Note 24 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The traveller De Flaux, who visited Kronborg about 1850, thus wrote of the room: “In a tower is a small oval room, the windows of which are still lined with iron bars. It was here that the Queen was confined. I was shown the prie-dieu used by this unfortunate princess. It was on the faded velvet that covered it that she rested her beautiful head. Who knows whether the spots on it were not produced by the tears of despair she shed?” [Du Danemark.]
I was at Kronborg in 1902. The Queen’s room is now destitute of any furniture, but the iron bars guarding the windows are still there. I looked through them at the sea beneath. It was a grey, windy day; the waves were lead-coloured and flecked with white, and overhead were drifting masses of cloud. On such a scene Queen Matilda must have often gazed during the five months of her captivity.