was forty years in beating them out of seven, he had left them rich and strong at home, and able to keep him in constant apprehensions of a return of their power.

But this success did one piece of service to the Swedes, that it brought the French into the war on their side, for the Elector of Treves was their confederate. The French gave the conduct of the war to Duke Bernard. This, though the Duke of Saxony fell off, and fought against them, turned the scale so much in their favour, that they recovered their losses, and proved a terror to all Germany. The further accounts of the war I refer to the histories of those times, which I have since read with great delight.

I confess, when I saw the progress of the Imperial army after the battle of Norlingen, and the Duke of Saxony turning his arms against them, I thought their affairs declining; and giving them over for lost, I left Frankfort, and came down the Rhine to Cologne, and from thence into Holland. I came to the Hague the 8th of March, 1635, having spent three years and a half in Germany, and the greatest part of it in the Swedish army. I stayed some time in Holland, viewing the wonderful power of art which I observed in the fortifications of their towns, where the very bastions stand on bottomless morasses, and yet are firm as any in the world. There I had the opportunity of seeing the Dutch army, and their famous general. Prince Maurice.

It is true the men behaved themselves well enough in action, when they were put to it; but the prince's way of beating his enemies, without fighting, was so unlike the gallantry of my royal instructor, that it had no manner of relish with

me.

Our way in Germany was always to seek out the enemy and fight him; and, give the Imperialists their due, they were seldom hard to be found, but were as free of their flesh as we were.

Whereas Prince Maurice would lie in a camp till he starved half his men, if by lying there he could but starve two-thirds of his enemy's; so that indeed the war in Holland had more of fatigues and hardships in it, and ours had more of fighting and blows: hasty marches, long and unwholesome encampments, winter parties, countermarching, dodging, and intrenching, were the exercises of his men, and oftentimes killed him more men with hunger, cold, and diseases, than he could do with fighting.

Not that it required less courage, but rather more; for a soldier had, at any time, rather die in the field by a musket than be starved with hunger, or frozen to death in the trenches.

Nor do I think I lessen the reputation of that great general; for it is most certain he ruined the Spaniards more by spinning the war thus out in length than he could possibly have done by a swift conquest; for had he, Gustavus like, with a torrent of victory dislodged the Spaniards of all the twelve provinces in five years, whereas he

The prodigious charge the King of Spain wa at in losing the seven provinces broke the very spirit of the nation, and that so much, that all the wealth of their Peruvian mountains have not been able to retrieve it.

King Philip having often declared that war, besides his armada for invading England, had cost him three hundred and seventy millions of ducats, and four millions of the best soldiers in Europe; whereof, by an unreasonable Spanish obstinacy, above sixty thousand lost their lives before Os tend, a town not worth a sixth part either of the blood or money it cost in a siege of three years, and which at last he had never taken, but that Prince Maurice thought it not worth the charge of defending it any longer.

However, I say, their way of fighting in Holland did not relish with me at all. The prince lay a long time before a little fort called Shenks cans, which the Spaniards took by surprise, and I thought he might have taken it much sooner. Perhaps it might be my mistake; but I fancied my hero, the King of Sweden, would have carried it sword in hand in half the time.

However it was, I did not like it; so, in the latter end of the year, I came to the Hague, and took shipping for England, where I arrived, to the great satisfaction of my father and all my friends.

My father was then in London, and carried me to kiss the king's hand. His majesty was pleased to receive me very well, and to say a great many very obliging things to my father upon my account.

I spent my time very retired from court, for I was almost wholly in the country; and it being so much different from my genius, which henkered after a warmer sport than hunting among our Welsh mountains, I could not but be peeping in all the accounts from Germany to see how things went on. I could never hear of a battle but the Germans were beaten, yet I began to wish myself there.

But when an account came of the progress of Sir John Bannier, the Swedish general in Saxony, and of the constant victories he had there over the Saxons, I could no longer contain myself, and told my father this life was very disagreeable to me; that I lost my time here, and might to much more advantage go into Germany, where I was sure I might make my fortune upon my own terms; that, young as I was, I might have been a general officer by this time, if I had not laid down my commission; and if he pleased to give me leave, I would go to Germany again.

My father was very unwilling to let me go; but, seeing me uneasy, told me, if I was resolved. he would oblige me to stay no longer in England than the next spring, and then I should have his consent.

The winter following began to look very unpleasant upon us in England, and my father used often to sigh at it, and would sometimes tell me he was afraid we should have no need to send Englishmen to fight in Germany.

The cloud that seemed to threaten most was from Scotland. My father, who had made himself master of the arguments on both sides, used to say he feared there was some about the king, who exasperated him too much against the Scots, and drove things too high.

For my part, I confess I did not much trouble my head with the cause; but all my fear was they would not fall out, and we should have no fighting. I have often reflected since, that I ought to have known better, that had seen how the most flourishing provinces of Germany were reduced to the most miserable condition that ever any country in the world was, by the ravagings of soldiers, and the calamities of war. How much soever I was to blame, yet so it was, I had a secret joy at the news of the king's raising an army, and nothing could have withheld me from appearing in it; but my eagerness was still increased by an express the king sent to my father to know if his son was in England; and my father having ordered me to carry the answer myself, I waited upon his majesty with the messenger. The king received me with his usual kindness, and asked me if I was willing to serve him against the Scots.

I answered, I was ready to serve him against any that his majesty thought fit to account his enemies, and should esteem it an honour to receive his commands. Hereupon his majesty offered me a commission. I told him I supposed there would not be much time for raising of men ; that if his majesty pleased I would be at the rendezvous with as many gentlemen as I could get together to serve his majesty as volunteers. The truth is, I found all the regiments of horse the king designed to raise were but two, as regiments; the rest of the horse were such as the nobility raised in their several counties, and commanded by themselves. As I had commanded a regiment of horse abroad, it looked a little odd to serve with a single troop at home; and the king took the thing presently.

"Indeed, it will be a volunteer war," said the king, "for the northern gentry have sent me an account of above four hundred horse they have already."

I bowed, and told his majesty I was glad to hear his subjects were so forward to serve him; so, taking his majesty's orders to be at York by the end of March, I returned to my father.

expedition ended in an accommodation with the Scots; and they not advancing so much as to their own borders, we never came to any action; but the armies lay in the counties of Northumberland and Durham, eat up the country, and spent the king a vast sum of money; and so this war ended, a pacification was made, and both sides returned.

But, indeed, I never saw such a despicable appearance of men in arms to begin a war in my life; whether it was that I had seen so many braver armies abroad that prejudiced me against them, or that it really was so, for to me they seemed little better than a rabble met together to devour, rather than fight for their king and country. There was, indeed, a great appearance of gentlemen, and those of extraordinary quality; but their garb, their equipages, and their mien, did not look like war; their troops were filled with footmen and servants, and wretchedly armed, God wot!

I believe I might say, without vanity, one regiment of Finland horse would have made sport at beating them all. There were such crowds of parsons, for this was a church war in particular, that the camp and court was full of them; and the king was so eternally besieged with clergymen of one sort or another, that it gave offence to the chief of the nobility.

As was the appearance, so was the service; the army marched to the borders, and the headquarters was at Berwick-upon-Tweed; but the Scots never appeared, no, not so much as their scouts; whereupon the king called a council of war, and there it was resolved to send the Earl of Holland, with a party of horse, into Scotland, to learn some news of the enemy; and, truly, the first news he brought us was, that, finding their army encamped about Coldingham, fifteen miles from Berwick, as soon as he appeared the Scots drew out a party to charge him; upon which most of his men halted-I do not say run away, but it was next to it; for they could not be persuaded to fire their pieces, and wheel off like soldiers, but retreated in such a disorderly and shameful manner, that had the enemy had either the courage or conduct to have followed them, it must have certainly ended in the ruin of the whole party.

I confess, when I went into arms at the beginning of this war, I never troubled myself to examine sides; I was as glad to hear the drums beat for soldiers as if I had been a mere Swiss, who cares not which side gets the better, provided he receives his pay. I went as eagerly and blindly about my business as the meanest wretch that listed into the army; nor had I the least compassionate thought for the miseries of my native country till after the fight at Edgehill.

nant who had been an old soldier, with only five troopers in whom he put most confidence, and having given him his lesson, he sends him away: in a quarter of an hour one of the five troopers comes back galloping and hallooing, and tells us his lieutenant had with his small party beaten a party of twenty of the enemy's horse over the river, and had secured the pass, and desired my lord would march up to him immediately.

It is strange that men's spirits should be subject to such sudden changes, and capable of so much alteration from shadows of things. They were for running before they saw the enemy; now they were in haste to be led on, but in raw men we are obliged to bear with anything, for the disorder in both was intolerable.

The story was a premeditated sham, and not a word of truth in it, invented to raise their spirits, and cheat them out of their cowardly, phlegmatic apprehensions, and my lord had his end in it, for they were all on fire to fall on; and I am persuaded had they been led immediately into a battle begun to their hands, they would have laid about them like furies, for there is nothing like victory to flush a young soldier. Thus, while the humour was high, and the fermentation|| lasted, away we marched; and passing one of their great commons, which they call moors, we came to the river, as he called it, where our lieutenant was posted with his four men. It was a little brook, fordable with ease; and, leaving a guard at the pass, we advanced to the top of a small ascent, from whence we had a fair view of the Scotch army as they lay behind another river larger than the former.

Our men were posted well enough behind a small enclosure, with a narrow lane in their front, and my lord had caused his dragoons to be placed in the front to line the hedges; and in this posture he stood viewing the enemy at a distance. The Scots, who had some intelligence of our coming, drew out three small parties, and sent them by different ways to observe our number; and, forming a fourth party, which I guessed to be about six hundred horse, advanced to the top of the plain, and drew up to face us, but never offered to attack us.

One of the small parties, making about a hundred men, one third foot, passes upon our flank in view, but out of reach, and as they marched shouted at us, which our men, better pleased with that work than with fighting, readily enough answered, and would fain have fired at them for the pleasure of making a noise, for they were too far off to hit them.

I observed that these parties had always some foot with them, and yet, if the horse galloped or pushed on ever so forward, the foot were as forward as they, which was an extraordinary advantage.

Gustavus Adolphus, that king of soldiers, was the first that I have ever observed found the advantage of mixing small bodies of musketeers among his horse; and had he had such nimble strong fellows as these, he would have prized them above all the rest of his men. These were those they called Highlanders: they would run on foot with their arms and all their accoutrements, keep very good order too, and keep pace with the horse, let them go at what rate they

would. When I saw the foot thus interlined among the horse, together with their way of ordering flying parties, it presently occurred to my mind that here were some of our old Scots, come home out of Germany, that had the ordering of matters, and, if so, I knew we were not a match for them.

Thus we stood facing the enemy till our scouts brought us word the whole Scotch army was in motion, and in full march to attack us; ; and though it was not truc, for the fear of our men doubled every object, yet it was thought convenient to make our retreat. The whole matter was, that the scouts having informed them what they could of our strength, the six hundred were ordered to march towards us, and three regiments of foot were drawn out to support the horse.

I know not whether they would have ventured to attack us, at least before their foot had come up, but whether they would have put it to the hazard or not, we were resolved not to hazard the trial, so we drew down to the pass; and as retreating looks something like running away, especially when an enemy is at hand, our men had much ado to make their retreat pass for a march, and not a flight; and, by their often looking behind them, anybody might know what they would have done if they had been pressed.

I confess I was heartily ashamed when the Scots, coming up to the place where we had been posted, stood and shouted at us. I would have persuaded my lord to have charged them, and he would have done it with all his heart, but he saw it was not practicable; so we stood at gaze with them above two hours, by which time their foot were come up to them, and yet they did not offer to attack us.

Never was I so ashamed of myself. We were all dispirited. The Scotch gentlemen would come out singly within shot of our post, which, in time of war, is always accounted a challenge to any single gentleman to come out and exchange a pistol with them, and nobody would stir. last our old lieutenant rides out to meet a Scotchman that came pickeering on his quarter.

At

This lieutenant was a brave and a strong fellow, had been a soldier in the Low Countries, and though he was not of any quality, only a mere soldier, had his preferment for his conduct. He gallops bravely up to his adversary, and, exchanging their pistols, the lieutenant's horse happened to be killed. The Scotchman very generously dismounts, engages him with his sword, fairly masters him, and carries him away prisoner. I think this horse was all the blood that was shed in this war.

Lieutenant English (for that was his name), as he was a very stout old soldier, the disgrace of it broke his heart. The Scotchman, indeed, used him very generously, for he treated him in the camp very courteously, gave him another horse, and set him at liberty; yet the man laid it so to heart that he never would appear again in the army, but went home to his own country and died.

I had enough of party-making, and was quite sick with indignation at the cowardice of the men, and my lord was in as great a fright as I, but there was no remedy; we durst not turn about to retreat, for we should have been in such con

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fusion that the enemy must have discovered it; so my lord resolved to keep the post, if possible, and send to the king for some foot.

Then were our men ready to fight with one another who should be the messenger, and at last when a lieutenant with twenty dragoons was dispatched, he told him afterwards he found himseif a hundred strong before he had got a mile from the place.

In short, as soon as ever the day declined, and the dusk of the evening began to shelter the designs of the men, they dropped away from us one by one, and at last in such numbers, that if we had stayed till the morning, we should not have had fifty men left out of twelve hundred horse and dragoons.

When I saw how it was, consulting with some of the officers, we all went to my Lord Holland, and pressed him to retreat before the enemy should discern the flight of our men; so he drew us off, and we came to the camp next morning in the most shameful condition ever poor men could do, and this was the end of the worst expedition ever I made.

To fight and be beaten is a casualty common to a soldier, and I have since had enough of it; ut to run away at the sight of an enemy, and neither strike nor be stricken, is the very shame of the profession, and no man that has done it ought to show his face again in the field, unless disadvantages of place or number make it tolerable, neither of which was our case.

My Lord Holland made another march a few days after, in hopes to retrieve this miscarriage; but I had enough of it, so I kept in my quarters; and though his men did not desert him as before, they did not think fit to fight, and came off with but little more honour than they did before.

There was no need to go out to seek the enemy after this, for they came, as I have said, and pitched in sight of us, and their parties came up every day to the very outworks of Berwick, but nobody cared to meddle with them; and in this posture things stood when the pacification was agreed on by both parties, which, like a short truce, only gave both sides breath to prepare for a new war, more ridiculously managed than the former.

When the treaty was so near a conclusion that conversation was admitted on both sides, I went over to the Scotch camp to satisfy my curiosity, as did many of our English officers.

I confess the soldiers made a very uncouth figure, especially the Highlanders; the oddness and barbarity of their garb and arms seemed to have something in them remarkable.

They were generally tall, robust fellows; their swords were extravagantly, and I think insignificantly broad, and they carried great wooden targets, large enough to cover the upper part of their bodies; their dress was as antique as the rest a cap on their heads, called by them a bonnet, long hanging sleeves behind, and their doublet, breeches, and stockings of a stuff they called plaid, striped across red and yellow, with short cloaks of the same. These fellows looked, when drawn out, like a regiment of merry Andrews ready for Barthlomew fair.

They are in companies all of a name, and therefore call one another only by their Christian names,

as Jemmy, Jockey, Sawny, and the like; and they scorn to be commanded but by one of their own clan or family. They are all gentlemen, and proud enough to be kings. The meanest fellow among them is as tenacious of his honour as the best nobleman in the country, and they will fight and cut one another's throats for every trifling affront.

But to their own clans or lairds they are the willingest and most obedient fellows in nature. Give them their due, were their skill in exercises and discipline proportioned to their courage, they would make the bravest soldiers in the world.

They are large bodies, and prodigiously strong; and two qualities they have above other nationshardy to endure hunger, cold, and hardships, and wonderfully swift of foot. The latter is such an advantage in the field, that I know none like it; | for if they conquer, no enemy can escape them; and if they run, even the horse can hardly overtake them. These were some of those who, as I have observed before, went out in parties with their horse.

There were three or four thousand of these in the Scotch army, armed only with swords and targets; and in their belts some of them had a pistol, but no muskets at that time among them.

But there were also a great many regiments of disciplined men, who, by the carrying of their arms, looked as if they understood their business, and, by their faces, that they durst see an enemy.

I had not been half an hour in their camp after the ceremony of giving our names, and passing their out-guards and main guard, was over, but was saluted by several of my acquaintance, and, in particular, by one who led the Scotch volunteers at the taking the Castle of Oppenheim, of which I have given an account. They used me with all the respect they thought due to me on account of old affairs, gave me the word, and a sergeant waited upon me whenever I pleased to go abroad.

I continued twelve or fourteen days among them till the pacification was concluded, and they were ordered to march home. They spoke very respectfully of the king, but I found were exasperated to the last degree at Archbishop Laud and the English ishops, for endeavouring to impose the Common Prayer-book upon them; and they always talked with the utmost contempt of our soldiers and army. I always waved the discourse about the clergy, and the occasion of the war; but I could not but be too sensible what they said of our men was true; and by this I per ceived they had a universal intelligence from among us, both of what we were doing and what sort of people we were that were doing it; and they were mighty desirous of coming to blows with us.

I had an invitation from their general, but I declined it, lest I should give offence. I found they accepted the pacification as a thing not likely to hold, and that they were resolved to keep their forces on foot, notwithstanding the agreement. Their whole army was full of brave officers, men of much experience and conduct; and all men who know anything of war know good officers make a good army.

Things being thus huddled up, the English