This attitude was intelligible enough, for not only had Ulfeldt left Denmark in the most unceremonious manner, but in 1652 he published in Stralsund a defence against the accusations of which he had been the subject, full of gross insults against the King; and in the following year he had issued an insolent protest against the royal summons to appear and defend himself before the Diet, declaring himself a Swedish subject. But, above all, the influence of the Queen was too great to allow of any arrangement with Ulfeldt. The King was entirely led by her; she, from her German home, was filled with the most extravagant ideas of absolute despotism, and hated the free speech and the independent spirit prevailing among the Danish nobility, of which Ulfeldt in that respect was a true type. Leonora Christina was compelled to return in 1656, without even seeing the King, and as a fugitive. It is of this journey that she has given a Danish account, besides the description in the Autobiography. It may be questioned whether it would not have been wise, if possible, to conciliate this dangerous man; but at any rate it was not done, and Ulfeldt was, no doubt, still more exasperated. Queen Christina had then resigned, and her successor, Carl Gustav, shortly after engaged in a war in Poland. The Danish Government, foolishly overrating its strength, took the opportunity for declaring war against Sweden, in the hope of regaining some of the territory lost in 1645. But Carl Gustav, well knowing that the Poles could not carry the war into Sweden, immediately turned his whole force against Denmark, where he met with next to no resistance. Ulfeldt was then living at Barth, in Pommerania, an estate which he held in mortgage for large sums of money advanced to the Swedish Government. Carl Gustav summoned Ulfeldt to follow him, and Ulfeldt obeyed the summons against the advice of Leonora Christina, who certainly did not desire her native country to be punished for the wrongs, if such they were, inflicted upon her by the Court. The war had been declared on June 1, 1657; in August Ulfeldt issued a proclamation to the nobility in Jutland, calling on them to transfer their allegiance to the Swedish King. In the subsequent winter a most unusually severe frost enabled the Swedish army to cross the Sounds and Belts on the ice, Ulfeldt assisting its progress by persuading the commander of the fortress of Nakskov to surrender without resistance; and in February the Danish Government had to accept such conditions of peace as could be obtained from the Swedish King, who had halted a couple of days' march from Copenhagen. By this peace Denmark surrendered all her provinces to the east of the Sound (Skaane, &c.), which constituted one-third of the ancient Danish territory, and which have ever since belonged to Sweden, besides her fleet, &c.