According to the Report of the same Swedish agent, Mönnichhofen sailed at last on the 14th July from Amsterdam,[22] and landed five days later in Stordalen, on the coast of Norway—at that time united with the Crown of Denmark—without combining, as originally intended, with the levies made in Scotland, although measures for their detention were taken only on the 4th August following.
The ships (evidently Dutch) which had transported his troops to Norway returned safely to Amsterdam with the information that Mönnichhofen had disembarked "three or four miles above Trondhjem, in Moersdall," and that his men had landed in such an ill-conditioned state that they "could not reach Sweden without great difficulty and danger."
When read in connection with the Reports of the Swedish agents at Amsterdam, first discovered and made known by Dr. Yngvar Nielsen in 1877, the letters of Steen Bilde, C. J. Jude, and J. Pederson[23] afford a credible and fairly complete account of that expedition. Those collective documents show that it was not composed, as alleged by Niels Slange, of "about fourteen hundred soldiers, or Scots," enlisted in Scotland, but nominally of twelve hundred men raised in the Netherlands under the circumstances already described.
The burgomaster of Trondhjem (who, like Bilde and the other Danish officials, was interested in over-rating rather than in under-rating the strength of the invaders,) reported, on 15th August 1612, that the expedition consisted of "eight hundred soldiers, besides their women and boys;" and according to Cronholm,[24] Gustavus Adolphus himself wrote that the number of those men, when they arrived in Jemtland, out of all further danger, amounted to eight hundred.[25] The four small Dutch ships could scarcely have carried more, especially if the men were accompanied by their women and children, as alleged by the burgomaster.
The Swedish and Danish historians relate that Mönnichhofen took his men to Scotland, and sailed from thence, in command of a combined force, for the coast of Norway; but all these statements only serve to prove yet more conclusively that the true history of the foreign levies made for Sweden in 1612 has until quite recently lain hidden in State Archives.
Mönnichhofen sailed from Amsterdam on the 14th July 1612, and having landed in Norway on the 19th July, could not possibly have carried out the original plan of joining his levies with those made in Scotland. Besides, the documents now brought to light prove that the small portion of the intended Scottish contingent that escaped the vigilance of the Scottish Council of State did not sail for Norway until the 2nd of August.
According to the Reports of the Trondhjem officials above mentioned, Mönnichhofen seized two other ships off Giske (which place he plundered), put some of his soldiers on board, and compelled the Norwegian vessels to pilot his own fleet of four ships into Trondhjem roads. In order to prevent the enemy from entering the river, Steen Bilde removed the poles and buoys that marked the channel, brought six iron cannon down to the sea-shore, and hastily made many other arrangements for repelling an anticipated attack on the city. As it grew dark soon after the ships had anchored, the fire opened upon them from the shore was harmless; and at daybreak they set sail again, after firing a few shots in return.
The wind being favourable, they soon rounded a point on which stood a farm called Viig, where the soldiers were quickly disembarked and marched towards Meragerfjeld, four or five Norwegian (twenty-eight to thirty-five English) miles distant.
They reached the summit of the fjeld without much molestation from the three military officers in command of the "frontier guard" of about two hundred soldiers or militia, reinforced by three hundred mounted Bönder. Steen Bilde and the three officers had collected a considerable number of peasants (the burgomaster says fifteen hundred) to repel the invasion; but according to the prefect, when a part of those levies reached the enemy, the captain of the frontier guard "could not get them forward where they were wanted." The enemy kept them off with their muskets, which the peasants mistook for cannon, probably because they were fired from rests, while their own firearms they considered to be relatively "pop-guns" (Snap-bosser).