I have stated that a
numerous Austrian force lay a few miles from Hepburn’s post, at
Colberg, a Prussian seaport in Outer Pomerania, having a harbour on
the Baltic, and a stately cathedral.
The Lord of Kniphausen, a sergeant-major-general in the Swedish
service, ordered Munro’s Highlanders to assist him in blockading the
place, which he closely invested on every side. Though this petty
lordling (whose territories were the smallest of all the German
princes) cherished a bitter jealousy and hatred of the Scots, he did
not disdain to avail himself of the skill and military talent of Sir
John Hepburn; for, on hearing that the Imperialists were pushing
forward a strong force from GrifFenhagen on the Oder, to raise the
blockade of Colberg, he despatched him to reconnoitre the town and
castle of Shevelbrune on the Rega, in the Marke, a pass five miles
distant from Colberg, by which he foresaw the enemy would approach.
Accompanied by a squadron of steel-clad troopers, Hepburn rode
forward and examined the position: he found the castle ruined, and
the small town almost deserted, nearly half the inhabitants having
died of a pestilence, and the rest being fled. He reported it,
"though a scurvie hole for any honest cavalier to maintaine his
credit in,” a post of strength, and advised Kniphausen to throw into
it a resolute garrison, to bar the advance of the Austrians.
With orders to fight to the last man, this important post was
assigned, on the 6th November, to the Highlanders of Munro, who
fortified the place by ramparts of earth and stockades breast-high;
the gates were barricaded with rubbish, to resist the explosion of
petards; and these preparations were barely ended before the
glittering of armour lightened the green mountain-sides, and the
post was assailed by a column of eight thousand Imperialists, led by
Ernest, count de Montecuculi, an accomplished officer, who was
descended from an ancient family in Modena, and had passed through
all the ranks, from a pikeman to a general of artillery and
commander in Alsatia.
He had the regiments of Coloredo, Isolani, Goetz, Sparre, and
Charles Wallenstein. His advanced-guard consisted of three troops of
Imperial cuirassiers, accoutred in bright armour; three troops of
light-armed Croats, and a thousand arquebusiers, who, on their first
approach, were driven back by the steady fire of the Highlanders.
The command sent by Kniphausen to Munro, on this occasion, is a
remarkable specimen of the clearness and brevity so characteristic
of a military despatch, which should strictly contain all that
requires to be known, and no more:—
"Maintain the town as long as you can; hut give not up the castle,
while a single man remains with you”
Obedient to this, on the Imperial trumpeter appearing before the
half-ruined town to propose a treaty of surrender, the brave Munro
replied coolly,—
"The word treaty having by some chance been omitted in my
instructions, I have only powder and ball at the service of the
Count de Montecuculi.”
Upon this the latter pressed forward, at the head of his eight
thousand men, who approached on all sides, to a general storm. But
the little band of Highlanders behaved to admiration; and, after
keeping the foe in check for several hours, by a close and deadly
fire, which piled every lane and alley chin-deep with killed and
wounded, they laid the whole town in ashes, and, through the blazing
streets, retired into the castle, keeping their faces to the enemy.
Upon this, the wary Montecuculi auguring from the resolution of the
governor, and the sturdy valour of his bare-kneed soldiers, that no
laurels would be won before the round towers of Shevel-brune—retired
in the night without beat of drum, and under cover of a dense mist.
Thus did five hundred Highlanders repel sixteen times their number
of Imperialists.
“I being retired into the castle,” says Munro, and the enemy
marching to Colberg, having made up eighteine dragoniers to march
after them, for bringing me intelligence if his majestie’s forces
from Statin were come betwixt the enemy and Colberg, this party
retiring shewes that the Field-marshall Gustave Home and Collonel
Mackay, that comanded the musketiers, were joyned with Kniphausen,
Bawtish, and Sir John Hepbume, and were lying overnight before a
passage betwixt the enemy and Colberg.”
They thus barred Montecuculi’s retreat into a fortress which was of
such strength that Torquato de Conti, and other officers of the
Emperor, had chosen it as a place wherein to store up the vast
pillage of their long campaigns.
Having been blockaded for some time in vain by Kniphausen, General
Bauditzen came with four thousand men and eighteen pieces of cannon,
to press the siege with greater vigour; and soon after, the
Highlanders of Lord Reay, and Sir John Hepburn—with his regiment,
which had been relieved from garrison duty at Rugenwalde—came in on
the same service, in which a detachment of his men was sharply
engaged with the Imperialists of Montecuculi, who made more than one
attempt to relieve Colberg, after his warm repulse by Munro at
Shevelbrune.
A wing of each regiment, commanded by the colonel, marched on this
duty, leaving the other wings under the next senior officer in the
trenches at Colberg, where Leslie of Balgonie commanded.
"The Lord Reay commanded the resolute Scottish-men of his owne
nation.” Hepburn led the right wing of his own musketeers, and the
Baron Teuffel led the Dutch.
The encounter took place amid mist and darkness, at four o’clock on
the morning of the 13th November, among the green hedgerows,
gardens, and cottages of a little straggling dorf or village; and,
as they fell on with levelled pikes and clubbed muskets, friend
could scarcely be distinguished from foe, so much alike were the
arms and armour of both armies.
The Imperialists were above seven thousand strong.
The Swedish infantry, who were led by the young Grave of Thurn, fled
almost without firing a shot; but the Scottish musketeers of Hepburn
and Lord Beay, who were in the van of this confused skirmish, stood
like a rampart, pouring in their volleys from right to left; but the
flight of the Swedish cavalry—who were also seized by an
unaccountable panic—made it necessary for the Scots to retire with
Kniphausen, which they did under cover of the thick mist, leaving
five hundred killed among the fields and hedges. "Many slew their
comrades in the confusion,” says Harte; "nor can I agree with a
brave Scottish officer, who, in his relation of this engagement,
where he happened to be present, calls it a mighty pretty and
comical sort of a battle.”
In consequence of the able manner in which Hepburn, Kniphausen, and
Bauditzen closed up every avenue to Colberg, with twelve thousand
men, the garrison were compelled to capitulate; and on the 26th of
February were permitted to march out with the honours of war,
fifteen hundred strong, (being nine companies of infantry and two
troops of horse,) all in their armour, with pikes carried, colours
flying, drums beating, and matches lighted, with bag and baggage,
and two pieces of cannon with balls in their muzzles, and lintstocks
burning.
They marched by the pass of Shevelbrune, where some of Munro’s
Highlanders were under arms to receive and salute them as they
proceeded to Landsberg, which was garrisoned by the troops of the
Empire.
During the winter of 1630 Hepburn marched to the vicinity of
Stettin, the ancient Pomeranian capital, the burghers of which were
famous alike for their hospitality to strangers, and their courage
in resisting an enemy. A Major-General Leslie commanded the garrison
of the strong castle which overawed the town.
On the march from Prymhausen, en route to Stettin, a quarrel ensued
between Gustavus and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Munro, which was
amicably adjusted by the mediation of Hepburn.
Munro had the right of filling up the vacant commissions in his own
regiment, and was offended at Gustavus for appointing a Captain
Dumaine to the company of Captain Bullion, who had received the rank
of quarter-master-general of horse.
At Colnoe he requested Hepburn—whom he knew to stand high in the
favour of their warlike leader—to accompany him, and use all his
interest for a clansman on whom he wished to bestow the vacant
company.
"Have you placed the Captaine Dumaine?” asked Gustavus, on their
entering, and before the request was made.
"I have not, sire,” replied Munro, “finding it prejudicial to your
service, as he lacked the language to command a company.” "He will
soon learn enough to command a company,” said the King; "but on whom
would you bestow it?” "On a cavalier that deserves well of your
Majesty— David Munro, now my lieutenant.”
"What shall I think of this?” said Gustavus, turning haughtily to
Hepburn and General Banier; "to appoint his own cousin he will
disobey my orders.”
At Hepburn's intercession the matter was arranged by the sturdy
Highlander waiving his right for the time, and bestowing the command
of the company on Dumaine.
Major Sennot, Lieutenant Pringle, and many soldiers of his regiment,
died of a pestilence then raging in Stettin.
In the beginning of 1631 Gustavus concluded a treaty with France, by
which he was to have yearly four hundred thousand crowns to carry on
the war, on the proviso that, if successful, he was to respect the
Catholic faith and the ancient constitution of the Empire. On
representing his ardent desire to relieve Germany from the
oppressions of Ferdinand, he received £108,000 from England and
other quarters, together with the promise of six thousand infantry,
raised by the Marquis of Hamilton, who, previous to his sailing from
Yarmouth Boads, received the Order of the Garter from Charles I.
The aim of Louis was to create a diversion, and humble the Emperor:
the desire of Charles was the restoration of his brother-in-law, the
exiled Elector-Palatine.
Colonel John Munro of Obstell (or Obisdale) offered to raise another
regiment of Highlanders for the Swedish service; and Colonel Sir
James Lumsden, brother of Robert Lumsden of Invergellie, brought
over a noble regiment of Lowland infantry, which joined Gustavus in
Brandenburg. Sir James's eldest brother, the laird, was senior
captain of this battalion; and the ensign of his company was the
celebrated Sir James Turner, the Cavalier officer, whose military
memoirs are so well known. Robert Lumsden, afterwards a
major-general in the Scottish service, was cruelly murdered by the
English at the sack of Dundee, "in cold blood, one hour after he got
quarter; but the gallant Munro of Obstell was slain in his armour at
Wetterau, on the banks of the Bhine.2
Anthony Haig of Beimerside—a spirited young cavalier—among his
vassals in Tweedside and the vale of Melrose, raised, armed, and
mounted, at his own expense, a gallant troop of fifty horsemen for
the Swedish army: three sons of Boswell of Auchinleck, (whose
descendants still remain in Sweden;) John and Bobert Durham, sons of
the Laird of Pitkerrow; Francis and Alexander Leslie, sons of Sir
John Leslie, baronet of Wardis, (both of whom were slain;) and many
other cavaliers, came crowding from Scotland to the German wars.
In the second campaign against the Empire, the Swedish army was
almost entirely commanded by Scottish officers, and there is many a
plaintive song which records with pathos the slaughter of those
brave men who left our pastoral glens to follow the various banners
that were then unfurled in northern Europe.
"Oh, woe unto these cruel wars,
That ever they began;
For they have reft my native isle
Of many a pretty man.
“First they took my brethren twain,
Then wiled my love frae me;
Oh, woe unto the cruel wars
In Low Germanie.”
The army of Gustavus, when reviewed on the 23d December 1630,
previous to crossing the Oder, mustered twelve thousand musketeers
and pikemen, eighty-five troops of horse and dragoons, with seventy
pieces of cannon—a force which few armies have ever equalled, and
none ever surpassed, in discipline, steadiness, confidence, and
bravery, or completeness of equipment in every respect.
In March, Colonel Hepburn, with his old regiment, as it was named,
encamped at Schewdt in the province of Brandenburg, a district then
covered by dense forests, infested by wild horses and boars, wolves,
bulls, and beavers. There, without any increase of rank, he received
command of a brigade of four chosen Scottish regiments—viz.,
Mackay’s Highlanders, Sir James Lumsden’s musketeers, and Stargate’s
corps. It was denominated Hepburns Scots Brigade, or the Green
Brigade; and to his own regiment was assigned the right flank when
in line.
Throughout the army it was generally known as the Green Brigade,
from the colour of the doublets, scarfs, feathers, and standards of
its soldiers—as other divisions of the army were designated the
Yellow, the Blue, and the White Brigades.
Thus, in his thirtieth year, Hepburn found himself the head of the
four best regiments of the army—a post of increased importance and
responsibity in which he acquitted himself to the admiration of all
the Swedish generals; for, the greater the command, the greater were
his means of displaying that courage and conduct for which he was so
distinguished.
The regiment of Stargate was, after a time, withdrawn from the
brigade. |