The sentiment of respect and admiration for him was still so strong that the rustic youth crowded to enlist, leaving the land without cultivators. BOOK VIII BOOK VIII Charles marries his sister to the Prince of Hesse--He is besieged in Stralsund and escapes to Sweden--The enterprise of Baron Gortz his premier--Plans of reconciliation with the Czar--An attack on England--Charles besieges Frederickshal in Norway--He is killed--His character--Gortz is beheaded. DURING these preparations the King gave his only surviving sister in marriage to Frederic, Prince of Hesse-Cassel. The Queen Dowager, his grandmother, aged fourscore years, did the honours of the _fête_ on the 4th of April, 1715, and died shortly afterwards. The King could not attend the ceremony, as he was so busy finishing the fortifications of Stralsund, which was in danger from the Kings of Denmark and Prussia. But he made his brother-in-law generalissimo of all the forces of Sweden. This Prince had served the States-General in the French war, and was considered a good soldier, a qualification for his sister’s hand in the eyes of Charles XII. Misfortunes now followed as fast as victories had once done. In June 1715 the English King’s German forces and those of Denmark invested the strong town of Wismar; the Danes, Saxons and Prussians, 36,000 of them, marched in a body to Stralsund to form a siege. Not far from Stralsund, five Swedish ships were sunk by the Danes and Prussians. The Czar held the Baltic with two large men-of-war, and 150 transports, which had 30,000 men on board. He threatened a descent on Sweden, appearing alternately on the coast of Elsingburg and Stockholm. All Sweden was in arms, expecting an invasion; his land forces were chasing the Swedes from the places they held in Finland towards the Gulf of Bothnia, but he attempted nothing further. At the mouth of the Oder, a river that divides Pomerania, and, passing Stetin, falls into the Baltic, there is a little island called Usedom. Its position makes it a place of considerable importance, for it commands the Oder both on the right and the left, and whoever holds it is master of the navigation of that river. The King of Prussia had dislodged the Swedes, and was holding the place as well as Stetin, saying that he did so purely for the sake of peace. But the Swedes had retaken Usedom in May 1715, and held two forts there, one called Suine, on a branch of the Oder of that name, the other called Penamonder, of greater importance, on another branch of the river. The forts were manned with only 250 Pomeranians, commanded by an old Swedish officer called Kuze-Slerp, a man who deserves to be remembered. On the 4th of April the King of Prussia sent 1,500 foot and 800 dragoons into the island. They arrived and landed on the side of Suine without opposition. The Swedish commander had