Memoirs of a Cavalier | Page 2

parentage, the foreign
travel which was the fashionable completion of the education of a
gentleman in the seventeenth century, and his adventures as a volunteer
officer in the Swedish army, where he gained the experience which was
to serve him well in the Civil War at home. Many a real Cavalier must
have had just such a career as Defoe's hero describes as his own. After
a short time at Oxford, "long enough for a gentleman," he embarked on
a period of travel, going to Italy by way of France. The Cavalier,
however, devotes but little space to description, vivid enough as far as
it goes, of his adventures in these two countries for a space of over two
years. Italy, especially, attracted the attention of gentlemen and
scholars in those days, but the Cavalier was more bent on soldiering
than sightseeing and he hurries on to tell of his adventures in Germany,
where he first really took part in warfare, becoming a volunteer officer
in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, the hero King of Sweden, and
where he met with those adventures the story of which forms the bulk
of the first part of the Memoirs.
To appreciate the tale, it will be necessary to have a clear idea of the
state of affairs in Europe at the time. The war which was convulsing
Germany, and in which almost every other European power interfered
at some time, was the Thirty Years' War (1618--1648), a struggle
having a special character of its own as the last of the religious wars

which had torn Europe asunder for a century and the first of a long
series of wars in which the new and purely political principle of the
Balance of Power can be seen at work. The struggle was, nominally,
between Protestant and Catholic Germany for, during the Reformation
period, Germany, which consisted of numerous states under the
headship of the Emperor, had split into two great camps. The Northern
states had become Protestant under their Protestant princes. The
Southern states had remained, for the most part, Catholic or had been
won back to Catholicism in the religious reaction known as the
Counter-Reformation. As the Catholic movement spread, under a
Catholic Emperor like Ferdinand of Styria, who was elected in 1619, it
was inevitable that the privileges granted to Protestants should be
curtailed. They determined to resist and, as the Emperor had the
support of Spain, the Protestant Union found it necessary to call in help
from outside. Thus it was that the other European powers came to
interfere in German affairs. Some helped the Protestants from motives
of religion, more still from considerations of policy, and the long
struggle of thirty years may be divided into marked periods in which
one power after another, Denmark, Sweden, France, allied themselves
with the Protestants against the Emperor. The Memoirs are concerned
with the first two years of the Swedish period of the war (1630--1634),
during which Gustavus Adolphus almost won victory for the
Protestants who were, however, to lose the advantage of his brilliant
generalship through his death at the battle of Lützen in 1632. Through
the death of "this conquering king," the Swedes lost the fruits of their
victory and the battle of Lützen marks the end of what may be termed
the heroic period of the war. Gustavus Adolphus stands out among the
men of his day for the loftiness of his character as well as for the genius
of his generalship. It is, therefore, fitting enough that Defoe should
make his Cavalier withdraw from the Swedish service after the death of
the "glorious king" whom he "could never mention without some
remark of his extraordinary merit." For two years longer, he wanders
through Germany still watching the course of the war and then returns
to England, soon to take part in another war at home, namely the Civil
War, in which the English people were divided into two great parties
according as they supported King Charles I or the members of the Long
Parliament who opposed him. According to the Memoirs, the Cavalier

"went into arms" without troubling himself "to examine sides." Defoe
probably considered this attitude as typical of many of the Cavalier
party, and, of course, loyalty to the king's person was one of their
strongest motives. The Cavalier does not enter largely into the causes
of the war. What he gives us is a picture of army life in that troubled
period. It will be well, however, to bear in mind the chief facts in the
history of the times.
From the beginning of his reign, Charles had had trouble with his
parliaments, which had already become very restless under James I.
Charles's parliaments disapproved of his foreign policy and their
unwillingness to grant subsidies led him to