with formidable enemies on every side, her only support at home consisted of weak friends, ill-paid armies, and empty treasuries, exhausted by a series of wars and revolutions. In this feeble condition, it was of the utmost importance to secure internal tranquillity; and, accordingly, the diet prevailed with Duke John to confirm his renunciation of all claim to the throne, and allow the young prince to take upon himself the sole administration of the government.

The first acts of Gustavus' reign impressed his subjects with a favourable opinion of that singular penetration and capacity for business, which marked the whole of his extraordinary career. The celebrated Oxenstiern was made chancellor, and every post, civil and military, was filled with equal discrimination. To carry on the foreign wars in which he was engaged, he resumed all the crown-grants, and ordered an account of the produce of tithes and feudal lands to be delivered annually into the royal exchequer. The peace concluded with Denmark allowed him to devote his attention for a short interval to the study of civil affairs. He concluded a treaty of commerce with the Dutch, and established a society of trade at Stockholm, every subscriber to which advanced certain sums to the crown, on being released for the space of three years from all taxes, duties, and imposts. To encourage agricultural industry, he absolved peasants and farmers from the obligation of supplying the government with horses and carriages. An edict was published to abridge the tediousness and expense of litigation, especially in affairs of regal judicature; and no measures were omitted that could improve the national institutions, or meliorate the condition of the people.

Within three years after his accession, Gustavus assembled the states at Helsingborg, to deliberate on the proceedings necessary to be adopted for the speedy adjustment of the dispute with Russia. The whole northern quarter of that great empire had expressed a desire to have a Swedish prince, in the hope of extending their commercial relations with the Baltic; but Charles Philip had no ambition to become the ruler of

a nation of barbarians; and the scheme, which for some years had been a favourite object at the court of Stockholm, was now finally and suddenly defeated by the election of Michael Feodorovitz to the dignity of czar (1613), a native prince of the Romanof family, remotely connected with that of the Ruriks, and founder of a new dynasty, which has continued ever since to sway the sceptre of that immense empire. Determined to revenge this affront, Gustavus obtained the concurrence of the states in a resolution to compel the Muscovites to refund the debt they had contracted under the late reign. Their haughty refusal led to immediate hostilities: the indignant monarch entered Ingria at the head of an army, took Kexholm by storm, and was laying siege to Plescow, when James I. of England offered his mediation, and succeeded in restoring peace (1617), on condition of Russia making payment of the loan, and ceding the contested provinces of Ingria and Carelia to Sweden. Brief as was the duration of this war, it is memorable as the school where Gustavus learned the rudiments of that art which afterwards made him the admiration of Europe.

The truce with Poland having expired, and its renewal being frustrated by the treacherous design of Sigismund, who not only declined all overtures of pacification, but treated his Swedish majesty as a usurper, and even formed a scheme to seize his person, the latter had no alternative than that of having recourse to warlike preparations. With a powerful armament of 20,000 troops, and a number of eminent officers, he set sail for Riga, and laid siege to the town, whilst the Poles were occupied in repelling the Turks from Wallachia. The reduction of this place was followed by a suspension of hostilities, with a view to a general pacification; but as Sigismund still refused his assent, in the hope of gaining some favourable opportunity to attack his rival, his Swedish majesty again put himself at the head of his army, and entered Livonia, the whole of which, except Daneburg, was subdued. Pillau, Elbing, Marienburg, and most of the principal towns in Prussia, were taken by the invaders in a single campaign; and next year

(1627) the conqueror invested Dantzic, which he would probably have carried, had he not been wounded by a cannon-shot at the commencement of the siege.

Meantime the Swedish fleet encountered the Polish and Dantzic squadron while endeavouring to throw succours into the garrison; an obstinate engagement ensued, which terminated in the defeat of the latter, and the destruction of their admiral's ship.

This victory Gustavus immediately followed up by blockading the harbour, and pushing his approaches with vigour on the land-side. By this unexpected movement, the magistrates, already apprehensive of insurrection from the scarcity of provisions, were thrown into the greatest confusion; and they had actually resolved to surrender, when a sudden flood of rain swelled the Vistula, until it carried off the temporary pontoons, ruined the Swedish works, and obliged the king to break up his camp. As a compensation for this disappointment, he took several towns in his retreat, and put their garrisons to the sword. General Wrangel also defeated a body of Poles at Brodnitz, and would have reduced Thorn, had it not been suddenly reinforced by a strong detachment of troops. Another and a more decisive battle was fought and won by Gustavus in person, at Stum, where the enemy, with a body of 7000 German auxiliaries under Arnheim, were routed with immense slaughter.

Peace was the happy consequence of the successes which in every quarter had crowned the military operations of the Swedish monarch. Sigismund, finding his ranks thinned by famine, no less than by the sword of the enemy, consented to a truce of six years (1629), by which a glorious termination was put to the war with Muscovy and Poland. In negotiating this pacification, England, France, and Holland lent their willing aid, in order that Gustavus might be at liberty to turn his arms against the Emperor Ferdinand II., in support of the Protestant interests in Germany, where the Reformed faith was put in jeopardy by the grasping ambition of the house of Austria.

CHAPTER II.

From the Thirty Years' War to the Danish Revolution of 1660.

The Thirty Years' War-Its Causes and Progress-Christian IV. chosen Captain-general of the Protestant Army-Victories of Wallenstein and Tilly-Invasion of Denmark by the Catholic Troops-Ambitious Views of Ferdinand II. and WallensteinPeace between Austria and Denmark-Gustavus Adolphus elected Commander of the combined Protestant Forces-His Departure for Germany-Successful Opening of the Campaign-Defeat of Tilly at Leipsig-Victories of the Swedes on the Rhine-Passage of the Lech and Death of Tilly-Restoration of Wallenstein-Siege of Nuremberg-Battle of Lutzen and Death of Gustavus-Prosecution of the War-Peace of Westphalia-War between Sweden and Denmark-Naval Engagements-Peace of Bromsbro-Death and Character of Christian IV.-His Efforts to promote Trade and Navigation-State of Affairs at the Accession of Frederick III.-Abdication of Christina of Sweden-Her Pretensions to Literature-Charles X. invades Poland-Denmark embarks in the War-Peace of Roskilde-Final Cession of the Danish Provinces beyond the Sound-Death of Charles X. and Peace of Oliva-Treaty of Copenhagen-Revolution of 1660.

Ir belongs not to the historian of the Northern Kingdoms to enter upon a detail of those religious and political disputes in which the continent of Europe had been involved for nearly a century, and which, at this period, broke out into the celebrated War of Thirty Years, whose destructive ravages spread from the interior of Bohemia to the banks of the Po on the one hand, and the shores of the Baltic on the other. A brief recapitu

lation of its causes, and of the events which connected it with the states of the North, is all that is essential for the purposes of Scandinavian history. The whole transactions of this memorable era are intimately associated with the Reformation, which, although firmly established in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, still struggled in Germany with the ancient hierarchy for a doubtful and precarious existence.

The religious peace of the empire had been apparently secured by the treaty of Passau in 1552, confirmed by the recess of the diet of Augsburg in 1555. That compact guaranteed the mutual toleration of the Catholic and Protestant doctrines in the different states, constituting the supreme civil power in each the sole competent judge to decide which form of worship should be the established faith; but securing to those who might refuse to conform, liberty to remove with their effects into the territory where their own creed was publicly professed. The alienation of all ecclesiastical property, secularized prior to the treaty, was confirmed; with this stipulation, that if any of the clergy should thereafter abandon the Romish Church, his benefice should immediately be filled up with a Catholic successor, as if vacant by death or the translation of the incumbent. This provision, called the Ecclesiasticum Reservatum, by which the future progress of the Reformation was arrested in Germany, and the omission to protect those Protestant dissentients who had separated from the Confession of Augsburg, under Zuinglius and Calvin, became the fruitful sources of new contentions, whereby the ancient constitution of the empire was shaken to its foundation. The flames of war burst out in Bohemia, where the edict of toleration granted to the Lutherans by Rodolph II. was revoked. The Protestants were defeated at the White Mountain, near Prague (November 8, 1620); their leaders expiated on the scaffold the crime of defending their chartered liberties; and as the Emperor Ferdinand had declared he would have no subjects but Catholics, 200,000 of the inhabitants, who