (except Augusta, whom Leonora Christina believed later reported the interview to the Queen Dowager). The Queen's mother, the Landgravine Hedwig of Hesse-Kassel, also paid her a clandestine visit while sojourning from Germany, and wagered with the King for the captive's liberation if the Queen's firstborn child was a son. But when the King's mother arrived for the prince's christening, she threatened to leave the court immediately unless Frederick reneged on his promise. The dowagers quarreled over the matter before the King, but the Blue Tower's gates remained shut.

Eventually the King had Leonora Christina moved to more spacious quarters in the tower, installed a stove against the cold of Copenhagen winters, and commanded that her window be opened. The Queen loaned her silk worms, which Leonora Christina eventually returned in a casket on which were embroidered in silk a plea that "Leonora's bonds be loosed". She was now allowed pen and paper, and received a gift from her nephew of two hundred rix-dollars, most of which would be spent on foreign books. It was at this time that she began to write in earnest, intending that her children might one day read her words.

Queen Dowager Sophie Amalie died in February 1685. On the morning of 19 May 1685 Leonora Christina was informed that a royal order had been issued by Chancellor Frederick von Ahlfeldt (he who had reluctantly escorted her into the Tower) for her release. But she refused the guard's offer to unlock her cell until, at 10 o'clock that night, denied a final private audience with the Queen and fetched by the daughter of her long-dead sister, Elisabeth Augusta Lindenov, the destitute Countess left the Blue Tower forever under cover of darkness and a veil, denying even a glimpse of her face to the curious crowd that had gathered in the courtyard (the Queen and her ladies watched from the palace balcony). For them Leonora Christina had already entered into legend — a royal adventuress who had been first regaled then held captive by the kings of England, Sweden and Denmark. She was sixty-three years old, and had spent twenty-one years, nine months and eleven days in the Tower. She lived her last years quietly on the grounds of Maribo Monastery, where she occupied her time editing her prison notebooks.