It was indeed an unheard-of proceeding, and a most mistaken one, for the greater part of the Saxons seized opportunities to desert, as soon as the next campaign began.

It was the more ill-advised, since Saxony was a Protestant country, and therefore the action alienated the other Protestant princes in Germany, whose sympathies would have otherwise been wholly with Prussia; and it was to no small extent due to that high-handed action that, during the winter, the Swedes joined the Confederacy, and undertook to supply an army of 50,000 men; France paying a subsidy towards their maintenance, and the members of the Confederacy agreeing that, upon the division of Prussia, Pomerania should fall to the share of Sweden.

Thus it may be said that the whole of Central and Northern Europe, with the exception only of Hanover, was leagued against Prussia.
It was a result of this general outburst of indignation that, instead of being kept in a large town and allowed various privileges, the prisoners taken at the battle of Lobositz were treated with exceptional severity, and confined in isolated fortresses.

Fergus and his companion were lodged in a small room in one of the towers.

The window was strongly barred, the floor was of stone, the door massive and studded with iron.