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1632.]
Progress to the Rhine.
Tilly declines battle. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. GERMAN WAR. Collision with the
Spaniards. 273
forced with men ’’. If the enemy fall upon you,
whereof at so late a season there is little appear-
ance, look to it that you be able to maintain yourself
on the Saale and Elbe. If you should be too weak
for that, retire by all means to Werben, and hidge
yourself in a convenient position betwixt the Havel
and Elbe ;
hold the bridges with redoubts until
assistance be sent you. Correspond diligently «ith
Tott (in Mecklenburg) ;
let us have no disservice
through your jealousy ^. Help each other, without
any view, save for the service of your country.
Better your slowness in giving us information, and
send us a sub-officer once or twice in tlie week *."
When the enemy showed himself at Wurtzburg, the
king cut to pieces three regiments of his cavalry *.
Tilly passed by, and marched to Nuremberg,
lamenting with tears that the elector of Bavaria
had forbidden him to venture any thing decisive".
These were not the only difficulties with which the
king had to contend on this otherwise so victorious
expedition. In spite of the booty which had been
taken, want of money still prevented the payment
in full of the army ’; he was obliged to coin bad
money *, and took violent measures for the purpose
of upholding the value of the copper coinage in
Sweden’. The danger of Nuremberg (the town
had declared for Sweden) had already called forth
his resolution to return to Franconia’; but Tilly
raised the siege, and the king continued his career
of victory on the Rhine. This brought him into
conflict with the Spaniards, and awakened the fears
of France.
" We have unexpectedly fallen into collision of
arms with the Spaniards," he writes home to the
2 In a subsequent letter to Baner the king says,
" Rein-
force your numbers; employ thereto every means both with
friends and foes. Do not square yourself in the levies by
the authority of the duke of Anhalt, though he be our lieu-
tenant, seeing you know that under God the whole adjumen-
tum rei gerendte consists in this, that we become strong in
troops." Oppenlieiui, Dec. 8, 1831. Reg.
’ A similar letter was sent by the king to Ake Tott, a very
brave man, but hot in temper. (He was son of a daughter
of Eric XIV.)
* To the lord John Baner, Wurtzburg, Nov. 8, 1631.
Reg.
’
Proposition to the estates, Feb. 4, 1632. Reg.
s " Since there was no other reserve available." Kheven-
liuller, xi. 1884. "It was better to delay than be ruined,"
Maximilian of Bavaria wrote to the emperor.
’^
They were partly paid with assignments for six months.
Monro, ii. 86.
8 " We have dealt with one named Zwirner, who with some
of his fellows will strike us a quantity of bad money." To
the same person is also committed the coinage of Sweden,
and the palsgrave is directed to look narrowly to his proceed-
ings. Querfurt, Sept. 18, 1631. In the Register for April,
1632, appears a letter from the council that all the copper in
their hands should be struck into kreutzers (cross-pieces) and
sent to the king.
9 " We must bring the matter to this point, that no other
coins shall pass in Sweden but rix-doUars in specie and
copper-money. We desire therefore that your lovingness
with the council will publicly prohibit all coins, excepting
the aforesaid, in all the provinces subject to our authority,
whereby we expect that the copper coins shall be in request,
and be sou(:ht for again out of Holland, and thereby copper
will be made valuable." With his agent in Holland, Eric
Laurenceson, to whom the subsidies from the states and the
copper trade were committed, the king was highly displeased,
and transferred these affairs to Conrad Falkenberg instead,
" since he was not so experienced in making false reckonings,
council of state.
" When we lately caused the Sjia-
nish general de Silva (conmiander in Mentz) to be
waited upon by the colonel of our horse- guard.s,
duke Bernard of Saxe- Weimar, he declared that
he had orders to assist the archbishop of Mentz
against us. When now we commenced our march
from Frankfort towards the Palatinate, the Spa-
niards began to erect a bridge, with a sconce, on tlie
Darmstadt side, which we, according to the usage
of war, could not avoid. We signified to them that
the sconce was in our way ;
and as they would not
evacuate the same, but fired upon us, altlmugh it
was untenable, we resolved to pass the Rhine at
Oppenheim, and cut off those in the sconce. When
we had crossed with some hundred soldiers, don
Philip de Silva charged us with his cavalry, but
was repulsed, whereupon those in the sconce sur-
rendered to us by accord on the 7th December.
The 8th we took the town of Oppenheim without
resistance, and the castle by storm. Now is this to
be thought a breach of the peace 1 Or shall we
seek a composition with Spain on account of our
trade, and to have our hands free against France,
whose king is marching hither with a great army,
and already in Mentz ^, to impede our treaty with
the emperor ? On another side, Spain will not wil-
lingly let go what it possesses in the palatinate ;
and without the restitution of the elector pala-
tine there can be no secure peace. Against Spain,
England and Holland would be inclined to give us
assistance. In any case our western sea-coast
might be secured by the fortification of Gottem-
burg *." The letter is dated from Mentz, which
and in frauds upon our revenues." The king concedes from
his ways and means for the war 1500 skeppunds of copper,
which may make at least 60,000 rix-doUars (13,500i.) ; and
assigns them as a capital for carrying on the copper-mines.
The newly-levied men were to be sent over. " W’e would
gladly wish, if the safety of the country permitted it, to be
again strengthened with six regiments, besides with one
thousand Swedish and five hundred Finnish troopers, and
that the men should not be sent to us with bare backs, as
hitlierto hath been done." To the palsgrave John Casimir,
Ochsenfurt, Nov. I, 1631. Reg.
1 "
The old devil with all his young ones, as Lorraine,
Pappenheim, Fiirstenberg, Gallas, Ossa, lies now before
Nuremberg. I march, if God will, to-morrow to its succour.
The enemy is strong, but God hath granted us also consider-
able means, and we hope, together with the troops of the
landgrave and duke of Weimar, to have seventeen thousand
foot and nine thousand horse." The king to the palsgrave,
Hochst, Nov. 29, 1631. Other accounts soon arrive. The
same day the king writes to Horn,
" We have received
tidings that the enemy hath quitted Nuremberg, and divided
himself into three bodies ; one remains in this neighbour-
hood, another goes to Bohemia, a third to Bavaria. We
have therefore decided to accomplish our intention on the
Rhine." Reg.
2 On the causes of this movement, which were intestine
discords, see the Memoires de Richelieu. The king had
informed Louis XIII. of "his expedition into the land of
the priests," The envoy was to give close heed to the re-
ception of the news by the king of France, and to declare
that his majesty would gladly have kept peace with the
Leaguers, if they had not mixed themselves up in the war
with the emperor; nor could he have otherwise restored the
oppressed princes and towns, as required by his treaty with
France. His majesty persecuted no man on religion’s ac-
count. The envoy was to complain warmly of the duke of
Lorraine. Hochst, Nov. 28, 1631. Reg.
3 To the council of state, Mentz, Dec. 31, 1631. Id. The
king adds, that the king of Denmark had publicly spoken of
T
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