CHAPTER XVIII. THE SCOTS UNDER MUNRO, DOUGLAS, TODT, AND THE gallant Hepburn was still rising daily in the favour of Gustavus, who found the impossibility of undertaking an expedition of importance unaided by his able counsel, and that dashing valour for which he was renowned throughout the armies of Sweden, Austria, and afterwards of France, and which won for him the reputation of being the best and most fortunate soldier of the age. His career, spent as it was among the contingent woes and horror of a religious war, had all the personal attributes of heroism; for the time was one when battle was the pastime of the brave and chivalric. Amid the most tempestuous weather, in a country covered with snow, and when the cold was so intense that the breath froze in icicles on the moustaches and steel cheekplates of the soldiers, the army began its march towards the Lower Rhine; and at five o'clock on a Sunday evening the green banners of Hepburn's brigade appeared before the walls of Mentz, reputed by the Germans of old the strongest of their fortresses, and their best bulwark against the power and pride of France. Well fortified, and commanded by a citadel on the summit of a neighbouring hill, the city is built in the form of a semicircle, of which the Rhine is the basis; towards it lie the weakest bastions; but on the landward they are so complicated and extensive as to require, in the present time, a garrison of thirty thousand men. Then, the citadel and the Elector's palace (a massive and ancient edifice of dark red stone, formerly a preceptory of the Teutonic Knights) were defended by eighty pieces of cannon, and occupied by Don Philip de Sylvia with two thousand chosen men, all animated by the spirit of old Castilians. Investing the place at once, Gustavus ordered all his troops to close up the blockade. "Colonell Hepburne's briggad (according to use) was directed to the most dangerous poste, next the enemy," who cannonaded him briskly from the citadel, and killed a number of his men as they approached within musket-shot of a gate called the Gallows Port, where he commenced to dig his parallels, and get under cover, running his lines to the very edge of the town ditch. Except those guards which he had posted on the colours, the artillery, and the trenches, the whole brigade were actively employed making cannon-baskets or fascines and bundles of chandeliers, and deepening the lines, so that daylight saw his whole force under cover; and the cannoniers of Don Philip fired in vain. Their shot either whistled over the helmets of the Scots, or sank heavily into the solid banks of earth which protected them. Next night Colonel Axel Lily, a Swedish officer of distinction, came to visit Hepburn at his post near the town ditch; and being invited to sup with him and Colonel Munro in a place from which the snow had been shovelled away, the three cavaliers sat down by a large fire which the soldiers had lighted, and regaled themselves on such viands as their foragers had procured, and their servants could cook spitted upon old ramrods or sword-blades. Every moment the flashes broke brightly from the dark ramparts of the lofty citadel, and the cannon-shot boomed away over their heads into the obscurity of the night, or plashed into the deep waters of the Rhine behind them. They were all "discoursing merrily," when Axel Lily said to Hepburn, laughing as he listened to the Spanish cannon, and ducked his head as a ball passed, "If any misfortune should happen to me now, what would be thought of it? for I have no business to be here, exposed to the enemy's shot." Very soon after, another cannon-ball came crashing over the rough rampart, and carried off one of his legs just at the shin-bone. A party of Hepburn's soldiers bore him away to such shelter as they could procure, and left him under care of the surgeons. The King made him all the amends in his power, by heaping military sinecures upon him, till even honest Munro and other veterans could not resist the temptation of complaining at the good fortune of Axel Lily, though he had to march ever after" with a tree or woodden legge." 1 Next day Don Philip de Sylvia, perceiving that Gustavus had erected several strong batteries in a garden, 1 The Expedition. and that the brigade of Hepburn, to whose reputation he was no stranger, was preparing to storm under cover of their fire, capitulated; and on the 13th December marched out with flying colours, two pieces of cannon, and all the baggage, which his soldiers increased as much as possible by pillaging the town and cloisters. Eighty pieces of cannon, one hundred and twenty lasts of powder, the Elector's library, two hundred and twenty thousand dollars from the citizens as the ransom of the city, and one hundred and eighty thousand more from the Jews for the redemption of their gorgeous synagogue, enriched Gustavus, who entered Mentz on the next day (which completed his thirty-seventh year) with all the triumph of a conqueror, surrounded by the generals and brigadiers of his army, and escorted by bands of bristling Scottish pikes. There he kept the Christmas with great splendour and festivity, while his court was attended by the six chief princes of the Empire, twelve ambassadors, and the flower of the German nobles. What share Hepburn received of the prize-money taken is not recorded: the valuable library of the Elector was presented to the Chancellor Oxenstiern, who intended it for the academy of Westerrah; but the vessel on board of which it was shipped unfortunately foundered in the Baltic.1 Three days before Christmas, Hepburn's hardy soldiers left their miserable bivouac in the snow-covered trenches, and obtained quarters in the town, which was under the charge of Bernard, duke of Saxe Weimar; and there they remained until the 5th March 1632, recruiting in 1 Schiller. vigour and numbers, and preparing for fresh campaigns and other dangers. The regiment, vacant by the resignation of Sir John Hamilton, had, previous to this, been bestowed upon old Colonel Ludovick Leslie. While Hepburn lay at Mentz, Gustavus, in February, opened a new campaign against the Spaniards, by the investment of Creutzenach, whither he marched three hundred of Ramsay's regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel George Douglas. This cavalier, of whom Fowler, his secretary, has left so ample an account,1 was a cadet of the noble house of Carlyle and Torthorwald, whose castle, now a ruin, looks down on Lochar Moss and the beautiful Vale of the Nith. The eldest son of Sir George Douglas of Mordington and Margaret Dundas of Fingask,2 he had studied at Oxford; was perfect master of the Greek and Latin languages; and was one of the most accomplished officers in Sweden. "He began his apprenticeship," says Fowler, "in that honourable profession under the great and excelling tutor in the art of war, the invincible Gustavus Adolphus, for whose service he first transported a company of foot of his owne natione into Suethland about the year 1623." At the head of the same Scottish veterans who had stormed the castle of Oppenheim, Douglas, emulating a party of English volunteers under the Lord Craven, intrenched himself before the most exposed part of the 1 A Briefe Commendation of the Life of Sir Geo. Duglas, Knight, Lord Ambassadour extraordinory for the Peace between Suethland and Poland. London: fol. 1656. * Douglas Peerage. |