4. Secretary Erich Krag, who had displayed the malice of his heart in my imprisonment in the ‘Dark Church,’ was snatched away by death in a place of impurity. He was lively and well, had invited guests to dinner, sat and wrote at his table, went out to obey the necessities of nature, and was found dead by his attendants when they had waited some time for him.
5. Major-General Fridrich von Anfeldte,[E5] who had more than once manifested his delight at my misfortunes, died as he had lived. He was a godless man and a blasphemer. He fell a victim to jealousy, and went mad, because another obtained an honorary title which he had coveted; this was indeed little enough to deprive him of sense and reason. He would hear nothing of God, nor would he be reconciled with God. Both Queens, the Queen Dowager and the Queen Regent, persuaded him at length to be so. When he had received the sacrament, he said, ‘Now your Majesties have had your desire; but what is the good of it?’ He continued to curse and to swear, and so died.
6. General Schak died after a long illness.
7. Chancellor Peter Retz likewise.
8. His Royal Majesty King Friedrich III.’s death accelerated the death of the Stadtholder Cristoffer Gabel. He felt that the hate of the Queen Dowager could injure him greatly, and he desired death. God heard him.[E6]
9. It has pleased God that I should be myself a witness of Walter’s miserable death; indeed, that I should compassionate him. When I heard him scream, former times came to my mind, and I often thought how a man can allow himself to be led to do evil to those from whom he had only received kindness and honour.
10. Magister Buch, my father-confessor, who acted so ill to me, suffered much pain on his bed of languishing. He was three days speechless before he died.
11. When the rogue and blasphemer, Christian, who caused me so much annoyance in my captivity, had regained his liberty and returned to his landlord, Maans Armfeld in Jutland, he came into dispute with the parish priest, who wanted him to do public penance for having seduced a woman. The rogue set fire to the parsonage; the minister’s wife was burnt to death in trying to save some of her property, and all the minister’s possessions were left in ashes. The minister would not bring the rogue to justice. He commended him to the true Judge, and left vengeance to Him. The incendiary’s conscience began to be awakened; for a long time he lived in dread, and was frightened if he saw anyone coming at all quickly, and he would call out and say tremblingly, ‘Now they are going to take me!’ and would run hither and thither, not knowing where to go. At length he was found dead on the field, having shot himself; for a long rifle was found lying between his legs, the barrel towards his breast, and a long ramrod in his hand, with which he had touched the trigger. He did not, therefore, die in as Christian a manner as if he had perished under the hand of the executioner, of which he had so lightly said that he should not care for it at all, so long as he could bring someone else into trouble.