Leonora Christina Ulfeldt

Leonora Christina Ulfeldt
Countess of Schleswig-Holstein
Portrait of Leonora Christina Ulfeldt by Gerrit van Honthorst (1647). Frederiksborg Museum.
Born(1621-07-08)8 July 1621
Died16 March 1698(1698-03-16) (aged 76)
Spouse
(m. 1636; died 1664)
Issue
Detail
10
FatherChristian IV of Denmark
MotherKirsten Munk

Leonora Christina, Countess Ulfeldt, born "Countess Leonora Christina Christiansdatter" til Slesvig og Holsten (8 July 1621 – 16 March 1698), was daughter to King Christian IV of Denmark and Kirsten Munk and wife of the Steward of the Realm, the traitor Count Corfitz Ulfeldt. Renowned in Denmark since the 19th century for her posthumously published autobiography Jammers Minde, written secretly during two decades of solitary confinement in a royal dungeon, her intimate version of the major events she witnessed in Europe's history, interwoven with ruminations on her woes as a political prisoner, still commands popular interest and scholarly respect, and has virtually become the stuff of legend as retold and enlivened in Danish literature and art.