Frankfort-au-Main after this action, which happened the
17th of August 1634; but the progress of the Imperialists was so great
that there was no staying at Frankfort. The chancellor Oxenstiern
removed to Magdeburg, Duke Bernhard and the Landgrave marched into
Alsatia, and the Imperialists carried all before them for all the rest
of the campaign. They took Philipsburg by surprise; they took Augsburg
by famine, Spire and Treves by sieges, taking the Elector prisoner.
But this success did one piece of service to the Swedes, that it
brought the French into the war on their side, for the Elector of
Treves was their confederate. The French gave the conduct of the war
to Duke Bernhard. This, though the Duke of Saxony fell off, and fought
against them, turned the scale so much in their favour, that they
recovered their losses, and proved a terror to all Germany. The
farther accounts of the war I refer to the histories of those times,
which I have since read with a great deal of delight.

I confess when I saw the progress of the Imperial army, after the
battle of Noerdlingen, and the Duke of Saxony turning his arms against
them, I thought their affairs declining; and, giving them over for
lost, I left Frankfort, and came down the Rhine to Cologne, and from
thence into Holland.

I came to the Hague the 8th of March 1635, having spent three years
and a half in Germany, and the greatest part of it in the Swedish
army.

I spent some time in Holland viewing the wonderful power of art,
which I observed in the fortifications of their towns, where the very
bastions stand on bottomless morasses, and yet are as firm as any in
the world. There I had the opportunity of seeing the Dutch army,
and their famous general, Prince Maurice. 'Tis true, the men behaved
themselves well enough in action, when they were put to it, but the
prince's way of beating his enemies without fighting, was so unlike
the gallantry of my royal instructor, that it had no manner of relish
with me. Our way in Germany was always to seek out the enemy and fight
him; and, give the Imperialists their due, they were seldom hard to
be found, but were as free of their flesh as we were. Whereas Prince
Maurice would lie in a camp till he starved half his men, if by lying
there he could but starve two-thirds of his enemies; so that indeed
the war in Holland had more of fatigues and hardships in it, and ours
had more of fighting and blows. Hasty marches, long and unwholesome