The Swedes fought heroically but in vain; step by step they were driven back, the battery was recaptured, and the guns, which in the excitement of the advance the captors had omitted to spike, were retaken by the Imperialists.

In the meantime on the right the king had also forced the road, and had driven from the field the Croats and Poles opposed to him, and he was on the point of wheeling his troops to fall on the flank of the Imperialist centre when one of Duke Bernhard’s aides-de-camp dashed up with the news that the left wing had fallen back broken and in disorder.

Leaving to Count Stalhaus to continue to press the enemy, Gustavus, accompanied by his staff, rode at full gallop to the left at the head of Steinboch’s regiment of dragoons.  Arrived on the spot he dashed to the front at a point where his men had not yet been forced back across the road, and riding among them roused them to fresh exertions.  By his side were Franz Albert of Lauenberg and a few other followers.  But his pace had been so furious that Steinboch’s dragoons had not yet arrived.  As he urged on his broken men Gustavus was struck in the shoulder by a musketball.  He reeled in his saddle, but exclaimed, “It is nothing,” and ordered them to charge the enemy with the dragoons.  Malcolm Graheme and others on his staff hesitated, but the king exclaimed, “Ride all, the duke will see to me.”  The cavalry dashed forward, and the king, accompanied only by Franz Albert, Duke of Lauenberg, turned to leave the field, but he had scarcely moved a few paces when he received another shot in the back.  Calling out to Franz Albert that it was all over with him, the mortally wounded king fell to the ground.

Franz Albert, believing the battle lost, galloped away; the king’s page alone remained with the dying man.  A minute later three Austrian cuirassiers rode up, and demanded the name of the dying man.  The page Leubelfing refused to give it, and firing their pistols at him they stretched him mortally wounded beside the dying king.  Gustavus then, but with difficulty, said who he was.  The troopers leapt from their horses and stripped his rich armour from him, and then, as they saw Steinboch’s dragoons returning from their charge, they placed their pistols close to the king’s head and fired, and then leaping on their horses fled.

Great was the grief when Malcolm, happening to ride near the body, recognized it as that of the king.  An instant later a regiment of Imperialist cavalry charged down, and a furious fight took place for some minutes over the king’s body.  It was, however, at last carried off by the Swedes, so disfigured by wounds and by the trampling of the horses in the fray as to be unrecognizable.

The news of the fall of their king, which spread rapidly through the ranks, so far from discouraging the Swedes, inspired them with a desperate determination to avenge his death, and burning with fury they advanced against the enemy, yet preserving the most perfect steadiness and order in their ranks.