GLUCKSTADT.
His Danish majesty, the gallant King Christian IV., whom we were
about to reinforce, was at this time waging with the vast forces of
the empire, an unequal warfare in the same cause which the great
Gustavus Adolphus, a few years after, maintained so successfully,
though he did not survive to behold the conclusion of that bitter
contest, which from the gates of Prague spread along the banks of the
Po and the shores of the Baltic.
The edict of toleration granted by the Emperor Rodolph II. to the
Bohemians, had been revoked; and thus they rose in arms. They had
been defeated at the White Mountain, where the chivalry of the Empire
trod the standards of the elector Frederick in the dust, and the
laurels of the Imperialists were drenched in Protestant blood.
Though wedded to a princess of the house of Scotland, the Elector was
the basest of cowards, and fled, leaving his queen to her fate. Two
hundred thousand persons had been driven into exile; and though the
illustrious Count of Mansfeldt, and Christian Duke of Bavaria, for a
time defended the Bohemians and the Reformed faith with the most
heroic valour, they were driven headlong before the conquering Tilly,
whose ferocious legions burst like a torrent into Lower Saxony,
giving all to fire and sword, and carrying terror and despair into
the hearts of the Protestants.
It was at this desperate crisis, and while Gustavus of Sweden was
warring with Poland, that Christian IV. of Denmark, anxious to have
the entire glory of saving the Reformed Church of Germany from utter
destruction, commenced, as it were, a new crusade against the mighty
power of the Emperor Ferdinand, and drew to his banner the flower of
the Saxon circles and of the Danish isles, and I may add of our own
dear Scottish mountains; for, in addition to nearly fourteen thousand
Scots who followed the standard of Gustavus, there were in the Danish
army, in addition to our own regiment of fifteen hundred men, Sir
Alexander Seaton's, of five hundred; Sir James Leslie's, of a
thousand musketeers; while in the same year we were joined by John
Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale. Alexander Lindesay, Lord Spynie (a
gallant grandson of Cardinal Beaton), and Sir James Sinclair, son of
John Master of Caithness, levied each a regiment of three battalions;
and each battalion being a thousand strong, made altogether about
eleven thousand Scottish soldiers, who were marching under the Danish
cross.*
* Here the Denmylne MSS. corroborate our Cavalier.
The noble King Christian, then the rival of the Swedish conqueror,
from his peculiar position, as sovereign of Lower Saxony, of Jutland,
and of Denmark (the isles of which secured for him a strong retreat
in case of reverses), had many advantages which induced the
Protestant powers to give him the command of those forces raised by
them to protect the liberties of Germany. Christian urged on
Gustavus the necessity of co-operation; but that brave prince being
at war with Poland, the Dane was left single-handed, and fearlessly
he undertook the terrible task of waging battle with the overgrown
empire.
Trusting to those supplies which were promised to him from every part
of Reformed Christendom, he had attended the convocation of the Saxon
states, held at Lauenburg, in March, 1625, where he entered into a
league with the rich burghers who inhabited the free cities of the
circle, and was chosen Captain-General of the confederate army, which
was to muster in the duchy of Holstein. From thence, with 25,000
Danes, Scots, and Germans, he crossed the Elbe, and was joined at the
Weser by 7000 Saxons.
Under Tilly, the forces of the Catholic league hovered on the
opposite bank; while Wallenstein, attacking Count Mansfeldt at
Dessau, cut to pieces 10,000 Protestants, and received the title of
Prince of Friedland. Mansfeldt died of a broken heart. Duke
Christian died soon after; and thus the Danish monarch was left alone
to cope with the two greatest generals the empire ever possessed.
One town after another became their prey, and at a decisive battle
fought near the castle and village of Lütter in Barenberg, the Danes
and their Scottish allies were defeated by the Catholics, with the
loss of sixty standards, their whole artillery, many officers of
distinction, and four thousand men, who were left dead upon the field.
This was on the 27th August, 1626, a full month before we sailed from
Cromartie. This severe blow at Lütter compelled Christian to retreat
to Stade, in the duchy of Bremen, and to that place we supposed Sir
Donald would march the small portion he commanded, of the quota sent
by our mother Caledonia to the German war.
After an easy voyage of five days, during which the _Unicorn_ and
_Crown Royal_ never lost sight of each other, on the 15th of October
we entered the broad bosom of the Elbe; and, just as the hazy sun was
setting, dropped our anchors in the mud, opposite Glückstadt, a
little city on the northern or right bank of the river.
The spire of the great church, and the cannon on the ramparts, were
shining in the last rays of the sun, and the many trees which
encircled the fortifications gave a pleasant aspect to the place.
The harbour is large, and at the end of the canal which ran from it
into the town, there was a large tower built on piles of oak,
encircled by platforms having batteries of cannon to command the
Elbe. This tower has long since disappeared. Our cannon saluted the
Danish cross which was flying on the wooden tower, the cannon of
which replied by a salute of forty pieces to our double flags; for,
according to the order of his majesty James VI., issued in 1606, we
carried the interlaced crosses of St. Andrew and St. George at our
main-masthead, and the Scottish ensign on the colour staff at our
stern. Soon after we anchored, Sir David Drummond (a cavalier of the
house of Meedhope), who commanded two thousand Danish foot in the
city, came off in a gay pinnace to bid us welcome, and pay his
respects to our colonel, the great Sir Donald Mackay of Farr and
Strathnaver.
Being Scotsmen, we naturally looked for hills in surveying the coast,
but we might as well have looked for the pyramids of Egypt; for there
were only swampy morasses lying on both sides of the turgid Elbe,
which was dyked, to keep out the water from the fields where the fat
sleepy cattle were chewing the cud, surrounded by rich grass, and the
drowsy hum of the evening flies.
The broad river flowed slowly and turgidly, and being impregnated
with mud, was all of a yellow colour, unlike the pure deep blue of
those fierce torrents, that, bearing trees and rocks with them, rush
from the giant mountains of our native land. The fortifications were
built on piles, and innumerable water-rats were swimming and paddling
among the mud and slime that oozed between the timber.
Though the sun was shining, a frowsy pestilential fog rested on the
bosom of the river, and overhung the town; there was a closeness, a
stillness in the atmosphere, which imparted a strange dulness to the
place, and seemed to infect us; for our soldiers while they crowded
the sides of the vessels, instead of being full of gesture and
animation like Highlanders, were silent and inert, like the fat old
burghers who sat on the parapets, smoking their long Dutch pipes
without any sign of motion or life. The sentinels stood like statues
on the ramparts, and their motionless pikes glittered like stars in
the sunlight.
By break of day next morning--at least an hour before the sun had
risen from the flat morasses, and while the same white mist was
resting on the river--we disembarked in large flat-bottomed boats,
and drew up in order under our colours, by companies on the quay,
while our pipes played Mackay's pibroch, _Brattach bhan clan Aiodh_,
till the Holsteiners stuck their fingers in their ears, and the
stones of the street shook below us.
Here Captain Torquil M'Coll of that Ilk lost his brother, who was
sergeant of his pikes. Falling overboard into the muddy river,
despite all our efforts to save him, the poor man sank under the
weight of his headpiece, back, breast and bracelets, and was drowned,
or rather suffocated. In my haste to succour this unfortunate, when
floundering among that hideous mud, I nearly fell in after him, but
was saved by Ian grasping my plaid.
"Dioul!" said he, "the tide is out--are you mad? the water is thick
as piper's brose--the man is lost--would you too lose your life?"
It was fortunate my strong kinsman seized me, otherwise I might have
perished with M'Coll. The sergeant was a brave man, and had fought
for his majesty James VI. at the battle of Belrinnes, twenty-eight
years before.
That maxim of the great Count Tilly, "a ragged soldier with a bright
musket," applied not to us, for our harness was polished as bright as
when the armourer had sent it from his shop; and I was astonished by
the finery displayed among our poorest private soldiers. The mouths
of their sporrans, the brooches of their plaids, and the hilts of
their dirks, were either ornamented with silver, or such precious
stones as their own mountains afforded--the topaz, the amethyst, the
cairngorm, and the river pearl; for it was their ambition that, if
they were slain, or should die far from their home, there should be
wherewithal on their persons to pay for a respectable funeral.
My brave comrades! too many of them were doomed to find no other
grave than the maws of the gorged and hideous crows that hovered over
the battle-fields of Low Germanie, when the boom of the culverin
summoned them from the four winds of heaven to their terrible feast.
We were formed in line, three ranks deep, on the quay, and there were
exactly one thousand five hundred and forty men in their helmets; the
colours, with the pipes and drums, were in the centre; the pikemen
flanked the musketeers. Well mounted, and clad in a magnificent suit
of Italian plate, which was covered with so many rare and gold
devices that it was usually believed to be enchanted, Sir Donald,
with his claymore drawn, gave the words of command rapidly, as became
a cavalier of spirit.
"Gentlemen, height your musketeers--dress your ranks, pike-men! To
the right--turn; quick march."
The colours bent forward rustling in the wind, five hundred pikes and
a thousand muskets were sloped in the sunshine, and with our drums
beating that brave Scottish march, which has led so often to death
but never to defeat, we entered Glückstadt, being duly saluted at the
gates with all the honours of war, by the Laird of Craigie's regiment
of Danes, who formed line, with pikes advanced and drums beating.
This city of Glückstadt had been so strongly fortified by King
Christian IV., in 1620, that it held out against the besieging forces
of the Emperor Ferdinand II. for two years, and defied the whole
power of the imperialists to take it by sea; and, being then all
unused to regularly fortified towns, to me it seemed the strongest
place in the world. Its locality was originally a mere swamp, and
there is still a possibility of laying the whole outworks under
water. We crossed several of the canals by which it is intersected,
as we marched through the narrow streets into the quaint and
old-fashioned market-place, where we halted before the great church,
which stands at one corner thereof, and wherein the German colonists
and the old Catholics were both allowed a chapel for their own
worship--a toleration and good-fellowship which somewhat surprised
our Scottish cavaliers, who believed it could exist nowhere but in
the Highlands; for there the real and traditionary ties of clanship
were dearer and stronger than those of religion, the powers of the
patriarchal chief being superior alike to those of priest and
presbyter.
In the market-place we received our billets from the burgomaster; and
by good fortune, as it afterwards proved, my cousin the captain,
M'Alpine our lieutenant, and myself, were quartered in one house--a
tall building, situated immediately over against the great church.