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AMONG the Scottish officers
who came to the front in the Thirty Years' War, few attained to greater
distinction than Sir John Hepburn, who was long in command of the Brigade,
and his staunch friend, Colonel Robert Munro. They were brothers-in-arms,
invariably counting on mutual support with absolute confidence. Sir John
never gave his reminiscences to the world, but he is among the most con-spicuous
figures in all the histories of the war—Schiller excepted, who says little
of the foreign auxiliaries—and notably in the prolix and metaphysical
memoirs of his old comrade Munro. So in following the fortunes of the one,
we incidentally sketch the career of the other. Both were characteristic
representatives of the best of their countrymen, although of very different
temperaments and actuated by different motives. Hepburn, like Bayard, was
the soul of chivalry; his aspirations for military glory induced him to
volunteer for each desperate piece of service. He was sensitive to
touchiness on the point of honour, and on a fancied affront from the leader
he had idolised and faithfully followed, he rejected the King's
condescending advances, resigned his commission, and sheathing the sword
which had served Gustavus so well, declared he would never draw it again for
Sweden. When we remember that Gustavus with starving troops was then playing
his last stake against the leaguer of Wallenstein, we may conceive how hotly
Hepburn's anger must have burned.
Hepburn was a Catholic: it
was said that the quarrel began or was envenomed by some slights cast by the
Protestant champion on the Catholic creed. Munro was a Presbyterian, and
rather a dour Presbyterian at that; he dwells on the privileges that
Gustavus forced on his troops by commissioning chaplains to every regiment
and insisting on regular preaching and prayers. Munro, writing of his
campaigns in old age, is always preaching and moralising himself, but he
seems really to have been a deeply religious man. He says as much for his
Scottish soldiers, though that is more than we can easily believe. Talking
of his regiment when ordered into action, he observes, "Never men went on
service with more cheerful countenances, going as it were to welcome death,
knowing it to be the passage into life." Hepburn, as I have said, was a
modern knight of chivalry. Munro was a steady-going soldier, unflinching in
face of the most formidable odds, and resigned to daring anything in the way
of duty. He had initiative too and readiness of resource, as he showed on
various occasions. His Highland fire was tempered by Lowland phlegm, and he
kept himself cool and thoughtful in the worst emergencies. But he never ran
his head idly against stone walls, and his ambitions were limited to regular
professional advancement. The closely-printed, black-letter folio in which
he.has recorded his "Expeditions and Observations" is become very scarce; it
was published in Red Crosse Street, London, in 1637, and the copy preserved
in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, was probably that which was carefully
studied by Scott in getting up his materials for the "Legend of Montrose,"
and evolving the immortal personality of Dalgetty. Annota-tions on the
margin have a suspicious resemblance to the handwriting of the novelist,
though we are slow to suspect that epicurean bibliophile of tampering with
the virgin pages of a borrowed book. Be that as it may, though Munro is
intolerably prolix and perversely confused; though he drags in a Butler-like
range of pedantic erudition by the head and shoulders ; though he moralises
in season and out of season ; though his chronology defies exegetical
analysis, and he makes wild work of German orthography and topography ;
nevertheless the volume is a veritable treasury of graphic information as to
soldiering experiences in that interminable war. It is evident that Harte
has drawn on it freely for his "Life of Gustavus Adolphus," especially in
regard to strategy and tactics, and the innovations and improvements in the
science of war which the King introduced to the confounding of his enemies.
Munro merely relates; he does not comment or criticise ; he had no theories
of his own, though he held strong opinions. But he tells, or we read between
his lines, how Gustavus had cast the traditions of the past behind him,
thinking out ideas for himself, with the inventive genius of a Napoleon. We
see him anticipating the practice of the great Frederick in the handling of
his troops and the management of his artillery, using spade and pick on all
possible occasions with a skill and persistency which has never been
surpassed, and only approached when the Federals in the American Civil War
had been taught caution by misfortune. Thanks to the constitutions of his
Swedes, Scots, and Finlanders, indifferent to cold and toughened to famine,
in a succession of surprises he taught the Imperialists and the tacticians
of the Catholic League that there need be no winter in war. Nevertheless,
there was no neglect of precaution or preparation which the most careful
forethought could suggest. He expected his soldiers to starve on occasion,
but he indulged them in almost a superfluity of clothing, when the enemy
were forced from their winter quarters, ragged and shoeless.
Munro made the regiment his
home, absorbed in the routine of his profession. Battles and marches, sieges
and infalls, were indelibly impressed on a most retentive memory; for we
cannot suppose that, if he ever kept any rough diaries, they survived the
chances of war and the old campaigner's many misadventures. He is not a
picturesque writer, but in his pages, or even reading between the lines, we
see pictures, as realistic or suggestive as those in Schiller, of the
horrors of the war that devastated Germany.
Munro had what was rare in
those days, the unsoldierly virtue of sobriety. The cellars of the Rhine,
the Main, and the Danube must have been answerable for many a muddled
enterprise, for many a deadly ambush or surprise. With the Imperialists,
Wallenstein's lavish hospitalities set an evil example, which his generals,
less temperate than himself, were only too ready to follow. In that respect
Munro had the sympathy of his Swedish Majesty, who always kept a tight rein
on his troops, but although personally abstemious, had sometimes to
sacrifice himself from political motives. At Halle the King was to entertain
the Saxon Elector, who notoriously carried conviviality to excess. Munro had
walked into the banqueting-room where the supper was laid out, when the King
took him ruefully by the shoulder and whispered, "Munro, you could be master
of the bottles and glasses to-night, in the absence of old Sir Patrick
Ruthven; but you want the strength of head to relieve me on such an
occasion." For in that Thirty Years' War, in the words of Scott, a brave and
successful soldier was a companion for princes. Princes compounded for
arrears of pay by treating colonels and captains with flattering
familiarity. Munro, long before he had made a name, had dined with Christian
of Denmark in his "gorgeous and pleasant palace"; and he often sat at the
board of Gustavus, when the King had learned to value him as one of his most
reliable officers.
He had seen much rough
service with the Danes before his regiment in 1630 exchanged, with the
assent of Christian, into the Swedish service. Immediately thereafter he had
an opportunity of showing his resolution and resource in not the least
notable episode of the war. He had orders from Oxenstiern to embark his men
at Pilau, on the Bay of Courland, for Wolgast on the Pomeranian coast. He
shipped them on the Lillynichol and the Hound, while a small "skoote" or
boat was freighted with the horses and baggage. The favouring breezes blew
up into a storm, and they ran for shelter into the Borneholme roads. There
the Lillynichol, which carried Munro and his fortunes, was parted from her
consorts. Though she had sprung a leak he put to sea again with his
Highlanders, pumping by relays of forty-eight, but as the water still gained
on them he headed for Dantzic. The storm abated nothing of its violence, and
they were rolling water-logged on a lee shore, embayed among reefs and
shoals. Then there is a thrilling and detailed story of the shipwreck, which
might have suggested materials to Falconer or Byron. They were cast ashore
on the isle of Rugen, clinging through next forenoon to the wreck, with the
boiling surf making a clean breach over them. All their boats had broken
loose or been swamped. Munro patiently attended the Lord's mercy with
prayers, till at one of the clock he turned manfully to help himself. He
landed his men on rafts or spars; he was the last to leave the shattered
ship, and he managed besides to save some of the arms.
But never were castaways in
worse case, for all the baggage was on the missing skoote, and as the
ammunition had been lost, the matchlocks were useless. He learned from
friendly boors that the island was occupied in force by the Imperialists,
and that he was eighty miles from the nearest Swedish outposts. Not
unnaturally he was "in a pitiful feare," and naturally he might have made up
his mind to unconditional surrender; for his men were exhausted and
dispirited, and in no condition for fighting. Surrender never seems to have
suggested itself. He had learned from the boors that the neighbouring Castle
of Rugenwald was still held by the captain for the Duke of Pomerania, though
the town under its shadow was in possession of the enemy. Munro hid his men
among the cliffs till nightfall, and then despatched a messenger to the
captain to tell him he was at hand with 300 shipwrecked Highlanders, and to
undertake, if he were furnished with powder and ball, to clear Rugenwald of
the Imperialists and hold it for the Duke and the King. The captain was
delighted, but prudently gave himself leave of absence, while he sent a man
in his confidence to conduct the Scots into the castle by a secret passage.
There they armed themselves: thence they descended on the town, and after
some desperate fighting mastered the garrison.
The surprise was daring
enough, but a more serious question was how to maintain himself. A mounted
messenger sent to Stettin had brought back peremptory orders from the King
to hold the place and the adjacent passes. The orders had been anticipated
by the Scot, who had not wasted an hour. He had blown up the bridge which
spanned the river ; he had armed some of the boors and set them to watch the
passage, and many of the country people, with his own Highlanders, were
busily engaged in throwing up entrenchments and deepening the moat. Scouting
and foraging parties were sent out in all directions, for though the King
had strictly enjoined treating the country folk with every consideration,
that did not exclude the inevitable levying of contributions. Munro declares
he had kindly welcome from the inhabitants, and found noble entertainment
everywhere with fish and fowl, fruit and venison. For nine weeks he made
good his position against incessant alarms, till Hepburn by forced marches
brought him welcome relief.
Hepburn took over the command
as senior officer, and Munro was ordered to join the forces beleaguering
Colberg under General Kimphausen. Colberg, where the Imperialists had stored
much booty, and which was deemed almost impregnable, was a place worth
winning or saving, and they were known to be advancing in force to the
relief. The line of approach was by a pass, guarded by the town and castle
of Schelbeane, and Hepburn with a troop of horse was sent to reconnoitre it.
His report was that it ought to be occupied immediately, and Kimphausen, who
is said to have had no love for the Scots, and was never sorry to send them
on desperate service, ordered Munro to march thither forthwith. In case "the
enemy should pursue him "—which was sure enough—he was to fight to the last
man. Munro came, saw, and did not like the situation. He had much the same
opinion of it as Dalgetty of Ardenvohr, for with its ruined works lie deemed
it a scurvy hole for any honest cavalier to maintain his credit by. "I was
evil sped, unless the Lord extraordinarily would show mercy." However, he
set to work to make the best of things; laboured indefatigably night and
day, for three days, and when a trumpeter summoned him to treat, from an
army drawn up for battle, returned the heroic answer, that he had no orders
to that effect, but ample provision of powder and ball at their service.
Having no strength to hold the town, after some desperate fighting he
withdrew into the castle. Summoned a second time, as the last chance of
having quarter, he gave a similar reply. He had fired the town to cover his
retreat, and withdrawn among blazing houses and falling roofs. When the
flames died down, the enemy followed and set up their batteries within forty
paces of his castle walls. He had to fear the worst, for the besiegers
outnumbered him by sixteen to one, and they were directed by Montecuculli,
perhaps the ablest of the Imperial generals of the second rank. But
Montecuculli, if bold, was also wary, and in all such cases both besiegers
and besieged had to calculate the chances of impending relief. Horne was
known to have joined Kimphausen, and it was certain that the important
outpost of Schelbeane would not be sacrificed without a battle. Montecuculli
abruptly broke up his camp, retiring under cover of mist and darkness.
I am not rewriting the
Memoirs of Munro, but selecting incidents that illustrate the times and the
men who figured in them. His first interview with the immortal Gustavus was
characteristic of both. A company in Munro's regiment had fallen vacant, and
the King, without consulting him, appointed a Captain Dumaine. Munro
declares that he did not object to the man but to breach of privilege. "By
his Majesty's capitulation he had the freedom to place the officers of his
regiment." When he waited on the King he had the wit to take his friend
Hepburn with him, who was a persona grata. Munro sturdily stuck to his
point, saying that Dumaine was a foreigner who lacked the words of command.
Gustavus retorted that he would soon learn them ; but demanded the name of
Munro's nominee. The answer was that it was a cavalier who deserved well of
his Majesty, named David Munro. His Majesty, jumping at conclusions,
exclaimed that Munro, to appoint a cousin, would actually disobey his
orders. Then Hepburn interposed, and the matter was arranged by the Major
consenting on this occasion to waive his rights. The incident shows how
Gustavus, with all the imperious decision that never bent in matters of
supreme importance, knew how to condescend and even to honour valued
officers when only points of punctilio were involved.
In the depth of that bitter
winter, and apropos to the intaking of the town and fortress of Dameine,
which was most valiantly defended, Munro has some interesting remarks on his
Majesty's methods and idiosyncrasy.
"He did observe his Majesty's dexterity in command, discharging the duties
of several officers;" in fact, he was greatly addicted to overdoing himself.
When his mind was made up there was no moving him. "Neither did he like it
well if an officer was not so capable to understand his directions as he was
ready in giving them." "Such a general would I gladly serve, but such a
general I shall hardly see, whose custom was to be the first and last in
danger himself." And, like all generals of genius, he regulated his strategy
by the temperaments of his opponents. "He knew the devices and engines of
his enemies, their councils, their armies, their art, their discipline, . .
. and he understood well that an armie being brittle like glasse, that
sometimes a vaine and idle brute was enough to ruine them." The one point in
which the King's personal conduct conflicted with his commands was his
carelessness in exposing himself to dangers. He set an evil example to
officers as reckless of life as himself. He always thrust himself forward
into the hottest of the fire, led the fiercest of the charges when the
fortunes of battle were in suspense, and ultimately paid for his temerity by
his glorious death. At Lutzen he only wore a buff coat which could not turn
a musket ball, though then he is said to have had the sufficient excuse of a
half-healed wound. Rittmaster Dalgetty quotes his famous exclamation, "Now
shall I know if my officers love me by their putting on their armour; since
if my officers are slain, who shall lead my soldiers unto victory?" And the
Rittmaster tells how the regiment of Finnish Cuirassiers was reprimanded and
lost their kettledrums, because once they had taken permission to march
unarmed, leaving their corselets on the baggage waggons. Munro relates an
incident at the leaguer of Dameine, significant at once of the hero's
foolhardiness, and of the good humour with which he heard the remonstrances
of his humbler brothers-in-arms. He had ventured far forward on a frozen
marsh, spying into the enemy's works with a prospect glass. The ice gave
way, the King Was immersed to his middle, but fortunately it was near
Munro's picket. As it happened, the guard there was commanded by that
favourite of the King who had been forced on the regiment against the
Major's wishes. Captain Dumaine rushed to the rescue. The King "wagged to
him to retire, lest the enemy might take notice of them," but it was too
late. Under a salvo from a thousand matchlock barrels the King extricated
himself, threaded the hail of bullets by a miracle, and sat down to dry
himself by the guardroom fire. The Captain, being a bold-spoken gentleman
and well bred, began very familiarly to find fault with his Majesty for his
forwardness in hazarding his person in such unnecessary danger, and the
King, having patiently heard him out, thanked him for his good counsel, and
could not but confess his fault. Defiant throughout, he went straight to
dinner in a cold tent, called for meat, dined grossly, took a great draught
of wine, and only then consenting to change his clothes, turned out again to
face a sortie from the enemy.
Had any of his officers on
duty shown such misplaced zeal, he would infallibly have been placed under
arrest. Probably displeased with himself, he immediately came down upon an
unlucky Dutch captain whom he caught going to the trenches in a cloak. He
had him recalled, sent another in his place—"which was a disgrace to the
captain"—and reproved him openly, telling him, if he had intention to have
fought well, he would have felt no cold, and consequently the carrying of
the cloak was needless.
Happily for himself, Munro's
battalion was not in garrison at New Brandenburg, where 600 of the
Highlanders were mercilessly slaughtered, and where some of his most valued
comrades perished. Their leader, Lindesay, fell in the breach, handling his
pike like a common soldier. For nine days behind the shattered works they
had made desperate resistance against great odds. Tilly had pushed the siege
with characteristic determination, and Kimphausen had defended the place
with indomitable courage, for relief was daily feared or expected. The news
of the catastrophe was brought to the Swedish camp by two Scottish officers,
who swam the ditch in their corselets and saved themselves in the darkness.
Hot as was the Highland blood, the Highlanders as a rule were generous in
victory, but now there was a universal cry for vengeance, and soon after the
massacre of New Brandenburg was fearfully revenged at Frankfort-on-the-Oder.
But writing afterwards in
cold blood, Munro has one of his "observations" to make on the affair, and
considering the ordinary precedents of that ruthless war, it would seem the
Scots excited themselves unnecessarily. They knew the risks and they took
the chances. Tilly had twice offered terms, which were peremptorily refused.
The place, as it proved, was practically untenable, and the penalty of
defending an untenable position was death. It was all a question of the
arrival of timely succour, and Munro discusses the delicate dilemma to which
Kimphausen found himself reduced. He pronounces him not void of blame for
refusing a treaty in due time, seeing he had no certainty of release; and
being left to his own discretion by his Majesty, he should have embraced the
opportunity of time which, once past, is not to be recovered. It is better,
he adds, to be in safety through preventing than basely to suffer under our
enemies, occasion being past. As to which it can only be said, that had
Munro's practice been conformable to these sage precepts, he would never
have distinguished himself by that defence of Rugenwald which gave him a
long lift up the ladder of promotion.
The discussion might have
been spared. Though Munro did not know it, the lives of the valiant garrison
might have been saved had not a despatch miscarried. All had depended on
precarious communication in an unsettled country. The first orders to
Kimphausen had been to hold out : they were countermanded when pressing
strategical considerations decided Gustavus to march upon
Frankforton-the-Oder. The news of the fall and the slaughter reached the
army when on the march, and the Scottish brigade consoled itself with the
hopes of a speedy and deadly revenge. Yet the assault on Frankfort-on-the-Oder
in the circumstances was one of the most daring of Gustavus' audacious
ventures. Frankfort was supposed to be as strong as it was rich; it was
garrisoned by 9000 veterans under three such distinguished leaders as
Schomberg, Tiefenbach, and Montecuculli; and the terrible septuagenarian
Tilly lay at no great distance, with more than twice that number of men,
ready to hasten to the relief. The little army of Gustavus barely
outnumbered the garrison, but they were all picked men and admirably
disciplined. Munro blames the Imperialist generals for not marching boldly
out to meet the Swedes in a fair field, laying down the sage doctrine, that
"it's never good to be always defending"; but though the defence was
stub-born as the attack was resolute, events seem to show that their
decision was wise. Munro's story of the in-take is very typical of the
innumerable storms of fortified places during the war that brought wreck and
ruin to so many flourishing towns. It illustrates, too, the pomp and the
pleasantries as well as the horrors and terrors of the war.
The Swedish King threw out
his light horsemen to scout the country towards Tilly's leaguer. Then
"himself discharging the duty of a General-Major (as became him well), he
besought the aid of Sir John Hepburn to put the army in order of battle." It
advanced with drums beating, trumpets sounding, and colours displayed, "till
coming near the town and seeing no show of opposition, knowing of the
nearness of our enemies, it was resolved to press on of a sudden to take the
place." Nevertheless, unlike Henri Quatre at Cahors, the more cautious
Gustavus had not recourse to immediate storm. In consultation with Hepburn
he promptly distributed his brigades so as to make a close investment. Then
there was some warm work in the way of reconnoitring. The King himself, with
his prospect glass, was in the front, as was his custom. The Imperialists
opened fire; Colonel Teufel of the staff was shot in the arm, his Majesty
making great mourn for him, and Munro's lieutenant was shot in the leg. The
enemy, hanging out a goose in derision, made a sally in force, but after
some sharp skirmishing were driven back into the town.
Next day was Palm Sunday,
when his Majesty with the whole army served God in their best apparel ; the
King following up the sermon with a stirring appeal to his soldiers,
imploring them to take these ill days in patience, in the hope of happier
times, when they should drink wine instead of water. Indeed, after much
blood-letting they were immediately to have wine enough and to spare. For
the preaching of the King was promptly followed up. As it was drawing
towards dusk he called a captain of Hepburn's regiment, told him to don a
light corselet, to call for a sergeant and a dozen volunteers, to wade the
graff, to climb the fortification, and to find out if men could be
conveniently lodged between the mud wall of the town and the outer ramparts
of stone. Such daring attempts were successfully made, although by single
men, at San Sebastian, and at Bhurtpore when besieged by Lord Combermere,
and in this case Captain Gunter came back in safety with his little party to
report favourably. The storm was decided on; the storming columns formed up,
and all the cannon, great and small, were charged—the King had brought a
long train of artillery with him—that the clouds of smoke from the general
discharge might mask the rush in the impending assault. So it came off, and
Munro in the turmoil can only speak for what he did and saw himself. To the
roar of the guns his column sprang forward ; and under veil of the smoke
they waded the ditch, up to the waists in mud and water, and climbed the
scarp to find themselves confronted by palisades, well fastened and set fast
in the wall. Those obstacles were nothing so formidable as the
chevaux-de-frise and spiked planking which Phillipin prepared for our
stormers at Badajoz, nor to the diabolical Russian arrangements for the
reception of the Japanese at Port Arthur. But the defenders, who fought
desperately afterwards, seem to have been taken by surprise and
panic-stricken, for Munro remarks that, had they not retreated in great
fear, he could not have entered but with great hazard.
They retreated, but rallied
again to make a stand at a sally-port in the inner wall, "whence with cannon
and musketry they did cruel and pitiful execution on our musketeers and
pikemen." Munro does not mention Dalgetty, but it was then that he, with "
stout Hepburn, valiant Lumsdale, and courageous Munro," made entry at point
of pike. Hepburn was shot above the knee in the leg of which he was lame
before. "Who said to me, Bully Munro, I am shot, at which I was wondrous
sorry." That reminds us of Wellington riding with Lord Anglesea. His major,
a resolute cavalier, was shot dead, and it was then that Lumsdale and Munro,
seizing pikes respectively, forced the narrow passage, shoulder to shoulder.
They made a stand within till their pikemen were drawn up and "starched"
with muskets; then there was another rush on the enemy, who fell back in
disorder. Munro and Lumsdale charged up one street; General Banner with a
fresh body of musketeers pressed the pursuit up another. The town on the
hither side of the river was taken, "the enemy being well beaten"; the cries
for quarter were answered by yells of "Remember New Brandenburg," and small
mercy was shown, except to some officers who were worth saving and held to
ransom. It must be owned that the garrison deserved their fate; they were
the brigand bands who under ruthless leaders had been savagely ravaging
Brandenburg and Pomerania.
Munro says something on
hearsay of what had been passing elsewhere. The blue and yellow brigades,
being esteemed of all the army both resolute and courageous, were told off
to enter "the Irish quarter." For the weakest part of the defences had been
commended to the charge of the Irish Celts, under command of the chivalrous
Walter Butler, a cadet of the house of Ormond. The blue and yellow brigades,
brave as they were, had their work cut out for them. Numbers prevailed in
the end, but the Irish, though weak, stood to it with pike and sword till
most part fell fighting. Butler, with a shattered arm and his thigh
transfixed, was a prisoner; and as for the rank and file, "those valiant
Irishes," as Dalgetty says, "being all put to the sword, did nevertheless
gain immortal praise and honour."
Munro's brigade, with all its
discipline, piety, and morality, had no sooner cleared the streets, heaping
them with corpses, than it broke loose from control. "The fury past, the
whole street being full of coaches and rusty waggons richly furnished with
all sorts of riches, as plate, jewels, gold, money, clothes, &c., whereof
all men that were careless of their duties were too careful in making of
booty, that I did never see officers less obeyed." The temptation was great,
for as at Vittoria of the Peninsular War, Frankfort was a storehouse of all
the plunder the Imperialists had been gathering in the course of their
campaigning. And Gustavus, like Tilly at the sack of Magdeburg, did not
enter the town till the "fury" was over. It would have been attempting the
impossible to rein in his hot-blooded soldiers from slaughter, pillage, and
debauch ; and indeed he is said to have cheered Hepburn's column to the
storm by telling these Scots to remember New Brandenburg. But the Swedes and
Scots only slaughtered men in arms, whereas Tilly's ruffians slew
indiscriminately, tossing infants into the flames and sparing neither age
nor sex.
Lansberg was the last
Pomeranian fortress left to the Imperialists. Gustavus, with his habitual
rapidity of action, lost no time. Home had already enveloped it with
squadrons of cavalry, when the King marched from Frankfort with 3200
musketeers, 800 horse, and a battery of artillery under Tortensohn, his best
artillerist. Hepburn was in immediate charge of the column, though still so
weak that he could scarcely sit in his saddle. Munro was second in command.
It was their duty to sec that the force was well supplied with entrenching
tools, with sledgehammers, and ladders. It was a bold undertaking, for the
defenders twice outnumbered the assailants, and they were all seasoned
veterans. On the night of their arrival, Munro and his Highlanders lay down
before a heavily armed sconce, protected by a deep graff of running water.
Munro was ordered to go to work at once, entrenching himself, throwing up
counter-batteries, and running forward approaches. He laboured
indefatigably, and thought he had acquitted himself well when his Majesty
turned up before break of day. " Finding the works not so far advanced as he
did expect, he fell a chiding of me, and no excuse would mitigate his
passion till he had first considered on the circumstances, and then he was
sorry that he had offended me without reason. But his custom was that he was
worse to be pleased in this kind than any other of his commands, being ever
impatient."
The King himself had not
wasted time. He had found a blacksmith in the hamlet where he slept who
undertook to show a path over the western swamps and a secret passage into
the town, if the deep ditch could be bridged. Floating bridges had already
been constructed; they were flung across graff and morass, and Munro with
250 of his musketeers, and a colonel with as many dismounted dragoons,
gingerly followed the lead of the blacksmith across planks that threatened
submersion under their measured tread. The sconce was taken after some sharp
fighting, and Hepburn coming limping up with the supports, they entrenched
themselves against a possible outfall from the town. But the Imperialists
lost heart and consequently honour. Strange as it may seem, they sent a
drummer to Munro in his sconce to parley for quarter; the drummer was
blinded and passed on to the King, who condescended to take the garrison
over to mercy. But he was embarrassed by the very natural apprehension that
they might make trouble when they saw to what a feeble force they had
surrendered a fortress so formidable, for it had thrice baffled Gustavus
before, and no pains had been subsequently spared in strengthening it. The
garrison was not suffered to march out until he had been strongly reinforced
from Frankfort. The blacksmith was made burgomaster of the captured town,
and had a handsome gratuity in ducats into the bargain.
The storm of Frankfort was to
be balanced by the sack of Magdeburg. Gustavus would gladly have saved that
great and friendly city, but the princes of North-eastern Germany had been
hanging back, and his communications must be made sure before advancing.
After taking Lansberg and liberating Pomerania, he moved on Berlin to bring
the vacillating Brandenburg Margrave, his own brother-in-law, to reason. The
menace was enough, and then Munro and his Scots were withdrawn into winter
quarters at Old Brandenburg. Munro liked the quarters well, though he
thought it a dreary town, situated between sandy wastes and morasses. But
the beer was good, and "they did try it merrily," till quarrels broke out
between the Scots and the Swedes, when after a time they came to the
sensible conclusion that their brawling had best be reserved for the common
enemy. Munro liked his comforts when he could get them, and in one of his
innumerable digressions he discusses the various vintages and breweries of
Germany. For nine years, he says, the regiment had ever the luck to be in
excellent quarters, where they did get much good wine and great quantity of
good beer. Hamburg and Rostock were deserving of high commendation, but for
his own part he gave the preference to the Calvinistic Seebester, as he once
told the Chancellor Oxenstiern. "I said it pleased my taste well. He
answered merrily, No wonder it tastes well to your palate, being the good
beer of that ill religion.'" In the Major's opinion the worst of that
profusion of strong liquors was, that the soldiers were ill to be commanded,
and more amenable when reduced to fair water.
The arrival of the Marquis of
Hamilton with 6000 men, raised chiefly in Scotland by an understanding with
King Charles, did much to change the state of affairs. It brought the
Landgrave of Hesse and the heroic Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to the Swedish
standards, and it went far to confirm the wavering resolution of the more
powerful Elector of Saxony. In summer Munro and his men had begun to weary
of the fleshpots of Old Brandenburg, more especially as a virulent epidemic
had broken out in the town, when the whole Swedish army concentrated to move
westward to observe the movements of Tilly. The fall of Frankfort had led to
the sack of Magdeburg. Too late to relieve Frankfort, Tilly had turned back
to revenge himself on that great and flourishing city. Then Gustavus
followed westward to fortify himself, after his habit, at Werben on the
Elbe, an admirable strategical position. Strong in his entrenchments, he
repulsed a night attack with no little loss to the assailants. Then Tilly,
who had been invariably the victor in innumerable pitched battles, marched'
back into Saxony to force the hand of the Elector, who was tampering with
the Swedes. It was a fatal stroke of policy and strategy, and thenceforth
fortune would seem to have deserted him. The superstitious Germans said he
was haunted by the spirits of the helpless folk who had been mercilessly
butchered at Magdeburg. The Elector, irritated by the cruelties inflicted on
his country, threw himself into the arms of the Swedes, so Arnheim and his
Saxons were aligned with them at the decisive battle of the Breitenfeld.
Leipzic on the Breitenfeld
was a duel between the foremost champions of the conflicting creeds and
policies. Tilly, as we see in his despatches, held Gustavus in the highest
respect; and the King, as wary in counsel as he was bold in action, knew
well the formidable antagonist he had to face. But when the treaty with
Saxony was signed, he felt bound to fight and arrest the ruthless course of
the enemy. Tilly, it is said, though in far superior force, in his
admiration of the military genius of Gustavus, would have deferred the
decisive moment. Yet probably the sympathies of the fiery old hero were with
the impetuous Pappenheim and other lieutenants, who declared that
with-drawing before inferior forces would be intolerable disgrace. Once
committed to the chances of combat, Tilly threw himself into it, heart and
soul. He and his rival were ever in the forefront of battle, heading the
cavalry onsets regardless of their lives, and that recklessness is the only
charge that has been alleged against their skilful leadership. Gustavus, it
is true, was quietly attired in a suit of plain grey under his corselet,
though a long green plume floated from his helmet. But Tilly was conspicuous
as always, with the dwarfish figure bent over the saddlebow, with the long
drawn face and the drooping whiskers, in the suit of green satin, much the
worse for wear, and the high- peaked hat with the drooping red feather.
Never, indeed, throughout the war had field been more fiercely contested.
The plain of Leipzic was
ideal ground for skilful manceuvring—for a fair fight and no favour. The
armies had bivouacked within a mile of each other, and the lines of the
opposing watchfires clearly defined the positions. Munro, whose old fires
burned up as he wrote, describes with unusual animation and lucidity all of
which he was an eye-witness. "As the larke beganne to peep," they were
standing to arms, to the blare of the trumpet and the roll of the drum.
Having meditated in the night and resolved with their consciences, they
began the morning with offering souls and bodies as living sacrifices, with
confession of their sins and lifting up hearts to Heaven by public prayers
and secret sighs and groans. Thus shrieved and assoilzied in Protestant
fashion, they marched forward a little and halted. The King bestirred
himself in the ordering of the battle ; the Swedish host to his right, the
Saxons to the left. In the forefront of the Swedish centre were three
regiments, two of them Scottish, one Dutch, but all three under Scottish
colonels. Munro was in command of the musketeers of the right flank.
Adopting his novel tactics, which proved disastrous to the Imperialists,
Gustavus formed up his foot in open order, mingling them with squadrons of
cavalry, so that the musket should support the pistol and sabre. It would
seem more questionable that before each brigade were batteries of heavy
guns, and of the lighter artillery, which was loaded and fired fast, to the
great discomfiture of the enemy. Behind were three brigades of reserve under
Hepburn, which afterwards did decisive service to the left, when the day had
been well-nigh lost by the flight of the raw Saxon levies.
At "twelve of the clock" the
battle was joined. The cannon began to roar, tearing great breaches through
the advanced brigades, who, as Munro says, anticipating Beauregard's remark
on Jackson, stood passive and firm as a wall for two hours and a half. Then
out of the clouds of dust and smoke came furious charging of the Imperial
reiters. Time after time they were met and forced back by the Swedish and
Finnish horse, who with stolid northern phlegm never unloosed a pistol till
the enemy had fired, after each discharge falling back behind the
musketeers, who poured in their volleys at point blank. For a space the
smoke and chalk clouds were so dense that nothing was to be distinguished.
Then two great battalions of foot were seen on the left flank of the
reserves, which most supposed to be Saxons. Munro was more clear-sighted. "I
certified his Majesty they were enemies;" whereupon the King and Hepburn
took the reserves to the left, to retrieve the doubtful fortunes of the day,
and repulse the last desperate onset of the foe, recklessly led on by Tilly
in person. Meanwhile Munro had led his wing of the musketeers against
another body of the enemy who were standing firm by their batteries. He beat
them from the cannon, which he captured, and consequently, as he says,
remained master of the field, but the smoke-pall had come down thicker than
ever, and he could see nothing of either friend or foe. So he caused a
drummer to beat the "Scots' March" till it cleared, to collect surviving
friends and scare away the scattering enemies. The battle being won, his
Majesty did chiefly ascribe the glory to his Swedish horsemen and his
Scottish foot. Indeed Munro seems to claim more than his fair share of it,
for he says the victory and credit of the day was given to their brigade as
being last engaged, and it had the royal thanks and promises of reward in
public audience in presence of the whole army. Doubtless the thanks were
paid down on the nail, but we hear nothing of the promises of reward being
redeemed.
That night they encamped on
the field of battle, at blazing fires made of abandoned ammunition-waggons
and pikes "that were cast away for want of good fellows to use them." Among
the living was much merry-making and rejoicing, though there was a
melancholy absence of drink at the night-wake of their dead comrades, which
must have come home to the hearts of the Highlanders, who always celebrated
obsequies with a carouse.
Munro regrets that he missed
by a day the storming of Marienburg, where his countrymen led the assault in
what he describes as the most desperate service done in Dutchland during the
whole continuance of the wars. After the Breitenfeldt, after investing
Leipzic and occupying Halle, his Majesty had been "minded to pay a visit" to
his inveterate priestly enemies, the Bishops of Bamberg and Wiirtzburg. He
marched to Erfurt through the Thuringenwald, and there broke up his army
into two divisions, appointing Wiirtzburg as the rallying-place. The troops
marching through Franconia were commanded by Lieutenant-General Bauditzen,
with Hepburn as Brigadier- General. Coming to Wiirtzburg, they summoned the
town, which surrendered on favourable terms. But the soldiers had withdrawn
to the great Castle of Marienburg, which, as Dugald Dalgetty would have
said, "overcrowed it," and which Munro describes emphatically as "a strong
strength." It was deemed so strong indeed that the Prince-Bishop of
Franconia had lodged his treasure there with an easy mind; his wealthy
subjects had followed his example, and in the wine-vaults hewn out of the
living rock were stored the choicest vintages of the Steinberg. Nor was his
confidence altogether misplaced, for Marienburg had been to Franconia what
the impregnable Konigstein was to Saxony. Moreover, he had sure intelligence
that Tilly and the Duke of Lorraine, with 50,000 men, were coming to the
relief by forced marches.
The castle was connected with
the town by the massive bridge of grey antiquity, which, like that over the
Moldau at Prague, is embellished by the statues of saints and saintly
prelates. The retiring garrison had broken down one of the arches, and the
gap was commanded and raked by the fire of the castle batteries. "A single,
long, bending plank had been thrown over the broken arch, so that it seemed
a hazard or torment to any man to pass over." "There were valorous officers
and soldiers who would rather adventure to goe before the mouth of the
cannon " than to cross that hair-like bridge of AI Sirat. But time pressed
and the King had recourse to the Scots brigade. Sir James Ramsay, surnamed
the Black, and Sir John Hamilton were called upon, the King knowing that if
they refused, no others would undertake the service. They were commanded,
with their musketeers, to effect the passage and clear a way to the castle
for the rest of the army. The Scottish colonels went as warily as bravely to
work; with a few picked men they tumbled into some small boats—it much
resembled Wellington's passage of the Douro—setting the musketeers to fire
before they beached the boats. "Once happily landed and beginning to
skirmish, their soldiers they left behinde, seeing their officers and
comrades engaged, to helpe them they ranne over the planke so fast as they
could runne, till at last they past all to make a strong head against the
enemy." Ramsay was shot lame in the arm; Hamilton succecded to the command,
pressing the garrison so hard at all points within their works that Gustavus
passed most of his army over. Apparently the garrison was panic-stricken.
Before dawn the place was rushed, for they had neither raised the
drawbridges nor lowered the portcullis. Short shrift was given to the
defenders: "Magdeburg quarter " was the answer to all appeals for mercy.
The King had thrown out
detachments on all sides till there were barely io,000 men left at
headquarters. At that time both Hepburn and Munro were in Wiirtzburg with
the brigade. One evening Munro was seated com-fortably at supper, when a
royal footman hurried upstairs to tell him his Majesty was waiting below.
That evening a courier had come " bloody with spurring, fiery red with
speed," to say that the Duke of Lorraine was at hand with five times the
Swedish strength. The news was true, though the numbers were exaggerated.
The King had come out at once to beat up Hepburn, but missing his quarters
had stumbled on those of Munro. He ordered the Scot to get the brigade under
arms at once, and to send Hepburn to meet him on the parade ground. Eight
hundred musketeers mustered in the darkness and marched out on a blustering
October night, neither Hepburn nor Munro having an idea of their
destination. All they knew was that the King was riding alongside of them in
gloomy abstraction, from which they augured that there was serious work
before them. When he broke the silence it was to tell them that his purpose
was to defend Ochsenfurt, the Franconian Oxford, by help of their handful of
musketeers against Lorraine and his army. Eighty troopers were in advance,
and towards the small hours the weary foot-soldiers were in position on the
bridge or lying by their arms in Ochsenfurt market-place. At break of day a
scouting party of the cavalry were driven back by a squadron of the
Imperialists. A company of the musketeers sent off in support had to retire
with the horse before overwhelming numbers. Then Munro led out a hundred
more, and delivered the attack with "such a noise of drums" and so
determined a spirit that the Imperialists believed he had the Swedish army
at his back and beat a retreat in their turn. They had better information
soon, and Hepburn, unsupported, was in extreme anxiety. All that man could
do he did to defend the ruined walls and their approaches ; he threw down
houses, he felled trees, and grubbed hedges ; he improvised loopholed
stockades with firing platforms behind them. It was a case "where no
cavalier could gain credit without overmuch hazard, yet such a master would
be served." The enemy waited too long. On the third night there was such a
noise of their trumpets and drums, as if heaven and earth were going
together: no one doubted that a general storm was imminent: the gates were
even closed against the horse- guards who had been beaten in against the
walls; which shows how desperate the situation was deemed by such a cool
veteran as Hepburn. Then he was delivered by some unexplained miracle from
the very jaws of destruction. The host of the Imperialists was smitten by
such a panic as scared the Assyrians from the siege of Samaria. When Hepburn
looked out in the belated November dawn, they were vanishing in clouds of
dust which veiled their retiring on Nuremberg.
Campaigning in those times
was not only a game of hazard, but also a game of luck, which was perhaps
not the least of its chief attractions. You might be ordered to run your
head against almost impracticable stoneworks, or sent to overrun a rich
country, relatively defenceless. After Marienburg and Ochsenfurt the Scotch
brigade separated. Two hundred of them under Colonel Hanan, "a discreet
cavalier of good command and conduct, also valorous," were sent down the
Main well provided with field guns, to reduce all the castles as they went
along.
None of those somewhat
neglected fortresses gave much trouble, and they rejoined their comrades
laden with booty. Munro's division was also fortunate, though he leaves us
to infer the looting, and for once they were revelling in the fulness of
plenty. In his grateful moralising he waxes eloquent: "This march being
profitable as it was pleasant to the eye, we see that soldiers have not
always so hard a life as the common opinion is; for sometimes as they have
abundance, so they have a variety of pleasure, in marching softly, without
feare or danger, through fertill soyles and pleasant countries, their
marches being more like a king's progress than to wars; being in a fat land
as this was, abounding in all things except peace : they had plenty of corn,
fruite, wine, gold, silver, jewels, and of all sort of riches that could be
thought of, on this river of the Maine." Had Frankfort set them at
defiance—and for a time the issue was doubtful—he might have had still
better reason for gratulation. But Frankfort, "made wise by the ruine of
other cities," preferred good conditions of peace to the chances of storm
and sack. All those wealthy free cities held troubled consultations when the
royal Swede sent peremptory summons to surrender. Their sympathies were with
him, with freedom and with Protestantism, but they consulted under terror of
the Tillys and Wallensteins.
With Frankfort in his
possession and his communications assured, the King could turn his attention
to another of his inveterate Episcopal enemies. The strong places on the
lower Rhine were in the Electorate of Mayence, and thither he directed his
march. It was occupied by a corps of veteran Spaniards, under Don Phillipe
de Sylvia, who held the fortresses on the river in force. As his troops were
well sheltered, de Sylvia trusted something besides to the inclemency of a
bitter winter. Summoned to retire or surrender, his answer was short ; his
orders were to defend the Prince Bishop against the Swedes. As he fancied,
he had seized all the river craft, but it was difficult to sweep all
shipping off the long course of the Rhine. Gustavus himself had made a
detour through the Bergstrasse, with the exiled King of Bohemia, the
banished Elector Palatine in his train, and meditated a crossing above
Sylvia's most formidable advanced post at Oppenheim. A few small boats were
picked up by Count Brahe, who was in command of a mixed brigade of Scots and
Swedes. He made a miraculous crossing in face of a watchful enemy, reminding
one again of Wellington's passage of the Douro, and entrenching himself
promptly in similar fashion, repulsed with heavy loss the onsets of the
Spanish cavalry. The routed horsemen sought refuge at Oppenheim, an ancient
town with walls and fosses and a massive castle dominating the Rhine.
Strongly garrisoned and scientifically fortified, Oppenheim barred the march
to Mayenne. The hardest nut to crack was a sconce on the right bank of the
Rhine, covered by the castle fire, and the sconce has become historically
famous. The Scots, as Munro remarks, went to the front as usual, when there
was any desperate piece of service to be done. Grim and bloody as the
business was, his quaint fashion of telling the story puts it in a humorous
point of view. It was a bitterly severe winter, "but we lay down in the
fields, having no shelter but some bushes on the bank of the river." The
bivouac was raked by the castle batteries; it was all a dead level, and
there was no protection of any kind. "The cannon from the castle did cleanse
and scoure the fields about the sconce, and on the other side they plagued
us still with cannon." It behoved them to have fires, but when the fires
were kindled, the cannonade grew hotter and the aim more sure. Then we have
a touch of Charles O'Malley's Peninsular compaigning. "One night, sitting at
supper, a bullet of 32 lbs. weight shot tight out between Col. Hepburn's
shoulder and mine, going through the Colonel's couch; the next shot killed a
sergeant of mine by the fire, smoking a pipe of tobacco." That night the
enemy made an outfall, "which was bravely repulsed by push of pike, slightly
esteeming of the musket and scorning to use ours."
When the King opened his
approaches on the other side of the castle, the sconce surrendered, and
shortly afterwards the garrison of the castle had a disagreeable surprise.
In some strange fashion a "privy passage" had been left unguarded. Two
hundred of Ramsay's Scots had been guided to the outworks, which they
carried by storm and fought their way into the heart of the defences. It was
a long and desperate struggle, for the odds were great against the storming
party, and the garrison disputed each inch of ground. All the time the town
bells were tolling at intervals, and the roar of the Swedish batteries
dominated the sounds of the combat. But before Gustavus could hurry forward
the supports, Ramsay and his handful of musketeers were masters of the
place. Many prisoners were taken in the sconce and the castle. Then occurred
one of the common incidents of the war, when soldiers ransomed themselves
lightly by changing sides. "Their colours being taken from them, they,
willing to take service, were all disponed by his Majesty to Sir John
Hepburn, who was not only a Colonel to them but a kind patron, putting them
in good quarters till they were well armed and clad again. But their
unthankfulness was such that they stayed not, but disbandoned all in
Beyerland, for having once got the warm ayre of the summer, they were all
gone before winter."
Mayence was taken. The
Spaniards had pillaged the place before capitulating, and the Swedes laid it
under heavy contributions. There the conqueror celebrated Christmas with ten
or a dozen of the Princes of the Empire and many ambassadors from friendly
states. Thence detachments of his troops overran the Rheingau and all the
modern tourist country ; the vintages of Bingen, Bacharach, and Coblenz were
at the mercy of the victors, and Munro himself was quartered at Bingen with
a picket in Bishop Hatto's historical Mausethurm. The armies of Gustavus
were victorious everywhere, and the chronicler complacently gives a long
list of "the many worthy cavaliers of our nation," who were not only trusted
before others with governments, but also honoured with the commanding of
strangers.
There was a single exception.
Tilly, after giving a check to Horn, had been mustering an army for the
defence of Bavaria. The King, who never rested himself or gave the enemy
time to repose, now marched for the Danube. Hepburn of the Scots Brigade was
his right-hand man, as the irresistible advance rolled southward through
Franconia. On the march they were reinforced by strong bodies of cavalry
under the chivalrous Bernhardt of Saxe-Weimar. There was some sharp fighting
with the veteran de Bouquoi, who was routed with loss and severely wounded.
On the 26th of March they
sighted the Danube at Donau- worth, the key to Swabia, and with the
fortified mountain of the Schellenberg a position deemed almost impregnable,
which was to play a conspicuous part in the campaigns of Marlborough and
Eugene. It was gallantly defended by the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, but was
taken, sacked, and spoiled. So says Munro, who was foremost in the storm
with his musketeers. Many of the garrison were slain, many more drowned in
the river, and the rest "who got their lives were forced to take service in
the regiments." But the Swedes did not gain much by those involuntary
recruits. "Being papists of Bavaria, as soon as they smelt the smell of
their father's houses, in less than ten days they were all gone."
Then the Swedes would have
broken into Bavaria, but old Tilly was defending the passage of the Lech.
With a tremendous artillery fire from the opposing field batteries, for a
day and a half the passage was disputed; the Bavarians blanched as the raw
Saxons had done at Leipzic, but Tilly's veterans manfully stood their
ground, and possibly the issue of the battle might have been different had
not Tilly "been shot in the knee with a cannon bullet, a cruel blow for an
old man of seventy-two." The old hero was carried off to die at Ingolstadt,
and then the chances of the Imperialists were gone. The death he would have
desired spared him the mortification of learning that he was to be
superseded by the Duke of Friedland. Munro, who could respect a valiant
enemy, ranks him only second to the immortal Gustavus. " Wherein we have a
notable example of an old, expert general, who being seventy-two years of
age was ready to die in defence of his religion and country, . . . which end
of his should encourage all brave cavaliers to follow his example both in
life and in death, as with valorous soldiers. . . . And my wish were I might
prove as valiant in advancing Christ's kingdom as he was in hindering it."
Augsburg, Ingolstadt, and all
the fortified Bavarian cities fell fast one after another. When the citizens
surrendered the garrisons got quarter, but elsewhere seldom during that
merciless war was the warfare more ruthlessly waged. The peasants, who were
bigoted Catholics to a man, not only murdered all stragglers, but subjected
them to nameless tortures. By way of reprisals defenceless Bavarians were
shot down without mercy, and their unwalled towns and villages given to the
flames. So when the army approached the Bavarian capital, commissioners were
sent out with the keys, "offering all kind of submission, for to spare from
plundering of their city." His Majesty encamped his army outside the town,
but trusted the guard of the gates and the market-place to Hepburn and the
Scots, till he should make his formal entry next day. He housed himself in
the palace, having for his guest the Elector Palatine whom Maximilian at the
beginning of the war had hunted out of the Haradschin. The Duke before his
flight had rather innocently buried his cannon. Inevitably, they were
discovered and dug up. Munro declares there were r4o of them: twelve great
pieces had been christened the twelve apostles. The Palatine recognised many
of his own; others had been brought from Brunswick, and there was one
charged with 30,000 golden ducats, though it seems strange that that
portable property had not been carried off. While Munich was in occupation
of the troops Hepburn, in appreciation of his services, was appointed
military governor, with strict orders to preserve discipline and prevent
looting. But the occupation did not last long, for news from the north-east
suddenly recalled the Swedish King to central Germany.
The next act in the bloody
drama is the famous siege of Nuremberg. Munro expresses no opinion as to the
strategy of his idol, though that was the turning-point of the hitherto
ever-victorious advance. Two great military geniuses were matched against
each other, and for Gustavus it was something worse than a drawn game.
Nuremberg had hesitated between two terrors, but had been driven to a
decision. As a Protestant free city, all its sympathies were with the
foreigners. It "made up twenty-four strong companies of foot," who carried
on their colours as many letters of the alphabet. The King having "recognosced"
the city, formed an encircling leaguer with sconces, redoubts, fosses, and
barriers. Wallenstein, occupying the southern heights, had thrown up
corresponding works over against them. Necessity has no law, and the
foraging Swedes were almost as merciless as the more lawless and licentious
Imperialists. The boors began to be unquiet and tumul-tuous. "But this
uproar was but short, for when the Swedens drew out of the garrisons they
killed the most part, and drove the rest into woods to seek their food with
the swine, in burning a number of their dorpes." Then Munro breaks into one
of his digressions to pay a generous tribute to Pappenheim, who was causing
them infinite anxiety. "The Earle of Pappenheim, a worthy brave fellow,
though he was our enemy, his valour and resolution I deemed so much of that
it does me good to call his vertuous actions somewhat to memory and the
successes he had in warlike employs. . . . This noble cavalier was so
generous that nothing seemed difficult to him, fearing nothing, not death
itself."
It is needless to
recapitulate the familiar story of the fighting before the beleaguered city,
but it brought Munro promotion in a way he would never have desired, for it
was to sever him temporarily from a valued friend. Gustavus, whose temper
must have been tried by the protracted siege and the impregnable Imperial
positions, quarrelled with Hepburn, and apparently for no particular reason.
Schiller says that Hepburn resented the King's having preferred a
subordinate to some post of danger, which would have been really a tribute
to the value of the fire-proof veteran. More plausibly it is attributed to
an insult to the Brigadier's religion, for Hepburn was a devout Christian
and a Catholic. Be that as it may, the King used language which could not be
brooked by the high- spirited Scot, who left the apartment with his hand on
his sword-hilt, exclaiming, "I will never unsheathe it again in the service
of Sweden." He did not immediately quit the camp, and his Royal master
appealed to him once again, and not in vain, in a moment of emergency, but
Munro, with the rank of colonel, succeeded in command of the brigade.
Shortly afterwards he was
invalided. At the storm of the Altenburg, a bullet took him above the
haunch-bone, and he was only saved from death by the "iron-clicker" of his
hanger. The King took an affectionate leave of him as he lay in hospital at
Donauworth; they never met again, and he shared neither the dangers nor
honours of Lutzen. There is real pathos and deep feeling in his elegy over
the loss of such a leader as he could never hope to follow again. " This
magnanimous King for his valour might well have been called the magnifique
King: . . . he died standing, serving the public, . . . and he most
willingly gave up the ghost, being all his life a King that feared God and
walked uprightly in his calling, and as he lived Christianly, so he died
most happily in the defence of the truth. I could take Heaven and Earth, Sun
and Moon, minerals, &c., to witness that his colours ever flourished in the
name of the Lord, and that his confidence was not set on the arm of man."
Reverting to the subject, he sums up the pages afterwards by praying for
such another leader as that invincible King. He can hardly have expected
that the prayer would be answered, and after the idol he had worshipped was
gone, his Memoirs may be briefly summed up. Though the shattered and
enfeebled Scots Brigade was left "to rest" in Swabia, it was ever on active
duty. Munro went to Scotland to enlist recruits, and recruits came over in
considerable numbers. But the regiments again suffered severely at the
disastrous battle of Nordlingen, where the Swedes were routed and Horne
taken prisoner. Munro's brigade was terribly cut up, nor did it ever recover
the losses. The peace of Mflnster closed the Thirty Years' War. After
Nordlingen the Scottish regiments had been under the command of Bernhardt of
Saxe- Weimar, and when the agreement was signed between Sweden and France,
his troops were taken into the pay of France. Hepburn had unsheathed his
sword in the service of Louis, and Munro was again under his old comrade.
Munro's own regiment had been reduced to a single cornpany, and the remains
of thirteen gallant Scotch corps which had fought under Gustavus in many a
stricken field, were incorporated in the regiment d'Hebron, which by orders
of the King was to rank before all others in the French service. Hebron, it
may be explained, was the French rendering of Hepburn.
Munro's "Expedition" ends
somewhat abruptly with the "Observation," among others, that the discipline
of his regiment stood so high that many who were trained in it rose "from
soldiers to be inferior officers, and then from their preferments and
advancements" were promoted to other regiments. Even their enemies, he adds,
could not but, duly praise them, calling them the invincible old regiment,
and the Swedes were wont to strike terror into their enemies by borrowing
their battle-music and imitating the Highland cheer. |
