1577–1648
Christian IV
Leonora Christina was the daughter of Christian IV.
✩ 8 July 1621 ✝ 16 March 1698
Leonora Christina
Leonora Christina was a member of the absolute elite, as the daughter of a king, but ended up in a fateful conflict with the royal house she was born into. As a result, she spent nearly 22 years as a prisoner in Blåtårn, the Blue Tower, at Copenhagen Castle.
A royal childhood
Leonora Christina was the daughter of Kirsten Munk and Christian IV.
Christian IV was the father of 23 children – that we know about. Kirsten Munk was the mother of 12 of these children, with Leonora Christina being the third.
Leonora Christina spent her childhood in several different locations, including the Dalum Kloster manor on the island of Funen, where her grandmother, Ellen Marsvin, lived.
Another one of Leonora Christina’s childhood homes was Frederiksborg Castle, where she was raised with several of her siblings. According to her own account, she was very close to her father. She often accompanied him on travels and claimed to be his ‘favourite daughter’.
A couple at the pinnacle of society
Just nine years old, Leonora Christina was engaged to the nobleman Corfitz Ulfeldt. In 1636, when Leonora Christina was 15, the couple married, and for a time they lived at the pinnacle of society, close to The King.
In 1637, Corfitz Ulfeldt was appointed Governor of Copenhagen. This was the first in a series of high positions, which he used to build a vast personal fortune, in part through fraud and embezzlement. These crimes were not discovered until later. In the meantime, Leonora Christina was one of the highest-ranking ladies in the Danish capital. She took courses in drawing, music and languages and also had an avid interest in literature. She gave birth to at least ten children and was a dedicated mother, compared to the norms of the time.
22 years as a prisoner
After the death of Christian IV, in 1648, Frederik III and Sophie Amalie became King and Queen of Denmark, which had major consequences for both Corfitz Ulfelt and Leonora Christina.
Leonora Christina and Sophie Amalie disliked each other intensely. Leonora Christina even had the decorations removed from the central Copenhagen square Amagertorv the night before Sophie Amalie’s coronation. As a countermove, Sophie Amalie introduced a new rule for non-nobles attending parties at the royal palace: they could no longer drive all the way up to the palace but had to be dropped off at the gate and walk the last part of the way. This rule applied to all non-nobles but was directly aimed at Leonora Christina and her husband, Corfitz Ulfeldt.
In 1651, Corfitz Ulfeldt was charged with embezzlement and abuse of office, and eventually, the Ulfeldt couple had to flee Denmark. They were apprehended in Malmö in 1659 but managed to escape again. The following year, they were arrested again and imprisoned at Hammershus on the island of Bornholm, from which they also tried to escape.
They were released in 1661 after signing a declaration of submission. This did not stop Corfitz Ulfeldt from continuing to plot against Frederik III. Among other acts, he offered the Danish crown to the Elector of Brandenburg. This crossed a line for The King, and Ulfeldt was sentenced to death. Once again, he managed to escape, and the sentence was carried out in effigy, as a figure representing him was beheaded in his place. Still on the run, Corfitz Ulfeldt died of natural causes while on a boat on the Rhine.
Leonora Christiana was arrested and spent nearly 22 years as a prisoner in Blåtårn, the Blue Tower, at Copenhagen Castle (1663–1685). Leonora Christina denied having had any knowledge of her husband’s embezzlement, but several historians have argued that she both knew about and actively supported Corfitz Ulfeldt’s financial dispositions, which certainly benefited her.
During her imprisonment at Blåtårn, Leonora Christina wrote her autobiography, Jammersminde (Memory of Woe), which painted a far from flattering picture of Sophie Amalie. In the book, Leonora Christina claimed her own innocence.
Leonora Christina and Queen Sophie Amalie were life-long rivals, but not everyone in the Royal Family wished to see her imprisoned. Sophie Amalie’s daughter-in-law Queen Charlotte Amalie did not share her hatred of Leonora Christina. In fact, Charlotte Amalie repeatedly interceded for Leonora Christina with her husband, Christian (V), pleading both for easing Leonora Christina’s conditions in prison and for her release.
Leonora Christina was not released until after Sophie Amalie’s death, in 1685.
The publishing of Jammersminde
When Jammersminde was first published, in 1869 (171 years after Leonora Christina’s death, in 1698, and 184 years after Sophie Amalie’s death, in 1685) it became very popular. Its popularity had a great impact on Leonora Christina’s legacy and for how Sophie Amalie has been remembered. The painter Kristian Zahrtmann was fascinated by the gripping story of The King’s unfortunate daughter, and Leonora Christina became a life-long source of inspiration for his work. He depicted her in no fewer than 20 paintings. As a result of his sympathy for Leonora Christina, Zahrtmann also painted historical portraits of the aging Sophie Amalie that show her in a very poor light. Zahrtmann’s paintings were very popular at the time and contributed to Sophie Amalie’s poor posthumous reputation.
