As a volunteer, young
Hepburn joined Sir Andrew Gray, at his camp on the Monkrig, where
soon after they received a reinforcement of one hundred and twenty
hardy mosstroopers, who had been arrested for their turbulence by
the Warden of the Middle Marches, and were given as soldiers to Sir
Andrew, in April, by the Lords of the Scottish Privy-Council.
These made up his forces to fifteen hundred men, with whom, about
the end of May, he embarked at Leith, and sailed from thence for
Holland, en route to Bohemia.
There are no means of ascertaining the exact road by which these
military adventurers proceeded to that country, from the mountains
of which, the savage Sclavonians were then pouring down like a
torrent to wage a war against the chivalry of the empire, in defence
of civil liberty and religious independence; but it is more than
probable that they joined a small body of English, who, under Sir
Horace Vere, had also landed in Holland and passed the Rhine below
Wesel, to avoid Spinola, whose troops were cantoned at
Aix-la-Chapelle.
It was not without danger and difficulty that this small body of men
crossed so many countries to reach the Palatinate; and indeed they
dared not have attempted it, if Henry-Frederick, the prince of
Nassau, had not conducted them by the way of Frankfort, and thus
deceived the vigilant Spinola, who, with a powerful force, was
hovering on another route to cut them off.
The time was now come when the adverse leagues and burning
jealousies of the Catholics and Protestants were to plunge Germany
in the long and disastrous Thirty Years’ War, concerning the origin
of which a few remarks are necessary here.
In 1612, the Emperor Mathias, brother of Rodolph II., died, and the
imperial dignity seemed on the verge of departing from the ancient
line of Hapsburg, when the votes of the princes became united in
favour of the archduke of Gratz, Ferdinand II., the younger brother
of Mathias; upon which Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, who had disputed
with him the throne of the empire, abandoned his pretensions, and
nobly maintained the imperial dignity at a vast expense of blood and
treasure.
“A union between two branches of the same family might at this
time,” says Voltaire, “have changed the fate of Germany—these were
the Elector Palatine and the Duke of Bavaria; but there were two
great obstacles against such a union—emulation and difference of
religion. The Elector Palatine was a Calvinist—the Duke of Bavaria a
Catholic. The Elector was one of the most unfortunate princes of his
time, and caused all the long calamities of Germany.”
Strong and somewhat overstrained ideas of civil and religious
liberty at that time pervaded the continent of Europe; and the
Austrians, Hungarians, and Bohemians were all alike vigilant and
jealous of their privileges. When the late emperor, Mathias, caused
Ferdinand of Gratz to be elected king of Hungary and Bohemia, these
kingdoms complained that no regard was paid to their ancient
prerogatives; and as religion made no small item in their list of
complaints, the fierce Bohemians soon became furious, and the
violence to which they resorted exceeded the oppressions of which
they complained.
Instead of conciliating the Protestants, the rash emperor,
Ferdinand, desired his lieutenant to prevent the next session of the
national assembly sitting without his special licence; but that
officer was unable to execute the order, for the exasperated
Bohemians rushed to arms, and the states, on their assembling in the
college of Charles V., went in a body to the Chancery, and, seizing
the officers of the emperor, threw them over the castle window,
sixty feet from the ground, and then drove the Jesuits out of
Prague. The Austrian delegates escaped the fall unhurt, by the
interposition of Madonna, as a small pyramid still informs
posterity.
Ferdinand's indignation failed to awe the Protestants of Bohemia,
who, having rapidly become formidable, thought they had every right
to depose an elected king, and thus made an offer of their crown to
the Elector Palatine, who had married Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of
James VI. of Scotland.
Incited by the visions of a seer, who ventured to predict his future
elevation to the imperial throne, the weak Elector accepted the
crown, offered as it was by those who he thought had every right to
dispose of it, and despatched the Baron Christopher d’Hona to his
father-in-law for advice; but without waiting to receive it, anxious
to enter upon his new regal dignity, with a small body of troops he
advanced to Prague, where, on the 4th November, he was crowned by
the Protestants King of Bohemia.
This measure interested all the princes of Europe.
The emperor Ferdinand II. and the elector Frederick IV. had each
their friends and allies, who were preparing to assist them, while
the cautious and cunning James VI. made a show of remaining neuter,
hoping that the two competitors for Bohemia might afford him, as
arbiter, an opportunity of displaying that pedantry and wisdom of
which he was so vain. But both were alike jealous of his
interference: Ferdinand, because he was a heretic, and the
father-in-law of his foe; Frederick, because he had openly
disapproved of his conduct before the English peers. Had James
boldly espoused the cause of his daughter's husband, and by his
fleet kept Spain and the Netherlands in awe, the Elector might have
preserved his crown; for several of the German princes had levied an
army in his behalf, and given the command of it to the Margrave of
Anspach.
The revolt of the Hungarians under Bethlem Gabor, prince of
Transylvania, still farther exasperated the proud emperor; but the
Duke of Bavaria, and the ecclesiastical electors of Mentz, Triers,
and Cologne, declared in his favour, while the Pope supplied him
with money, and the king of Spain ordered his forces, then
considered the finest in Europe, to march from Naples and Milan to
his assistance. The Elector had drawn ten thousand men out of the
Palatinate, and sent them into Bohemia, which made the emperor think
of invading the former country; and in execution of this project,
the Archduke Albert and Philip of Spain levied in the Low Countries
twenty thousand veteran infantry and four thousand cavalry, to be
commanded by the far-famed Ambrose, marquis of Spinola.
Though warned by the Dutch that these forces were about to march
into the Palatinate, the patrimony of his son-in-law, King James
remained inactive; the preparations for war continued, and the
Protestants of Scotland and England became equally astonished and
indignant at his apathy to the danger which menaced his daughter and
her husband. This generous feeling was particularly strong in
Scotland, where the people considered the good and gentle Princess
Elizabeth as one of themselves; for she had been born in the old
palace of Falkland, and was reared and educated by the Lady of
Livingstone at the secluded town of Falkirk in West Lothian.
So strong was the memory of her amiability and beauty, that we find
the brave Sir Andrew Gray, though a "ranke papist,” levying soldiers
in her cause, for which Hepburn and others so readily drew their
swords,
James remained aloof, indignant that the Elector had accepted the
Bohemian crown without waiting for his profound advice; and it was
with the greatest difficulty that the friends of his daughter could
obtain his permission to muster two thousand two hundred English
soldiers for the Bohemian war. This force was commanded by that
gallant and veteran knight, Sir Horace Vere of Kirbyhall, who was
afterwards Lord Vere of Tilbury, and master-general of the English
ordnance. No less remarkable for piety than courage, it was always
said the Lord Vere first made peace with God before he went out to
war with man, and he was never either elated by success, nor
depressed with reverse of fortune.”Knighted for his valour at the
capture of Cadiz, he had served with distinction under Prince
Maurice, and was engaged in that desperate affair at Sluys, where,
under Count Wilhelm, "the old Scots regiment led the van of battle.”
Under Sir Horace, Burroughs and Herbert commanded as major-generals,
while the Earls of Oxford and Dorset led each a company of two
hundred and fifty volunteers. On the 9th July, (two months after Sir
Andrew Gray and his band had sailed from Leith,) these forces left
Gravesend.
It was the 1st October before these Scottish and English auxiliaries
joined a part of the Bohemian army, consisting of four thousand
horse and six thousand foot, for the Margrave of Anspach had not yet
mustered his entire armament. Prior to this, the Marquis of Spinola,
who had orders to make war on all the adherents of the Elector, had
marched from Brussels, entered the Palatinate, and before either Sir
Andrew Gray or Sir Horace Vere could join, the Marquis had made
himself master of several small places; but, in a sharp skirmish
which took place, the troops of the Elector were victorious. Ready
to engage, the two armies remained long in sight of each other after
this, but no general action ensued.
In the month of September, the Duke of Bavaria the Elector of
Saxony, and Spinola, all being commissioned to enforce tbe imperial
authority, took the field full of confidence and resolution. While
the Elector of Saxony, at the head of twenty thousand men, swept
over Lusatia, and, before the end of October, had conquered the
whole country, the Duke subdued all Upper Austria, and, by the
beginning of September, had joined the Count de Bucquoi, who
commanded the Imperialists in Bohemia.
During these campaigns, by the fortune of war and his own valour,
young Hepburn, then in about his twentieth year, obtained command of
a company of pikes in Sir Andrew Gray’s Scottish band, which, in
1620, and for some time prior to the fatal battle at Prague, was
employed to guard the person of the Bohemian king.
Among his gallant comrades, who had left their heath-clad hills to
seek for fame and fortune in the German wars, few were more daring
than one named Edmond, the son of a burgess in Stirling, who, on one
occasion, without armour, and with his sword between his teeth, swam
the deep and rapid Danube, in front of the Austrian lines, stole
past the sentinels, and, favoured by the gloom of the night,
penetrated to the very heart of the imperial camp. There, by an
artful stratagem, and an exertion of the greatest courage and bodily
strength, he gagged, bound, and bore off their general, the great
Count de Bucquoi, and re-crossing the river, presented him as a
prisoner to the Prince of Orange, the ally of Bohemia.
For this and similar deeds of vjlour, he soon obtained the rank of
colonel, and acquired great wealth, which he shared liberally with
his relations at home, for they were all poor, and in the humblest
rank of life. None stood higher in the favour of Prince Maurice than
Colonel Edmond; and it is related that when standing one day on a
public parade, surrounded by a number of glittering cavaliers and
officers of high military rank, he was accosted by a stranger who,
to win his favourable notice, professed to have come recently from
Scotland, where he had left his relations well, and concluded by
naming several persons of high rank.
"Begone, sir,” replied Edmond indignantly, as he turned from him to
the gay group around; "I know not this person who comes to flatter
my vanity; for I must inform you, sirs, if you know it not already,
that I have the honour (and I shall ever be proud of it) to be the
only son of an honest baker and freeman, in the ancient burrowtoun
of Stirling.”
He then ordered the abashed stranger to retire. Under the Prince of
Orange, and afterwards under Gustavus Adolphus, he amassed great
wealth, and in the decline of life returned to die in his native
town, where he built a handsome house for the parish minister, and
placed in the eastern gable thereof the baker’s arms, viz., three
piels, which, however, were removed in 1710. To his daughter, who
married Sir Thomas Livingstone, bart., of Newbigging, he left a
magnificent fortune.
Among the Scottish cavaliers who served in these wars were Robert,
George, and James Haig, the three sons of John Haig of Beimerside,
and his wife, Elizabeth Macdougal of Stodrig, who had been nurse to
the Queen of Bohemia when she was Princess Elizabeth; and all these
three died in their armour, fighting gallantly for their fair foster
sister.
The hostile armies continued to watch and manoeuvre. Meanwhile the
weather soon became so severe that the confederate princes led home
their troops, leaving the Scots and English auxiliaries to garrison
the fortified towns. Sir Horace Vere commanded in Mannheim, Sir
Gerard Herbert in the castle of Heidelberg, and Sergeant-Major
Burroughs in Frankenthal, a fortified abbey, the dowry of the
Princess Elizabeth. Herbert was slain repelling an assault, after
breaking six pikes with his own hand; and the Imperialists soon
after captured Mannheim, which Sir Horace surrendered to Count Tilly,
his soldiers marching out with displayed banners and uplifted pikes.
By this time Hepburn’s old friend, Robert Munro, had also espoused
the profession of arms, and was serving in France, a private
gentleman in the king’s regiment of guards; and he relates an
anecdote of his early experience in soldiering, which forcibly
reminds us of that passage in the Legend of Montrose where Dugald
Dalgetty relates to Lord Menteith how he "learned the rules of
service so tightly,” under old Sir Ludovick Leslie, who will be
frequently mentioned in these memoirs.
"I was once made to stand, in my younger yeares, at the Louver gate
in Paris, for sleeping in the morning, when I ought to have been at
my exercise; for punishment, I was made to stand, from eleven before
noone to eight of the clocke in the night, centry, armed with
corslet, headpiece, bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a hot
summer’s day, till I was weary of my life, which ever after made me
more strict in punishing those under my command.” |