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GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II.

HISTORY OF THE
LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II.
THE HERO-GENERAL OF
THE REFORMATION.

By HARRIET EARHART MONROE,

Author of "The Art of Conversation," "Heroine

of the Mining Camp," "Historical Lutheranism,"

"Washington—Its Sights and Insights."

PHILADELPHIA:

THE LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY.

Copyright, 1910, by

The Lutheran Publication Society.

PREFACE.

In giving this sketch of the life of Gustavus Adolphus, no attempt has been made to present a complete life of the great king.

It is a history difficult for young people to understand, and for that reason only the leading events of a most eventful life have been presented.

It was first written for a lecture and entertainment, after the manner of my other entertainments on Church epochs, to be illustrated by stereopticon views, with three dramatic interludes—the first representing the joy of the Swedish people on Gustavus coming to the throne; the second showing Gustavus taking leave of his Parliament and friends as he is about to embark on the Thirty Years' War; the third, an act called "The Women who Loved Him." The evening was to open and close with church processionals in the native peasant costumes of Sweden and other Protestant countries of Europe.

It has been deemed best to present the story in book form, which will differ somewhat from the original lecture and dramatic representations, for the reason that pictures do away with the necessity for many words.

With the earnest prayer that this history may stir other heroic souls to stand for God in life's difficult places this sketch is submitted.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II.

CHAPTER I.
FAMILY.

Gustavus Adolphus, the hero general of the Reformation, was born at the royal palace at Stockholm, Sweden, December 9th, 1594, a little more than one hundred years after the birth of Luther, nearly fifty years after his death, and five years before the birth of Cromwell.

Washington and Lincoln, as to date of birth, were only seventy-seven years apart; had Washington lived but nine years more, they would have been contemporary.

Washington may, in a sense, be said to have made this country, and Lincoln to have preserved it a united people. Just so Luther brought about the movement known as Protestantism, but it was given to this great king of Sweden, known as the Lion of the North, to preserve Protestantism from extinction on the continent of Europe, even as a little later it was given Cromwell to stop that curious movement toward Romanism which is even yet the puzzle of the historian.

Gustavus II. was the son of Charles, Duke of Sudermania, youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, who may be considered the founder of the Vasa family.

During the entire sixteenth century Sweden was torn by external wars and internal dissensions. Sweden, by the contract of Calmar, in 1397, had become a dependency of Denmark. A trade among rulers had made a brave people the reluctant subjects of an alien power. Gustavus Vasa conceived the project of freeing his country from Denmark. He made one ineffectual attempt, and after severe defeat, pursued by the oppressors, he fled to Delecarlia, whose citizens rallied about him, and, with the help of these sturdy and valiant mountaineers, the Danes were expelled from Sweden and his country was restored to liberty.

His grateful countrymen elected him king. Gustavus Vasa saw the moral degradation of his land, and brought disciples of Luther to the country to instruct in both religious and secular learning. Among the most distinguished of these was Olaüs Petri. Of course, the hierarchy of Rome and priests of Sweden made great opposition to any change.

Gustavus Vasa reduced the gospel to this simple message, which a child could understand, viz.: "To serve God according to His law; to love God above all; to believe in Jesus Christ as our only Saviour; to study and to teach earnestly the word of God; to love our neighbor as ourselves; to observe the ten commandments." He distinctly said that the Scriptures speak neither of tapers, nor palms, nor of masses for the dead, nor of the worship of saints, but that the Word of God, in many places, prohibited these things. He added, "The sacrament of the Lord's Supper has been given to us as a token of the forgiveness of sin, and not to be carried around in a gold or silver frame to cemeteries and other places."

Now, was not that a clear statement for a youth brought up a Catholic, whose thought heretofore had seemed only of war?

As in England, politics had a hand in expelling the old form of religion and bringing in the new, so it had an influence in Sweden.

Geijer, the great church historian of Sweden, says that the Roman Church at that time possessed two-thirds of the soil, and that the wickedness of the church was as great as its possessions. Like Henry VIII. of England, Gustavus Vasa needed the lands to enrich the crown and to secure the friendship of the nobles. He deeply hated priests because they were unionists, that is, they desired to keep the three Scandinavian countries under one crown, which would have left Gustavus crownless.

When dying, this great king wrote as his last message: "Rather die a hundred times than abandon the gospel." He pointed the way to glory for Sweden for generations yet unborn.

Eric, the son and successor of Gustavus I., seems to have inherited the barbarous nature of some far-back ancestor. He indulged in dangerous and murderous folly. He proposed at the same time for the hand of Elizabeth, Queen of England, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Princess Renee, of Loraine, and Christina, of Hessen, and after all that, married a peasant woman.

At last he was declared incapable and was imprisoned. This shortened his life. His children were excluded by law from the succession, and his brother John ascended the throne.

John had married Catherine Jagellon, daughter of Sigismund, king of Poland. She influenced her husband to admit the Jesuits to Sweden, and he made an effort to restore the Romish Church.

When the Swedes were converted to the Protestant faith it seems to have been a deep work of grace. They did not fluctuate in their faith. So now they withdrew their love and friendship from their king, whom they considered false to the faith he had promised to sustain.

At the death of John the states determined that their rights should not be invaded, so they forced from his son, Sigismund, a decree prohibiting any religion in Sweden except the Lutheran. Sigismund (who had become a Catholic to secure the throne of Poland) signed this decree with great bitterness of heart.

In spite of this decree, which he had evidently signed with mental reservations, he ordered a Catholic church to be built in each town in his kingdom. He further enraged his subjects by refusing to be crowned by a Protestant prelate, and accepted coronation at the hands of the Pope's nuncio. He surrounded himself by the nobles of Poland and the priests of Rome. These foreigners could scarcely appear on the streets without causing quarrels and bloody encounters.

In the midst of these disturbances he was recalled to Poland, of which he was also king, his father having secured his election by bribery, and he left Sweden never to return as a welcome king.

Duke Charles, youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, and uncle to Sigismund, was the only son of Gustavus Vasa who showed himself worthy of the noble inheritance to which he had been born. The troubles of the time, the dangers to Protestantism, caused him to listen to the loud call of the Estates to act as regent, or ruling king to this much distressed land.

The Augsburg Confession was again proclaimed, and all the Swedes present cried: "Our persons and our property, and all that we have in this world will be sacrificed, if it is necessary, rather than abandon the gospel." Diet after Diet approved of the administration of Duke Charles.

Four years after the departure of Sigismund he returned with five thousand troops of Poland to reclaim his crown. He was defeated, but the Swedes agreed to take him (because by heredity he had a just claim to the crown) as king if he would send away his foreign troops and properly administer the Lutheran form of religion.

But in a year he proved so unfaithful that he was deposed and sent back to Poland. His claim to the throne led to long-continued hostility between Poland and Sweden. On account of the claim of the Swedish Vasas and the Polish Vasas, brave men were to die, homes were to be desolated, and both lands were to have weeping widows and fatherless children for half a century.

In 1604 Charles was crowned king, the crown entailed to the eldest son, being Protestant, under a law that declared that any ruler who deviated from the Augsburg Confession should by that act lose his crown.

The heirs of Sigismund were by law forever excluded from the throne, and it was decreed that the king should forever make his home in Sweden.

CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.

During the stormy scenes described in the preceding chapter, Gustavus Adolphus was born. He was baptized on the 1st of January, 1595.

The child was brought up in an atmosphere of war. His father told him the story of Sweden's wars and of his own campaigns, to which the boy listened with enrapt attention.

In 1595 the Diet had closed the throne to every Catholic candidate. Charles IX., as the king was now called, was generous enough to assure the Estates that if any son of Sigismund should become a Protestant he should inherit the throne. He also made this reservation in his will, showing that he had the conscience of a Christian who desires to do justice, while Sigismund, as king of Poland, never failed to act on the principle that the end justifies the means.

The Finns, urged to rebellion by the king of Poland, proved to be troublesome subjects to King Charles. They submitted to his rule only after a bloody contest. The king took Gustavus, who was barely seven years old, with him on an expedition against the Finns. The ship became icebound and had to be abandoned. The child and his father continued their way on foot in the midst of the severities of a Russian winter. The exposure seems to have done them no harm.

On one occasion his father took him to visit the fleet at Calmar, and on being asked by an officer which vessel he preferred, he answered, "The 'Black Knight,' because it has the most guns."

The generosity for which he was so noted in later years began to show itself in his childhood. A peasant had brought him a handsome little pony from the island of Oeland. The good man said, "I want you to accept the pony as a gift; as a sign of my love and devotion to you." The young prince replied, "I am glad to have the horse, but I will pay you for it, as the gift would exceed your resources." The child gave the man all the money in his purse. The peasant was amazed at the amount of the money and at the child's great liberality.

His father, foreseeing that Gustavus would need to command people of different nationalities, saw that he had instruction in many languages, so that at the age of seventeen he spoke fluently the Swedish, Latin, German, Dutch, French and Italian languages, and could make himself understood in Russian and Polish. He afterward became proficient in Greek.

Special attention was given to the development of a symmetrical character, and everything possible was done to make him love the Lutheran faith.

The tendencies of both father and son are well illustrated by a letter, still extant, from King Charles to his son, as his farewell advice: "Above all fear God, honor thy father and mother, show for thy brothers and sisters a deep attachment; love the faithful servants of thy father and reward each one according to his merits. Be humane towards thy subjects, punish the wicked, love the good; trust everybody, though not unreservedly; observe the law without respect to person; injure no one's well-acquired privileges, if they are consistent with the law."

Character molded on such principles as these would certainly touch the sublimities.

The mother of Gustavus Adolphus was a German princess of superior education for the times. A haughty queen, a strict disciplinarian, thereby developing in her son a quick and ready obedience to the laws of the family. Who would command must first learn to obey.

She much preferred her second son, Charles Philip, and, had Gustavus been less generous, or less noble, an unnatural jealousy might have divided the brothers, but the young Duke of Finland, as Gustavus was called, acted as though he thought his mother could do no wrong.

Gustavus had three teachers, each of whom left a strong impression upon his character—John Skytte, a man who had spent ten years in travel, Von Mörner, an accomplished, traveled man, and Count de la Gardie, a Swedish noble of a French family, who instructed Gustavus in fencing and in military tactics.

Gustavus had an attractive personality and won the abiding affection of his cousin, Duke John, the only one of Sigismund's sons who took the Swedish side of the religious and family quarrel. Duke John married the only sister of Gustavus, Mary Elizabeth, and proved a brother, indeed, after the death of King Charles. For the choice was left to the people and to the Estates as to whether they preferred John or Gustavus. At the sincere urgency of Duke John the young Duke of Finland, Gustavus, was chosen.

King Charles IX. began early to train his son in public affairs. When Gustavus was only ten years old his father kept him at his side at all cabinet meetings and in great public assemblies. He encouraged him to talk to officers from foreign countries in their own language. The king permitted him to ask questions on war, special battles and methods of governing, and the father was proud of the eager, precocious child, in whom he recognized a mental and spiritual power far beyond his own.

At the age of fourteen he was sent, with his mother, through northern Sweden, in order that he might become acquainted with the people of his own country. The king said, "You are only a boy, but listen to everyone who solicits your protection, help everyone according to your means, and dismiss no one without a word of comfort."

The gracious boy made many friends in this early journey, men who afterwards gladly gave life itself to forward his interests.

At the age of fifteen he was greatly disappointed because he was not permitted to lead an army against the Russians, but for once his father required him to remain at home to learn affairs concerning the internal and external policy of the Swedish government. But in 1611, at the age of seventeen, when Denmark had declared war against Sweden, he was permitted to command a body of troops. He was sent to deliver the town of Calmar which was besieged by the Danes. He was afterward joined by troops under Duke John and the king himself. On August 16th, 1611, the town and castle were surrendered by a commander who proved to be a renegade Swede whom King Charles had offended.

The king left the war in order to return to Stockholm to preside at the Diet. On his journey he was taken violently ill. When it was plain he could not recover Gustavus was sent for. The king gave the sorrowing boy his parting blessing, then laying his hand on the bowed young head, he said, in a voice full of conviction, "Ille faciet"—"This one will do it."

CHAPTER III.
GUSTAVUS AS A MAN.

Gustavus, the Grand Duke of Finland and Duke of Estland, as he was now called, did not at once assume the throne. The kingdom was for two months without a ruler.

The Diet was convened at Nyköping by the queen and by Duke John, who, with six lords of the Council, had administered the affairs of the government. On December 17th, 1611, the queen and Duke John, who was five years the elder, renounced before each of the assembled Estates all right and title to the throne of Sweden, and, although the age of twenty-four was considered the legal majority, Gustavus, though only eighteen, was declared of legal age, and the reigns of government were placed in his young hands.

He took the title of his father: "Elected king and hereditary Prince of the Swedes, Goths and Vandals." He chose for his chancellor, or Secretary of State, the wisest man of his realm, Axel Oxenstiern, only ten years older than himself.

Sweden had seen little of peace for fifty years. From the days of Gustavus I. endless war had prevailed. In the civil strife between rival branches of the same house, two kings had been overthrown. Gustavus inherited a blood-sprinkled throne, and, could he have foreseen it, was to be in almost perpetual warfare during his entire life.

To him came early the great passion which has made bad people good, and quite as often made good people bad. From early boyhood he had loved a girl, who became a handsome court lady, called Ebba Brahe. Her family were of the nobility, though not royal. It was from early youth his purpose to share his throne with the woman of his choice.

At Skokloster, Sweden, is preserved a fragment of their correspondence, including some most ardent letters from the young king. When he could not write to her, he sent the "forget-me-not" flower, which the girlish heart interpreted aright. He exhibited the symptoms of other lovers in writing sonnets to her, and at all times in seeking her society.

But his mother, Queen Christina, was a politician, and steadily set before him that it was his duty to strengthen his kingdom by marrying into a royal family which would become his friend in peace and his ally in war. On one occasion, when he was about leaving on a military campaign, the queen mother forced from him the promise that he would not write to Lady Ebba for two years. To this he agreed on the condition that, at the end of two years, all objection to their marriage would be withdrawn.

He had scarcely reached the seat of war until the old queen forced Ebba Brahe into a marriage with James de la Gardia, a polished noble gentleman, but not the choice of her young heart.

All through his life the heart of Gustavus turned with unutterable longing to the love of his youth. This is shown in several letters to his friend, Chancellor Oxenstiern.

We would like to believe that, at least up to his marriage, he remained the ideal lover, but truth compels us to say that he had a natural son, Gustav Gustavson, born in 1616, to a Dutch lady.

That was an age in which morality along sexual lines was unusual among royal men, but this one instance of immorality is the single instance that even the worst enemy of Gustavus can bring against his good name.

On November 28th, 1620, in the great palace of Stockholm, Gustavus was married to Eleanor Marie of Brandenburg. The marriage was one of great pomp, and Gustavus recognized his duty to the state by marrying into a strong Protestant royal family, and he also recognized his duty as a Christian to be a true husband and a good man.

The young queen brought a large dower which greatly assisted the war fund, but the marriage precipitated another war with Poland.

The marriage was a fairly happy one, as royal marriages go, but the happiness of the family was clouded by a dead child being the first born of the union. This great affliction Gustavus seems to have borne with a truly Christian spirit. The following year a similar event occurred, so that the royal family feared for the succession. At last, in 1632, after being married twelve years, he was permitted to hold a living child in his arms.

As he lavished upon her his paternal caresses, he said, "God be praised! I hope this daughter may be as good to me as a son. May God who has given her preserve her to me."

The life of this princess, whose history will be given later, proved that what we pray too earnestly for, almost as it were forcing the hand of God, may be given in answer to persistent requests, but the gift is to our undoing. Like Hezekiah's prolonged life, the boon was given in answer to prayer. Hezekiah's continued life proved to be full of anguish, and Manasseh, one of the curses of Judah, was born to him. If only we could pray: "O Lord, withhold, if not for my permanent good and Thy ultimate glory."

No woman ever dishonored her parentage more than this daughter, known in history as Queen Christina of Sweden.

This short history is to deal so much with the history of Gustavus Adolphus, the hero general of the Reformation, that we have condensed, for the most part, the history of his loves and domestic life into this one chapter. Before leaving the subject, we would remind you that Queen Eleanor Marie always acted as regent when Gustavus was absent on his campaigns. She seems to have ruled wisely. After the death of Gustavus she generously sent a portrait of the man they both loved so much to Lady de la Gardia.

CHRISTINA,
Daughter of Gustavus Adolphus II.

CHAPTER IV.
GUSTAVUS AND HIS KINGDOM.

We have now these two young men, Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstiern, his chancellor, sitting down to play the game of war against all the powers of northern Europe. The stake was the national existence of Sweden.

Buckle thinks that, given the time, the man may be predicated. But the times did not produce Jesus Christ. Nero was the natural product of that period. Gustavus Adolphus, like Luther, was a special soul sent of God to be the incarnation of spiritual force against the evil and awful indifference of a corrupt age.

First, he enlarged the place of his generous cousin, Duke John, who doubtless had foreseen the great period of war before them, and gladly had placed the responsibility in the abler hands of Gustavus.

Then the young king pursued the war with Denmark until the King of Denmark renounced his claim to the Swedish crown. It took him two years to secure this concession. During these two years he enlarged the rights of his people, stirred the patriotism of the peasantry, won the affections of the nobility of Sweden, and unified his people into a strong nationality. When Gustavus Vasa introduced the doctrines of the Reformation into Sweden the inhabitants were a rude people, but fifty years of instruction on the part of the clergy and independent thinking on the part of the people had greatly changed this state of affairs.

The revival of learning and the Reformation which caused an active study of theology and literature, had greatly pushed forward the intellectual standing of Germany. Lutheranism has always been a scholarly faith; it was born in universities, and never took on the severities or iconoclasms of Calvinism.

Sweden now kept all that was brilliant, attractive and energizing in the ideas of the Reformation, and gave to the Lutheran faith a new impetus, so that in the time of Gustavus Adolphus the aristocracy of Sweden were among the most cultivated people of all Europe.

As in Scotland the Reformation changed the very nature of the entire nation, so now it did the same for Sweden, with this difference, that the Scots followed the doctrines of Calvin, which stripped religion of its æstheticism and made it severe and to some degree forbidding, while the Lutheranism of the Swedes beautified their lives, stirred their æsthetic taste and improved their intellects, so that from that day to this Sweden has been regarded as a scholarly country, and has produced its fair share of literary and scientific men and women, beside many great inventors, and artists of world-wide renown.

The personality of Gustavus had much to do with his success. He had a fine physique. In his youth he was of slender figure, pale, fair complexioned, long-shaped face, fair hair, with a touch of red in it, and a tawny, pointed beard. Every inch of his fine, tall body was trained by the judicious use of athletics and out-door exercise. He radiated health, which of itself made him magnetic.

His tinge of red showed the impetuosity of his nature, which often had to be restrained by the great Chancellor Oxenstiern. "If my heat did not put a little life into your coldness we should all freeze up," said the king on one occasion. The chancellor replied, "If my coldness did not assuage your majesty's heat, we should all burn up," whereat the king laughed and acknowledged that his temper was rather quick and his patience less than he would like.

No sketch of the great king and of his success would be complete without understanding his two chief advisers. Queen Elizabeth once heard that a courtier had said, "It is not the queen who is great, but her counsellors." The queen replied, "Well, who made them counsellors?" Gustavus had the quality of appreciating greatness in others, of supplementing his own talents with theirs, and of not being jealous.

Axel Oxenstiern was born at Fano, in Upland, June 16th, 1583. His family traced their lineage back to the thirteenth century, and had intermarried with both the Danish and Swedish royal families. His father died in 1597, and he was sent by his judicious mother to a German university. This gave him Swedish and German as colloquial tongues, and he became so proficient in Latin that he could use it equally well with either.

Latin had for many centuries been the language of the learned, in which people of different lands could converse intelligibly. The people of Europe needed no Esperanto while they were proficient in Latin.

Oxenstiern studied theology as thoroughly as if he expected to enter the ministry. Religion was the absorbing thought of good people during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was recalled to Sweden by Charles IX., who recognized his great ability, and sent him on several diplomatic missions. At the age of twenty-six he was made house guardian of the royal children, and the head of the regency, which, in case of the king's death, might cause him to be called to govern the realm during the minority of the heir-apparent.

Among the first acts of the young king was to appoint Oxenstiern chancellor. From this time during the entire life of the king, this great man became one of the chief factors in ruling Sweden. He was a true friend, never failing to restrain or reprove the impetuous, strong-minded, strong-natured boy-king. Oxenstiern was a man of action, and was as little given to "lying around among the shavings" as Gustavus himself.

But the king had another counsellor of a totally different type, and that was John Skytte, a fine scholar and a great traveler, who had acted first as the tutor of Gustavus; and later became a counsellor. The king made him a senator, and in 1629 made him governor-general of Livonia.

It is very amusing to read some of the letters which passed between the governor and his king at this time. The governor apologizes for certain things not being accomplished, Gustavus calls him a man of theories, and declares, "I expect results and not explanations."

Returning now to the direct history of Gustavus Adolphus, in July, 1621, Sigismund having denied even the title of king to Gustavus, and having sent strenuous threats of punishment to the Elector of Brandenburg for permitting his sister to marry him, Gustavus sailed from Elfsnabb Harbor with one hundred and fifty sail, manned by fourteen thousand soldiers, for the purpose of conquering Livonia. At Pernau he was joined by General de la Gardia with five thousand Finns.

In August, Riga was surrounded, and on September 15th, it surrendered to the Swedish forces. In October, Mittau, the capital of Courtland, was entered, and the season being too far advanced, the army went into winter quarters. After an eight years' bloody campaign Gustavus, with his brave army and his experienced generals, conquered Sigismund, the unrelenting enemy of the Swedish Vasas.

The war between the two branches of the house of Vasa extends from 1600 to 1660. Gustavus felt that in his war with Poland, from 1621 to 1629, he was not fighting for his crown alone, but that he was facing the great struggle of Protestantism against the Catholic reaction. This war really should be regarded as part of the Thirty Years' War.

Queen Eleanor, as the wife of Gustavus was now called, suffered much during this war, for she felt that Sigismund's attitude to the Elector of Brandenburg for permitting her marriage to her greatly-beloved husband had much to do with the awful sorrows of the time. The queen went several times to see the king while he was absent, always carrying with her money, food and reinforcements. On one occasion she came suddenly upon him, clasping him in her arms, exclaiming: "Now, Gustavus the Great, thou art my prisoner."

Gustavus took pains to assure her that the war was now far beyond the question of their marriage, or even his title to the throne. He made plain to her that Sigismund, a Roman Catholic prince, who had the Pope for master, the Hapsburgs for allies, the Jesuits for advisers, should not and could not be permitted, even though it cost much in blood and money, to set up any claim to the throne of a Lutheran country.

In our own land it was the small Indian wars which trained our ancestors to be the nation of warriors who successfully fought England in the Revolution. So Gustavus Adolphus, his great generals and his brave troops, had training in small wars for that part of the Thirty Years' War which was to make him the most prominent figure of his century.

Besides the wars with Denmark and with Poland, he also had a short campaign (in which he took several Prussian towns) with Brandenburg, the vassal and ally of Poland, although, like Sweden, a Lutheran country, so he had really the practical experience of three wars before entering that which gives him and his country their place in history.

The life of Gustavus was now even more precious to his subjects than at his coronation, because his brother, Duke Charles Philip, had died childless, January 25th, 1622.

He was a youth of great promise and of lovely spirit. On one occasion, when he was ill, he wrote home: "My brother is so attentive and takes so much pains to entertain me that I almost forget my 'illness.'" The death of this prince was a severe stroke to the Dowager Queen Christina, who had always loved him more than she had loved her gifted elder son.

CHAPTER V.
THE CHARACTER OF THE KING AND OF HIS TIMES.

Under the stress of war, trial and great exposure of his life, the piety of Gustavus Adolphus became more marked. On his long campaigns he read and studied the Bible. He said: "I seek to fortify myself by meditations upon the Holy Scriptures." No one ever studied God's word, that is able to make us wise unto salvation, without also gaining worldly wisdom, and perceptibly increasing in moral beauty of character.

He regarded his high position as a great trust, given to him by his God. He was not actuated by a love of conquest, but felt that the defence of his throne and of his country also meant the protection of the Protestant faith. He waged war to bring about peace.

He repressed all acts of vengeance among his soldiers, he tolerated no licentiousness, and upheld religion and good morals in the camps of his army. Divine service was held morning and evening, at which time the king and the whole army knelt before God, asking His blessing and guidance.

He was a strict disciplinarian, but banished the bastinado, which not only punished but degraded men. He took counsel with his generals, and made no important move without consulting the Estates of his kingdom.

His physical strength was very great. Once when ordered to bed for fever by his physician, in the Russian campaign, he went to fencing with one of his officers. This caused such profuse perspiration that his disease was cured.

God seemed to visibly protect his life, even as we think He did the life of General Washington. During the campaign against Poland, a bullet struck the place that he had just left. At another time his garments were spattered with blood from men who fell at his side. Again, a bullet went through his tent just above his head.

At Dantzig seven boats were to take a redoubt. Gustavus commanded one of them and was shot in the abdomen. He wrote the Estates: "The engagement was a warm one, and I was wounded, but not unto death. I hope in a few days to resume my command."

His recklessness in danger greatly distressed his friends, and they sent Oxenstiern to ask him not to expose his life again in battle. Gustavus answered: "As yet no king has lost his life by a bullet, moreover, the soldier follows the example of his leader, and a general who shrinks from danger will never cover himself with glory. Cæsar was always to be found in the front rank, and Alexander moistened each battlefield with his blood."

He was wounded three months later in a battle in Prussia against his brother-in-law, the Duke of Brandenburg. On this occasion he wrote home: "We met the enemy on foot and horseback, and our artillery made such execution that we thought we had put him to flight, but God would not have it. When we were about to dislodge him, a musket ball struck me at the shoulder near the neck, and was the chief cause of our losing the battle. I thank God in my misfortune for the hope of speedy restoration to health."

Now the officers of his army remonstrated, through Oxenstiern, and entreated him not to expose his person, calling his attention to the importance of his life to his country. He replied: "My friends, I cannot believe my life is so essential as you seem to think, for should the worst befall me, I am fully convinced that God would watch over Sweden as He has done hitherto. As God has made me king, I dare not permit myself to be frightened or to be actuated to my own advantage. Should, in the vicissitudes of war, death be my lot, how can a king fall more honorably than in the contest for God and His people?"

Even the surgeon rated him soundly for exposing his life. He replied: "Ne sutor crepidam!" "Everyone to his trade."

During the war with Poland, Austria sent against the Swedish an army of eight thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, under the famous Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland. Gustavus asked him what motive actuated Austria to meddle between two foreign countries. Wallenstein insolently answered, "The emperor, my master, has more soldiers than he wants for himself, he must help his friends."

Gustavus meant to take Spelter, in Marienburg, which he had conquered from the Prussians. One of his generals was prematurely attacked by the Imperial forces, and his division seemed near destruction, when Gustavus hastened to his assistance. In the midst of rout and loss, he was in danger of being made a prisoner by one of the enemy's cavalry. His hat was knocked off and a sword grazed his head. On the other side he was seized by the arm, when a Swedish dragoon killed his assailants, and led the king's horse to another part of the field.

Gustavus was deeply grateful to God for sparing his life, and more than once said in substance: "God has given me a crown, not to dread or rest, but to devote my life to His glory and to the happiness of my subjects."

Wherever he went he expelled the Jesuits, and required the governors of the conquered countries to restore to the Protestants the places of worship which the Catholics had taken from them. He admonished the Protestant clergy to preach the plain gospel, to administer the communion, using both bread and wine, and he insisted that the clergy should see that the people led honest, godly lives, consistent with the faith they professed.

He provided that a synod should meet each year to consult as to church affairs, in order to provide common schools for the people, and also for the higher education of the youth of the country.

The following great principles, showing that Sweden was in advance of other nations in securing the rights of the citizen, and limiting the rights of the crown, were incorporated in the king's oath, and placed on the statute books. No one should be apprehended or condemned upon a mere assertion, or without knowing his accuser and being brought face to face with him in a fair trial.

No man was to be degraded from office without a fair trial. The land's law provided that, without the consent of the people, neither a law should be made, nor a tax imposed, without the consent of the council and of the Estates. It took the combined authority of Duke John (during his life), of the council and of the Estates, to endorse the wish of the king to make war, peace, a truce or an alliance with a foreign nation. Think how this law safeguarded the rights of the people in a century when great absolutism prevailed.

Under Gustavus the council was reinstated in its position as mediator between king and people, as the Estates deprecated their being burdened with too frequent Diets or Congresses.

The oath taken by Gustavus had eliminated that part which forbade the king to alienate or diminish the property of the crown. One of the first things Gustavus did was to sell the gold and silver plate and all the jewels of the royal family he could obtain. Many of the nobility did the same to provide money for his wars.

The winters of Sweden are long, and the roads at that time were bad, and, of course, no railroads existed, so that it was no wonder the people of the realm disliked being frequently convened, aside from the great expense of such convocations. Among the demands of the nobility at the accession of Gustavus was that, before each Diet, they should be made acquainted, with the great matters to be discussed, in order that they might consider them at leisure and without influence from others, also that they might hold neighborhood conclaves and come to decisions, so that all need not attend the Diet.

Afterward the presence of military officers at the Diet was ascribed to Gustavus Adolphus.

In 1664 the knights and nobles, long after the death of the king, say, "Among other benefits of his reign, he gave us the deputies of the army for our assistance, who, without votes of their own, have stood so that, in conjunction with the councillors of state, we have been able to balance the other orders."

Axel Oxenstiern remarks: "The presence of the military, though having no votes, strengthened the nobility at the Diets where every nobleman, come to lawful years, was bound to give attendance."

The spirit of militarism pervaded all Sweden at that time. The writers of the period speak disparagingly of "old lords reared away from war in easy lives, who are no soldiers, and have in their councils only a heap of economists and literates." With such a spirit among the people, and with a king who felt called of God to stop the extermination of Protestants, was it any wonder, with the deck cleared for action, and the wars for his crown ended, that both he and his people should feel called to study, not local, but European conditions, and to inquire, "What is our duty in the premises?"

While the thoughts and plans of Gustavus were ripening for action in Germany, for a few short months he devoted himself to the business of his kingdom.

In 1627 the king organized a company for work in America.[^[1]] He sent a small fleet to the West Indies. He encouraged emigration to a New Sweden, which extended from the mouth of the Delaware to Trenton, New Jersey.

[1]. See Bryant's History of the United States, Vol. I., page 469.

In 1624 the Swedish West India Company had been formed, with the hope of enriching Sweden and lessening local taxation.

In 1638 two Swedish vessels entered Delaware Bay and founded New Sweden. They built a fort at what is now Wilmington, Delaware. The most interesting relics yet remaining of that company are the Old Swedes Church, in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Gloria Dei Church, in Philadelphia, in the southern section of the city. They constitute lasting memorials of the great Swedish king. Unfortunately these two famous historical buildings have passed out of the possession of the Lutheran Church. The Swedes had small colonies and strong churches from the mouth of the Delaware to Trenton, New Jersey. New Sweden existed under that name for seventeen years, when it was incorporated in the William Penn possessions.

The Swedes lost their language in America, but kept their sturdy Christianity. Their fair dealings with the Indians prepared the way for William Penn to have the name of founding a colony in peace, for which the Swedes should receive much of the credit.

Gustavus also devoted himself to the improvement of Stockholm, now one of the most beautiful cities of the world. It is often called the Venice of the North, being situated on a group of nine islands, connected by picturesque bridges. Its streets are wider than those of Venice, and the canals have none of the vile odors of the southern city.

Sweden has been called Sweden ever since people inhabited its territory. At different periods it has been united to Norway and Denmark, under the same ruler. It has never been invaded or conquered, or had its boundaries changed by a foreign power.

CHAPTER VI.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.

From the time of the abdication of Charles V. of Germany the country had, for about sixty years, enjoyed comparative peace. Luther's translation of the complete Bible had appeared in 1634. Nearly one hundred years had been given the plain people to study the word of God, to see what Christ said and what Paul preached, and to compare them with the doctrines of the Church as set forth by the priests of Rome.

The work of Luther was destructive as well as constructive. He tore down what was false in the worship of God. The greater part of the constructive work of his life was formulated in the Augsburg Confession.

The Diet of Augsburg met in the city of Augsburg in 1530. It consisted of leading divines of both Protestant and Catholic faith, and of the princes who upheld the Reformation.

The Protestants set before the emperor, Charles V., on June 25th, 1530, their doctrines in a remarkable document known as the Augsburg Confession, or the Augustana. It is the plain statement of the doctrines of the Lutheran Church the world over, and is the basis from which all other Protestant confessions are largely taken.

Then followed twenty-five years of the successful propagation of the doctrines of the Reformation, and the purified faith was accepted not only in Germany, but in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands and in England and Scotland.

The Council of Trent, the eighteenth Ecumenical Council of Rome, met near the time of Luther's death. If it had been called in 1520, when Luther entreated for the calling of an Ecumenical Council to correct the abuses existing in the Church, it is quite possible that Luther would not have come out of the Church of Rome. If King George III. of England had yielded, even in part, to the prayer of the colonists, what is now the United States would probably have remained a colony of Great Britain.

The Council of Trent remained in somewhat interrupted session for over eighteen years. It was called with some idea of coming to some understanding with the Protestants, and of bringing them back into the Catholic Church. The Protestants paid little or no attention to the call, and the Council contented itself with reforming some of the abuses within the Church, and reformulating the doctrines of Rome.

The reform party at the Council of Trent demanded "wine as well as bread in the sacrament for the laity, schools for the poor, church hymns, preaching and Communion in the language of the people, a better catechism, reform in convents (some of which were mere houses of immorality), and the right to marry for the priests." The papal power called this rank heresy, and the entire council from beginning to end was a disgraceful spectacle. A few subordinate improvements on church discipline were granted, but no important reformation of church affairs, and the farce ended by an exultant proclamation calling down curses on the heretics.

From that day to this it has been Trent versus Augsburg. These two great councils were the most important events of the mediæval period. It is quite possible that the common people did not understand the bearing of the new religious thought, but the great statesmen of Europe saw that what is now called the Dark Ages had passed forever.

"The Protestants," says Ranke, "guided by the Scriptures, retraced their steps with ever-increasing firmness toward the primitive forms of faith and life. The Catholics, on the contrary, confronted with unflinching opposition and repelled with determined hostility whatever could recall the idea of Evangelical doctrines."

At the beginning the Thirty Years' War may be called a religious quarrel, but it soon became for the house of Hapsburg a scramble for personal aggrandizement. Ferdinand II. fought for territory, power and money, and he hoped, by recovering all the property which had belonged to the Catholic Church before the Reformation, he would attain these three objects. He followed this idea, although the formal edict was not announced for several years. It was his intention to break down all princes, both Catholic and Protestant, of the smaller German States, to incorporate Denmark, Holland and Italy (the old dream of Charles V.) into one great empire, and thus restore the old German-Roman Empire. It was a fine opportunity for self-aggrandizement under the guise of fighting for his church.

It was not to the interest of France to have the house of Hapsburg further aggrandized. God used this jealousy and ambition to further the work of the Reformation, so that France, through Cardinal Richelieu, became the ally of Gustavus Adolphus, and furnished a monthly stipend for paying Protestant soldiers, but even more valuable to the cause was the information and advice of this great Catholic ally. It was now believed that Richelieu[^[2]] even hoped for a confederacy of the smaller German States and free cities under the protectorate of France.

[2]. See Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IV.

Reviewing for a moment the past, we shall remember that Charles V. was succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand I., who reigned from 1556 to 1564. Maximilian II., his son, was lenient to the Protestants, and ruled from 1564 to 1576. It was during his reign, in 1572, the St. Bartholomew massacre occurred in Paris, in which Catherine de Medicis and her son, Charles IX., caused the murder of over fifty thousand Huguenots, as the Protestants were called in France. The massacre continued three days and nights.

Pope Gregory XIII., on hearing the news, openly expressed his joy at "the glorious event," caused public thanksgiving to be made, and had a coin struck in commemoration of this vile sin. This event gave warning to the Protestants that Rome would take advantage of whatever opportunity offered to destroy Protestantism.

During the great war Rudolph II. ruled Germany from 1576 to 1612, Mathias from 1612 to 1619, followed now by Ferdinand II. Louis XIII., the creature of his minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who, though a churchman, always put the State before the Church, was the ruler of France. He was followed by Louis XIV., whose mother, Queen Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin ruled till the majority of Louis XIV. The kings of England were James I., from 1603 to 1625, and Charles I., from 1625 to 1649. The Popes were Paul V., Gregory XV., Urban VIII. and Innocent X.

The Catholics now formed a strong league. The Protestants already had a weak union.

Mathias, during a reign of seven years, had favored the Catholics, and caused Ferdinand, one of the most cruel Catholics who ever lived, to be elected king of Hungary and Bohemia.

The election of Ferdinand was a great blow to Bohemia, and the new king lost no time in trying to destroy all the Protestants in his kingdom. Protestants were persecuted as criminals, and when they appealed to the law of the land, the Jesuits replied that Ferdinand's election as king of Bohemia canceled all laws in favor of Protestants.

"Novus rex, nova lex." This they declared was what was meant by the Reservatum Ecclesiasticum in the Augsburg Treaty of Peace. The clause stipulated that the people of each State should follow the religion of the ruler of the State. It is true the clause was there, but modified by two things:

1st. Cities were excepted.

2d. The Evangelical princes had not agreed to the clause and had protested against it.

Ferdinand's action as king, of course, made an insurrection. How could it fail to do so?

The Emperor Mathias became frightened and fled to Vienna, after appointing a regency of four Catholics and three Protestants. The Protestant regents sent a petition to the Emperor, and the Catholic regents at the same time sent a report. Mathias ordered the implicit and instant obedience of the Protestants.

While the seven regents were assembled in an upper room in the palace at Prague to announce the Emperor's decision, Count Thurn, chief of the Protestant party, entered the room with a company of armed men. He demanded of each Catholic regent, "Did you advise the Emperor's arbitrary reply?" Two of them answered evasively, the other two said, "Yes, we did." At this point the four Catholic regents were seized and pitched out of the windows from the third story. They fell on a great heap of barnyard manure and were not killed. But by this the Protestants took the responsibility of saying, "By this act we pitch out of our lives the Pope of Rome, the King of Bohemia and the Emperor of Germany."

The Emperor was in feeble health and desired to make peace, but Ferdinand dissuaded him, and sent an army against these Protestants. The army was driven by Count Thurn and his men to the very gates of Vienna, and were only there turned back by the regular army of Austria.

The winter was coming, and no provision having been made for the Protestant army, the force returned to Prague.

This was to the Thirty Years' War what the firing on Fort Sumter was in the Civil War, or the skirmish at Lexington to the Revolutionary War.

Just after this Mathias died and Ferdinand, king of Bohemia, became Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany. He, with his Jesuits, determined to retake all property which before the Reformation belonged to the Catholic Church.

In many places all the people had become Protestants, and the church having been built by the money of either themselves or their ancestors, the churches had been used for nearly one hundred years for Protestant services. Americans can understand the situation by thinking how it would be and what would happen if England should now demand that all property owned by the Crown before the Revolutionary War should be restored.

Ferdinand II. was now to force a war upon his subjects which left Europe a great cemetery. During the Thirty Years' War the population of Europe was reduced from sixteen millions to less than six million people. Thirty-five thousand towns and villages were destroyed.

Three-fourths of the population perished in Bohemia, partly by the sword, but also by pestilence and famine, and many emigrated. The question had resolved itself into this, "Shall we permit Protestantism to be forever exterminated?" It took all this sorrow of destruction of property and of human life to bring about political toleration between Protestant and Catholic States.

For thirty-three years Germany seems to have been blind to what was going on around her. The intellectual impetus given by the Reformation made the theological strife between Lutherans and Calvinists bitter and absorbing.

Large districts both south and west of them had been forced back under the dominion of the Church of Rome, and the Germans did not interfere. They had done but little for the Dutch in their desperate fight against the Spanish Hapsburgs and Romanism, so that William of Orange, in bitterness of heart, had said, "If Germany remains an idle spectator of our tragedy, a war will presently be kindled on German soil which will swallow up all the wars which have gone before it." That war was now on.

"No, true freedom is to share

All the chains our brothers wear,

And with heart and hand to be

Earnest to make others free."

CHAPTER VII.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.—CONTINUED.

This war is usually divided into five periods: 1. War in Bohemia; 2. War in the Palatinate; 3. Danish war; 4. Swedish war; 5. Franco-Swedish war.

After their king had been made Emperor of Germany, the Bohemians, in an effort to make sure of their deliverance from the rule of Ferdinand, chose for their king Frederick V., Elector Palatine, who being the head of the Evangelical Union, was considered the chief of the Reformation party in Germany.

He was elected August 26th, 1619. He was not fortunate in securing the friendship and support of his own subjects. His conduct was so unbecoming his profession that it was no wonder God did not prosper him as a public leader. Frederick V. was son-in-law of James I. of England, and it was hoped by his election to secure the favor of the Protestants of England and Scotland.

The Emperor Ferdinand II. now placed Maximilian of Germany and the ferocious General Tilly at the head of the army of the Catholic League, to attack the city of Prague.

GERMAN EMPIRE, NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM.

On November 8th, 1620, the armies met at White Mountain, near the city, and the Protestant army, composed of Germans, Hungarians and Bohemians, lacking first of all a good leader, but also lacking unity in action, courage and goodwill, were defeated in less than an hour by the superior numbers of the Imperial army.

Frederick, their king, was dining at leisure at Prague, while his army was being sacrificed. He availed himself of the short armistice of eight hours granted him by the Duke of Bavaria, to make a flight by night, in such haste that even his crown was left behind him.

The battle of White Mountain settled the matter so far as Bohemia was concerned, and Prague surrendered the next day. The Estates did the same homage as had been done by Silesia and Moravia, but the Emperor had another matter to settle with Prague. Tilly, with seven thousand men, principally Spaniards, entered the city. Twenty-seven Protestant chiefs were instantly executed, others were less publicly killed, and many more imprisoned or punished.

All the Protestant churches were confiscated and handed over to the Jesuits, who now came back in full force. The soldiers drove the country people into the mass, so that a baron of Oppersheim gloried in having converted, without a sermon, more people than the Apostle Peter, who through his Pentecostal sermon, had seen three thousand souls converted.

The Emperor, with his own hands, tore up the Letter of Majesty by which the Emperor Rudolph had granted religious liberty to the Bohemians.

Thirty thousand families left Bohemia during the next two years, and Maximilian was made Elector Palatine, in place of Frederick V.

This is a very abbreviated history of the first division of that great war which laid low the country of John Huss.

The second period may be said to extend from 1621 to 1624, and is usually spoken of as the war in the Palatinate. The war was now carried into that portion of Germany. It was in vain that each Protestant prince determined to defend his possessions against the oppressor. Tilly vanquished them one after another till Ferdinand's scepter was over every State. The Imperial soldiers ranged over the country, taking everything of value, also appropriating to Rome every Protestant church and school, so that the Protestants could readily see that their extermination had been determined. Ferdinand had taken a vow to the Virgin, both at Loretto and at Rome, to enforce her worship at the peril of his life, declaring that he preferred to rule over a wilderness rather than a nation of heretics. Now, strengthened by his many successes, it was plain to all Germany that he meant to soon fulfill that wicked vow. The executions and massacres of that time were without parallel since the Christian era.

Ferdinand not only revenged himself on all Protestants, but he deeply humbled the Catholic princes by the exercise of despotic power over their people. All European statesmen became alarmed at the aggrandizement, as they called it, of the Hapsburgs. Richelieu, the great cardinal of France, was glad enough to see Protestantism punished, as he had no idea of letting Austria overshadow France. Holland was afraid for Protestantism within her own borders, the slow nature of James I. of England began to arouse itself, and he planned to reinstate his son-in-law, Frederick, in the Palatinate, when broken and oppressed Germany turned to the princes of Scandinavia for succor.

Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, was busy with his wars in Poland. He would gladly have sent part of his well-disciplined army to the assistance of the German princes, but they preferred the king of Denmark, Christian IV., brother-in-law to the Elector Palatine.

He began the third period of the war by entering into an alliance with England and Holland, and declaring war against the empire, marched to the help of the Protestant princes, Dukes of Brunswick, Mansfield and others.

Christian IV. took the field in March, 1625, with sixty thousand troops, and entered Germany, determined to cover himself with glory and to reestablish Protestantism.

Tilly had been bad enough in ravaging conquered territory, but now Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, appears on the scene. He had distinguished himself in the battle of White Mountain, and in the war against the Turks had received most valuable grants of land, and large revenues from the Emperor. Wallenstein was now put in command of the Imperial forces. He was a pervert from Protestantism to Rome, and such are always the most bigoted and intolerant. He had expelled the Hungarian troops from Moravia, and had accepted as pay the confiscated estates of his unfortunate countrymen.

He agreed to raise and support his own army for the Emperor at his own expense. The banditti of all Europe came to him for the promised loot, and, with an army of over one hundred thousand men, he took the field against Protestantism, already a divided, cowed, broken body of people. Not since the Crusades had there been such a war of devastation.

In five years Wallenstein and Tilly, who hated each other, but both under command of the Emperor, had routed the troops of Mansfield, the strongest of the auxiliaries of the king of Denmark, and had subdued Silesia, Lower Saxony and Holstein. As early as August, 1626, Christian IV. was defeated in the battle of Lutter, and was forced back to his own country for its defence. He was obliged to abandon his allies to the vengeance of their enemies. By the end of the five years Mansfield and Brunswick, the leading Protestant princes, were dead, and their troops destroyed or scattered. Everywhere the Imperialists laid the country waste.

Wallenstein took possession of Pomerania, and the Imperial forces, without opposition, marched into Holstein, Schleswig and Jutland, occupying all Denmark, except the islands. The neutral Protestant princes had their territories destroyed. This they fully deserved.

The Danish king sued for peace, and his possessions were returned to him on condition that he would take no further part in the war. This concession was not from mercy, but because France and Sweden were now preparing to take arms against the House of Austria.

In the conference at Lubeck, on May 22d, 1629, Wallenstein, with marked contempt, excluded the Swedish ambassadors while arranging terms with Denmark.

Wallenstein had been so successful that he had visions of making himself Emperor, of converting the Baltic Sea into an Austrian lake, and there having a great fleet to increase his wealth and power. For these reasons he now set out to take the cities on the Baltic coast. He besieged Stralsund, a Hanse town. The Hanse towns were the commercial towns of Germany, associated together for the protection of commercial interests. Wallenstein now had the title of "Admiral of the Baltic" conferred on him by the Emperor. The new admiral said, "There are twenty-eight ports in Pomerania; we must fortify them to keep Sweden from attacking them."

Stralsund represented not alone the Hanseatic League, but the Protestant faith and liberty of conscience. Wallenstein swore, "I will capture Stralsund though it were chained to the gates of heaven." He did not take into the count God and the king of Sweden.

The inhabitants of Stralsund were a deeply religious people. With Wallenstein besieging their city, and well knowing the destruction of the country over which they had passed, they took the oath to abide by the true religion of the Augsburg Confession, to fight for it as well as for the rights and liberties of the city, and to stand by the Empire as long as the line of conduct would be justifiable before God, posterity, and in accordance with their oath to defend the city. This shows their faith in God; to Him they appealed, and after ten weeks siege, Wallenstein, at the order of the Emperor, after losing twelve thousand of his best troops, was forced to abandon the siege.

Wallenstein had threatened to destroy every creature within its walls, so the women and children had been sent to Sweden, and that country provided the food from the side of Stralsund opening on the sea.

But the Emperor now considered that his troops were so successful that he might put into the form of an edict that which they had been practicing ever since his coronation. He issued what is called the Edict of Restitution (1629 A. D.), confiscating all Protestant property obtained from Catholics since the Treaty of Passau. This violated the Treaty of Augsburg, which had guaranteed that property. This would have made war in time of peace, now it prolonged a war begun eleven years before. He further decided "that by the religious peace Catholic princes were under no further obligations to their Protestant subjects than to allow them to quit their territories."

Under this edict the Protestant States were ordered to surrender all church property and all secularized religious foundations to the Imperial commissioner. The Protestants again quite understood that the extermination of their religion had been determined. The commissioners were appointed, and Wallenstein was charged to enforce the edict.

The enforcement began at Augsburg. The bishop was reinstated. He prohibited all worship of the Protestant form, and erected a gallows in front of the town hall to show what would happen to those who disobeyed.

Lorenz Forer, one of Wallenstein's captains, said, "Be active, my friends, if some withstand you, kill and burn them in a fire that shall make the stars melt, and force the angels of heaven to withdraw their feet."

A cry of agony and terror ran through all Germany. The Emperor's own brother wrote: "Your Majesty cannot form any idea of the conduct of the troops. I have myself waged war for a few years, and I know that it can seldom be carried on without leaving traces of violence. But to break windows, to overthrow walls, to commit arson, to cut off noses and ears, to torment, to commit rape, to murder for amusement's sake, are disorders which field officers can and ought to oppose. I know there are people who endeavor to persuade your Majesty that these accusations are unfounded, but I hope that your Majesty will place at least as much reliance on me as on such gentlemen who fill their purses with the blood and toil of poor people. I could name you many officers who, a short time ago, had scarcely the means to clothe themselves, who to-day possess three or four hundred thousand florins in specie. Discontent increases threateningly, and my conscience does not allow me to conceal from your Majesty the true state of affairs."

The Catholic princes and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria entreated that Wallenstein should be dismissed. This was done, and he went back to his duchy in Bohemia. Some few of his worst officers were sent away. But Tilly and Pappenheim, whose names have ever since been the synonym of pillage and devastation, were now placed in command.

The princes of Germany began to look with one accord toward Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. The truce between Poland and Gustavus was concluded August 26th, 1629, the very year of the Edict of Restitution, and the Swedish king began to shape affairs in his own kingdom to help his brethren of the Protestant faith in Germany.

His own door to the sea, the Baltic, even the security of his own State was threatened, but above all, he saw Protestantism in danger of being as much extinguished as it had been in Spain and Portugal. It is possible that he had some hopes of securing territory from Germany, while the war was on between Poland and Russia on one side and Gustavus on the other, the Emperor Ferdinand II. had declared Gustavus under the ban, and, no doubt, he was glad, as a man, to measure swords with the tyrant of Germany.

CHAPTER VIII.
CONDITIONS IN SWEDEN.

When Gustavus was only twenty-six years of age, in the midst of wars and struggles, he was laying the foundations for a greater Sweden. In 1620 he inquired of the bishops how knowledge could be disseminated among the people. He claimed that he had a greater want than that of money, namely, competent persons for civil and military positions.

He inquired what schools for the common people, what seminaries, what colleges were necessary to educate the people. He inquired where good teachers could be obtained from foreign countries, and required that they should be brought to Sweden. He said, "The instruction in religion may be passable, but as the clergy do not understand matters of government and of civic life, they cannot be expected to prepare men for the State." So men of affairs were now secured to assist in teaching.

In 1625 he granted to the Upsala Academy, as he called what is now the great University, from his own hereditary estates, three hundred and fifty manors, besides the crown tithes in several parishes, a stipend for many professors, and $3,250.00 yearly for the community or student house, with $2,500.00 yearly for maintenance, besides setting apart money for prizes.

He transferred to the Library at Upsala his printing plant, and began the library by presenting his own books. He erected a library building, and arranged for its endowment. He established four gymnasiums, or, as we would call them, colleges, and laid the foundation for that general course of schools, colleges and universities which has made Sweden one of the best educated nations on earth.

From 1627 Sweden had by letters patent opened the doors to Protestant exiles. The Dukes of Mecklenburg had there found asylum and honorable occupation for their sons.

The women and children of wealthy Germans had been sent to Sweden, and the common people were well informed as to the devastating wars in Germany.

Oxenstiern was not favorable to Gustavus going to the relief of Germany. He feared for the life of his friend, and for the succession of the Vasas. The same view was taken by Skytte, his old tutor. The daughter of Gustavus was not yet quite four years of age.

Before the Estates the king did not urge the defence of Protestantism so much as patriotism. He said, "Denmark is used up. The Imperial army of Papists have Rostock, Wismar, Stettin, Wolgast, Greifswald and nearly all the other ports. Rugen is theirs, and they continue to threaten Stralsund. They aim to destroy Swedish commerce and to plant a foot on the southern shores of our Fatherland. The fight is for house, home and faith."

The Estates voted at once for regular and heavy taxes for three years. The nobles renounced their privilege of freeing tenants from service and taxation. The mercantile companies gave up their subsidies to provide for the fleet. Many had spoken against the war, but when the vote was taken all voted to sustain their king.

Gustavus said: "I did not call you together because of any doubt in my mind, but that you might oppose me if you wished. That freedom you no longer enjoy. You have spoken. My view is this, that for our safety, honor and final peace, I see nothing but to make a bold attack on the enemy. I hope it will be for the advantage of Sweden, but I also hope, if the day go hard with us, no blame will be laid upon me, for I have no other end in view but that advantage. I do not underrate the difficulties, such as the want of means, or the doubtful issue of battle. It is no idle glory I am seeking, the king of Denmark is sufficient warning to me against that, besides the judgment of posterity leaves a man very little glory. I am satisfied with glory and want no more. Your duty is clear, to exhort all my subjects to continue in their present devoted attitude. For myself, I see that I have no more rest to expect but the rest of eternity."

From this time Gustavus Adolphus met no further opposition among his own people. All Sweden at that time had only about one and a half million people, not so many as now live in New York City.

Richelieu sent a wily ambassador to Gustavus, but the king was careful to enter into no hampering alliance with a Catholic power. Charnace, the emissary of Richelieu, twice visited Sweden, in the winter and spring of 1629 and 1630. He assured the king that the Protestant States would receive him with open arms. The king replied that such was not the case. Gustavus well knew that the Elector of Saxony, although a Protestant, was an ally of the Emperor simply to save his country from devastation, and that his brother-in-law of Brandenburg was a slothful glutton, wanting only to be let alone.

As long as Denmark might "bite Sweden in the heel," Gustavus felt loth to leave his kingdom. He now had a personal interview with Christian IV. of Denmark and assured himself of goodwill on that side, he renewed the guards along the side next Russia and Poland, and quietly made ready his army, both by land and sea, for going to the relief of Germany.

The Emperor said: "We shall now have another little enemy to fight." Wallenstein said that he could expel Gustavus, with the judicious use of a rod, as he might have spoken of a recalcitrant boy. At the same time Wallenstein offered thirty thousand dollars to anyone who would assassinate the king of Sweden, and thus save him using the rod.

Falkenberg, a Swedish ambassador, visited the courts of Holland and of different Protestant German States, receiving fine verbal promises of assistance, but they utterly refused to enter into a written alliance with Sweden. Lubeck and Hamburg advanced him money and agreed to accept Swedish copper in return.

Every Swedish regiment was now made up to its full complement. Thirty men-of-war, two hundred transports and fifteen thousand men were now ready to take their share in one of the most dangerous campaigns of the great war. It was a small army, but it was composed of veterans. Every individual had been seasoned in previous wars, and was perfect in discipline, courage and in devotion to his commander and king. The army was composed mostly of Swedes, but had several regiments of Scots and several more regiments of Germans. The king had a small but well-equipped corps of artillery. He was also well provided with shovels, spades and picks, with which to construct earthworks.

Oxenstiern, at the time of the king's embarkation, was also sent, with ten thousand more men, to guard the frontier of Poland, and almost as many as Gustavus took with him were left to guard against sudden and unexpected invasion at home.

He set every part of his kingdom in order, as one who goes forth to meet the doubtful issues of a great war. The law-making power of Sweden was vested in the four Estates: Nobility, Clergy, Burghers and Peasants. The consent of at least three of these was necessary to the king for every forward movement.

So now, on May 19th, 1630, he called the Estates together, to rehearse before them the causes and conditions which forced the Swedish nation into the war. He was accompanied by the queen, also by the Council of State, in whose hands he was to leave the government. He carried in his arms his little daughter, Christina, then only four years of age. He presented her to the Estates as his successor in case of his death, and secured their renewed allegiance to her should he not return. He read the ordinances for the government in his absence, or during the minority of his daughter.

The assembly was in tears, and the king had to wait a few moments to overcome his own emotion before giving his farewell address:

"Not lightly nor wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve myself and you in this new and dangerous war. God is my witness that I do not fight to gratify my own ambition, but the Emperor has wronged me most grievously in the persons of my ambassadors; he has supported my enemies, persecuted my friends and brethren; he has trampled my religion in the dust, and even stretches his arm against my crown. The oppressed States of Germany call loudly for aid, which by God's help we will give them.

"I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed. I have never shrunk from dangers, nor is it likely I shall escape them all. Hitherto Providence has wonderfully protected me, but I shall at last fall in defence of my country. I commend you and all my absent subjects to the protection of heaven, and hope that we shall meet in eternity.

"To you, my Councillors of State, I first address myself. May God enlighten you, and fill you with wisdom to promote the welfare of my people. You, too, my brave Noblemen, I commend to the divine protection. Continue to prove yourselves the worthy successors of those brave Goths whose bravery humbled to the dust the pride of ancient Rome. To you, Ministers of Religion, I recommend peaceableness and piety; be yourselves examples of the virtues which you preach, and abuse not your influence over the minds of my people. On you, the Burghers and Peasants, I entreat the blessing of heaven; may your industry be rewarded by a prosperous harvest, your stores be plenteously filled, and may you be crowned abundantly with all the blessings of this life. For the prosperity of all my subjects, absent and present, I offer my warmest prayers to heaven. I bid you all a sincere—it may be an eternal farewell."

The whole assembly was in tears, the king himself was weeping, but after a few moments he said, in a natural voice, the words of the Psalm which he was accustomed to say aloud before entering on any new undertaking. We give only the closing part, upon which he seemed to lay most emphasis:

"Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children, and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it."

He set apart the first Friday of July, August and September as days of fasting and for prayer for the nation and for the army.

In about ten days after this, at the beginning of June, he embarked at Elfsnabbe, surrounded and cheered by a concourse of weeping relatives and friends, but sent forward with their blessing and best wishes.

CHAPTER IX.
GUSTAVUS IN GERMANY.

A continued southwest wind kept the fleet from making progress, and the ships were obliged to return to port. Their provisions ran out and had to be renewed from seaport towns. On account of contrary winds, it took five weeks to make that short distance. The landing took place on June 24th, 1630, the one hundredth anniversary of the day on which the Augsburg Confession had been presented to Charles V., Emperor of Germany, in the presence of the leading ecclesiastics and ruling princes and dukes of all Germany. Gustavus looked upon this as a good omen, for his coming was at a time when all those principles set forth in that Confession were endangered.

He landed his troops on the islands of Wollin and Usedom. Stepping on shore he fell on his knees, and in the presence of his staff thanked God in these words: "O Thou who rulest over the heavens and the earth, over the wind and the sea, Lord, how can I worthily thank Thee for Thy miraculous protection which Thou hast graciously vouchsafed to me during this dangerous passage? My heart is full of gratitude for all Thy benefits. Oh, deign to bless this enterprise undertaken for the defence of Thy distressed Church, and the consolation of Thy faithful servants. Let it redound, not to my glory, but to Thine. O God, who triest the hearts and the reins, Thou knowest the purity of my intentions. Grant me favorable weather and a good wind, which will cheer my brave army, and allow me to continue Thy sacred work. Amen."

A man may talk with reservations to his fellowmen, but who would presume to be false in prayer before his God? That prayer reveals beyond all possibility of doubt the real reason of his undertaking this great war.

Joshua himself did not more implicitly rely upon his God than did this brave king. He so trusted on God's assistance that he marched with scant supply of food and money, and with what now seems like a mere handful of soldiers, against the trained troops of a great empire which for twelve years had met and conquered every foe on its triumphant march from the south of Germany to the Baltic Sea.

He asked his officers and soldiers to pray much. He said: "The more you pray the more victories will be ours. Incessant prayer is half a victory."

When Gustavus had finished his prayer, he took a spade and began to work at the intrenchments. Colonel Munro, commander of the Scots, says: "Gustavus was ever impatient till his soldiers were guarded from their enemies, and when he had the fewest soldiers he took more pains with intrenchments." He well understood the duties of a civil engineer, and when no other was at hand, directed in person the intrenchment of his army. When the intrenchments were done he addressed his troops:

"Do not believe I undertake this war for myself or for my kingdom. We march to the relief of our oppressed brethren. You will by brilliant victories accomplish this generous project and acquire immortal glory. Be not afraid of the enemies whom we are going to meet, they are the same whom you have already defeated in Prussia. Your gallantry has just forced Poland to conclude a truce of six years. If you show the same courage, the same perseverance, you will procure for the Evangelical Church and for our German brethren the peace which they need."

He then had the military laws and regulations proclaimed in which any outrage on person or property was to be punished with death. But Gustavus felt that his soldiers must be governed from within and not from without. To that end he urged the chaplains to preach the gospel faithfully in camp, and he ordered that prayer meetings should be held twice each day.

Men fresh from their homes, often homesick and heartsick for the home folks, were open to the message which their mothers and fathers had so often laid on their young hearts, so it is not surprising that the behavior of the Swedish army on a foreign soil is memorable to this day in Europe, in strong contrast to the Imperial army which embittered even friendly provinces in its devastating journeys.

Gustavus immediately subdued the country on which he had made his descent, and having taken possession of Rugen, he expelled the Imperial troops from all neighboring islands, and made secure his communications with Sweden.

He then advanced on Stettin, the capital of Pomerania, and forced the old Duke Bogislaus XIV. to make a quick decision between an alliance with Sweden or with the Empire. The people of the city hastened privately to pay their respects to the Swedish king as the true Defender of the Faith, to which they also subscribed. He talked over with them the condition of Germany, the affairs of the Church, and of their faith and love, and completely won their hearts.

His personality at this time was most pleasing, his fair hair, his handsome beard, his tall, strong, lithe, athletic body predisposed everyone in his favor.

The gates of Stettin were thrown open to him, but he quartered his soldiers in their tents and not in the city. The king entered into a close alliance with Sweden, thus making Pomerania a protecting State for Sweden, and also for the rearguard of the Swedish army and for its line of communication with the home country. The army covered the greater part of Pomerania, in spite of the efforts of General Torquato-Conti, who had charge of all the Imperial troops stationed in this duchy. As he retreated he wreaked an awful vengeance upon the innocent people, capturing women, and even killing children, and leaving desolation in his wake. The people came out to meet the Swedes, and hailed them as saviours of the country.

As Gustavus continued his journey through Pomerania his army was greatly increased. Troops who had fought under Mansfield, under Duke Christian of Brunswick, and under the king of Denmark, and all those disaffected because of Wallenstein now enrolled under his victorious banner, so that by the end of 1630, only a few months after leaving Sweden he ruled in Pomerania as sovereign. The Estates of the Duchy voted and paid him one hundred thousand florins.

He was anxious to push on to Mecklenburg, but a severe northern winter was at hand and it was deemed best to wait and go into winter quarters.

Whatever trepidation of heart the Emperor may have felt at these advances, he put on a bold front at Vienna and scoffed at the name of Gustavus Adolphus, declaring that the "Snow King of the North" would soon melt away with his army as he moved southward, but it is a curious fact that people of northern climates can accustom themselves to any latitude, while people born under a hot sun cannot always endure cold, and the Swedes proved that they could fight in any land.

The Emperor's confidence was by no means shared by the Catholic League. They now placed General Tilly, who, it was claimed, had never lost a battle, at the head of the Imperial forces.

Since Wallenstein had been retired great companies of mercenary soldiers could be had by any commander who could pay them. If Gustavus had possessed money many of these would much have preferred to fight for him. But God was to show, as in the case of Gideon, what could be done with the few. In spite of his faith, however, Gustavus sometimes feared the future. The winter used up most of the food and the money. In a letter to Oxenstiern dated December, 1630, he says: "May God, into whose hands I commit all, help us to live through the winter. Then, thanks to your care and foresight, the summer will be more prosperous. I would like to describe our condition to you, but a sabre cut having rendered my hand stiff, I am prevented from doing so." Let it suffice you to know that the enemy enjoys every advantage for establishing his winter quarters, since all Germany has become his prey. If I had more soldiers with me on the bank of the Oder I would march forward. Although our cause is good and just the issue is uncertain—uncertain are also man's days.

"Therefore, I pray you for Christ's sake, be not discouraged if all does not succeed to our wishes. I most earnestly recommend my family to your care if misfortune befall me. It is in many respects worthy of interest. The mother needs advice, she is none too wise. The daughter, a tender child, will be exposed to many difficulties if she should reign, and to many dangers if others should reign over her. I commit both of them, their future, my life and all that I possess in this world, to God's holy and powerful keeping. I am persuaded that whatever may befall me on this earth will always be for my good, and after this life I hope to enjoy eternal peace and joy."

Gustavus Adolphus did not remain inactive, but after conquering Pomerania he advanced into the Duchy of Brandenburg, for the purpose of reaching Mecklenburg. He pushed the Imperial troops from Pomerania, so that Tilly fell back to the Elbe, without venturing to defend Frankfort-on-the-Oder, which the Swedes successfully assaulted in a three-days siege about the middle of the winter.

William of Hesse-Cassel in October, 1630, gladdened the heart of the king by entering into an alliance with him. Aside from this one prince, not one evangelical prince would come to his assistance.

The Edict of Restitution set hard on the Lutheran churches of Saxony and Brandenburg, yet these rulers looked upon Gustavus more as a rival than as a friend, so that they may be said to have forced Gustavus into an alliance with France. The treaty with France was signed at Baerwalde, in the Duchy of Brandenburg, January 13th, 1631. The contracting parties entered into an alliance offensive and defensive to protect their common friends, to restore the deposed Prince to the Empire, and as nearly as possible to restore Church and State possessions to the conditions existing before the disturbance began in Bohemia, and before the Edict of Restitution.

France now agreed to furnish Gustavus for the payment of his troops four hundred thousand dollars annually, and paid one hundred thousand dollars cash for the year past, the object of France being to check the House of Austria and to retain what is called in Europe "the balance of power."

Gustavus agreed to keep an armed force of not less than thirty-six thousand in Germany till peace should be agreed upon, and to leave Catholics alone where he found that religion prevailing. Gustavus had not the slightest reverence nor patience with the worn out idea of the Holy Roman Empire. With him religion was an intense incentive to action, and sloth, indifference, laziness were qualities which made him angry to intolerance.

But there was a curious allegiance of the smaller German States to that name—the Holy Roman Empire. It was only after two centuries of having their territory sacrificed again and again to uphold a crumbling dynasty that they began to center their eyes on North Germany for a union. Had Ferdinand turned Lutheran a truly united Germany would have been made in the seventeenth instead of the nineteenth century, for he came to an empire in which the majority of his subjects were Protestants. He had said that he preferred to rule in an uninhabited wilderness rather than to have a prosperous nation of heretics. When he left it the wilderness was over what had been a prosperous State.

John George, the Elector of Saxony, was the leader and most powerful Protestant ruler in North Germany. He was a Protestant, but he announced that he preferred an alliance with the Emperor. Then George William, Elector of Brandenburg, was slothful, and although a brother-in-law of Gustavus, was jealous of the hard-won laurels of the Swedish king.

The jealousy of those Protestant princes show that whatever religion they may have professed they had very little of the grace of God in their hearts. The King of Denmark may be ranked with these. He was anxious to have Gustavus wrecked even as he had been, in order to curtail the power of the Swedish kingdom.

John George, Elector of Saxony, convened the rulers of the Protestant States of the Empire at Leipzig, February, 1631, to enter a remonstrance against the oppressions of the Empire. Gustavus made known to them his alliance with France and entreated them to join him in protecting the Protestant faith.[^[3]]

[3]. What occurred at this Diet would be a good dramatic chapter.

Richelieu sent his own gifted diplomat, Charnace, to lay before them the dangers which threatened their religion. Gustavus was even willing to accept a secret support, if the princes were afraid of the wrath of the Emperor. But the Elector of Saxony was so filled with the spirit of envy and jealousy that he not only refused alliance himself but persuaded the others to at least defer entering into any agreement with the Swedish king. The Duke of Weimar and his brother urged that Protestantism needed just such a leader to unite them, and failing to convince the assembly, they withdrew in anger from the convention.

There were sixty-two princes of the two reformed creeds. There were no end of committees. All possible grievances were presented to the Emperor in the form of petition. There was an implied threat that unless their cry was heard at some future time they would arm for the defence of the Augsburg Confession, John George agreeing to give eleven thousand men, and George William five thousand for the cause. The name of Gustavus Adolphus was carefully kept out of every public document. The Emperor answered their appeal by ordering them to adjourn at once, or Leipzig should be blown about their ears.

In the meantime Gustavus learned that Tilly had gone to besiege Magdeburg, and the king of Sweden made immediate preparation to go to the relief of that devoted city.

Tilly had taken a town guarded by two thousand Swedes. A surrender was forced, and the Swedes agreed to lay down their arms on condition of an oath not to serve again during the war. The poor fellows had failed to receive a dispatch from their king to retreat and leave the town to its fate. They were butchered to the last man. The only cruel thing recorded in the history of Gustavus was his revenge for this crime. When he captured Frankfort-on-the-Oder two thousand prisoners of war were slain. Such is war. We shall see how Tilly retaliated on Gustavus for this. Cruelty, even in war, is always bad policy, aside from being a sin against God.

He asked at the hand of Brandenburg that he be permitted to hold the fortresses of Kustrin and Spandau till the siege of Magdeburg could be raised. But his brother-in-law, afraid of the wrath of the Emperor, utterly refused. The anger of his Emperor concerned him much more than the anger of his Lord. King Gustavus wrote him: "My road is to Magdeburg, not for my own advantage, but for that of the Protestant religion. If no one will stand by me I shall immediately retreat, conclude a peace with the Emperor and return to Stockholm. I am convinced that Ferdinand will readily grant me whatever conditions I may require. But if Magdeburg is once lost, and the Emperor relieved of all fear of me, then it is for you to look for yourselves and the consequences. He who makes a sheep of himself will be eaten by the wolf. For I tell you plainly, I will not hear a word of neutrality. Your serenity must be either friend or foe. As soon as I get to your frontier you will have to declare yourself. Here strive God and the devil. If you will hold with God, come over to me. If you prefer the devil, you will have to fight me first. There shall be no neutral party in this war."

It was just what Duke George William wanted, to be the third party. He hoped he could hold off and eventually be the balance of power between the Empire and Gustavus, King of Sweden. The Elector of Brandenburg actually gave orders to the commanders of these fortresses, Kustrin and Spandau, to let the Imperial troops "pass and repass," but if the Swedes come "pray them to turn back," but if prayers failed, they were to be allowed to pass, for their conduct would show their power. Such an order must have been given while the duke was on one of his after-dinner too free libations.

As the Swedish army approached Spandau was granted to Gustavus, for the Elector saw that even without his consent, Gustavus would take it. Then John George, Elector of Saxony, controlled by his own envy and jealousy, utterly refused to let Gustavus have free passage through his State, even forbidding him to cross the Elbe.

Gustavus did not desire to go to war with the prince who was the very head and front of the Protestant Union, which in the February meeting had demanded the revocation of the Edict of Restitution.

He had to force his way into Mecklenburg, whose ruling princes were his kinsmen. He had given them shelter and kindness when they had been pressed by the Imperial forces. Indeed, his entering the Thirty Years' War was partly on their behalf, but the Emperor had his Jesuits everywhere, and when Gustavus landed in Pomerania he found the Dukes of Mecklenburg more friendly to the Imperialists than to him. He needed that State to secure his rear and to keep open communications with Sweden.

In the meantime, while Gustavus was conquering small towns and restoring order to Pomerania (to which the frightened inhabitants were returning), and was being harassed, worried and annoyed beyond human words to express by these two Protestant electors, let us recall what was happening to Magdeburg.

Gustavus had despatched General Falkenberg, an experienced officer, to Magdeburg. He had entered the city disguised as a boatman. He found the people discouraged and disheartened, but this intrepid soldier so revived them that, with three thousand militia, two thousand of the regular infantry and one hundred and fifty horsemen, they determined to resist the Imperialists, consisting of thirty-three thousand infantry and nine thousand cavalry.

There are pages of pathos in every history, but nothing exceeds the pathetic picture of that heroic, devoted soldier refusing quarter because the condition of surrender was that they should become Papists. There were traitors within the walls. Three hundred of them rushed with great joy to the invaders as they entered the city, but were mostly cut down.

Magdeburg was taken May 10th by storm. Their first vengeance was on the Protestant clergy. They killed them in their homes, and burned them and their books together. They bound the wives and daughters of the clergy to the tails of their horses. They dragged them into camp, where they were outraged and murdered. St. John's Lutheran Church was filled with women, the Imperialists nailed the doors, shut and burned the church. They tied the most beautiful women of the city to the stirrups of their horses and raced each other, with their victims, out of town. They carried screaming children aloft on their bloody pikes; of the entire city only the cathedral, the cloister and four or five houses were left. General Falkenberg perished with his men. When called to surrender, he replied, "I hold out while I live."

The Imperialists were in momentary fear that Gustavus would arrive, so that they filled every hour of three days and nights in robbery, rape and murder, unequaled in all the annals of history. Babes were speared at their mothers' breasts. One miscreant boasted that he had burned twenty infants. Fifty-three women were beheaded at one time, while at prayers. Probably forty thousand perished in this holocaust. In this manner the ban of the Holy Roman Empire was executed on a German city for defending the gospel.

Tilly wrote his Emperor: "Not since Troy and Jerusalem has there been such a victory." On Falkenberg's house a tablet was placed, "Remember May 10th, 1631," and all Protestants who know history from that day to this do, with bitterness of heart, remember that dreadful day.

Tilly was born in Brabant in 1559. He had been educated in a college of Jesuits and well represented their principles. He had distinguished himself in the Turkish war, and in the war of the Netherlands, under the Duke of Alva, whom he took for his model. In his private life he was moral, and like Paul before his conversion, he really thought to kill heretics was doing God's service. But Magdeburg ruined his reputation, he became tormented with remorse; the hatred later shown to him and his retreating forces embittered his later years, and, possibly, may have caused that remorse.

But where was Gustavus Adolphus during this woeful time? He was held back by Duke John George of Saxony, and by his own brother-in-law, Duke George William of Brandenburg. The latter was a weak creature, perfectly under the influence of his minister, Schwarzenberg, an employé of the Emperor of Austria.

Neither of these princes dreamed that Magdeburg would be destroyed, they only expected it to change hands. There was something of hatred among the princes against the Hanseatic towns, which was a factor in their detention of Gustavus Adolphus.