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244
Military punishments
and discipline.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
Tlie liing’s marriage.
Invasion of Livonia. [1612—
fore the superior court were to be tried all treason- j
able and other heinous offences, with all civil
causes which were brought by appeal from the
lower court. In criminal cases no appeal was
allowed, but the sentence was to be referred to the
marshal, or to the king when he was present. In
such as touched life, limb, or honour, the court
was to be held within a circle of troops under the
open sky, but in civil matters within a tent. The
penalties are, first, eorpoi-al inflictions on head or
hand, with more or less dishonour. The most
shameful of all was hanging, which every tenth
man by lot must undergo if a squadron of horse or
regiment of foot took to flight during an engage-
ment, before they were disabled from using their
swords ;
the rest in such case to serve without
standard, to lie out of quarters, and to clean the
camp, until they
" had compensated their offence
by manhood." Other punishments were riding on
the wooden horse, imprisonment with fetters, bread
and water, the gantelope, pecuniary fines, depri-
vation and degradation for officers, ignominious
ejection from the camp for privates. Caning was
not permitted ’. Courtesans were not suffered in
the camp ^ If any one chose to have his wife
with him it was allowed. The chaplain was to
perform service every Sunday, and give one ser-
mon in the week, when there was opportunity ;
prayers were to be said morning and evening. All
the field chaplains together formed a field con-
sistory, over which the king’s court-preacher or
the general’s preacher presided. These articles of
war were to be read once a month before every
regiment. The first time the high chancellor read
them to the whole army, which, consisting of nine
regiments of infantry and ten companies of cavalry,
in all 20,000 men, was ai-rayed in full order of
battle on the meadow of Aorsta.
Here the whole royal family were assembled.
This had been diminished by the death, in 1618, of
duke John and his consort, young in years, it is said
after an unhappy union, embittered by jealousy 2.
After the decease of this melancholic but valiant
prince, East-Gothland fell in to the crown. On
the meadow of Aorsta the army saw their sovereign
surrounded by his wife, his mother, his mother-in-
law, and his brother. The first were present to
say farewell to liira before his departure for the
’ The general of artillery, count von der Decken, in his
history of George, duke of Brunswick and Liineburg,
Hanover, 1834, says of these articles of war, ii. 113, "Com-
pared with others of that time, they are distinguished by a
spirit of humanity, which ulTers a great contrast to the penal
code of Charles V. In the Swedish army it was forbidden
to punish the private soldiers by beating; only for grave
offences of insubordination they received blows with the flat
of the sabre."
’
To a regiment of German laiulskntchts, a troop of loose
women was so unfailing an appendage, that tliey were
placed under an oflicer, called the wenches’ beadle.
’
According to a note in the Nordin MSS.
3
Hallenberg, iv. 888.
* " In the year Ifi20, his majesty, my most gracious sove-
reign, was in Berlin unknown, with the dowager electress
of Brandenburg, and there concerted a marriage between
himself and her grace the princess Maria Eleonora."
Note by Axel Oxenstierna. Palnisk. MSS. t. .3o. From the
king’s own journal wc quote the following :
" On Saturday
we came to Berlin ; the niglit before we lay in a village
called Blisendorf, whence njy brother-in-law (the palsgrave
John Casimir) went iirst to I’otstamb ; and there wc received
seat of war, the last to accompany him thither.
His bride he had himself selected. The same year
(1(J18) in which Ebba Brahe was married, Gus-
tavus Adolphus sailed privately in the beginning of
August from Calmar to Germany, and returned so
early as the twentieth day of the month. It is
believed that during this time he visited Berlin
unknown, and saw the princess Maria Eleonora ^,
respecting whom his agent Birkhold had already
written to him two years previously. In 1619
he sent his chamberlain Gustave Horn, nephew of
the general, to the elector of Brandenburg John
Sigismund and his consort Anne, to announce that
he intended to repair to Germany, and assure him-
self personally of the friendship of several German
princes. Horn was to take note whether they ex-
pected the king’s visit with gladness in Berlin, and
declare his wish for a connexion by marriage be-
tween his king and the house of Brandenburg, in
case the talk so fell out at court. The king him-
self appears to have been certain of his bride, for
he made preparations for her reception in Stock-
holm, and for his own departure to convey her
thither. The journey was deferred by the death
of the old elector and the accession of his son
Geoi-ge William to the government ;
but in April,
1620, Gustavus Adolphus sailed from Stockholm,
came again privately to Berlin, and prosecuted his
suit personally *. He also in the character of a
Swedish captain visited the Palatine court, and
returned home after a two months’ absence. He
then disclosed to the council his matrimonial pro-
ject, which he had formed by advice of his mother.
To conclude the matter, Axel Oxenstierna was
despatched, who brought home the king’s bride.
The nuptials were celebrated on the 28th Novem-
ber, in the castle of Stockholm. Maria Eleonora
was then in her twenty-first yeai’, and was reck-
oned by all a perfect beauty. She fell sick with
grief at the king’s departure, and was brought to
bed of a dead daughter the same day on which he
sailed, July 24, 1621. The fleet consisted of a
hundred and forty-eight ships, with ten yachts.
Being dispei’sed by a storm, the ship on board of
which were Gustavus Adolphus and Charles Philip
came to Pernau, whence the king and the duke
travelled by land to Riga. There the scattered
letters from the young elector, and rode to Sellendorp,
parting from the palsgrave. A lodging was mentioned to
us with Retzlou ;
when we came to it, he thought us English
soldiers and would not harbour us ;
so it went at another.
At last we came to Arnheim’s lodging, and there we were
received." (By Arnheim the king announced his arrival to
the electress, and his wish to speak with her.)
"
Therefore,
at nine o’clock on Sunday we went to the castle, where we
arrived just at the commencement of the sermon. ^V’hen
I came into the ante-chamber where pages and other persons
sat, every one wondered who I was and what I wanted. In
the mean time the sermon proceeded ;
the te.xt was of the
rich man ; the prologue, how we in this world played a
comedy, and how variously God, who ruleth all, distributcth
the parts which we men shall here act in this world.’ (Ne.\t
the king gives the divisions of the sermon.) "When the
sermon was finished, those were sent out of the way who
were not desired for spectators, and I was called in. My
discourse to the electress ; her answer. Afterwards I was
brought into the chamber of the duchess of Courland, when
wc conversed of what had befallen on the journey. Mean-
while meal-time arrived, and I was invited to remain at the
repast." Ex MS. R. Gust. Ad. Palmsk. MSS. t. 56. Printed
in the Stockholm Magazine, v. iii.
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