THE

HISTORY

OF

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS

AND OF THE

THIRTY YEARS' WAR,

UP TO THE KING'S DEATH:

WITH

SOME ACCOUNT OF ITS CONCLUSION BY THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA

ANNO 1648.

BY

B. CHAPMAN, M. A.

VICAR OF LETHERHEAD.

ILLUSTRATED WITH

PLANS OF THE BATTLES OF LEIPSIG AND LÜTZEN;

AND A ROUGH PROJECT OF THE IMPERIALISTS' ORDER OF BATTLE AT LÜTZEN,
FROM A PLAN DRAWN OUT IN WALLENSTEIN'S OWN HAND.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

1856.

[The Author reserves the right of translation.]

240. a. 22.

PREFACE.

THE character of Gustavus Adolphus was too remarkable, and the part he played in the world far too conspicuous for him not to have been made the frequent subject of history. Yet, in presenting to the public another life of him, I trust I shall not be found to have undertaken a superfluous task or simply to have repeated an often-told tale. Some of my predecessors lived in what Sir Thomas Brown calls a "disadvantage of time," when archives were jealously closed which are now liberally thrown open, and when in the Scandinavian languages there existed as yet few of those works of inventive genius, and comparatively few of those valuable historical monuments, which of late years have invited and repaid the study of them.

The only English historian who has the reputation among us of having written an elaborate and authentic life of Gustavus is Harte. His work is now It was first published nearly a century ago. It labours, therefore, under that "disadvantage of time"

scarce.