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282
Desperate charge of
the infantry.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Temporary repulse.
The king’s death. [1628-
met by a lively fire from the musketeers, posted
partly iu the deepened ditches, partly behind walls
in the rear of these. Some say, that when the
infantry here did not advance quickly enough, the
king, reproaching them, took pike iu hand himself,
and prepared to lead the assault on the ditches; but
allowed himself to b.e moved by the exclamations
and entreaties of his soldiers to desist from his pur-
pose, whereupon he mounted his horse and put
himself at the head of the cavalry K The onfall
was made with such impetuosity, that the three
Swedish infauti-y brigades of the centre, under the
command of count Nicholas Brahe, pushed across
the high-road, took the hostile batteries on the
other side, repulsed two immense squares of the
enemy, and were on the point of overpowering the
third, when, outmatched in an attack by the
enemy’s reserve and cavalry, they were obliged to
give way, lost the batteries again, and were driven
back over the high-road. The Swedish cavalry,
which at the first onslaught had partly halted
at the ditches, came up afterwards ;
the king was
among the foremost. The tidings of the first cap-
ture of the battex’y had reached him ;
he uncovered
his head and thanked God. Over-against stood the
Croats and the imperial cuirassiers; the latter from
head to foot in dark accoutrements. He pointed to
them, and said to the Finnish colonel Stalhandske
(Steelglove), "Tackle to the black lads; they are
coming to do us mischief^.’’ At the moment he
learned that the infan try was giving way. He placed
himself at the head of the Smaland cavalry’, to
hasten to their aid; too impetuously, for he was
separated from his troops, and fell himself among
the enemy’s cuirassiers, the fog again spreading at
the same moment. His horse received a pistol-
5
Harte, History of the Life of Gustavus Adolphus, ii. 366.
Gualdo (Francheville), 218.
f’
Thus much did Stalhandske himself oftentimes and at
table relate unto divers gentlemen of our nation. Swed.
Intel, iii. 134.
7 "Since the colonel of the regiment (Frederic Stenhock)
was shot in the foot, his majesty in person led it." Relation
of Jens Mansson, 1. c.
8
Richelieu, vii. 260. Khevenhiiller says that the shot
struck his head. " The relation which was transmitted to
his imperial majesty of tliis death, in hoc passu, states, that
as the king tried to go to the aid of his flying troops, an Im-
perialist corporal took a musketeer by the hand, directing
him, since he saw that every one yielded to the king and
made room for him,
’
to slioot upon him, for he was some
chief one;’, thereupon he presented, fired, and shot the king
through the arm. A squadron of Imperialist dragoons now
coming up, one among them in white accoutrements, who
is said to have been the lieutenant-colonel of the Florentine
regiment of Falkenberg, shot the king through the head, so
that he fell from his horse to the ground and was stripped."
Khevenhiiller, xii. 192.
’ Swed. Intel, iii. 137. "
Falkenberg, lieutenant-colonel
of a regiment of Imperial cavalry, pushing straight to the
king with bridle loose, without any one’s believing that he
was an enemy, discharged a pistol-ball at him at ten paces,
which hit hiiu in the middle of the back and made him fall
to the ground ; on the instant the equerry of duke Francis,
running after the cavalier, despatched him with his sword."
Richelieu, vii. 2(i0. That this ducal equerry, who could not
possibly have attempted to avenge the king’s fall if his own
master had been the murderer, was called Luchau, as stated
in the Swedish Intelligencer, is confirmed by a private letter
from Franci.s of Lauenburg to Wallenstein, some weeks after
the battle (Forster, ii. 357). He sends back a servant of
Wallenstein, made prisoner, requesting him to release the
shot through its neck; a second broke the bone of
his left arm. He now prayed the duke of Lauen-
burg to lead him out of the thick of the battle, but
at the same moment received a fresh shot through
the back *, and fell from his horse, which dragged
him some distance in the stirrups. The chamber-
lain Truchsess saw the shot aimed at the king by
an imperialist officer, who was immediately slain
by Luchau, the equerry of the duke of Lauenburg ^.
The duke fled. Of the king’s two orderlies, one
lay dead, the other wounded ^ Of all his attend-
ants, only a German page, Leubelfing, remained by
him. This youth of eighteen, who some days after
the battle died of his wounds, made a statement iu
his last hours, which was taken down and pre-
served, that when the king fell from his horse, he
had dismounted and off"ered his own to his lord ;
that the king stretched out both hands to him, but
he was not in a condition singly to lift him from
the ground ;
that cuii’assiers of the enemy came up
and inquired who the wounded man was, which he,
the page, would not tell, but the king himself had
given them to understand it, upon which he re-
ceived his death-shot through the head^ Herewith
the account given by duke Bernard of Weimar
agrees^, and adds, that these cuirassiers likewise
ran their sabres through the king several times,
and stripped the body naked. Adier Salvius, re-
ferring to the king’s secretary Grubby, writes
home to the council, that towards one in the after-
noon, his majesty having placed himself at the head
of Stenbock’s regiment, which encountered with
the enemy during the thick fog, was first shot
through the left arm, so that the arm-pipe came
out thi’ough the clothes, upon which a man shot
father of his equerry Luchau, who had ’been taken, and
assures Wallenstein of his willingness to be of service to
him in other matters. Thus would not write a man who
could have made a merit to himself of the death of Gustavus
Adolphus.
’
Of the guardsmen who rode with the king one was called
Anders Jensson (relation of Jens Mansson); that the sur-
vivor was named Jacob Evicson appears from what follows.
- The relation, written down by the youth’s father, baron
von Leubelfing, captain of Nuremberg, was first made public
in Marr’s Journal, Nuremberg, 1776, iv. 65. The young
Augustus Leubelfing died at Nuremberg, where his grave-
stone is still poir.ted out in the church of St. Wentzel.
3
Richelieu, Mem.vii. 2G0. Leubelfing is here called Lasbel-
fin.
" The king being on the ground, Lasbelfin, who was one
of his gentlemen, leaving the thick of the fight, and finding
him on the ground, prayed him to mount his horse and save
himself, seeing the enemy coming to him; but he could
not speak, and three Imperialist cavaliers came up, who
asked Lasbelfin the name of the wounded man. He would
not give it, and told them that it was apparently some officer.
Irritated by his answer, they gave him two sword and pistol
wounds, took his horse, and left him for dead, as was after-
wards learned from himself, who died five days after. Then
one of them gave the king a pistol-wound on the temple,
which finished him, besides several sword-thrusts, and they
stripped him, leaving only his shirt." To the same eftect
nearly are the statements regarding Leubelfing in the Swed.
Intell. iii. 139, from a letter of Nicephorus Kessel, field-
chaplain to duke Bernard. Gualdo says,
"
By a first pistol-
shot Gustavus was wounded in the arm, and by another ball,
which he received in the back below the right shoulder, he
was thrown from his horse and fell dead. Such was the end
of this great king. We can say no more upon this death ;
we should not even know the circumstances, if we had not
them from a j’oung page who served the monarch." Fran-
cheville, p. 220.
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