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676 [Doc. 276.
THREE EXTRAORDINARY FACTS.
who at that time passed as Count F ... Rosenstein after
wards asked the King12 the same day whether he knew any
thing about the story, when he answered that Beylon251 had
told him the same thing, and that that gentleman was perfectly
convinced that Senator Höpken had taken the Queen’s letter
to Prince Ferdinand [!], wherefore he could easily make a reply
through Swedenborg concerning its contents, which Swedenborg
afterwards declared that he had received from the spirit of
the Prince" (pp. 9, 10).
Nordin’s account with all its historical errors was adopted
by the historian Fryxell,254 in his biographical account of
Swedenborg ("Berättelser," etc., Vol. XLIII, p. 184). He speaks
there at p. 184, of a letter written by the Queen to her brother
"Ferdinand," although at p. 183 he correctly calls him "August
Wilhelm ;" and again he declares that the Senators Höpken
and Tessin induced Chamberlain Falkenberg to procure for
them the Queen’s letter to her brother, when yet Falkenberg
had given up the office of chamberlain in 1753, and at the
time when the Queen gave her commission to Sweden
borg, was exercising his functions as "lagman" of Wester
botten.
As regards Senator Tessin he resigned all his official posi
tions on October 1 , 1761 (see "Biografiskt Lexicon," Vol. XVIII,
p. 176), and Senator Höpken on November 12, 1761 (Ibid.,
vol. VI, p. 323). Both these gentlemen, therefore, were no
longer connected with the government of Sweden, at the time
when the Queen, towards the close of November, commissioned
Swedenborg to consult the spirit of her departed brother; they
were therefore at that time private gentlemen, and it mattered
little to them what answer Swedenborg might bring to the Queen.
Besides, Count Tessin, according to his own testimony (see
Document 250, no. 13, p. 400), was unacquainted with the
particulars of the Queen’s story, and collected them from
Swedenborg himself; while Count Höpken obtained "a truthful
account" of the story from the Queen in 1774 (see Document 5,
no. 53, p. 49).
After pointing out some of the anachronisms contained in
the accounts of the Queen’s experience with Swedenborg, as
furnished by the " Berlinische Monatsschrift" and C. G. Nordin,
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