The Bohemian king, on his side, had the help of the German rulers of States in the Catholic League and also the promised help of France and of Spain. James of England was appealed to, but declined. He was very fully occupied at home. But we see a new figure appearing on the stage, a figure of most attractive and romantic interest--that of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. Sweden, and all Scandinavia, by which I mean Norway and Denmark also, have not come very prominently on the stage of the Great Story. Nor will they be there now for a very long period at a time. But at least twice we shall see a Swedish king appearing {75} in a dramatic fashion. Little Denmark is also the occasional scene of a great event. One of these occasions arrived very soon after the date which we have now reached. That date is 1618, the year of the commencement of what is known as the Thirty Years' War. The principal leader of the Protestant forces in that war was Gustavus Adolphus coming down from Sweden at the head of his armies at a moment when his help was sorely needed. It was not the first time that he had made himself known and felt in the affairs of Central and Eastern Europe. About the year 1611, when he came to the throne of Sweden, a design was formed of uniting Sweden with Russia. The throne of Russia was the object of much dispute at the moment. The year before, the Poles had invaded Russia, had taken Moscow, and the son of the Polish king had been crowned Tsar. In the year of Gustavus's accession as King of Sweden, the Poles were driven out of Moscow again. We should remember that the first rulers of Russia, those under whom she had begun to be a nation, came from Sweden, and since there was no very apparent heir to the throne it might have seemed to the Muscovites not unnatural that a Swede should step into it. In the end, quite a different solution of the question was arrived at. A Tsar of the family of Romanoff, very distantly connected with the original sovereign family, was put on the throne, and founded the dynasty which endured until the last Tsar was deposed and done to death in the terrible revolution which happened during the Great War. It is impossible here to pursue all the ups and downs of the fighting which went on in Germany, for Germany provided the principal battle-fields through that war of thirty years' duration. Knowing what we do of modern warfare, it may seem difficult for us to understand how the people of the countries that {76} were the scene of such prolonged fighting could survive at all. But we have to understand that the way in which wars were fought in those days was very different from the present manner. [Sidenote: The Thirty Years' War]