this movement, Torstensohn should succeed merely in recruiting his army,
providing subsistence for his horses and soldiers, and remounting his
cavalry, all the danger and difficulty would be well repaid. Besides,
it was highly important, on the eve of negotiations for peace, to
diminish the injurious influence which Denmark might exercise upon these
deliberations, to delay the treaty itself, which threatened to be
prejudicial to the Swedish interests, by sowing confusion among the
parties interested, and with a view to the amount of indemnification, to
increase the number of her conquests, in order to be the more sure of
securing those which alone she was anxious to retain. Moreover, the
present state of Denmark justified even greater hopes, if only the
attempt were executed with rapidity and silence. The secret was in fact
so well kept in Stockholm, that the Danish minister had not the
slightest suspicion of it; and neither France nor Holland were let into
the scheme. Actual hostilities commenced with the declaration of war;
and Torstensohn was in Holstein, before even an attack was expected.
The Swedish troops, meeting with no resistance, quickly overran this
duchy, and made themselves masters of all its strong places, except
Rensburg and Gluckstadt. Another army penetrated into Schonen, which
made as little opposition; and nothing but the severity of the season
prevented the enemy from passing the Lesser Baltic, and carrying the war
into Funen and Zealand. The Danish fleet was unsuccessful at Femern;
and Christian himself, who was on board, lost his right eye by a
splinter. Cut off from all communication with the distant force of the
Emperor, his ally, this king was on the point of seeing his whole
kingdom overrun by the Swedes; and all things threatened the speedy
fulfilment of the old prophecy of the famous Tycho Brahe, that in the
year 1644, Christian IV. should wander in the greatest misery from his
dominions.