The Thirty Years' War - James Aitken Wylie

the extent of the calamity; the uppermost idea in
his mind was "to conquer." The field beneath him,
with its burden of ghastly horrors, and the enemy
vanishing in the distance, was the proof That he
had conquered; but now he had time to reflect at
what a cost victory had been won! Somewhere on
that field on which he was now gazing with an eye
in which sadness had taken the place of fury, lay
the hero who had yesterday led them forth to battle.
This changed victory's paean into a funeral dirge.
How much lay buried with that hero! The safety of
Sweden, the hopes of the Protestant princes, the
restoration of the Protestant worship in Germany;
for what so likely, now that the strong arm which
had rolled back the Catholic Restoration was
broken, as that the flood would return and again
overflow those countries from which its desolating
waters had been dried up?
The first care of the Swedes was to search for
the body of their king. The quest was for some time
ineffectual; but at last the royal corpse was
discovered beneath a heap of slain, stripped of all
its ornaments, and most of its clothing, and covered
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