[E58] The acts of this famous trial are still in existence. Originally the quarrel arose out of the fact that the Countess Parsberg (born Skeel) had obtained a higher rank than Lady Grubbe, and was further envenomed by some dispute about a window in the house of the latter which looked down on the courtyard of the Countess's house. Regitze Grubbe (widow of Hans Ulrik Gyldenlöve, natural son of Christian IV. and half-brother of Ulrik Christian Gyldenlöve, as well as of Leonora Christina), persuaded another noble lady, Agnete Budde, through a servant, to poison Countess Parsberg. Miss Budde was beheaded, the girl Lucie was exiled, and Lady Grubbe relegated for life to the island of Bornholm.
In the same year, on the morning of July 9, the tower-warder Gert was killed by a thief who was under sentence of death, and to whom he had allowed too great liberty. I will mention this incident somewhat more in detail, as I had advised Gert not to give this prisoner so much liberty; but to his own misfortune he paid no attention to my advice. This thief had broken by night into the house of a clergyman, and had stolen a boiling-copper, which he had carried on his head to Copenhagen; he was seized with it at the gate in the morning, and was placed here in the tower. He was condemned to be hanged (he had committed various other thefts). The priest allowed the execution to be delayed; he did not wish to have him hanged. Then it was said he was to go to the Holm; but he remained long in prison. At first, and until the time that his going to the Holm was talked of, he was my neighbour in the Dark Church; he behaved quite as a God-fearing man, read (apparently) with devotion, and prayed to God for forgiveness of his sins with most profound sighs. The rogue knew that I could hear him, and I sent him occasionally something to eat. Gert took pity on him, and allowed him to go by day about the basement story of the tower, and shut him up at night again.
Afterwards he allowed him also at night to remain below. And as I had seen the thief once or twice when my door stood open, and he went past, it seemed to me that he had a murderous countenance; and for this reason, when I heard that the thief was not placed of an evening in the Dark Church, I said to Gert that he ventured too far, in letting him remain below at night; that there was roguery lurking in him; that he would certainly some day escape, and then, on his account, Gert would get into trouble. Gert was not of opinion that the thief wished to run away; he had no longer any fear of being hanged; he had been so delighted that he was to go to the Holm, there was no danger in it. I thought 'That is a delight which does not reach further than the lips,' and I begged him that he would lock him up at night. No; Gert feared nothing; he even went farther, and allowed the thief to go up the tower instead of himself, and attend to the clock-work.