The Green Brigade was
quartered in the town of Wiirtzburg, where the soldiers had no lack
of provisions; for the stores of the bishop’s castle furnished them
with every necessary and luxury; while plenty of good old Rhenish
wine, and the more fiery Wurzburger^ were to be had for the trouble
of carrying them away.
Gustavus sent out detachments in every direction to subdue
Franconia, to lay the towns under contribution, (for he had resolved
to make Germany pay the expense of its own conquest,) and only ten
thousand men remained at headquarters, when he suddenly received
intelligence that the Duke of Lorraine, who had formed a junction
with Tilly’s shattered force, was advancing against him at the head
of fifty thousand men. It was late at night when these startling
tidings reached him at Wurtzburg, and Hepburn was the first officer
he thought of.
As there was no time to be lost, attended only by one servant he
went in person to seek him. The cantonments of the Green Brigade
were in a remote part of the town; and there, chancing to discover
the quarters of Colonel Robert Munro, who was at supper, without
saying what were his ultimate intentions.
"Munro,” said he, "with all haste get the musketeers of your brigade
under arms. Draw them up in the square before the house, and desire
Sir John Hepburn to meet me there.”
By a roll of the drum eight hundred musketeers were soon arrayed in
the dark street, with Hepburn, in his hastily buckled armour, at
their head, awaiting the orders of the king, who desired him to
leave all his pikemen and colours behind, and march off the
musketeers of the brigade alone. As he and Munro had come forth in
such haste that they were both without their servants and horses,
they left Wurtzburg by the Oxenford road, marching on foot by the
right bank of the Maine,
It was a night early in October, and the atmosphere was dark and
stormy. They traversed the level margin of the deep broad river, and
after marching with the utmost silence and rapidity for two hours,
without knowing for what desperate duty Gustavus intended them, the
tramp of horses and clink of arms were heard through the gloom, and
they were reinforced by eighty of Colonel Muschamp’s troopers, who
had been ordered to mount and follow on the spur. Immediately on
this, Gustavus, who had hitherto ridden on in silence and
abstraction, acquainted Hepburn that his design was to defend
Oxenford, a pleasant little town on the Maine, against the
Imperialists, and so prevent their vast force from crossing the
river. It was remarked that his mind and manner were considerably
agitated; and his anxiety for the success of this undertaking, at an
emergency so pressing, was visible to all; thus the Scottish
veterans pushed on with ardour, and after traversing sixteen miles
in heavy marching order, without one moment’s halt, entered Oxenford
by the bridge, driving in a small piquet of fifty arquebusiers, whom
they found in possession of the town.
There was no time for rest or refreshment. The Scots occupied the
bridge and market-place, with orders to stand by their arms, and
keep on the alert; for the streets were involved in obscurity, and
there was no possibility of knowing when or from where they might be
attacked.
Gustavus then sent fifty troopers to post themselves half-a-mile in
front of the town, where they were soon driven back by a party of
the Imperialists. On seeing the red flashes of the firearms, and
hearing, by the incessant discharge of calivers and pistolettes,
that the foe was in great strength, a lieutenant with fifty
musketeers of Lumsden’s regiment was sent off double quick to
reinforce the outpost; but the Lorrainera were coming on in such
numbers that neither the Scottish infantry nor the Swedish troopers
could withstand them. On this Colonel Munro sallied forth with only
one hundred of his own men, and advanced so spiritedly that the
Imperialists were driven in disorder over a neighbouring hill.
"bravely done!” exclaimed Gustavus, as he saw how briskly the
musketry flashed through the gloom; "they skirmish well—my valiant
Scots!”
As soon as day broke Hepburn accompanied him in a tour round the
walls, which were found to be poorly fortified. After this, saying
that by the disappearance of the enemy he feared they had a design
to beat up his headquarters at Wurtzburg by some other road,
Gustavus assigned to Hepburn the entire defence of Oxenford, or
Ochsenfurt, as the Germans sometimes term it.
“Defend yourself, Hepburn, as you are sure to do, like a man of
honour,” said he; "but if the service prove too desperate blow up
the bridge, and retire to Wurtzburg.” The moment the King left,
Hepburn, aware of the arduous and important duty assigned him—the
defence of a half-ruined wall, with only eight hundred musketeers to
confront Count Tilly, with fifty thousand men — made the most
vigorous preparations. He pulled down several wooden houses and old
walls which impeded the fire from his defences, cut down and
destroyed all trees and hedges that might shelter an approaching
foe, and strengthened the walls with barricades of earth and
platforms of wood; posted the sentinels and guards judiciously;
ordered fresh ball-cartridges to be prepared; had the bridge
undermined, for the purpose of blowing it up; and on these works the
Scots musketeers toiled incessantly until the third night, when
again the advance of the enemy was heard, and the din of the
infantry drums, with the trumpets of their cavalry, u made such
noise as though heaven and earth were coming together.”
The Scots stood to their arms, and Hepburn, expecting a general
storm, exhorted them to “remember the honour of their native land,
and the confidence of the King;” but he could discern neither the
movements nor the numbers of Tilly and Lorraine. The advanced
videttes of Muschamp’s horse, and thirty-six Scots musketeers of
Lumsden’s regiment, commanded by Serjeant-Major Monipennie, were
driven back, fighting every foot of the way, till they were
sheltered by the walls of Oxenford. But such was the resolution of
this little party, and of the valiant Sergeant-Major, whose armour
was battered by a storm of pistol-balls, that the Imperialists,
after receiving several destructive vollies from his men, supposing
probably that the whole force of Gustavus was in Oxenford, retired
with precipitation; and when day broke the anxious Hepburn
discovered, by the distant clouds of dust, that the whole Imperial
army was on the march for Nuremberg, by the way of Weinsheim.
Controlled by the Emperor, who had cautioned him if possible to
avoid a battle, Tilly’s movements in Franconia were vacillating,
slow, and desultory, that Gustavus had perfect time to overrun the
whole country at his ease. As soon as he heard of this movement, the
King felt uneasy for the brave Scottish brigade left in Oxenford,
and despatching on the very instant a reinforcement of five hundred
musketeers to Hepburn, enjoined him to dislodge forthwith, under
favour of the darkness, and, pushing on with that rapidity of which
he knew his Scots were capable, pass the Imperialists on their march
by a detour, and occupy Weinsheim before they could reach it—thus to
confront them again in. the very town to which they were marching.
Rash and desperate as these orders appeared to him, and though
foreseeing that they would assuredly end in the utter annihilation
of himself and his men, the gallant Hepburn remembered that
obedience was his first duty as a soldier, and was preparing to
obey, when another cavalier arrived on a foam-covered horse, with
the King’s orders to abandon Oxenford without a moment’s delay, and
retire to Wurtzburg, where an intrenched camp was to be formed.
These new orders were obeyed with equal alacrity. The town was
abandoned and the bridge blown up by the Scots, who retired double
quick, with pikes and muskets trailed, just as day began to break on
the mountains of Bavaria.
“Hepburn’s officers and soldiers were all amazed at the King
revoking his first order,” says the lively historian of Gustavus;
“it being remarked by them that they had rarely, or never, known him
to change a military disposition after he had once formed it.” |