Sweden. An appeal was sent to him for aid, in the name of
their common religion; and Gustavus, after a brief hesitation,
accepted the call. He had long watched with deep concern the war of
devastation by which Wallenstein and the scarcely less terrible Tilly
were seeking to destroy the fruits of the Reformation; and it is said
that he had a clear presentiment that sooner or later he would be
drawn into the struggle. Leaving his domestic affairs in the hands of
his friend, the Chancellor Oxenstiern, he embarked in June, 1630, with
a force of but fifteen thousand men, for Germany, and landed on
midsummer day on the island of Usedom, on the coast of Pomerania.

The Emperor Ferdinand professed to be much amused when he heard that
Gustavus Adolphus had invaded his dominions.

"So we have got another kingling on our hands," he exclaimed
mockingly. He was far from foreseeing what trouble he was to have for
eighteen years to come, in getting that kingling and his troops off
his hands.

Gustavus was the first to step upon the German soil, at the
disembarkation; and in the sight of all his army he fell upon his
knees and prayed for the blessing of God upon the vast enterprise
which had been confided to him. As he arose from his prayer, he seized
a spade and began instantly the work upon the intrenchments of the
camp.

If his troops were few in number, it is not to be denied that they
were excellent in quality. Many were hardened veterans from the king's
earlier campaigns; among his recently acquired mercenaries there was a
Scotch brigade, from which he drew many of his best officers. We hear
much during the following years, of Hepburn, Seaton, Leslie, Mackay,
and Monroe, whose names betray their Caledonian origin. You would have
supposed now that the Protestant princes, having secured the aid of
Gustavus, would have made haste to identify themselves with his cause
and to reinforce him with money and troops. But, strange to relate, no
sooner had he landed than they began to grow afraid of him and to ask
themselves whether they might not after all, be able to make more
tolerable terms with the emperor by the sacrifice of their religion,
than with this foreign invader, who, if he was victorious, might
dictate his own terms. Had they not, in other words, jumped from the
frying-pan into the fire?

The two princes who had hitherto been the most prominent champions of
Protestantism in Germany (though both half-hearted and pusilla