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286 Inquiry into the probability
of the charge.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
Its groundlessness
evinced. [1628-
that it was he who first related the king’s death; and
through him it was carher known in Weissenfels
than in the king’s own army. This duke, who after
the battle found neither countenance nor good-will
in the army, repaired after some days to his kins-
man the elector of Saxony, who sent him to Silesia,
where he is now field-marshal under lieutenant-
general Arnheim ’>."
We have mentioned a name loaded with the
blackest susjjicions, and also the circumstances
under which they arose. We may add, that no
proof can be alleged to substantiate tlie assertion
that Francis Albert of Lauenburg, in the midst of
the enemy’s fire, murdered Gustavus Adolphus,
—
who so little spared his own life, while the whole
course of the affair, and the accounts of eye-wit-
nesses, deprive the suspicion even of probability.
Howbeit all this did not prevent the suspicion from
becoming the creed of the soldiers in the Swedish
army, and growing with time into the belief of the
people. This may be quoted as an example how a
preconceived opinion gains strength with time,
takes its j)]ace in history, is propagated first as
a conjecture, next as a suspicion, and lastly is pro-
claimed as a certainty. The first accounts say
nothing of it ;
but in December, 1G32, Adler Sal-
vius writes,
*’
It is averred that a certain prince
murdered his majesty the king, with the privity
not only of the elector of Saxony, but of the em-
peror and other great princes ;
and now we hear it
publicly said in Hamburg that a like complot is in
progress against our incomparable, hero -like chan-
cellor. Advise therefore, exhort, persuade, be-
seech him to look closely and warily to himself in
eating and drinking, in visits and converse ’."
Chemnitz, who wrote under the eye of Axel Oxen-
stierna, states that the king had been slain by the
imperialist troopers, but adds, "This is the general
account ;
for what else is loudly whispered, that
the king was not shot by the enemy, but by a lead-
9 Swedish Intelligencer, lii. 137.
’
Salvius to Grubbe, Hamburg, Dec. 10, 16’)2. Arcken-
holtz, Mem. de Christine, i. 11.
-
Chemnitz, i. 46G.
3
Puffendorf, Commentar de reb. Suet. German transla-
tion, iv. 112. The confirmatory circumstances mentioned by
Puffendorf are, that Francis Albert said that he saved him-
self from the enemy’s shot by his green scarf (which tlius
should have been the colour of the Imperialists); but we
know that Wallenstein’s officers had red scarfs, and an
account quoted by Riihs (History of Sweden, iv. 274, n.)
says that the colours of the Swedes were green. Further,
that the duke some time after is said to have shown the
bloody clothes of the king, and consequently not only mur-
dered him, but also given himself time to plunder him ; all
which is just as improbable as Mauvillon’s conjecture, that
since a costly jewel disappeared from the king’s neck-chain
(which became the prize of an Imperialist trooper), the duke
of Lauenburg must have stolen it (see the well-known work
Histoire de Gustave Adolphe composee sur les manuscrits
de M. Arkenholtz i)ar M***, p. 598, a book in which good
materials were used with very indifferent judgment). The
evidence of a pretended eye-witness of the murder was first
produced after Puffendorf’s time. It is a narrative partly in
verse, partly in prose, by one Hastendorf, a life-guardsman,
who declares that he followed Gustavus Adolphus in the
battle, and saw him murdered by a great lord. It was de-
livered to Charles XII. during his residence in Saxony, who
upon the field of I.utzen declared that he gave no faith
to it. The narrative is full of absurdities, and bears mani-
fest traces of being fictitious. Compare FiJrster on the death
j
of Gustavus Adolphus in the Appendix to Wallenstein’s
ing person on our side, we refer it to God’s secret
doom ^." Puffendorf, Swedish historiographer, fifty
years after tlie occurrence, and at a time when
national prejudices were not offended with impu-
nity, declares the accused guilty. His reasons,
except some trivial circumstances unconfirmed,
are principally general probabilities, as: "there
can be no doubt that the Imperialists believed the
cause of the Swedes to depend singly and solely on
the bravery of Gustavus ;
hence they tried all
means to make away with him, and who could be
better fitted for such a deed than Francis Albert ^?"
What weight Puffendorf himself laid upon his own
testimony, is shown by one of his private letters,
wherein he complains that the existing duke of
Lauenburg was angry with him for his expressions
regarding duke Francis ;
" albeit herein," he adds,
" I expressed not my own, but the general opinion
of the Swedish nation, which it was necessary to
support with some grounds, that this prince might
not appear to have been wrongfully accused of
such a crime *." It is true the duke was passionate,
variable, untrustworthy, changed his party con-
stantly, and at last his religion, and when taken
prisoner as imperial field-marshal at Schwednitz,
in 1642, by Torstenson, could only be saved with
difficulty from the rage of the Swedish soldiers* ;
but this does not prove him to have been a mur-
derer. We have remai’ked that according to
several accounts, Gustavus Adolphus received a
shot in the back or through the breast, while
Francis Albert attempted to support the ali-eady
wounded king on horseback. The duke, who ex-
presses in his letters concern at the scandalous
reports spread abroad respecting him, left a jour-
nal, wherein the following observation occurs :
" November 16 (N. S.), we fought at Lutzen with
the enemy, won the battle, and kept the field. His
majesty the king of Sweden was then shot in my
anus. At night to Weissenfels, two miles "."
letters, vol. ii. As little credible are other stories of the
king’s murder by a groom, wherewith inquisitive travellers
from Sv/eden were formerly entertained in Saxony. See
note H.
• Cum tamen non meara, sed communem, Suecicae Nati-
onis sententiam expresserim, quam aliquot rationibus ad-
struere placuit, ne is Princeps injuria istius facinoris insi-
mulatus fuisse videretur. The letter is to the council of
Wirtemberg, Pregitzer, July 29, 1687, and is to be found in
Arckenholtz, 1. c., quoted from Nettelbladt’s Schwed. Bibli-
othek. In order to save his conscience as historian, how-
ever, Puffendorf adds in the same letter two new circum-
stances, in his opinion demonstrative, the one from the
chronicle of the Pole Piasecki, that duke Francis of Lauen-
burg is said to have given Wallenstein the first account of the
death of Gustavus Adolphus (which this foreign writer ap-
pears to have confounded with the actual circumstance, that
in general the king’s decease was first known through the
duke^ ; the other, that Francis Albert, during his abode at
the Swedish court, is said to have received a box on the ear
from Gustavus Adolphus.—It is not known that the duke
was ever at the Swedish court ;
but his brother was there,
and to this alludes an observation quoted by Warmholtz
(Biblioth. Sviog. vi. 10) from count Abraham Brahe’s manu-
script note-book: "1613, inter 18 et 19 Maji, nocte fuit
Duellum inter Regem et Ducem Saxoniae, Henricum
Julium, ob Stjernskiild." The duel was consequently on
account of Stiernskbld ; the proximate cause is unknown.
^
The duke died of bis wounds.
"
(Nine miles English. T.) Historical Magazine of Meiners
and Spittler, vii. 2, quoted in the Universal Literary Gazette
of Halle, 1832, iii. 12!).
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