It was not long in coming.  On the second night the garrison made a sortie and drove back the invaders, destroying their works with great slaughter.  Night after night, and sometimes in the broad day, they returned to the charge, overwhelming the Swedes where least expected, capturing their guns, their supplies, and their outposts.  Short of arms and ammunition, they took them in the enemy’s lines.  In one of these raids Karl Gustav himself was all but made prisoner.  A horseman had him by the shoulder, but he wrenched himself loose and spurred his horse into the sea where a boat from one of the ships rescued him.  The defence took on something of the fervor of religious frenzy.  Twice a day services were held on the walls of the city; within, the men who could not bear arms, and the women, barricaded the streets with stones and iron chains for the last fight, were it to come.  In his place on the wall every burgher had a hundred brickbats or stones piled up for ammunition, and by night when the enemy rained red-hot shot upon the city, he fought with a club or spear in one hand, a torch in the other.

Eleven weeks the battle raged by night and by day.  Then a Dutch fleet forced its way through the blockade after a fight in which it lost six ships and two admirals.  It brought food, ammunition, and troops.  The joy in the city was great.  All day the church bells were rung, and the people hailed the Dutch as the saviours of the nation.  But when they, too, would thank God for the victory and asked for the use of the University’s hall, they were refused.  They were followers of Calvin and their heresies must not be preached in the place set apart for teaching the doctrines of the “pure faith,” said the professors, who were Lutheran.  It was the way of the day.  The Reformation had learned little from the bigotry of the Inquisition.  The Dutchmen had to be content with the court-house.  But the siege was not over.  Another hard winter closed in with the enemy at the door, burrowing hourly nearer the outworks, and food and fire-wood grew scarcer day by day in the hard-pressed city.  When things were at the worst pass in February, the Swedes gathered their hosts for a final assault.  In the midnight hour they came on with white shirts drawn over their uniforms to make it hard to tell them from the snow.  Karl Gustav himself led the storming party and at last was in the way of “getting speech of brother Frederik,” for the Danish King was as good as his word.  He had said that he would die in his nest, and time and again he had to be sternly reasoned with to prevent him from exposing himself overmuch.  Where the danger was greatest he was, and beside him ever the queen, all her frivolity gone and forgotten.  She who had danced at the court fetes and followed the hounds on the chase as if the world had no other cares, became the very incarnation of the spirit of the bitter and bloody struggle.  All through that winter the royal couple lived in a tent among their men, and when the alarm was sounded they were first on foot to lead them.  Now that the hour had come, they were in the forefront of the fight.