town but the castle port, and
leaving fifty still for a reserve just at that gate; the townsmen,
too, seeing the castle, as it were, taken, ran to arms, and followed
me with above 200 men. The Spaniards were knocked down by the Scots
before they knew what the matter was, and the king and Sir John
Hepburn, advancing to storm, were surprised when, instead of
resistance, they saw the Spaniards throwing themselves over the walls
to avoid the fury of the Scots. Few of the garrison got away, but were
either killed or taken, and having cleared the castle, I set open the
port on the king's side, and sent his Majesty word the castle was his
own. The king came on, and entered on foot. I received him at the head
of the Scots reformadoes; who all saluted him with their pikes. The
king gave them his hat, and turning about, "Brave Scots, brave Scots,"
says he smiling, "you were too quick for me;" then beckoning to me,
made me tell him how and in what manner we had managed the storm,
which he was exceeding well pleased with, but especially at the
caution I had used to bring them off if they had miscarried, and
secured the town.

From hence the army marched to Mentz, which in four days' time
capitulated, with the fort and citadel, and the city paid his Majesty
300,000 dollars to be exempted from the fury of the soldiers. Here the
king himself drew the plan of those invincible fortifications which to
this day makes it one of the strongest cities in Germany.

Friburg, Koningstien, Neustadt, Kaiserslautern, and almost all the
Lower Palatinate, surrendered at the very terror of the King of
Sweden's approach, and never suffered the danger of a siege.

The king held a most magnificent court at Mentz, attended by the
Landgrave of Hesse, with an incredible number of princes and lords
of the empire, with ambassadors and residents of foreign princes;
and here his Majesty stayed till March, when the queen, with a great
retinue of Swedish nobility, came from Erfurt to see him. The king,
attended by a gallant train of German nobility, went to Frankfort, and
from thence on to Hoest, to meet the queen, where her Majesty arrived
February 8.

During the king's stay in these parts, his armies were not idle, his
troops, on one side under the Rhinegrave, a brave and ever-fortunate
commander, and under the Landgrave of Hesse, on the other, ranged the
country from Lorraine to Luxemburg, and past the Moselle on the west,
and the Weser on the north. Not