the Dutch alliance promised to
secure them at sea, and an attack upon Denmark would prevent her from
utilizing the impending peace negotiations to the prejudice of Sweden.
In May the Swedish _Riksrad_ decided upon war; on the 12th of December
the Swedish marshal Lennart Torstensson, advancing from Bohemia, crossed
the northern frontier of Denmark; by the end of January 1644 the whole
peninsula of Jutland was in his possession. This totally unexpected
attack, conducted from first to last with consummate ability and
lightning-like rapidity, had a paralysing effect upon Denmark.
Fortunately, in the midst of almost universal helplessness and
confusion, Christian IV. knew his duty and had the courage to do it. In
his sixty-sixth year he once more displayed something of the magnificent
energy of his triumphant youth. Night and day he laboured to levy armies
and equip fleets. Fortunately too for him, the Swedish government
delayed hostilities in Scania till February 1644, so that the Danes were
able to make adequate defensive preparations and save the important
fortress of Malmoe. Torstensson, too, was unable to cross from Jutland to
Fuenen for want of a fleet, and the Dutch auxiliary fleet which came to
his assistance was defeated between the islands of Sylt and Roennoe on the
west coast of Schleswig by the Danish admirals. Another attempt to
transport Torstensson and his army to the Danish islands by a large
Swedish fleet was frustrated by Christian IV. in person on the 1st of
July 1644. On that day the two fleets encountered off Kolberge Heath,
S.E. of Kiel Bay, and Christian displayed a heroism which endeared him
ever after to the Danish nation and made his name famous in song and
story. As he stood on the quarter-deck of the "Trinity" a cannon close
by was exploded by a Swedish bullet, and splinters of wood and metal
wounded the king in thirteen places, blinding one eye and flinging him
to the deck. But he was instantly on his feet again, cried with a loud
voice that it was well with him, and set every one an example of duty by
remaining on deck till the fight was over. Darkness at last separated
the contending fleets; and though the battle was a drawn one, the Danish
fleet showed its superiority by blockading the Swedish ships in Kiel
Bay. But the Swedish fleet escaped, and the annihilation of the Danish
fleet by the combined navies of Sweden and Holland, after an obstinate
fight between Fehmarn and Laaland at the end of S