Hero Tales of the Far NorthRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
History
Hero Tales of the Far North
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
Scandinavia -- History
Had the King’s friend and adviser, Axel Oxenstjerna, been with him
he might have marched upon Vienna then, leaving the Protestant
Estates to settle their own affairs, and very likely have ended the
war. Gustav Adolf thought of Tilly who would return with another
army. Oxenstjerna saw farther, weighing things upon the scales of
the diplomatist.
“How think you we would fare,” asked the King once, when the
chancellor saw obstacles in their way which he would brush aside,
“if my fire did not thaw the chill in you?”
“But for my chill cooling your Majesty’s fire,” was his friend’s
retort, “you would have long since been burned up.” The King
laughed and owned that he was right.
Instead of bearding the Emperor in his capital he turned toward the
Rhine where millions of Protestants were praying for his coming and
where his army might find rest and abundance. The cathedral city
of Wuerzburg he took by storm. The bishop who ruled it fled at his
approach, but the full treasury of the Jesuits fell into his hands.
The Madonna of beaten gold and the twelve solid silver apostles,
famous throughout Europe, were sent to the mint and coined into
money to pay his army. In the cellar they found chests filled with
ducats. The bottom fell out of one as they carried it up and the
gold rolled out on the pavement. The soldiers swarmed to pick it
up, but a good many coins stuck to their pockets. The King saw it
and laughed: “Since you have them, boys, keep them.” The dead were
still lying in the castle yard after the siege, a number of monks
among them. The color of some of them seemed high for corpses.
“Arise from the dead,” he said waggishly, “no one will hurt you,”
and the frightened monks got upon their feet and scampered away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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