auspices. The
Green Brigade marched on the 5th of March to Aschaffenburg, a distance
of more than thirty miles, a fact which speaks volumes for the physique
and endurance of the troops, for this would in the present day be
considered an extremely long march for troops, and the weight of the
helmet and armour, musket and accoutrements, of the troops of those days
was fully double that now carried by European soldiers. Here they were
reviewed by the king.

By the 10th the whole army, 23,000 strong, were collected at Weinsheim
and advanced towards Bavaria, driving before them the Imperialists under
the Count de Bucquio. The Chancellor Oxenstiern had been left by the
king with a strong force to guard his conquests on the Rhine.

No sooner had the king marched than the Spaniards again crossed the
Moselle. The chancellor and the Duke of Weimar advanced against them.
The Dutch troops, who formed the first line of the chancellor's army,
were unable to stand the charge of the Spanish and fled in utter
confusion; but the Scottish regiment of Sir Roderick Leslie, who had
succeeded Sir John Hamilton on his resignation, and the battalion of
Sir John Ruthven, charged the Spaniards with levelled pikes so furiously
that these in turn were broken and driven off the field.

On the 26th of March Gustavus arrived before the important town and
fortress of Donauworth, being joined on the same day by the Laird of
Foulis with his two regiments of horse and foot. Donauworth is the key
to Swabia; it stands on the Danube, and was a strongly fortified place,
its defences being further covered by fortifications upon a lofty
eminence close by, named the Schellemberg. It was held by the Duke of
Saxe-Lauenburg with two thousand five hundred men. The country round
Donauworth is fertile and hilly, and Gustavus at once seized a height
which commanded the place. The Bavarians were at work upon entrenchments
here as the Swedes advanced, but were forced to fall back into the town.
From the foot of the hill a suburb extended to the gates of the city.
This was at once occupied by five hundred musketeers, who took up their
post in the houses along the main road in readiness to repel a sortie
should the garrison attempt one; while the force on the hillside worked
all night, and by daybreak on the 27th had completed and armed a twenty
gun battery.

In this was placed a strong body of infantry under Captain Semple, a
Scotchman. As this battery commanded the