ustavus Adolphus almost won victory
for the Protestants who were, however, to lose the advantage of his
brilliant generalship through his death at the battle of Luetzen in
1632. Through the death of "this conquering king," the Swedes lost the
fruits of their victory and the battle of Luetzen marks the end of what
may be termed the heroic period of the war. Gustavus Adolphus stands
out among the men of his day for the loftiness of his character as
well as for the genius of his generalship. It is, therefore, fitting
enough that Defoe should make his Cavalier withdraw from the Swedish
service after the death of the "glorious king" whom he "could never
mention without some remark of his extraordinary merit." For two years
longer, he wanders through Germany still watching the course of the
war and then returns to England, soon to take part in another war at
home, namely the Civil War, in which the English people were divided
into two great parties according as they supported King Charles I or
the members of the Long Parliament who opposed him. According to the
_Memoirs_, the Cavalier "went into arms" without troubling himself "to
examine sides." Defoe probably considered this attitude as typical
of many of the Cavalier party, and, of course, loyalty to the king's
person was one of their strongest motives. The Cavalier does not enter
largely into the causes of the war. What he gives us is a picture of
army life in that troubled period. It will be well, however, to bear
in mind the chief facts in the history of the times.

From the beginning of his reign, Charles had had trouble with his
parliaments, which had already become very restless under James I.
Charles's parliaments disapproved of his foreign policy and their
unwillingness to grant subsidies led him to fall back on questionable
methods of raising money, especially during the eleven years
(1629--1640) in which he ruled without a parliament. Charles had no
great scheme of tyranny, but avoided parliaments because of their
criticism of his policy. At first the opposition had been purely
political, but the parliament of 1629 had attacked also Charles's
religious policy. He favoured the schemes of Laud (archbishop of
Canterbury 1633--1649) and the Arminian school among the clergy, who
wished to revive many of the old Catholic practices and some of the
beliefs which had been swept away by the Reformation. Many people
in England objected not only to these but even to the wear