When he saw that he could not catch her in this way, he obtained an order to arrest her. Our poor lady knew nothing of all this; she had letter upon letter from her husband requesting her return. She took leave of the King by letter, gave her papers to a lawyer[46] upon a receipt, and set out from London. Having arrived at Dover, and intending to embark the same evening for Flanders, a lieutenant of the name of Braten[47] appeared, who came to show her an order from the King of Anglet... which she read herself, the purport of which was that the governor was to arrest such a lady, and to place her in the castle till further orders. She asked the reason why. He said that she had left without permission from the King. She told him that she had taken leave of the King by letter, and had spoken the day before her departure with the Prime Minister and Vice-Admiral Aschew,[48] who had bade her farewell.[49]
When she came to the castle, the emissary of Petkum presented himself, by name Peter Dreyer. Then the Lieutenant said, ‘It is the King of Danemarc who has ordered you to be arrested.’ She asked the cause. He replied, ‘You undoubtedly set out incognito from Danemarck.’ She replied to this that the King of Danem... had given her husband leave of absence for a term of eighteen months, which had not yet expired. They ordered her boxes and those of the nobleman who accompanied her to be opened, and they took all the papers. Afterwards Dreyer spoke to her, and she asked him why she was treated thus? He said he did not know the real cause, but that he believed it was for the death of Fos, and that she was believed to have been the cause of his death. They always mentioned this to her, and no other cause.
This double traitor Braten enacted the gallant, entertained her, made her speak English (as she was bolder in speaking this language than any other), for she had just begun to learn it well, having had a language-master in London. One day he told that they intended conducting her to Danemarck. She told him there was no need to send her to Danem...; she could go there very well by herself. He said, ‘You know yourself what suits you; if you will not go there willingly, I will manage so that you may go to Flanders.’ She did not see that this was feasible, even if he was willing; she spoke with him as to the means, saw that he did not satisfy her, and did not trust his conversation; as he was cunning, he made her believe that the King wished her to go secretly, and that he would take it all upon himself; that the King had his reasons why he did not wish to deliver her into the hands of the King of Danem....
This deception had such good colouring, for she had written several times to the King during her arrest, and had begged him not to reward her husband’s services by a long arrest, only speaking of what she had done at the Hague for him: she had taken her jewels and rings and given them to him, when his host would not any longer supply him with food.[50] Her claim was not small; it exceeded 20,000 patacoons.[51]
Our lady allowed herself to be persuaded that the King of England wished her to leave secretly. The traitor Braten told her that he thought it best that she should disguise herself as a man. She said that there was no necessity she should disguise herself; that no one would pursue her; and even if it were so, that she would not go in disguise with any man who was not her husband. After having been detained seventeen days at Dover, she allowed herself to be conducted by Braten, at night, towards the ramparts, descended by a high ladder which broke during her descent, passed the fosse, which was not difficult; on the other side there was a horse waiting for her, but the nobleman, her attendant, and the nobleman’s valet, went on foot; they would not allow her valet to go with them; Braten made an excuse of not being able to find him, and that time pressed; it was because they were afraid that there would be an effort at defence.
When she arrived where the traitors were, her guide gave a signal by knocking two stones one against another. At this, four armed men advanced; Petkum and Dreyer were a little way off; one held a pistol to her breast, the other a sword, and said, ‘I take you prisoner.’ The other two traitors said, ‘We will conduct you to Ostend.’ She had always suspected treachery, and had spoken with her companion, in case it happened, what it would be best to do, to give herself up or to defend herself? She decided on allowing herself to be betrayed without a struggle, since she had no reason to fear that her life would be attempted because her son had avenged the wrong done to his parents. Thus she made no resistance, begged them not to take so much trouble, that she would go of herself; for two men held her with so much force that they hurt her arm. They came with a bottle of dry wine to quench her thirst, but she would not drink; she had a good way to go on foot, for she would not again mount the horse.
She showed some anger towards her guide, begged him in English to give her respects to the governor,[52] but to convey to the traitor Braten all the abuse that she could hurriedly call to mind in this language, which was not quite familiar to her. She advanced towards the boat; the vessel which was to convey her was in the roads, near the Downs. She bade farewell to the nobleman. She had two bracelets with diamonds which she wished to give him to convey to her children; but as he feared they would be taken from him, she replaced them without troubling him with them. She gave a pistol to her servant, and a mariner then carried her to the boat; she was placed in an English frigate that Petkum had hired, and Dreyer went with her.[53] She was thirteen days on the road, and arrived near the Custom-house pier on August 8, 1663, at nine o’clock in the morning.
[The remaining part of the Autobiography treats of the commencement of her imprisonment in the Blue Tower, which forms the subject of the following Memoir.]