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1G29.]
He lays siege to
RiKa.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. POLISH WAR. The town surrenders.
Death of Charles Philip.
245
ships collected, and on the 5th August, the high-
admiral Charles Carlson G^’llenhielm ran without
hindrance into the Duna stream, while the in-
habitants of Riga set their suburbs on fire. Gus-
tavus Adolphus intrenched the Swedish leaguer
upon a sand-hill east of Riga, in four divisions. Iii
the first camp the king and the duke held the
command-in-chief, assisted by Philip count Mans-
feld and Gustave Horn. lu the second, to the
right, Jacob de la Gardie commanded, who had
brought reinforcements by land to the king from
Finland. To the left, at the manor of Hintz, was
the third camp under Herman Wrangel, who had
been nominated field-marshal, which at this time
meant the lieutenant of the generalissimo. The
fourth camp, under the command of the Scottish
colonel Seaton, lay nearer the town, by a windmill.
On the other bank of the Duna, and upon the
aits, Herman Fleming constructed intrenchments.
The high-admiral Gyllenhielm and the vice-admiral
Claes Fleming debarred with the fleet all access to
the town.
After some fruitless essay of negotiation, the
king, on the 13th of August, began the siege of
Riga. The intrenchments on the islets of the
Duna were completed under the enemy’s fire, and
now from all their works the Swedes cannonaded
the town. It was computed that more than two
thousand balls a-day were thrown, sometimes a
hundred in the hour, and many among them red
hot, in weight from twenty-five to sixty-four
pounds. Hereby the three horn-works of the town,
the Sandgate, and the ramparts, twenty feet in
breadth, were so much injured, as no longer to
afford tlie besieged effective protection. On the
29tli August the king began to fill the town-ditches
with faggots. The same day he wrote to his
brother-in-law, the elector of Brandenburg, that
the town made a gallant defence, that he was now
come to the ditches, and hoped the best ;
this was
the state of the war ;
the state of the common-
wealth was much too tedious to describe amidst
the thunder of the cannon ^. Riga was defended
by its burgesses, with but three hundred soldiei-s
to aid. Sigismund had promised relief from Daut-
zic, but it failed to ai’rive. The Lithuanian gene-
ral Radziwil had given the town assurance of
help, and showed himself at this point of the siege,
or in the last days of August, on the opposite bank
of the Duna with the Polish cavalry, but retreated
after a fruitless attempt to pass the river. Gus-
tavus Adolphus now, on the 2nd September, sum-
moned the town, thus left to itself, to surrender.
As from the deliberations of the council with the
Polish officials the return of the Swedish trumpeter
was long delayed, the king regarded it for an
evident proof that they were bent on the con-
tinuance of hostilities. He reopened his fire on
the fortifications, and at the same time made an
attempt to scale the walls, wherein the stormers
either fell, or were blown into the air by the
enemy’s mines. During two days and nights there-
after the attack was followed up, both from the
Swedish leaguer and the ships on the river. The
horn-works and flanking defences of the Jacob’s-
5 From the letter above-mentioned. The king adds,
" I
must deplore the misery of my house, wherein God hath
chastised me, in that my spouse has brought into the world
a dead-born child."
] gate, the Sandgate, and the Newgate, were bat-
tered down. In the night a bridge was thrown
j
across the now partly filled ditch, and ti’oops
:
passed over. But the bridge was ruined by shot,
and at last burned, so that many perished. After
three days the townsmen first sent back the
Swedish trumpeter with a reproach, that attacks
were made while the council was deliberating ;
the town could not break its troth sworn to the
Polish king and republic, and committed the event
to God. The mining was now carried on with so
great ardour on both sides, that the Swedes and
the defenders of the town even met and fought in
the mines, while attack and sally alternated at the
accessible portions of the walls. By the llth
September the Swedes had undermined in three
places the fortifications, which already showed ex-
tensive breaches. The draining of the water from
the ditches was begun, two bridges were thrown
over them, and the king resolved upon a general
assault for the next day, the detailed order of
which, drawn up by his own hand, is yet extant.
It was to have been undertaken in the night of the
12th, after the town had been fired upon the whole
day with red-hot balls, but before it should be
commenced, Riga was once more summoned to
surrender. The council requested a truce for three
days, in the hope that within these the promised
Polish relief might arrive. The king granted only
a cessation of arms to the following morning,
when the council agreed to capitulate. The town
was to belong to Sweden under the same con-
ditions as formerly to Poland. The 16th September
Gustavus Adolphus marched into Riga with his
whole army. The mildness with which he treated
the town was extolled both by friends and foes.
The siege had lasted for six weeks, during which
the king, who to encourage the soldiers was some-
times seen spade in hand along with his brother in
the trenches, was several times in peril of life.
When choosing a site for his leaguer ou the sand-
hill, a ball struck the very spot which he had
quitted the moment before ; during the siege seve-
ral persons were once shot down at his side, among
them one Stackelberg, with whose blood the king’s
clothes were sprinkled ; another time a ball passed
his head in his tent ^.
After the reduction of Riga, Gustavus Adolphus
marched to Courland, of whose dukes the one had
sought his protection, the other remained true to
the Poles. Mitau was taken, and several Livonian
fortresses fell into the king’s hands during the
residue of the autumn. Dorpt and Kockenhusen
still held out. Duive Charles Philip had ere this
time fallen sick at Riga. He wrote thence on the
15th November to his sister Catharine, that his
eyes had become dim by illness,but that his brother
lightened the time by agreeable discourse and
society ^. The letter is otherwise full of pleasantry.
His malady growing worse, Gustavus Adolphus
was obliged on his return to leave him at Narva.
There Charles Philip died on the 22nd January,
1622, in his twenty-first year. He was a placid,
active, and brave youth, burning with the desire of
distinction, and had availed himself of Axel Oxen-
stierna’s interposition to be allowed to take part in
the war. Gustavus Adolphus mourned for his
6
Hallenberg, iv. 946—9C5.
7 Palmsk. MSS. t. 36.
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