stavus and his
ally the Elector of Brandenburg routed the Poles disastrously; and,
Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania, also abetting and assisting the
Swede, "_actum jam videbatur de Polonia_" as an old annalist
says: "it seemed then all over with Poland." But a medley of powers,
for diverse reasons and interests, had been combining themselves for
the salvation of Poland, or at least for driving back the Swede to
his own side of the Baltic. Not merely the Austrians and the German
Catholic princes were in this combination, but also the Muscovites or
Russians, and, most unnatural of all, the Danes, with countenance
even from the more distant Dutch. Nay, the prudent Elector of
Brandenburg, hitherto the ally of the Swede, was drawn off from that
alliance. This was done by a treaty, dated Nov. 10, 1656, by which
the Polish King, John Casimir, yielded to the Elector the full
sovereignty of Ducal Prussia or East Prussia, till then held by the
Elector only by a tenure of homage to the Polish Crown. All being
ready, the Danish King, Frederick III., gave the signal by declaring
war against Sweden and invading part of the Swedish territories. When
the news reached Cromwell, which it did Aug. 13, 1657, it affected
him profoundly. He had previously been remonstrating, as we have
seen, both with the Danes and the Dutch, by letters of Milton's
composition (ante pp. 272-3 and 290), trying to avert such an
unseemly Protestant intervention in arrest of the Swedish King's
career. And now, having his two envoys, MEADOWS and JEPHSON, ready
for the emergency, he despatched them at once to the scene of that
new Swedish-Danish war in which what had hitherto been the
Swedish-Polish war was to be at once engulphed. For Karl-Gustav had
turned back out of Poland to deal directly with the Danes, and the
interest was now concentrated on the struggle between these two
powers--the Poles, the German Catholics, the Muscovites, the Elector
of Brandenburg, the Dutch, and other powers, looking on more or less
in sympathy with the Danes, and some of them ready to strike in. To
end the war, if possible, by reconciling Charles X. and Frederick
III, was Cromwell's first object; and, with that aim in view, Jephson
was to attach himself more particularly to Charles X., whatever might
be his war-track, and Meadows more particularly to Frederick III. But
they might cross each other's routes, deal with other States along
these routes, and work into each other's hands