When all was ready the king brings his army down to the bank of the
river, and plants his cannon as the enemy had done, some here and some
there, to amuse them.

At night, April 4th, the king commanded about 2000 men to march to
the point, and to throw up a trench on either side, and quite round
it with a battery of six pieces of cannon at each end, besides three
small mounts, one at the point and one of each side, which had each of
them two pieces upon them. This work was begun so briskly and so well
carried on, the king firing all the night from the other parts of
the river, that by daylight all the batteries at the new work were
mounted, the trench lined with 2000 musketeers, and all the utensils
of the bridge lay ready to be put together.

Now the Imperialists discovered the design, but it was too late
to hinder it; the musketeers in the great trench, and the five new
batteries, made such continual fire that the other bank, which, as
before, lay twelve feet below them, was too hot for the Imperialists;
whereupon Tilly, to be provided for the king at his coming over, falls
to work in a wood right against the point, and raises a great battery
for twenty pieces of cannon, with a breastwork or line, as near the
river as he could, to cover his men, thinking that when the king had
built his bridge he might easily beat it down with his cannon.

But the king had doubly prevented him, first by laying his bridge so
low that none of Tilly's shot could hurt it; for the bridge lay not
above half a foot above the water's edge, by which means the king, who
in that showed himself an excellent engineer, had secured it from
any batteries to be made within the land, and the angle of the bank