Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XLVIII - Glorup
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
264
GLORUP.
Chap. XLVIII.
familiar, and gossiped with her men-servants. The
storm, however, passed over, on his declaring he merely
alluded to her “condescending manners.” Later Kai
Lykke marries, but at the same time writes a love-letter
to a clergyman’s wife, in which he declares “ the most
noble lady of the land could not resist himpuppy, if
you will, but the women had made him so. The
parson’s wife shows the letter to the queen, who, firing up,
declares him to be guilty of lëze majesté; that she is
the person alluded to as “ the most illustrious lady of the
realm.” So Kai Lykke is summoned to appear, but
makes his escape as fast as post-horses can carry him ;
not a woman in Denmark who would not have forwarded
his escape. The indictment is made out, but the letter
is not produced in court, out of respect to majesty;
Kai is condemned to death “ unanimously,” his thirteen
estates confiscated to the crown, the sum of twenty
thousand dollars being allotted to his wife.
But Kai is far away; the queen, rabid at the escape
of her victim, causes him to be executed in effigy, attired
in the picturesque costume of our Cromwell’s time—
jerkin, lace collar, and long boots—the most
gentlemanlike costume of any era when free from Puritan
savour: so the right hand of the mannikin is chopped
off, the body broken on the wheel, then decapitated,
exposed, and later shown for money by the
headsman, who made a good thing, for all the women of the
country flocked to see it.
Kai Lykke’s house still stands in Christianshavn,
near the canal, and is now used for some official
purpose. Of his ultimate fate I know nothing. The
epitaphium of his wife, preserved among the engravings,
did not excite my sympathy—an uninteresting wishy-
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
