Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/102

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72
INTRODUCTION

1632,’ the great Gustavus died on the Field of Lützen; fighting against Wallenstein; victorious for the last time. While Oliver Cromwell walked peacefully intent on cattle-husbandry, that winter-day, on the grassy banks of the Ouse at St. Ives, Gustavus Adolphus, shot through the back, was sinking from his horse in the battle-storm far off, with these words: ‘Ich habe genug, Bruder; rette Dich. Brother, I have got enough; save thyself.’[1]

On the 19th of the same month, November 1632, died likewise Frederick Elector Palatine, titular King of Bohemia, husband of King Charles’s sister, and father of certain Princes, Rupert and others, who came to be well known in our History. Elizabeth, the Widow, was left with a large family of them in Holland, very bare of money, of resource, or immediate hope; but conducted herself, as she had all along done, in a way that gained much respect. ‘Alles für Ruhm und Ihr, All for Glory and Her,’ were the words Duke Bernhard of Weimar carried on his Flag, through many battles in that Thirty-Years War. She was of Puritan tendency; understood to care little about the Four surplices at Allhallowtide, and much for the root of the matter.

Attorney-General Noy, in these months, was busy tearing up the unfortunate old manufacturers of soap; tormenting mankind very much about soap.[2] He tore them up irresistibly, reduced them to total ruin; good soap became unattainable.

1633

In May 1633, the second year of Oliver’s residence in this new Farm, the King’s Majesty, with train enough, passed through Huntingdonshire, on his way to Scotland to be crowned. The loud rustle of him disturbing, for a day, the summer husbandries and operations of mankind. His ostensible business was to be crowned; but his intrinsic errand was,

  1. Schiller, Geschichte des 30jährigen Krieges,
  2. Rushworth, ii. 135, 252, etc