Hannibal Sehested (governor) - After The Fall

After The Fall

Throughout his trial, Sehested had shown prudence. He gave back three times what he had embezzled. Calculating on the sympathy of Frederick III for a man of his monarchical tendencies, he had nothing to do with the projects of revenge which were the ruin of Korfits Ulfeldt. From 1651 to 1660, he lived abroad. At the end of 1655, he met the exiled Charles II of England at Cologne and lived a part of the following year with him in the Spanish Netherlands. In the summer of 1657, he returned to Denmark, but Frederick III refused to receive him, and he hastily quit Copenhagen. During the crisis of the Second Northern War of 1658, he was at the headquarters of Charles X of Sweden. In seeking the help and protection of the worst enemy of his country, Sehested approached the very verge of treason, but he never quite went beyond it. When, at last, it seemed probable that the war would not result in the annihilation of Denmark, Sehested strained every nerve to secure his own future by working in the interests of his native land while still residing in Sweden.