The Princess Who Wasn't pt.1

Note: This is a video essay manuscript, hence the odd format. 

The empty blocks on this page are for adding pictures, later.

Table of Contents

Introduction

While swimming through the unmedicated ADHD purgatory that was studying for an exam back in 2020, I was knocked into a 4 year daze by some queer history from the 1600’s Denmark that has never been reported on before! Whoops!

While I could be a secretive little mysterious creature and wait until a bachelor or masters degree, I am very very bad at keeping things inside. I’m leaking-pilled, a truth-maxxer.

I’m also getting tested for autism at time of writing…

Let’s talk about the biggest traitor in Danish history… and her relationships to women.

Unless you are from a hyper-specific age range of the Danish population, you probably have NO IDEA who she is, but that’s why I’m here to squeeze some sort of meaningful content out of my 4 years of being academically edged by so many scholars in the field.

Before we get to what is probably the most important research I’ll ever do in what I, if I was pretentious, would call “my academic career”, we need some context.

This is the story of Leonora Christina Ulfeldt.

… Which is very long and hard thing to pronounce. While I do like things that are long and hard, in this English version of the video, I will be referring to her as Leo.

Timeline

1612: Anna dies

9 years before Leo’s birth, Queen Anna of Denmark dropped off, leaving King Christian the 4th without a queen. This would’ve been fine, had he found some noblewoman on Renaissance Craigslist to marry him and take the place as Queen. But that didn’t happen.

1615: Kirsten Munk

In 1615, he fell in love with this wild Norwegian, Kirsten Munk, who would become Leo’s mother. Munk wasn’t really into him, but it turned out that Christian loved a good mix of toxic love and cuckoldry, so they made it work. Munk still refused to become queen. Any children who were so unlucky to be born from this train-wreck of a marriage, would be considered bastards, unable to inherit the throne.

1621: Birth

Munk and Christian gave birth to our protagonist, Leo, in 1621. Doomed by narrative as a bastard, things were looking pretty rough. However, as she grew up she became, allegedly, Christian 4th’s favourite daughter. (Historians disagree that this was the case)1

1629: Enter Corfitz

In 1629, Christian 4th hired Leo’s future partner in crime, Corfitz, as his chamberlain of the court. The following year, when Leo was just nine years old, she was promised off to Corfitz… different times, different times…

1639: Married

The couple got married in 1639, and the real It Girl era began for Leo.

Since her father was a queen-less cuck, Leo used her education in languages and culture, together with her newly acquired nobility status from her husband, to act as a stand-in for the missing Queen role.

When the King needed a First Lady to represent the Monarchy at the balls (I love balls), she was IT. While Christian was alive, she and her husband were living the lux life, sucking money out of the state fund titty, buying expensive things, thriving.

But nothing is ever permanent.

1648: Daddy dies

When Christian 4.’s subscription to life was terminated, shit hit the fan. The next king in line was supposed to be Christian’s oldest son, Christian of Denmark (It’s confusing, I know…), but he passed unexpectedly, just 8 months before his father did.

The righteous heir to the throne then was Frederick the 3rd. Frederick was a party-killer who despised the decadency his father had allowed. In a world where monarchs are supposed to follow a strict bloodline, how could his father have allowed a bastard child to act as queen, and Kirsten Munk to toy him around? These pretentious nobles who do not seem to care about rules and virtues?

1665, Side Note: The Coup

Frederick 3rd had had it with these nobles playing with the Royals, and understandably so. Frederick was under the strictest contract with the Council of Nobles in Danish history, and in 1665 he became the last monarch to be under such a contract. Out with Nobility Reign, in with Absolute Monarchy.

The prime of Leo was now over. Corfitz had lost his job, and Leo her status as First Lady. Corfitz was under investigation for suckling a little too much on the state fund titty, and Leo’s role as party hostess was forcefully overthrown by the real Queen Sophie, who was awkward, not as educated as Leo, and also German!

1657: First escape

Back to 1657. To escape the drama that arose after Daddy Chrissy the 4.’s death, they fled to Sweden in 1657, where the notorious Queen Kristina of Sweden reigned. They were broke as hell, and all they had were their intelligence on the Danish army, so the couple saw an opportunity. Serve the Danish crown on a silver platter and achieve hero status with the Swedish crown!

1658

But the couple got greedy and began a double play, attempting to vow for both Sweden and Denmark, resulting in them committing the largest scale of treason in Danish history… whoops.

In 1658, after a war between Sweden & Denmark, peace negotiations began, and guess who was representing Sweden? Corfitz!

Eventually the couple were arrested in Denmark for treason and sent to the Danish version of Guantanamo: Hammershus. They spent 17 months here before a daring prison escape that almost succeeded. Frederick felt pity and released them, but on conditions – the biggest one being: Ask me for permission before leaving the country.

They obviously couldn’t keep this promise, and used their first opportunity to escape with their tail between their legs. Corfitz was lucky, he was never found again, but Leo was captured in England, and sent back to Denmark.

1663-1685: Blue Tower Prison

There, she was imprisoned in the Blue Tower prison, literally in the King’s Castle. 22 years later, Queen Sophie died and Leo was released. After her release, she spent the rest of her life in a cloister in Maribo, South Denmark.

1.1: Maren Bloks, The Maid

When Leo was imprisoned in The Blue Tower, she had already gained a reputation among the Royal maids that if she had the opportunity to escape, she would. Queen Sophie had allegedly spun the rumour mill on Leo, coming up with all sorts of things to paint her as dangerous and a witch.

Thus, Queen Sophie ordered that at least one maid should sleep in her bed at night, to make sure she couldn’t escape. One small problem though – Due to Sophie’s antics, none of the Royal Maids dared to do it… Except one maid, Maren. This is from Memory of Pain, Leo’s own words.

”An hour after the food had been brought, in came a maid by the name of Maren Bloks, who said she, by the Queen, that Night, with me, had been ordered to stay. […] She said furthermore, that the Queen herself with her had spoke, and had said this: (‘You will be with Leonora tonight; You must not fear, she can do no evil now. If she was able to hex, she is now in prison and has no (hex remedies) with her. If she hits you, you are permitted to hit her back, and make her bleed.’) […] Maren said, furthermore: ’The Queen knows well, that I, through a fiery illness, have been disturbed; therefore she willed, that I should be with thou again,’ she instantly cast her arms around my neck, as I sat, and caressed me in her way, and said: ‘Hit me, my heart! hit me! I shall,’ she swore ‘not hit you back.”2

“I rescued myself a little, feared the madness would come. She said further, that when she saw me come up the bridge, it was, as if her heart had broken into pieces, understood with me many words, how much she fancied me”3

So far you could argue that it’s just Maren who is interested in Leo, but…

”I accepted this unusual Caresse, as the [desperate] times called for nothing else, smiled and said: It should be against all righteous conventions the mind to offer, who let so much Affection be seen, as she did; particularly (/in sinfulness), when they were of her gender;”4

And this is just where it begins, the smoking gun that lies in the specific wording here. Leo acknowledges implicitly that accepting “Caresse” from another woman is “against all conventions”5, but to let Leo’s moral purity remain intact she must craft a disavowal-narrative. I guess there is no choice but to accept the affection when I am imprisoned and will never be allowed anything else.

You could make the classic arguments that are also used about people in sex-segregated prisons turning to same-sex action for satisfaction, but this is only the first example I found.

1.2: The Sex-Worker in Poland

We turn back the clock a little, to when Leo and her husband were on the run from the Danish government. When Leo and her company landed in Danzig, what is now Gdansk in Poland, they were approached by what is implied to be a young sex-worker. I would like give a little trigger warning, since the supposed age of this sex-worker is “16 or a bit more”, but before we jump to conclusions, I need to stress that the word “girl” (pige) in the 1600’s doesn’t necessarily mean that she is literally a child. In my history student opinion, there is a very high chance that Leo has mistaken her age, simply meaning to call her young. In today’s society, it’s important to acknowledge, that yes, this is possibly problematic that a girl possibly under 18 can be in such a situation. Lastly, pay close mind to Leo’s reaction to her advances.

This is from the French Autobiography, Leo’s own words.

“A girl, sixteen or a bit more, was of the conviction, that our lady was a young lad and fell to her neck for some caresses, which our lady answered, as she toyed with this girl; but as our lady was, what the girl desired, and thought, that she was not created in such a way that she could please her, she handed her claim to Charles, a man of their party, in the conviction that he was better suited to satisfy her than herself. He makes a move on this little wench and offer up his servitudes, but she pushes him from her pretty hard, says her will was not for him, goes to the lady and falls on her anew. Our lady disengaged herself from her, though not without toil, as she was a tad intrusive, and our lady dared not leave the chambers.”6

So, immediately you might say that this doesn’t prove anything about Leo’s sexuality, however… let’s think about this for a second. First of all, Leo only rejects the sex-worker because she’s afraid the young woman thinks she’s cis man, and she doesn’t want to disappoint her. However, when it becomes clear after the attempt to send her to Charles, that the girl probably knows that she isn’t a cis man, Leo has no excuse, maybe except her possible age. So to keep her innocence intact, the girl is painted as the active giver, and Leo as the victim in disavowal.

What’s important to note about Leo’s own works is that EVERYTHING she says should be taken with a pound of salt. Her purpose with writing these works were primarily to get social redemption and pity. So if she has to come up with a disavowal in a situation that could stain her morally, she will. Considering she doesn’t “dare” to leave the chambers after this event, it’s likely she felt intimidated and wanted to avoid attracting any more woman to her like that. She had nothing stopping her from doing things outside the marriage, as we will see now. It turns out, her and her husband had a consensual open relationship… in the 1600’s!

1.3: Miss Elisabeth attempts to start drama by telling Leo that her man has cheated.

In her Autobiography, she talks of a time during her earlier years with Corfitz, where women around her would attempt to start drama, stir the pot. One such woman was Elisabeth, who isn’t really important for the story, only that she is someone close to Leo, who tries to start some shit.

“But she would now profess [Elisabeth] a secret, that she may not have known, which was, that she had given her man permission to spend his time with others, and when she was satisfied, the others were welcome to the leftovers; she did not think, there were other jealous women than those, who were insatiable […] She asked her to be so wise, as to not mix herself up in things, that did not concern her, and if she (as our lady had reason to believe, that it was her own invention), if she heard any others say such things, to give them a reprimand. Miss Elisabeth was peeved and walked away in great anger.”7

This is where you start getting a feeling that Leo’s views on sex are far from the traditional Christianity of the time. We might even get the feeling that her husband and her have a, for the times, a more equal relationship. She was a powerful woman and if I can be a little non-academic for a second, her husband would probably have been a femboy if he lived today. This leads us to the smoking gun…

1.4: To keep her from her husband, Leo keeps a sex-worker “busy”

There’s been a couple mentions the past couple years in media on her husband, in particular that he might have had a preference for masculine or powerful women. Keep that in mind when his sister Anne, in order to stir the pot, attempts this little stunt. This is from Leo’s Autobiography.

“But my Sire’s sister Anne, who was in his house, went about it in an entire different manner. She pulls in the most beautiful ladies in the capital and would eventually act as procurer (pimp), speaks to his brother of one in particular, who was generous with her favours and the prettiest of them all, offer him her services etc. When she sees, that he will not take the bait, she tells him (to provoke him) that his wife is jealous, that she spies on him, when he has been drinking with the king, where he goes, whether he will visit this woman; she says that his wife is peeved, because the other one is so beautiful, says she uses make up etc. The love, that the man bears towards our lady makes him tell her everything, and he since then only seldom visits his sisters chambers. From that she could understand, that this conversation made him uncomfortable. But our lady pretends like nothing, visits her more than usual, caresses this woman more than the others, even giving her considerable presents. Anne stays, as long as she lived, in her house.”8

References

1 Bjørn m.fl., Leonora Christina.

2 Ulfeldt, Jammers Minde, p.31. Translated by me, with cultural context of the 1600’s Denmark in mind.

3 Ulfeldt, p.32.

4 Ulfeldt, p.32.

5 “Det skulde være imod al Billighed den Hug at byde” is the danish wording.

6 Ulfeldt, Leonora Christina Comtesse d’Ulfeldt Autobiographie 1673 / Leonora Christina Grevinde Ulfeldts Franske Levnedsskildring 1673, s. 23 / 6a. (My own translation to English with 1600s context in mind)

7 Ulfeldt, s 15 / 4b. (My own translation to English with 1600s context in mind)

8 Ulfeldt, s. 16 / 4b.

9 Cecilie Nielsen og Emma Paaske, “Leonora Christina - fars pige”.