For twelve years Gustavus had watched the bloody strife between the defenders of the Reformed Faith in Germany and the powers of the Catholic league of the Empire and of Spain. What Philip II. of Spain was to the Catholics as a leader and upholder of the infamous Inquisition, such a power did Gustavus Adolphus become, in behalf of the Protestants, as a leader and defender of the Reformation. Holland, England, and France had earnestly pressed him to conclude the Polish wars; for the eyes of the suffering adherents of the Reformed Faith in Germany were turned in hope toward the youthful king of Sweden as their deliverer. In setting out upon this distant enterprise, Gustavus Adolphus encountered the gravest obstacles, which he himself did not fail to realize; for when his resolution was fully formed, and the consent of his Estates obtained, he exclaimed, “For me there remains henceforth no more rest but the eternal.” Though he left Sweden full of hope and courage, it was with the sure presentiment that he would never return. Gustavus had married Marie Eleonore, daughter of the elector of Brandenburg; and at the time of his German expedition left a little daughter behind him, only four years of age, who was sole heir to the Swedish throne. Gustavus Adolphus was one of the most skilful commanders of his age. Napoleon I. was wont to set him among the eight greatest generals whom the world has ever seen, placing him in the same rank with Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Cæsar, in the ancient world, with Turenne, Prince Eugene, Frederic the Great, and himself, in the modern.