guard, and burst open the gate, at which the fifty entered.  Finding the gate won, I advanced immediately with 100 musketeers more, having locked up all the gates of the town but the castle port, and leaving fifty still for a reserve just at that gate; the townsmen, too, seeing the castle, as it were, taken, ran to arms, and followed me with above 200 men.  The Spaniards were knocked down by the Scots before they knew what the matter was, and the king and Sir John Hepburn, advancing to storm, were surprised when, instead of resistance, they saw the Spaniards throwing themselves over the walls to avoid the fury of the Scots.  Few of the garrison got away, but were either killed or taken, and having cleared the castle, I set open the port on the king’s side, and sent his Majesty word the castle was his own.  The king came on, and entered on foot.  I received him at the head of the Scots reformadoes; who all saluted him with their pikes.  The king gave them his hat, and turning about, “Brave Scots, brave Scots,” says he smiling, “you were too quick for me;” then beckoning to me, made me tell him how and in what manner we had managed the storm, which he was exceeding well pleased with, but especially at the caution I had used to bring them off if they had miscarried, and secured the town.

From hence the army marched to Mentz, which in four days’ time capitulated, with the fort and citadel, and the city paid his Majesty 300,000 dollars to be exempted from the fury of the soldiers.  Here the king himself drew the plan of those invincible fortifications which to this day makes it one of the strongest cities in Germany.

Friburg, Koningstien, Neustadt, Kaiserslautern, and almost all the Lower Palatinate, surrendered at the very terror of the King of Sweden’s approach, and never suffered the danger of a siege.

The king held a most magnificent court at Mentz, attended by the Landgrave of Hesse, with an incredible number of princes and lords of the empire, with ambassadors and residents of foreign princes; and here his Majesty stayed till March, when the queen, with a great retinue of Swedish nobility, came from Erfurt to see him.  The king, attended by a gallant train of German nobility, went to Frankfort, and from thence on to Hoest, to meet the queen, where her Majesty arrived February 8.

During the king’s stay in these parts, his armies were not idle, his troops, on one side under the Rhinegrave, a brave and ever-fortunate commander, and under the Landgrave of Hesse, on the other, ranged the country from Lorraine to Luxemburg, and past the Moselle on the west, and the Weser on the north.  Nothing could stand before them:  the Spanish army which came to the relief of the Catholic Electors was everywhere defeated and beaten quite out of the country, and the Lorraine army quite ruined.  ’Twas a most pleasant court sure as ever was seen, where every day expresses arrived of armies defeated, towns surrendered, contributions agreed upon, parties routed, prisoners taken, and princes sending ambassadors to sue for truces and neutralities, to make submissions and compositions, and to pay arrears and contributions.