Hitherto Franconia and the Rhine
provinces had been entirely in the hands of the Imperialists, and
it was needful that a counterbalancing influence should be exerted.
These considerations induced Gustavus to abandon the tempting idea
of a march upon Vienna. The Elector of Saxony was charged with
carrying the war into Silesia and Bohemia, the Electors of Hesse
and Hesse-Cassel were to maintain Lower Saxony and Westphalia, and
the Swedish army turned its face towards the Rhine.
On the 20th of September it arrived before Erfurt, an important
fortified town on the Gera, which surrendered at discretion. Gustavus
granted the inhabitants, who were for the most part Catholics, the
free exercise of their religion, and nominated the Duke of Saxe-Weimar
to be governor of the district and of the province of Thuringen,
and the Count of Lowenstein to be commander of the garrison, which
consisted of Colonel Foulis's Scottish regiment, 1500 strong.
Travelling by different routes in two columns the army marched
to Wurtzburg, the capital of Franconia, a rich and populous city,
the Imperialist garrison having withdrawn to the strong castle
of Marienburg, on a lofty eminence overlooking the town, and only
separated from it by the river Maine. The cathedral at Wurtzburg
is dedicated to a Scottish saint, St. Kilian, a bishop who with two
priests came from Scotland in the year 688 to convert the heathen
of Franconia.
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