温 LUTHERAN ENVELOPES. afterwards, Gustavus Adolphus re-took the city, and Protestantism was once more established in its midst. Three years later, however, Augsburg was again captured, and the form of religion was again changed, though many of the citizens preferred exile to the abandonment of their faith. In course of time a Protestant section grew up in the community, which celebrated the memory of past events by festivals, and was especially anxious to propagate it among the young. This object was partly attained by the circulation of letters on religious and political faiths, which exercised a very considerable influence on the people. They were sent in envelopes, which were purposely made to produce a striking impression. These writings, printed by hand, were addressed direct to persons whose faith the Protestants were desirous of strengthening, or whose return to the Reformed Church they were eager to secure. The envelope assured the safe carriage of the writing by trustworthy co-religionists. The use of these little religious sheets increased, and the times becoming more settled, they were sold, along with their envelopes, even at the fairs. These envelopes are now rare, and the one of which we give a fac-simile was found among the papers of Oberlin. It is dated 1732, and is of particular interest. The reverse and obverse sides are engraved, and the lines on the engravings indicate the folds. This envelope (Figs. I. and II.) was made in honour of Gustavus Adolphus, on the occasion of the centenary of the deliverance of Augsburg. We give a literal translation of the German texts in Fig. I., and of the texts that occupied the blank spaces in Fig. II. 287 1. As the eagle in its flight turns ever toward the sun, Gustavus turns loyally to God in Christ alone. 2. As the sunflower looks continually toward the monarch of the day, Gustavus will to God alone direct his eye alway. 3. As the compass alway in the north a resting-place doth find, Gustavus still on Jesus Christ relies with heart and mind. 4. Gustavus' glory as in rock engraven still shall stand, So long as ever there remains a Lutheran in the land. 5. Entrance into Augsburg of H.M. Gustavus Adolphus, which happened 24th April, A.D. 1632. CHAPTER VIII. CONQUEST OF THE RHINE AND BAVARIA-BATTLE OF LÜTZEN. Thanksgiving-Two Roads-Gustavus Marches to the Rhine-Submission of Erfurt, Wurzburg, Frankfort-Capture of Mainz-Gustavus' Court-Future Arrangements for Germany-The King's Plans-Stipulations for PeaceTerms Rejected-Gustavus Enters Bavaria-Defeat and Death of Tilly-Wallenstein Recalled-His Terms-The Saxons in Bohemia - Gustavus at Augsburg-At Ingolstadt-His Encampment at Nuremberg-Camp of Wallenstein-Famine and Death-Wallenstein Invades Saxony-Gustavus Follows him-The Two Armies Meet at Lützen-Morning of the Battle-The King's Address to his Troops-The Battle-Capture and Recapture of Trenches and Cannon-Murderous Conflicts-The King Wounded-He Falls. WHEN he saw how the day had gone, the first act of Gustavus Adolphus was to fall on his knees on the blood-besprinkled plain, and to give thanks for the victory which had crowned his arms.1 On this field the God of battles had "cast down the mighty," 1 Schiller, vol. i., p. 269. and "exalted them of low degree." There was now an end to the jeers of the Jesuits, and the supercilious insolences of Ferdinand. Having offered his prayer, Gustavus rose up to prosecute, in the mightier strength with which victory had clothed him, the great enterprise which had brought him across the sea. He encamped for the night between the city of Leipsic and the field of battle. On that field 7,000 imperialists lay dead, and in addition 5,000 had been wounded or taken prisoners. The loss of the Swedes did not exceed 700; that of the Saxons amounted to 2,000, who had fallen on the field, or been cut down in the pursuit. In a few days the Elector of Saxony, who had accompanied his soldiers in their flight, believing all to be lost, returned to the camp of the king, finding him still victorious, and a council of war was held to decide on the measures to be adopted for the further prosecution of the war. Two roads were open to Gustavus-one to Vienna, and the other to the Rhine; which of the two shall he choose? If the king had marched on Vienna, taking Prague on his way, it is probable that he would have been able to dictate a peace on his own terms at the gates of the Austrian capital. His renowned chancellor, Oxenstierna, was of opinion that this was the course which Gustavus ought to have followed.1 But the king did not then fully know the importance of the victory of Breitenfeld, and the blow it had inflicted on the imperial cause; nor could he expect any material succours in Bohemia, where Protestantism was almost entirely trampled out; so, sending the Elector of Saxony southwards, where every operation against the Popish States would help to confirm his own Protestant loyalty, still doubtful, the Swedish monarch directed his own march to the West, where the free cities, and the Protestant princes, waited his coming to shake off the yoke of Ferdinand, and rally round the standard of the Protestant Liberator. His progress was a triumphal march. The fugitive Tilly had collected a few new regiments to oppose his advance, but he had marshalled them only to be routed by the victorious Swedes. The strongly fortified city of Erfurt fell to the arms of Gustavus; Gotha and Weimar also opened their gates to him. He exacted an oath of allegiance from their inhabitants, as he did of every town of any importance, of which he took possession, leaving a garrison on his departure, to secure its loyalty. The army now entered the Thuringian Forest, cresset lights hung upon the trees enabling it to thread its densest thickets in perfect 1 Puffendorf, p. 53. Chapman, p. 267. safety. On the 30th September, 1631, the king crossed the frontier of Franconia. The cities opened their gates to him, most of them willingly, and a few after a faint show of resistance. To all of them the conqueror extended protection of their civil rights, and liberty of worship. The Bishops of Wurzburg and Bamberg trembled when they saw the Swedes pouring like a torrent into their territories. These two ecclesiastics were among the most zealous members of the League, and the most virulent enemies of the Protestants, and they and the towns of their principalities anticipated the same treatment at the hands of the conquerors which they in similar circumstances had inflicted on others. Their for tresses, cities, and territories were speedily in possession of Gustavus, but to their glad surprise, instead of the desecration of their churches, or the persecution of their persons, they beheld only a brilliant example of toleration. The Protestant worship was set up in their cities, but the Roman service was permitted to be practised as before. The Bishop of Wurzburg, however, had not remained to be witness of this act of moderation. He had fled to Paris at the approach of Gustavus. In the fortress of Marienburg, which the Swedish king carried by storm, he found the valuable library of the Jesuits, which he caused to be transported to Upsala. This formed some compensation for the more valuable library of Heidelberg which had been transferred to Rome. On the 17th of November he entered Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and marched his army in a magnificent procession through it. "He appeared in the midst of his troops, clad in cloth of scarlet and gold, riding a handsome Spanish jennet, bare-headed, with a bright and handsome countenance, and returning with graceful courtesy the cheers and salutations of the spectators.' From the furthest shore of Pomerania, to the point where he had now arrived, the banks of the Maine, the king had held his victorious way without being once compelled to recede, and without encountering a single defeat. "Here, in the heart of Germany, he received the Protestant States like a German emperor of the olden time." 113 Traversing the Ecclesiastical States that stretch from the Maine to the Rhine, "the Priest's Row," the milk and honey of which regaled his soldiers after the sterile districts through which they had passed, Gustavus crossed the Rhine, and laid siege (11th December) to the wealthy city of Mainz. 2 Chemnitz, vol. i., p. 199-apud Chapman, p. 285. 3 Ludwig Häusser, vol. ii., p. 168. whose wisdom he so confidingly and justly relied. The city of Mainz and the banks of the Rhine resounded with the din and shone with the splendour of the old imperial times. Couriers were hourly arriving and departing; ambassadors from foreign States were daily receiving audience; the Protestant princes, and the deputies from the imperial towns, were crowding to pay their homage to, or solicit the protection of, the victorious chief; uniforms and royal equipages crowded the street; and while the bugle's note and the drum's roll were heard without, inside the palace negotiations were going on, treaties were being framed, the future condition and relations of Germany were being discussed and decided upon, and efforts were being made to frame a basis of peace, such as might adjust the balance between Popish and Protestant Germany, and restore rest to the weary land, and security to its trembling inhabitants. When the king set out from Sweden to begin this gigantic enterprise, his one paramount object was the restoration of Protestantism, whose overthrow was owing quite as much to the pusillanimity of the princes, as to the power of the imperial arms. He felt "a divine impulse" impelling him onwards, and he obeyed, without settling, even with himself, what recompense he should have for all his risks and toils, or what material guarantees it might be necessary to exact, not only for the security of a re-established Protestantism, but also for the defence of his own kingdom of Sweden, which the success of his expedition would make an object of hostility to the Popish princes. The Elector of Brandenburg had sounded him on this point before he entered his dominions, and Gustavus had frankly replied that if the exiles were restored, religious liberty granted to the States, and himself secured against attack from the Hapsburgs in his own country, he would be satisfied. But now, in the midst of Germany, and taking a near view of matters as success on the battle-field had shaped them, and especially considering the too obvious lukewarmness and imbecility of the Protestant princes, it is probable that the guarantees that would have satisfied him at an earlier stage, he no longer deemed sufficient. It is even possible that he would not have declined a controlling power over the princes, somewhat like that which the emperor wielded. We do not necessarily impute ambitious views to Gustavus Adolphus, when we admit the possibility of some such arrangement as this having shaped itself before his mind; for it might seem to him that otherwise the existence of a Protestant Germany was not possible. He would have been guilty of something like folly, if he had not taken the best means in his power to perpetuate what he accounted of so great value, and to save which from destruction he had undertaken so long a march, and fought so many battles; and when he looked round on the princes he might well ask himself, "Is there one of them to whom I can with perfect confidence commit this great trust?” We do not say that he had formed this plan; but if the fruits of his victories were not to be dissipated, some such plan he would ultimately have been compelled to have recourse to; and amidst a crowd of insincere, pusillanimous, and incompetent princes, where could a head to such a confederacy have been found if not in the one only man of zeal, and spirit, and capacity that the cause had at its service? The restorations that the Swedish king at this hour contemplated, and the aspect which the future Germany would have worn, had he lived to put the crown upon his enterprise, may be gathered from the stipulations which he demanded when the Roman Catholic party made overtures of peace to him. These were the following: 1st. The Edict of Restitution shall be null and void. 2nd. Both the Roman and the Protestant religion shall be tolerated in town and country. 3rd. Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia shall be restored to their former condition; all the exiles shall return to their estates. 4th. The Elector-Palatine, Frederick V., shall be restored to his country. 5th. The Bavarian Electorate shall cease; the electoral vote shall be restored to the Palatinate. 6th. The practice of the Protestant religion, and all civil privileges, shall be restored to Augsburg. 7th. All Jesuits, as disturbers of the public peace, and authors of the present difficulties, shall be banished from the empire. 8th. Protestants as well as Romanists shall be admitted into every institution. 9th. The monasteries in the Duchy of Wurtemberg which have been illegally taken possession of by the Romanists shall be restored. 10th. Out of gratitude for the salvation of the German Empire, your Majesty the King of Sweden shall be elected King of Rome. 11th. All expenses incurred in the imperial cities and in the Duchy of Wurtemberg by the Edict of Restitution shall be repaid. 12th. There shall be as many Lutheran as Catholic canons appointed to the cathedral.' We have two lists of these conditions—one by 1 Ludwig Häusser, vol. ii., pp. 170, 171. WALLENSTEIN RECALLED. Khevenhiller,' and another by Richelieu. In the latter list the 10th article, which stipulates that Gustavus should be made King of the Romans, is wanting. To be King of Rome was to hold in reversion the empire; but this article is far from being authenticated. Such were the terms on which the conqueror was willing to sheathe his sword and make peace with the emperor. Substantially, they implied the return of Germany to its condition before the war (status quo ante bellum); and they were not only just and equitable, but, though Richelieu thought otherwise, extremely moderate, when we think that they were presented by a king, in the heart of Germany, at the head of a victorious host, to another sovereign whose army was all but annihilated, and the road to whose capital stood open to the conqueror. The stipulations, in brief, were the free profession of religion to both Romanists and Lutherans throughout the empire. The terms were rejected, and the war was resumed. In the middle of February, 1532, the king put his army in motion, advancing southward into Bavaria, that he might attack the League in the chief seat of its power. The fallen Tilly made a last effort to retrieve his fame by the overthrow of his great antagonist. Having collected the wreck of his routed host, with the addition of some new levies, he waited on the banks of the river Lech for the approach of Gustavus. The defeat of the general of the League was complete: both the army and its leader were utterly lost; the former being dispersed, and Tilly dying of his wounds a few days after the battle. It delights us to be able to pay a tribute to the memory of the warrior whom we now see expiring at the age of seventy-three. He was inflamed with bigotry, but he was sincere and open, and had not stained himself with the low vices and shameless hypocrisy of the Jesuits, nor with the dark arts which Wallenstein studied. He was chaste and temperate-virtues beyond price in every age, but especially in an age like that in which Tilly lived. The cloud on his glory is the sack of Magdeburg, but retribution soon followed in the eclipse of Leipsic. After that the sun-light of his face never returned. He complained that the world spoke ill of him, and that those whom he had faithfully served had left him desolate in his age. He died grasping the crucifix, and expended his parting breath in repeating a verse from the Psalms "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust." 114 3 1 Khevenhiller, vol. xii., p. 87. 2 Richelieu, Memoirs, vol. vii., p. 45. 3 Chapman, pp. 296, 297. Aldzreitter, vol. iii., p. 265-apud Chapman, p. 313. 291 The overthrow of Tilly, and the utter rout of his army, had left the frontiers of Austria without defence; and the emperor saw with alarm that the road to his capital was open to the victorious Swede if he chose to pursue it. The whole of Germany between the Rhine and the Danube was in possession of Gustavus, and a new army must be found if Ferdinand would prevent the conqueror seating himself in Vienna. Even granting that an army were raised, who was to command it? All his generals had fallen by the sword; one only survived, but how could Ferdinand approach him, seeing he had requited his great services by dismissal? But the desperate straits to which he was reduced left the emperor no alternative, and he made overtures to Wallenstein. That consummately able, but vaultingly ambitious man, listened to the royal proposals, but deigned them no reply. Living in a style of magnificence that threw Ferdinand and all the sovereigns of the day into the shade, Wallenstein professed to have no desire to return to the toils of a military life. The emperor in distress sent again and again to the duke. At last Wallenstein was moved. He would succour the empire at its need; he would organise an army, but he would not command it. He set to work; the spell of his name was still omnipotent. In three months he had raised 50,000 men, and he sent to the emperor to tell him that the army was ready, and that he waited only till he should name the man who was to command it, when he would hand it over to his Majesty. Every one knew that the troops would soon disperse if the man who had raised them was not at their head. Again the imperial ambassadors kneeled before Wallenstein. They begged him to undertake the command of the army which he had equipped. The duke was inexorable. Other ambassadors were sent, but they entreated in vain. At last came the prince of Eggenberg, and now Wallenstein was won, but on terms that would be incredible were they not amply authenticated. The treaty concluded in April, 1632, provided that the Duke of Friedland should be generalissimo not only of the army, but of the emperor, of the arch-dukes, and of the Austrian crown. The emperor must never be present in the army, much less command it. As ordinary reward an Austrian hereditary territory was to be bestowed on Wallenstein; as extraordinary he was to have sovereign jurisdiction over all the conquered territories, and nearly all Germany was to be conquered. He was to possess, moreover, the sole power of confiscating estates; he only could pardon; and the emperor's forgiveness was to be valid only when ratified by |