A RECORD
OF
THE SUFFERINGS OF THE IMPRISONED COUNTESS
LEONORA CHRISTINA.


PREFACE.
TO MY CHILDREN.

Beloved children, I may indeed say with Job, ‘Oh, that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea.’ My sufferings are indeed great and many; they are heavy and innumerable. My mind has long been uncertain with regard to this history of my sufferings, as I could not decide whether I ought not rather to endeavour to forget them than to bear them in memory. At length, however, certain reasons have induced me, not only to preserve my sorrow in my own memory, but to compose a record of it, and to direct it to you, my dear children.[54]

The first of these reasons is the remembrance of the omnipotence of God; for I cannot recall to mind my sorrow and grief, my fears and distresses, without at the same time remembering the almighty power of God, who in all my sufferings, my misery, my affliction, and anxiety, has been my strength and help, my consolation and assistance; for never has God laid a burden upon me, without at the same time giving me strength in proportion, so that the burden, though it has weighed me down and heavily oppressed me, has not overwhelmed me and crushed me; for which I praise and extol through eternity the almighty power of the incomprehensible God.

I wish, therefore, not alone to record my troubles and to thank God for His gracious support in all the misfortunes that have befallen me, but also to declare to you, my dear children, God’s goodness to me, that you may not only admire with me the inconceivable help of the Almighty, but that you may be able to join with me in rendering Him thanks. For you may say with reason that God has dealt wonderfully with me; that He was mighty in my weakness and has shown His power in me, the frailest of His instruments. For how would it have been possible for me to resist such great, sudden, and unexpected misfortunes, had not His spirit imparted to me strength? It was God who Himself entered with me into the Tower-gate; it was He who extended to me His hand, and wrestled for me in that prison cell for malefactors, which is called ‘the Dark Church.’

Since then, now for almost eleven years, He has always been within the gate of my prison as well as of my heart; He has strengthened me, comforted me, refreshed me, and often even cheered me. God has done wonderful things in me, for it is more than inconceivable that I should have been able to survive the great misfortunes that have befallen me, and at the same time should have retained my reason, sense, and understanding. It is a matter of the greatest wonder that my limbs are not distorted and contracted from lying and sitting, that my eyes are not dim and even wholly blind from weeping, and from smoke and soot; that I am not short-breathed from candle smoke and exhalation, from stench and close air. To God alone be the honour!

The other cause that impels me is the consolation it will be to you, my dear children, to be assured through this account of my sufferings that I suffer innocently; that nothing whatever has been imputed to me, nor have I been accused of anything for which you, my dear children, should blush or cast down your eyes in shame. I suffer for having loved a virtuous lord and husband, and for not having abandoned him in misfortune. I was suspected of being privy to an act of treason for which he has never been prosecuted according to law, much less convicted of it, and the cause of the accusation was never explained to me, humbly and sorrowfully as I desired that it should be. Let it be your consolation, my dear children, that I have a gracious God, a good conscience, and can boldly maintain that I have never committed a dishonourable act. ‘This is thankworthy,’ says the apostle St. Peter, ‘if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.’ I suffer, thank God, not for my misdeeds, for that were no glory to me; yet I can boast that from my youth up I have been a bearer of the cross of Christ, and had incredibly secret sufferings, which were very heavy to endure at such an early age.

Although this record of my sufferings contains and reveals nothing more than what has occurred to me in this prison, where I have now been for eleven years, I must not neglect in this preface briefly to recall to your minds, my dear children, my earlier misfortunes, thanking God at the same time that I have overcome them.