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- XVI. Gustavus II. Adolphus. The Danish, Russian, and Polish Wars. A.D. 1612—1629
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2-18
Successes of the Swedish
arms. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
Occurrences in Livonia.
Domestic affairs.
[1612—
take quai’tei’s for himself, before the quarter-
master had assigned his abode *. Kouigsberg was
granted neutraUty
*
; Dantzic, on the other hand,
refused to accejit it, and declared open hostility
with Sweden. Meanwhile the king fortified his
leaguer in Dirschau. His army had been weakened
by furnishing so many garrisons. It was reinforced
at the end of August by the chancellor, who brought
new troops from Finland ;
on the other hand, the
division under Tliurn, expected from Livonia, was
delayed, to the king’s dissatisfaction. At length
its arrival made hiiu strong enough to march
against Sigismund, who had assembled his army
at Graudentz, and laid siege to Mewe,
" at which
pillory," says Gustavus Adolphus,
" he stood four-
teen days without effecting any thing," until he was
forced to retreat. Axel Oxenstierna was appointed
" the king’s legate over the army in Prussia, aud
governor-general of the towns and country then
possessed by Sweden." In the end of October,
(162b’,) Gustavus Adolphus embarked at Pillau,
which he had fortified, and by the 5th November
was in Stockholm. The 8th December, at eight
in the evening, his daughter Christina was born to
him *.
" 1 was then with the king alone in his
chamber," says the younger count Peter Brahe in
his journal,
" and he had then a sharp tertian ague,
which he had gotten in Prussia during the autumn.
The king fenced with me some days in the dining-
room, and thrust so, that the fever left him."
In Livonia the summer and autumn had been
spent in negotiations, either with Poland or with
Lithuania singly, interrupted by military move-
ments, which produced but slight impression. The
king misliked de la Gardie’s inactivity, especially
••
This ordinance was issued by the king, June 30, 1626.
Compare the Baggage ordinance, June 23, 1627. Reg.
5
Upon this neutrality, the garrisoning of Pillau, and the
king’s conduct touching the double relation of the duchy of
Prussia to Poland and Brandenburg, there are some re-
markable expressions in his conversation with the Prussian
deputies, shortly after his arrival. "It is known," he said,
" that they are hereditary subjects of tlie crown of Poland,
and consequently my foes." Further, he declared in the
outset, that lie had not come to inflict any injuries on their
prince, his brother-in-law, or on the country.
" In taking
Pillau," be proceeds,
" I acted by right of natural, civil,
and every law ; for the king of Poland, my enemy, might
have come with his fleet to me in Sweden ; and the port of
Dantzic is not so harmful to me, since it is but ten to eleven
feet deep, and no war fleet, consequently, can enter or leave
it; while I bold Pillau, with its depth of twenty-eight feet,
to be commodious for war ships. Therefore was it needful
for the security of my states to take and fortify it. True,
it is but a gap through which I must move onward ; where-
fore it will be hard for you in regard to that haven, to defend
yourselves from the crown of Poland, whence ye have only
hostilities to expect. It were better not to mix up your
prince, my brotlierin-law, in this matter. Ye must in this
case depend \ipon yourselves, for ye have yourselves knit
these alliances with the king and crown of Poland, and
therein entangled the father of the prince my brother-in-
law. These leagues must in time of necessity make your
heads to stoop; therefore it were but reasonable that ye
embraced my party, seeing we are of one religion and related.
I protest to God that I mean honestly and well by you; for
if I meant ill, then would I not have left the town of
Konigsberg in my rear." Of his soldiers the king said :
" Those I now have with me are, indeed, but poor Swedish
peasant lads, of indifterent as|)ect and ill clad ; but they
fight bravely, and I hope shortly to clothe them better.
Every man of them is forward, and they may well be pitted
as tidings had arrived that the Poles had again
entered Livonia. Jacob de la Gardie was not less
known for his heroism than for his easiness, and
not adapted to distinguish himself in a suboi-dinate
post. A long time passed away without his writing
a letter ’. The general’s proposal to obtain a
proltjngation of the truce by the cession of some
fortresses in Courland, did not please the king.
" It surpriseth us," he wrote to de la Gardie on
the 11th January, 1627, "that we have heard
nothing from you since the 16th October. If ye
would wish to escape our displeasure, ye must keep
Birzen and Bautske to our hand, which places are
of greater importance than ye perhaps may think *."
De la Gardie answered these reproaches by his
victory over the Poles at Wenden ^.
Internal arrangements and preparations for
the second Prussian campaign occupied the king
throughout the winter months. The government
during his impending absence he committed as
usual to those of the councillors who remained at
home. They were to assemble in the council-
chamber twice in the week, on Monday and Thurs-
day, from eight to eleven in the forenoon, and in
the interval as often as should be needful, and to
keep coi’rect protocols and registers of the resolu-
tions ’. The command of the forces on home
stations he entrusted to his brother-in-law, the
Palsgrave John Casimir. With the new taxes,
and especially the mill-toll, he ordered them to
proceed warily, that no tumult or sedition might
ensue in the absence of his majesty, and where
aught such was discovered, rather to yield some-
what until a more convenient time. The malver-
sations practised by some of the in officers giving
against red-coats and cossacks. I should have gone right
on to Konigsberg, but I have spared my brother-in-law and
his country. I note well that ye would keep the middle
way ; but that will be a break-neck road for you. I say to
you, vinco aut vincor, vos maculabimini. Ye must hold
with me or with the crown of Poland. I am your brother
in religion ; I have a princess of Prussia to wife ; I will fight
for you and fortify the town ; I have good engineers with
me, and understand myself somewhat of it, and syne I will
defend myself against the crown of Poland and the devil
himself." The conversation is recorded in the papers left
by Uallenberg, and appears to have been taken from Hoppe’s
Manuscript, Decennale Borussias Fatum, which 1 have not
seen.
6 Besides her first still-born child, in 1621, the queen was,
on the 16th October, 1623, delivered of a daughter named
in baptism Christina, who died on the 21st September fol-
lowing.
’ This however with official persons of those days was
not infrequent. Jan. 4, 1627, the king writes to Nicholas
Bielke, governor-general of Finland, and the same day to
the lieutenants at Wiborg, Reval, and Narva, that he had
heard nothing from them for the whole summer and a long
time after, which he knew not whether it proceeded from
want of ink and paper, or from inconsiderate levity and
culpable negligence ; since it was otherwise well known to
them that governors had to render an account of the con-
dition of their fiefs at least once a month. Reg.
fi
Reg. for 1627.
s " The king expects that the general has rid Livonia of
the enemy after the victory at Wenden, will repair in sum-
mer to Courland or Lithuania, or stay in Livonia atKeggum,
where he may command the Duna." To the general, Feb.
n, 1627. Reg.
’
Instruction for the Council during the absence of his
Majesty; Stockholm, June 15, 1626. Reg. One of similar
purport for 1625 is in Hallenberg.
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