The Thirty Years' War - James Aitken Wylie

Chapter 9
Death of Gustavus Adolphus
THE fall of Gustavus Adolphus, so far from
ending the battle, was in a sort only its beginning.
The riderless horse, galloping wildly over the
battlefield, only half told its tale. It was possible
that the king was only wounded. The bravery of the
Swedes was now changed into fury. Horse and foot
rushed madly onward to the spot where the king
had been seen to enter the thick of the fight, with
the intention of rescuing him if alive, of avenging
him if dead. The mournful fact was passed in a
whisper from one Swedish officer to another, that
Gustavus Adolphus was no more. They rode up to
the Croats, who were stripping the body in their
desire to possess some memorial of the fallen hero,
and a terrible conflict ensued over his corpse. No
flash of firearm was seen, only the glitter of pike,
the clash of sword, and the heavy stroke of musket
as it fell on the steel helmet, came from that
struggling mass in the center of the field, for again
the fight was a hand-to-hand one. The dead fell
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