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Chap. XLVII.
CHURCH OF OUR LADY.
25
by the early members of the Oldenborg family. In the
lowest division, ranged on each side of the figure of
Christ, stand King John and his family ; the likenesses,
if the portraits of the day are to be trusted, are
admirable. To the right bends King John himself, followed by
his sons—Christian II. the fac-simile, beard and all, of
the portrait of Christiansborg, a ruffianly-looking fellow,
and his younger brother, the youthful Francis. On the
female side, Queen Christina ; then young Elizabeth of
Austria, the fair spouse of neglectful Christian.* And,
no money before though, when the king went to bathe, his servants
followed him, and were allowed a tun of beer to drink whilst he was in
the water. Queen Christina does not seem to be a woman of great
expenses. She enters “ Paid to the washerwoman for her bill of the
last half-year the sum of 6 marks ”—Is. 3d. English. She paid
drinkmoney to the servant who brought her from England a swan—coals to
Newcastle. Her farrier’s bill amounts to 30 marks for one year. When
Queen Christina returned from her two years’ imprisonment in
Sweden, she brought back with her a certificate that she had lived
nobly and chastely during the time of her absence, signed by the
Archbishop of Upsala and twelve noble gentlemen. Such was the
simplicity of the times I She died in Odense, and was buried in the dress
of a Franciscan nun.
* To do Christian justice, with all his imperfections and his bad
conduct as regards Dyveke, he seems, in writing at any rate, to have
been an attentive husband. “ Les paroles s’envolent, mais les écritures
restent,” says the French proverb ; and in the lately published
correspondence of King Christian a constant good feeling prevails between
him and his fair consort Elizabeth. In the first letter of the
collection he urgently implores of his “ kere frue ” to abstain from the
drinking of Rhine wine as injurious to her health, but to use the red
vintage of France in its stead, of which he will procure her the best to
be had. Very prettily he writes, too, on the occasion of his children’s
birth,—nothing can be nicer ; then, too, he adds a postscript to announce
the safety of Sigbrit, the maitresse mere and prime minister, after
the ducking elsewhere alluded to, concerning which I have no doubt
Queen Elizabeth was less anxious. She, on her side, in writing
from Berlin — where her brother-in-law Joachim, inhospitable old
fellow! plainly lets her sec lie grudges the expense of keeping her—
expresses her longing to be once again reunited to him. Then later,
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