Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...then gave full vent to her evil tongue, and expressed her opinion that I deserved punishment, and not she, and used many unprofitable words. I was quite silent, for I was very weak, and scarcely knew where I was. In the afternoon I heard a great murmuring of people in the inner palace square, and I saw the effigy brought across the street by the executioner on a wheelbarrow, and placed in the tower below my prison. The next morning, at about nine o'clock, -the 1 The Queen wished that this wooden statue should be brought into my outer chamber, and so placed in front of the door that it would tumble into me when my inner door was opened; but the King would not permit it. Addition in the margin. Ulfeldt's Execution in Effigy. 167 effigy was wofully treated by the executioner, but no sound came from it. At the mid-day meal the prison governor told the woman how the executioner had cut off its head, and had divided the body into four quarters, which were then placed on four wheels, and attached to the gallows, while the head was exhibited on the town hall. The prison governor stood in the outer chamber, but he narrated all this in a loud tone, so that I might hear it, and repeated it three times.1 I lay and thought what I should do; I could not show that I made but little of it, for then something else perhaps would be devised to trouble me, and in the hurry I could think of nothing else than saying to the woman with sadness, 'Oh, what a shame! speak to the prison governor and tell him to beg the King to allow the effigy to be taken down and not to remain as it is!' The woman went out, and spoke softly with the prison governor; but he answered aloud and said, ' Yes, indeed, taken down! There will be more put up; yes, more up;' and kept on.