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Gustavus Adolphus   /gˈəstəvəs ədˈɔlfəs/   Listen
Gustavus Adolphus

noun
1.
King of Sweden whose victories in battle made Sweden a European power; his domestic reforms made Sweden a modern state; in 1630 he intervened on the Protestant side of the Thirty Years' War and was killed in the battle of Lutzen (1594-1632).  Synonyms: Gustavus, Gustavus II.






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"Gustavus Adolphus" Quotes from Famous Books



... disappeared all on a sudden—Item, how the great Gustavus Adolphus came to Pomerania, and took the fort ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching on Metz; they were ignorant of everything appertaining to this army, its leaders, its plan, its armament, its effective force. Was it still following the strategy of Gustavus Adolphus? Was it still following the tactics of Frederick II.? No one knew. They felt sure of being at Berlin in a few weeks. What nonsense! The Prussian army! They talked of this war as of a dream, and of this army ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... the situation of the Royal army required the utmost caution. Rupert, on the other hand, had seen the swift fiery charges of the fierce troopers of the Thirty Years' war, and was backed up by Patrick, Lord Ruthven, one of the many Scots who had won honor under the great Swedish King, Gustavus Adolphus. A sudden charge of the Royal horse would, Rupert argued, sweep the Roundheads from the field, and the foot would have nothing to do but to follow up the victory. The great portrait at Windsor shows us ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... much less from the War of the Roses in the fifteenth century, than from the civil wars in the seventeenth; and less than France from the religious wars of the sixteenth. The war year 1631-2, in which Gustavus Adolphus and the emperors had to spare the country, must have been far less oppressive for Saxony than the later Swedish campaigns. Roscher, in the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... and numbering not less than forty millions of subjects under its various sovereigns. Nor let it be said that these nations were rude in the military art, and unfit to contend in the field with the descendants of the followers of Gustavus Adolphus. The Danes are the near neighbours and old enemies of the Swedes; their equals in population, discipline, and warlike resources. Thirty years had not elapsed since the Poles had delivered Europe from Mussulman bondage by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... after the voyage of Henry Hudson, a company of Swedes made a settlement on the Delaware River. This had been planned by the great Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. "That colony will be the jewel of my kingdom," he said; but the "Lion of the North" was slain in battle, and his twelve-year-old daughter Christina had become queen. That is why the loyal Swedes ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... in 1608. He was the son of the Comptroller of the Household of Charles I. He was uncommonly precocious; at five is said to have spoken Latin, and at sixteen had entered into the service of Gustavus Adolphus, 'the lion of the North, and the bulwark ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... Leipzig effected a great change in the conduct of Gustavus Adolphus, as well as in the opinion which both friends and foes entertained of him. Successfully had he confronted the greatest general of the age, and had matched the strength of his tactics and the courage of his Swedes against the elite of the imperial ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... a great German general; distinguished himself on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' war; fought under the standard of Gustavus Adolphus; held command of the left wing at the battle of Luetzen, and completed the victory after the fall of Gustavus; died at Neuburg, as alleged, without sufficient proof, by ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... of the Czar Peter the Great. Campaigns of Marshal Turenne. Locke on the Human Understanding. Robertson's History of America, 2 vols. Robertson's History of Charles V. Voltaire's Letters. Life of Gustavus Adolphus. Sully's Memoirs. Goldsmith's Natural History. Mildman on Trees. Vertot's Revolution of Rome, 3 vols. Vertot's Revolution of Portugal, 3 vols. {The Vertot's if ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... 327 (231, 233) on this Elector and German Protestantism, now fallen cold, and somewhat too little dangerous. But George Wilhelm is the only weak prince of all the twelve. For another example how the heart and life of a country depend upon its prince, not on its council, read this, of Gustavus Adolphus, demanding the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... language in recent times are chiefly the names of minerals, with a few striking exceptions, such as loafer, which came to us from the German immigrants to the United States, and plunder, which seems to have been brought from Germany by English soldiers who had served under Gustavus Adolphus. The following are the German words which we have ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... genius unhappy in their wives is very large. The following are notorious examples:—Socrat[^e]s and Xantipp[^e]; Saadi, the Persian poet; Dant[^e] and Gemma Donati; Milton, with Mary Powell; Marlborough and Sarah Jennings; Gustavus Adolphus and his flighty queen; Byron and Miss Milbanke; Dickens and Miss Hogarth; etc. Every reader will be able to add to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... world, its influence began to decline in those lands where for centuries the idea of liberty of conscience was unknown, where even the slightest toleration existed not. Those northern lights, those champions in their day of Protestantism and "religious liberty" Gustavus Wasa and Gustavus Adolphus, were not mistaken when they bequeathed to their country laws which were intended to be as unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians, and which forbade all Scandinavians, whether Swedes, Danes or Norwegians, under pain of death, to embrace the Catholic faith. Those princes were wise ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... Louis Quatorze, the spinning-wheel of Sardanapalus, and King Stephen's famous breeches which cost him but a crown. The heart of the Bloody Mary, with the word "Calais" worn into its diseased substance, was preserved in a bottle of spirits; and near it lay the golden case in which the queen of Gustavus Adolphus treasured up that hero's heart. Among these relics and heirlooms of kings I must not forget the long, hairy ears of Midas, and a piece of bread which had been changed to gold by the touch of that unlucky monarch. And as Grecian Helen was a queen, it may here be mentioned that I was ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... had a little pink son, whose name was F. Gustavus Adolphus. The little old man often said, "I'm going to give that boy the best ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... her with their up-country virtues and wilderness moralities. What the Ostrogoths did for Spain, what the Franks did for Gaul, what the Northmen did for England, are so many more illustrations. What Gustavus Adolphus would have done for Germany, if he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... all that is wild and wonderful in history; her early struggles for aggrandizement—the fierce strife with the Turks, as wave after wave of Moslem invasion rolled up the Danube—the long conflicts and bloody persecutions of the Reformation—the thirty years' religious war—the meteoric career of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. shooting athwart the lurid storms of battle—the intrigues of Popes—the enormous pride, power and encroachments of Louis XIV.—the warfare of the Spanish succession and the Polish dismemberment—all these events combine in a sublime tragedy which ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... Lutheran pastor. However, the first Lutheran minister to serve a Lutheran colony in America was Reorus Torkillus. He was born in 1609 at Faessberg, Sweden, educated at Linkoeping, and for a time was chaplain at Goeteborg. Gustavus Adolphus already had entertained the idea of founding a colony in America, chiefly for the purpose of carrying on mission-work among the Indians. Peter Minuit, a German, who had come to Manhattan Island in 1626 to represent the interests of ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... Richard, and the civil wars and disturbances of the reigns of John and his incapable successor. The troubled period of the Reformation also produced several eminent hereditary monarchs—Elizabeth, Henri Quatre, Gustavus Adolphus; but they were mostly bred up in adversity, succeeded to the throne by the unexpected failure of nearer heirs, or had to contend with great difficulties in the commencement of their reign. Since European life assumed a settled aspect, any thing above mediocrity in an hereditary king has become extremely ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... would become an Austrian lake. The fortunes of Austria never seemed brighter than in 1628 when Wallenstein began the siege of Stralsund. [Sidenote: The Swedish and French intervention.] His failure, followed by the arrival of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany in 1630, proved the death blow of Austrian hopes. In 1632 Gustavus Adolphus was killed, in 1634 Wallenstein was assassinated, and in 1635 France entered into the war. The Thirty Years' War now ceased to be a religious ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... deputies who supported the Emperor of Germany in his persecution of the Protestants, which led to the Thirty Years' War and the establishment of religious liberty in Germany. At this crisis among the Jews, a hero arose in their midst as marvellous as Gustavus Adolphus. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... weakness, Gustavus Adolphus, understanding the influence on morale of rapid loading and the greater destruction caused by the more rapid fire, invented the cartridge for muskets. Frederick, or some one of his time, the name marks the period, replaced wooden by cylindrical iron ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... league grew frightened; he was indeed crushing Protestantism, but he was trampling on their rights as well. They fell away from his alliance. Richelieu, also dreading the Hapsburg aggrandizement, brought France to take part in the war. Sweden's hero-king Gustavus Adolphus invaded Germany to defend the Protestant faith. He won splendid victories, but at last fell in his supreme battle at Luetzen, from which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... III., without whose aid the Constitutionalists of England must have gone down before the Stuarts: not one of these men was perfect; and yet what losses the world would have experienced, if they had never lived, or had failed in their great labors! It has been claimed for Gustavus Adolphus that he was the only pure conqueror that ever lived; but his purity may safely be placed to the account of the balls of Luetzen: he was not left unto temptation. We should extend to Napoleon III. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... proceeded more triumphantly than ever. Every prince wished to have something from his brush; the Emperor Rudolph, at Prague, showed with pride the canvases taken later by Gustavus Adolphus. The Duke of Modena, carrying on the traditions of Ferrara, added Veronese's works to the treasures of the house of Este. The last ten years of his life were given up to visiting churches on the mainland and on the little islands round Venice, all covetous ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... need hardly say, that I allude especially to those five splendid works,—the assassinations of William I, of Orange, of Henry IV., of France, of the Duke of Buckingham, (which you will find excellently described in the letters published by Mr. Ellis, of the British Museum,) of Gustavus Adolphus, and of Wallenstein. The King of Sweden's assassination, by the by, is doubted by many writers, Harte amongst others; but they are wrong. He was murdered; and I consider his murder unique in its excellence; ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... been brought to an end before both were utterly exhausted. But the Protestants, weakened by their own dissensions, had to call in foreign aid. First Denmark, then Sweden, poured their armies into Germany, and even France—Roman Catholic France—gave her support to Gustavus Adolphus and the Protestant cause. England, the true ally of Germany, was too weak at home to make her influence felt abroad. At the close of the war, the Protestants received indeed the same rights as the Roman Catholics; ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... of his maxims, "Read and reread the campaigns of Alexander, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turrenne, Eugene, and Frederick; take them for your model; that is the only way of becoming a great captain, to obtain the secrets of the art of war." To read more intelligently such history we should know something about solving problems in minor tactics. We must know ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... open before me, as before him and hundreds besides of my countrymen, who have filled it with the fame of their exploits. Perhaps some lucky chance may raise me to a rank with our Ruthvens, our Lesleys, our Monroes, the chosen leaders of the famous Protestant champion, Gustavus Adolphus, or, if not, a soldier's life ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... chief, be safely trusted to remain anywhere in the neighbourhood of the new English settlers? Sir John Davis and Sir Toby Caulfield thought of a plan by which they could get rid of the danger. The illustrious Gustavus Adolphus was then fighting the battles of Protestantism against the house of Austria. In his gallant efforts to sustain the cause of the Reformation every true Irish Protestant sympathised, and none more than the members of the Irish Government. To what better use, then, could the 'loose ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... in. They have a striking family resemblance. With the change of a few attributes Tegner applies his characterization of Luther to such a widely differing personality as King Gustavus III. of Sweden, a frivolous, theatrical, Frenchified, infidel monarch. And Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. are forced into the same livery, in spite of their diversity of structure, because Tegner admired them all, and had practically but one type which appeared to his frank, open, and somewhat boyish fancy wholly worthy ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... then, in 1626, that the loyal Swedes were hoping that their queen would give birth to a male heir to succeed his splendid father, Gustavus Adolphus, ranked by military historians as one of the six great generals whom the world had so far produced. The queen, a German princess of Brandenburg, had already borne two daughters, who died in infancy. The expectation was wide-spread and intense that she should now become the mother of a son; ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... in the right. Nay; we believe that, even if no deliberate scheme, of arbitrary government had been formed, by the sovereign and his ministers, there was great reason to apprehend a natural extinction of the Constitution. If, for example, Charles had played the part of Gustavus Adolphus, if he had carried on a popular war for the defence of the Protestant cause in Germany, if he had gratified the national pride by a series of victories, if he had formed an army of forty or fifty thousand devoted soldiers, we do not see what chance the nation would have had of escaping ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... other illustrations. Pope Hildebrand in one of our Homilies is styled 'Brand of Hell,' as setting the world in a blaze; as 'Hoellenbrand' he appears constantly in German. Tott and Teuffel were two officers of high rank in the army which Gustavus Adolphus brought with him into Germany. You may imagine how soon those of the other side declared that he had brought 'death' and 'hell' in his train. There were two not inconsiderable persons in the time of our Civil Wars, Vane (not the 'young ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... who, under their victorious king, Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant, settled New Sweden (now known as New Jersey), are left only dim footprints, the path of them being all but lost, though, fortunately, sufficiently plain to trace the emigration of a race. These ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... Abbey Chained Bible St. Ignatius Loyola Philip II The Escorial William the Silent Elizabeth Crown of Elizabeth's Reign London Bridge in the Time of Elizabeth The Spanish Armada in the English Channel Cardinal Richelieu (Louvre, Paris.) Gustavus Adolphus Cardinal Mazarin Louis XIV Versailles Medal of Louis XIV Marlborough Gold Coin of James I A Puritan Family Charles I Execution of the Earl of Strafford Oliver Cromwell Interior of Westminster Hall Great Seal of England under the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER



Words linked to "Gustavus Adolphus" :   king, Rex, male monarch



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