Here began the flame to break out; for upon the emperor's ban, the
Protestants send away to the King of Sweden for succour.
His Swedish Majesty had already conquered Mecklenburg, and part of
Pomerania, and was advancing with his victorious troops, increased
by the addition of some regiments raised in those parts, in order to
carry on the war against the emperor, having designed to follow up
the Oder into Silesia, and so to push the war home to the emperor's
hereditary countries of Austria and Bohemia, when the first messengers
came to him in this case; but this changed his measures, and brought
him to the frontiers of Brandenburg resolved to answer the desires
of the Protestants. But here the Duke of Brandenburg began to halt,
making some difficulties and demanding terms, which drove the king to
use some extremities with him, and stopped the Swedes for a while,
who had otherwise been on the banks of the Elbe as soon as Tilly,
the Imperial general, had entered Saxony, which if they had done, the
miserable destruction of Magdeburg had been prevented, as I observed
before. The king had been invited into the union, and when he first
came back from the banks of the Oder he had accepted it, and was
preparing to back it with all his power.
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