Her MS. works were taken to Vienna after her death. It is not known what has become of some of them. A copy of the first part of the book on heroines exists in Copenhagen. Miss Urne says that she possessed fragments of a play composed by her and acted at Maribo Kloster; also the younger Sperling speaks of such a composition in Danish verse; but the MS. seems to be lost now.
Several of Leonora’s relations stayed with her from time to time at Maribo; amongst them the above-mentioned Elizabeth Bek, whose mother, Leonora Sophie, famous for her beauty, had married Lave Bek, the head of an ancient Danish family in Skaane. After Ulfeldt’s death Lave Bek demanded of the Swedish Government the estates which Carl Gustav had given to Ulfeldt in 1658, but which the Swedish Government had afterwards confiscated, without any legal ground. Leonora Christina herself memorialised the Swedish King on the subject, and at least one of her memorials on the subject, dated May 23, 1693, still exists; but it was not till 1735 that these estates were given up to Lave Bek’s sons. Leonora’s eldest daughter, Anne Catherina, lived with her mother at Maribo for several years, and was present at her death. She had married Casetta, a Spanish nobleman, mentioned by Leonora Christina in her Memoir, who was with her in England when she was arrested. After the death of Casetta and their children, Anne Catherina Ulfeldt came to live with her mother. She followed her brother to Vienna, where she died. It was she who transmitted the MS. of Leonora’s Memoir of her life in the Blue Tower to the brother, with the following letter, which is still preserved with the MS.:—
‘This book treats of what has happened to our late lady mother in her prison. I have not been able to persuade myself to burn it, although the reading of it has given me little pleasure, inasmuch as all those events concern her miserable state. After all, it is not without its use to know how she has been treated; but it is not needful that it should come into the hands of strangers, for it might happen to give pleasure to those of our enemies who still remain.’
The letter is addressed ‘A Monsieur, Monsieur le Comte d’Ulfeldt,’ &c., but without date or signature. The handwriting is, however, that of Anne Catherina Ulfeldt, and she had probably sent it off to Vienna for safety immediately after her mother’s death, before she knew that her brother would come to Maribo himself. Miss Urne says, in the MS. referred to, that the King had ordered that he was to be informed immediately of Leonora’s demise, in order that she might be buried according to her rank and descent; but she had beforehand requested that her funeral might be quite plain. Her coffin, as well as those of three children who had died young, and whose coffins had been provisionally placed in a church at Copenhagen, was immured in a vault in the church of Maribo; but when this was opened some forty years ago, no trace of Leonora’s mortal remains could be found, though those of the children were there: from which it is concluded that a popular report, to the effect that the body had been secretly carried abroad, contains more truth than was formerly supposed. Count Waldstein states that in the family vault at Leitsmischl, there is one metal coffin without any inscription, and which may be hers. If so, Leonora has, as it were, after her death followed her husband into exile. At any rate, the final resting-place of neither of them is known with certainty.