This article explores a little-known Dutch emblem book from 1642. Den Onderganck des Roomschen Arents door den Noordschen Leeuw (The Destruction of the Roman Eagle by the Northern Lion) was written by the Counter-Remonstrant preacher Bartholomaeus Hulsius sometime before 1635 and takes as its theme the campaign of Gustavus Adophus, King of Sweden, in the Thirty Years' War. The work was published posthumously by Crispijn de Passe the Younger, who possibly hoped to capitalise on public interest in the king on the tenth anniversary of his death. In common with many of his contemporaries, Hulsius sees Gustavus Adolphus's campaign as the fulfilment of the Paracelsian prophecy that figured the king as a Golden Lion descending from the North to destroy a Black Eagle, the Habsburg Empire. The article attempts to identify Hulsius's political agenda in writing a commemorative panegyric of Gustavus Adolphus for a Dutch readership, suggesting that the Swedish king is invoked as a paragon of militant Protestantism which Hulsius believes his countrymen should emulate. Hulsius's account of Gustavus Adolphus's campaign seeks to justify the king's role in the war, and demonstrates how his many victories -- including the Battle of Lützen where he lost his life -- were the fulfilment of God's will and providential purpose. Hulsius approaches his narrative through a series of typological parallels, where the king is identified with various biblical exemplars, including Moses, Aaron, Gideon, Joshua, Samson and, finally, Christ Himself. While German encomia for the king frequently exploit such typologies, few achieve the depth or complexity of Den Onderganck. The principal reason for this, I argue, lies in the emblematic nature of the text, which allows for the construction of allusive symbol-complexes that condense the mythopoeic identities bestowed upon the king by propagandists, prophets and panegyrists. Furthermore, in using the emblem, Hulsius not only employs a literary and visual form at the height of its popularity among Dutch readers, but also demonstrates a sophisticated and discriminating understanding of the central method of the emblem: the claiming of comparisons between things that are ostensibly dissimilar and unlike. The emblem emerges as ideally suited to Hulsius and his historiographical outlook: its enigmatic symbolism encodes higher meanings than those apparent to the vulgar gaze; in the same manner, God encrypts His workings from the understanding of the impious. The article examines in detail a selection of typological emblems, demonstrating Hulsius's careful aggregation of emblematic images from the materials of earlier emblematists and wider iconographies and semiologies, and analyses how these images serve to promote Hulsius's understanding of contemporary political events.