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    <h1>
      HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II.<br /> OF PRUSSIA
    </h1>
    <h2>
      FREDERICK THE GREAT
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Thomas Carlyle
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      Volume III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      Contents
    </h2>
    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
      <tr>
        <td>
          <div class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>BOOK III. &mdash; THE
            HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. - 1412-1718</b></big> </a><br /><br />
            <a href="#link2HCH0001"> <b>Chapter I. &mdash; KURFURST FRIEDRICH I.</b>
            </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> <b>Chapter II. &mdash;
            MATINEES DU ROI DE PRUSSE.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003">
            <b>Chapter III. &mdash; KURFURST FRIEDRICH II.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a
            href="#link2HCH0004"> <b>Chapter IV. &mdash; KURFURST ALBERT
            ACHILLES, AND HIS SUCCESSOR.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> JOHANN THE CICERO IS FOURTH KURFURST,
              AND LEAVES TWO NOTABLE SONS. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> <b>Chapter V. &mdash; OF THE
            BAIREUTH-ANSPACH BRANCH.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> TWO LINES IN CULMBACH OR
              BAIREUTH-ANSPACH: THE GERA BOND OF 1598. </a><br /> <a
              href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE ELDER LINE OF CULMBACH: FRIEDRICH AND
              HIS THREE NOTABLE SONS THERE. </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0010">
              FRIEDRICH'S SECOND SON, MARGRAF GEORGE OF ANSPACH. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> <b>Chapter VI. &mdash; HOCHMEISTER
            ALBERT, THIRD NOTABLE SON OF FRIEDRICH.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a
            href="#link2HCH0007"> <b>Chapter VII. &mdash; ALBERT ALCIBIADES.</b>
            </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> <b>Chapter VIII. &mdash;
            HISTORICAL MEANING OF THE REFORMATION.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a
            href="#link2HCH0009"> <b>Chapter IX. &mdash; KURFURST JOACHIM I.</b>
            </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> <b>Chapter X. &mdash;
            KURFURST JOACHIM II.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> JOACHIM GETS CO-INVESTMENT IN PREUSSEN.
              </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> JOACHIM MAKES
              "HERITAGE-BROTHERHOOD" WITH THE DUKE OF LIEGNITZ. </a><br />
            </div>
            <a href="#link2HCH0011"> <b>Chapter XI. &mdash; SEVENTH KURFURST,
            JOHANN GEORGE.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> <b>Chapter
            XII. &mdash; OF ALBERT FRIEDRICH, THE SECOND DUKE OF PREUSSEN.</b>
            </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> OF DUKE ALBERT FRIEDRICH'S MARRIAGE: WHO
              HIS WIFE WAS, AND WHAT HER POSSIBLE DOWRY. </a><br /> <a
              href="#link2H_4_0021"> MARGRAF GEORGE FRIEDRICH COMES TO PREUSSEN
              TO ADMINISTER. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> <b>Chapter XIII. &mdash; NINTH
            KURFURST, JOHANN SIGISMUND.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> HOW THE CLEVE HERITAGE DROPPED, AND MANY
              SPRANG TO PICK IT UP. </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> THE
              KAISER'S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT, AND THE WORLD'S. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> <b>Chapter XIV. &mdash; SYMPTOMS OF A
            GREAT WAR COMING.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> FIRST SYMPTOM; DONAUWORTH, 1608. </a><br />
              <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> SYMPTOM THIRD: A DINNER-SCENE AT
              DUSSELDORF, 1613: SPANIARDS AND DUTCH SHOULDER ARMS IN CLEVE. </a><br />
              <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> SYMPTOM FOURTH, AND CATASTROPHE UPON THE
              HEELS OF IT. </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> WHAT BECAME OF
              THE CLEVE-JULICH HERITAGE, AND OF THE PREUSSEN ONE. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> <b>Chapter XV. &mdash; TENTH
            KURFURST, GEORGE WILHELM.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016">
            <b>Chapter XVI. &mdash; THIRTY-YEARS WAR.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> SECOND ACT, OR EPOCH, 1624-1629. A
              SECOND UNCLE PUT TO THE BAN, AND POMMERN SNATCHED AWAY. </a><br />
              <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> THIRD ACT, AND WHAT THE KURFURST
              SUFFERED IN IT. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> <b>Chapter XVII. &mdash; DUCHY OF
            JAGERNDORF.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> DUKE OF JAGERNDORF, ELECTOR'S UNCLE, IS
              PUT UNDER BAN. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> <b>Chapter XVIII. &mdash; FRIEDRICH
            WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> WHAT BECAME OF POMMERN AT THE PEACE;
              FINAL GLANCE INTO CLEVE-JULICH. </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0038">
              THE GREAT KURFURST'S WARS: WHAT HE ACHIEVED IN WAR AND PEACE. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> <b>Chapter XIX. &mdash; KING
            FRIEDRICH I. AGAIN.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> HOW AUSTRIA SETTLED THE SILESIAN CLAIMS.
              </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> HIS REAL CHARACTER. </a><br />
            </div>
            <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> <b>Chapter XX. &mdash; DEATH OF KING
            FRIEDRICH I.</b> </a><br />
            <div class="toc2">
              <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> THE TWELVE HOHENZOLLERN ELECTORS. </a><br />
              <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> GENEALOGICAL DIAGRAM: THE TWO CULMBACH
              LINES. </a><br />
            </div>
          </div>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
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    <h2>
      BOOK III. &mdash; THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. - 1412-1718
    </h2>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter I. &mdash; KURFURST FRIEDRICH I.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a cool
      reception as Statthalter. [<i>"Johannistage"</i> (24 June) "1412," he
      first set foot in Brandenburg, with due escort, in due state; only
      Statthalter (Viceregent) as yet: Pauli, i. 594, ii. 58; Stenzel, <i>Geschichte
      des Preussischen Staats</i> (Hamburg, 1830, 1851), i. 167-169.] He came as
      the representative of law and rule; and there had been many helping
      themselves by a ruleless life, of late. Industry was at a low ebb,
      violence was rife; plunder, disorder everywhere; too much the habit for
      baronial gentlemen to "live by the saddle," as they termed it, that is by
      highway robbery in modern phrase.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Towns, harried and plundered to skin and bone, were glad to see a
      Statthalter, and did homage to him with all their heart. But the Baronage
      or Squirearchy of the country were of another mind. These, in the late
      anarchies, had set up for a kind of kings in their own right: they had
      their feuds; made war, made peace, levied tolls, transit-dues; lived much
      at their own discretion in these solitary countries;&mdash;rushing out
      from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any herd
      of "six hundred swine," any convoy of Lubeck or Hamburg merchant-goods,
      that had not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and mechanic
      fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful? Arbitrary rule, on
      the part of these Noble Robber-Lords! And then much of the Crown-Domains
      had gone to the chief of them,&mdash;pawned (and the pawn-ticket lost, so
      to speak), or sold for what trifle of ready money was to be had, in Jobst
      and Company's time. To these gentlemen, a Statthalter coming to inquire
      into matters was no welcome phenomenon. Your EDLE HERR (Noble Lord) of
      Putlitz, Noble Lords of Quitzow, Rochow, Maltitz and others, supreme in
      their grassy solitudes this long while, and accustomed to nothing greater
      than themselves in Brandenburg, how should they obey a Statthalter?
    </p>
    <p>
      Such was more or less the universal humor in the Squirearchy of
      Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf Friedrich. But the chief seat of
      contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes, above spoken of; big
      Squires in the district they call the Priegnitz, in the Country of the
      sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a fifty or forty miles. These
      refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with
      Bohmen;" said this and that;&mdash;much disinclined to homage; and would
      not do it. Stiff surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is
      above them and what is not:&mdash;a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff
      leather; minds also cased in ill habits of long continuance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Friedrich was very patient with them; hoped to prevail by gentle methods.
      He "invited them to dinner;" "had them often at dinner for a year or
      more:" but could make no progress in that way. "Who is this we have got
      for a Governor?" said the noble lords privately to each other: "A
      NURNBERGER TAND (Nurnberg Plaything,&mdash;wooden image, such as they make
      at Nurnberg)," said they, grinning, in a thick-skinned way: "If it rained
      Burggraves all the year round, none of them would come to luck in this
      Country;"&mdash;and continued their feuds, toll-levyings, plunderings and
      other contumacies. Seeing matters come to this pass after waiting above a
      year, Burggraf Friedrich gathered his Frankish men-at-arms; quietly made
      league with the neighboring Potentates, Thuringen and others; got some
      munitions, some artillery together&mdash;especially one huge gun, the
      biggest ever seen, "a twenty-four pounder" no less; to which the peasants,
      dragging her with difficulty through the clayey roads, gave the name of
      FAULE GRETE (Lazy, or Heavy Peg); a remarkable piece of ordnance. Lazy Peg
      he had got from the Landgraf of Thuringen, on loan merely; but he turned
      her to excellent account of his own. I have often inquired after Lazy
      Peg's fate in subsequent times; but could never learn anything distinct:&mdash;the
      German Dryasdust is a dull dog, and seldom carries anything human in those
      big wallets of his!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Equipped in this way, Burggraf Friedrich (he was not yet Kurfurst, only
      coming to be) marches for the Havel Country (early days of 1414);
      [Michaelis, i. 287; Stenzel, i. 168 (where, contrary to wont, is an
      insignificant error or two). Pauli (ii. 58) is, as usual, lost in water.]
      makes his appearance before Quitzow's strong-house of Friesack, walls
      fourteen feet thick: "You Dietrich von Quitzow, are you prepared to live
      as a peaceable subject henceforth: to do homage to the Laws and me?"&mdash;"Never!"
      answered Quitzow, and pulled up his drawbridge. Whereupon Heavy Peg opened
      upon him, Heavy Peg and other guns; and, in some eight-and-forty hours,
      shook Quitzow's impregnable Friesack about his ears. This was in the month
      of February, 1414, day not given: Friesack was the name of the impregnable
      Castle (still discoverable in our time); and it ought to be memorable and
      venerable to every Prussian man. Burggraf Friedrich VI., not yet quite
      become Kurfurst Friedrich I., but in a year's space to become so, he in
      person was the beneficent operator; Heavy Peg, and steady Human Insight,
      these were clearly the chief implements.
    </p>
    <p>
      Quitzow being settled,&mdash;for the country is in military occupation of
      Friedrich and his allies, and except in some stone castle a man has no
      chance,&mdash;straightway Putlitz or another mutineer, with his drawbridge
      up, was battered to pieces, and his drawbridge brought slamming down.
      After this manner, in an incredibly short period, mutiny was quenched; and
      it became apparent to Noble Lords, and to all men, that here at length was
      a man come who would have the Laws obeyed again, and could and would keep
      mutiny down.
    </p>
    <p>
      Friedrich showed no cruelty; far the contrary. Your mutiny once ended, and
      a little repented of, he is ready to be your gracious Prince again:
      Fair-play and the social wine-cup, or inexorable war and Lazy Peg, it is
      at your discretion which. Brandenburg submitted; hardly ever rebelled
      more. Brandenburg, under the wise Kurfurst it has got, begins in a small
      degree to be cosmic again, or of the domain of the gods; ceases to be
      chaotic and a mere cockpit of the devils. There is no doubt but this
      Friedrich also, like his ancestor Friedrich III., the First Hereditary
      Burggraf, was an excellent citizen of his country: a man conspicuously
      important in all German business in his time. A man setting up for no
      particular magnanimity, ability or heroism, but unconsciously exhibiting a
      good deal; which by degrees gained universal recognition. He did not shine
      much as Reichs-Generalissimo, under Kaiser Sigismund, in his expeditions
      against Zisca; on the contrary, he presided over huge defeat and rout,
      once and again, in that capacity; and indeed had represented in vain that,
      with such a species of militia, victory was impossible. He represented and
      again represented, to no purpose; whereupon he declined the office
      farther; in which others fared no better. [Hormayr, <i>OEsterreichischer
      Plutarch</i> vii. 109-158, ? Zisca.]
    </p>
    <p>
      The offer to be Kaiser was made him in his old days; but he wisely
      declined that too. It was in Brandenburg, by what he silently founded
      there, that he did his chief benefit to Germany and mankind. He understood
      the noble art of governing men; had in him the justice, clearness, valor
      and patience needed for that. A man of sterling probity, for one thing.
      Which indeed is the first requisite in said art:&mdash;if you will have
      your laws obeyed without mutiny, see well that they be pieces of God
      Almighty's Law: otherwise all the artillery in the world will not keep
      down mutiny.
    </p>
    <p>
      Friedrich "travelled much over Brandenburg;" looking into everything with
      his own eyes;&mdash;making, I can well fancy, innumerable crooked things
      straight. Reducing more and more that famishing dog-kennel of a
      Brandenburg into a fruitful arable field. His portraits represent a square
      headed, mild-looking solid gentleman, with a certain twinkle of mirth in
      the serious eyes of him. Except in those Hussite wars for Kaiser Sigismund
      and the Reich, in which no man could prosper, he may be defined as
      constantly prosperous. To Brandenburg he was, very literally, the blessing
      of blessings; redemption out of death into life. In the ruins of that old
      Friesack Castle, battered down by Heavy Peg, Antiquarian Science (if it
      had any eyes) might look for the tap-root of the Prussian Nation, and the
      beginning of all that Brandenburg has since grown to under the sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      Friedrich, in one capacity or another, presided over Brandenburg near
      thirty years. He came thither first of all in 1412; was not completely
      Kurfurst in his own right till 1415; nor publicly installed, "with 100,000
      looking on from the roofs and windows," in Constance yonder, till 1417,&mdash;age
      then some forty-five. His Brandenburg residence, when he happened to have
      time for residing or sitting still, was Tangermunde, the Castle built by
      Kaiser Karl IV. He died there, 21st September, 1440; laden tolerably with
      years, and still better with memories of hard work done. Rentsch guesses
      by good inference he was born about 1372. As I count, he is seventh in
      descent from that Conrad, Burggraf Conrad I., Cadet of Hohenzollern, who
      came down from the Rauhe Alp, seeking service with Kaiser Redbeard, above
      two centuries ago: Conrad's generation and six others had vanished
      successively from the world-theatre in that ever-mysterious manner, and
      left the stage clear, when Burggraf Friedrich the Sixth came to be First
      Elector. Let three centuries, let twelve generations farther come and
      pass, and there will be another still more notable Friedrich,&mdash;our
      little Fritz, destined to be Third King of Prussia, officially named
      Friedrich II., and popularly Frederick the Great. This First Elector is
      his lineal ancestor, twelve times removed. [Rentsch, pp. 349-372; Hubner,
      t. 176.]
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter II. &mdash; MATINEES DU ROI DE PRUSSE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Eleven successive Kurfursts followed Friedrich in Brandenburg. Of whom and
      their births, deaths, wars, marriages, negotiations and continual
      multitudinous stream of smaller or greater adventures, much has been
      written, of a dreary confused nature; next to nothing of which ought to be
      repeated here. Some list of their Names, with what rememberable human
      feature or event (if any) still speaks to us in them, we must try to give.
      Their Names, well dated, with any actions, incidents, or phases of life,
      which may in this way get to adhere to them in the reader's memory, the
      reader can insert, each at its right place, in the grand Tide of European
      Events, or in such Picture as the reader may have of that. Thereby with
      diligence he may produce for himself some faint twilight notion of the
      Flight of Time in remote Brandenburg,&mdash;convince himself that remote
      Brandenburg was present all along, alive after its sort, and assisting,
      dumbly or otherwise, in the great World-Drama as that went on.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have to say in general, the history of Brandenburg under the
      Hohenzollerns has very little in it to excite a vulgar curiosity, though
      perhaps a great deal to interest an intelligent one. Had it found
      treatment duly intelligent;&mdash;which, however, how could it, lucky
      beyond its neighbors, hope to do! Commonplace Dryasdust, and voluminous
      Stupidity, not worse here than elsewhere, play their Part.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is the history of a State, or Social Vitality, growing from small to
      great; steadily growing henceforth under guidance: and the contrast
      between guidance and no-guidance, or mis-guidance, in such matters, is
      again impressively illustrated there. This we see well to be the fact; and
      the details of this would be of moment, were they given us: but they are
      not;&mdash;how could voluminous Dryasdust give them? Then, on the other
      hand, the Phenomenon is, for a long while, on so small a scale, wholly
      without importance in European politics and affairs, the commonplace
      Historian, writing of it on a large scale, becomes unreadable and
      intolerable. Witness grandiloquent Pauli our fatal friend, with his Eight
      watery Quartos; which gods and men, unless driven by necessity, have
      learned to avoid! [Dr. Carl Friedrich Pauli, <i>Allgemeine Preussische
      Staats-Geschichte</i>, often enough cited here.] The Phenomenon of
      Brandenburg is small, remote; and the essential particulars, too delicate
      for the eye of Dryasdust, are mostly wanting, drowned deep in details of
      the unessential. So that we are well content, my readers and I, to keep
      remote from it on this occasion.
    </p>
    <p>
      On one other point I must give the reader warning. A rock of offence on
      which if he heedlessly strike, I reckon he will split; at least no help of
      mine can benefit him till he be got off again. Alas, offences must come;
      and must stand, like rocks of offence, to the shipwreck of many! Modern
      Dryasdust, interpreting the mysterious ways of Divine Providence in this
      Universe, or what he calls writing History, has done uncountable havoc
      upon the best interests of mankind. Hapless godless dullard that he is;
      driven and driving on courses that lead only downward, for him as for us!
      But one could forgive him all things, compared with this doctrine of
      devils which he has contrived to get established, pretty generally, among
      his unfortunate fellow-creatures for the time!&mdash;I must insert the
      following quotation, readers guess from what author:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "In an impudent Pamphlet, forged by I know not whom, and published in
      1766, under the title of <i>Matinees du Roi de Prusse,</i> purporting to
      be 'Morning Conversations' of Frederick the Great with his Nephew the
      Heir-Apparent, every line of which betrays itself as false and spurious to
      a reader who has made any direct or effectual study of Frederick or his
      manners or affairs,&mdash;it is set forth, in the way of exordium to these
      pretended royal confessions, that <i>'notre maison,'</i> our Family of
      Hohenzollern, ever since the first origin of it among the Swabian
      mountains, or its first descent therefrom into the Castle and Imperial
      Wardenship of Nurnberg, some six hundred years ago or more, has
      consistently travelled one road, and this a very notable one. 'We, as I
      myself the royal Frederick still do, have all along proceeded,' namely,
      'in the way of adroit Machiavelism, as skilful gamblers in this world's
      business, ardent gatherers of this world's goods; and in brief as devout
      worshippers of Beelzebub, the grand regulator and rewarder of mortals here
      below. Which creed we, the Hohenzollerns, have found, and I still find, to
      be the true one; learn it you, my prudent Nephew, and let all men learn
      it. By holding steadily to that, and working late and early in such
      spirit, we are come to what you now see;&mdash;and shall advance still
      farther, if it please Beelzebub, who is generally kind to those that serve
      him well.' Such is the doctrine of this impudent Pamphlet; 'original
      Manuscripts' of which are still purchased by simple persons,&mdash;who
      have then nobly offered them to me, thrice over, gratis or nearly so, as a
      priceless curiosity. A new printed edition of which, probably the fifth,
      has appeared within few years. Simple persons, consider it a curious and
      interesting Document; rather ambiguous in origin perhaps, but probably
      authentic in substance, and throwing unexpected light on the character of
      Frederick whom men call the Great. In which new light they are willing a
      meritorious Editor should share.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who wrote that Pamphlet I know not, and am in no condition to guess. A
      certain snappish vivacity (very unlike the style of Frederick whom it
      personates); a wearisome grimacing, gesticulating malice and smartness,
      approaching or reaching the sad dignity of what is called 'wit' in modern
      times; in general the rottenness of matter, and the epigrammatic unquiet
      graciosity of manner in this thing, and its elaborately INhuman turn both
      of expression and of thought, are visible characteristics of it. Thought,
      we said,&mdash;if thought it can be called: thought all hamstrung,
      shrivelled by inveterate rheumatism, on the part of the poor ill-thriven
      thinker; nay tied (so to speak, for he is of epigrammatic turn withal), as
      by cross ropes, right shoulder to left foot; and forced to advance,
      hobbling and jerking along, in that sad guise: not in the way of walk, but
      of saltation and dance; and this towards a false not a true aim, rather
      no-whither than some-whither:&mdash;Here were features leading one to
      think of an illustrious Prince de Ligne as perhaps concerned in the
      affair. The Bibliographical Dictionaries, producing no evidence, name
      quite another person, or series of persons, [A certain 'N. de Bonneville'
      (afterwards a Revolutionary spiritual-mountebank, for some time) is now
      the favorite Name;&mdash;proves, on investigation, to be an impossible
      one. Barbier <i>(Dictionnaire des Anonymes),</i> in a helpless doubting
      manner, gives still others.] highly unmemorable otherwise. Whereupon you
      proceed to said other person's acknowledged WORKS (as they are called);
      and find there a style bearing no resemblance whatever; and are left in a
      dubious state, if it were of any moment. In the absence of proof, I am
      unwilling to charge his Highness de Ligne with such an action; and indeed
      am little careful to be acquainted with the individual who did it, who
      could and would do it. A Prince of Coxcombs I can discern him to have
      been; capable of shining in the eyes of insincere foolish persons, and of
      doing detriment to them, not benefit; a man without reverence for truth or
      human excellence; not knowing in fact what is true from what is false,
      what is excellent from what is sham-excellent and at the top of the mode;
      an apparently polite and knowing man, but intrinsically an impudent, dark
      and merely modish-insolent man;&mdash;who, if he fell in with Rhadamanthus
      on his travels, would not escape a horse-whipping, Him we will willingly
      leave to that beneficial chance, which indeed seems a certain one sooner
      or later; and address ourselves to consider the theory itself, and the
      facts it pretends to be grounded on.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As to the theory, I must needs say, nothing can be falser, more heretical
      or more damnable. My own poor opinion, and deep conviction on that subject
      is well known, this long while. And, in fact, the summary of all I have
      believed, and have been trying as I could to teach mankind to believe
      again, is even that same opinion and conviction, applied to all provinces
      of things. Alas, in this his sad theory about the world, our poor impudent
      Pamphleteer is by no means singular at present; nay rather he has in a
      manner the whole practical part of mankind on his side just now; the more
      is the pity for us all!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is very certain, if Beelzebub made this world, our Pamphleteer, and
      the huge portion of mankind that follow him, are right. But if God made
      the world; and only leads Beelzebub, as some ugly muzzled bear is led, a
      longer or shorter temporary DANCE in this divine world, and always draws
      him home again, and peels the unjust gains off him, and ducks him in a
      certain hot Lake, with sure intent to lodge him there to all eternity at
      last,&mdash;then our Pamphleteer, and the huge portion of mankind that
      follow him, are wrong.
    </p>
    <p>
      "More I will not say; being indeed quite tired of SPEAKING on that
      subject. Not a subject which it concerns me to speak of; much as it
      concerns me, and all men, to know the truth of it, and silently in every
      hour and moment to do said truth. As indeed the sacred voice of their own
      soul, if they listen, will conclusively admonish all men; and truly if IT
      do not, there will be little use in my logic to them. For my own share, I
      want no trade with men who need to be convinced of that fact. If I am in
      their premises, and discover such a thing of them, I will quit their
      premises; if they are in mine, I will, as old Samuel advised, count my
      spoons. Ingenious gentlemen who believe that Beelzebub made this world,
      are not a class of gentlemen I can get profit from. Let them keep at a
      distance, lest mischief fall out between us. They are of the set deserving
      to be called&mdash;and this not in the way of profane swearing, but of
      solemn wrath and pity, I say of virtuous anger and inexorable reprobation&mdash;the
      damned set. For, in very deed, they are doomed and damned, by Nature's
      oldest Act of Parliament, they, and whatsoever thing they do or say or
      think; unless they can escape from that devil-element. Which I still hope
      they may!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "But with regard to the facts themselves, 'DE NOTRE MAISON,' I take leave
      to say, they too are without basis of truth. They are not so false as the
      theory, because nothing can in falsity quite equal that. 'NOTRE MAISON,'
      this Pamphleteer may learn, if he please to make study and inquiry before
      speaking, did not rise by worship of Beelzebub at all in this world; but
      by a quite opposite line of conduct. It rose, in fact, by the course which
      all, except fools, stockjobber stags, cheating gamblers, forging
      Pamphleteers and other temporary creatures of the damned sort, have found
      from of old to be the one way of permanently rising: by steady service,
      namely, of the Opposite of Beelzebub. By conforming to the Laws of this
      Universe; instead of trying by pettifogging to evade and profitably
      contradict them. The Hohenzollerns too have a History still articulate to
      the human mind, if you search sufficiently; and this is what, even with
      some emphasis, it will teach us concerning their adventures, and
      achievements of success in the field of life. Resist the Devil, good
      reader, and he will flee from you!"&mdash;So ends our indignant friend.
    </p>
    <p>
      How the Hohenzollerns got their big Territories, and came to what they are
      in the world, will be seen. Probably they were not, any of them, paragons
      of virtue. They did not walk in altogether speckless Sunday pumps, or much
      clear-starched into consciousness of the moral sublime; but in rugged
      practical boots, and by such roads as there were. Concerning their
      moralities, and conformities to the Laws of the Road and of the Universe,
      there will much remain to be argued by pamphleteers and others. Men will
      have their opinion, Men of more wisdom and of less; Apes by the Dead-Sea
      also will have theirs. But what man that believed in such a Universe as
      that of this Dead-Sea Pamphleteer could consent to live in it at all? Who
      that believed in such a Universe, and did not design to live like a
      Papin's-Digester, or PORCUS EPICURI, in an extremely ugly manner in it,
      could avoid one of two things: Going rapidly into Bedlam, or else blowing
      his brains out? "It will not do for me at any rate, this infinite
      Dog-house; not for me, ye Dryasdusts, and omnipotent Dog-monsters and
      Mud-gods, whoever you are. One honorable thing I can do: take leave of you
      and your Dog-establishment. Enough!"&mdash;
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter III. &mdash; KURFURST FRIEDRICH II.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The First Friedrich's successor was a younger son, Friedrich II.; who
      lasted till 1471, above thirty years; and proved likewise a notable
      manager and governor. Very capable to assert himself, and his just rights,
      in this world. He was but Twenty-seven at his accession; but the Berlin
      Burghers, attempting to take some liberties with him, found he was old
      enough. He got the name IRONTEETH. Friedrich FERRATIS DENTIBUS, from his
      decisive ways then and afterwards. He had his share of brabbling with
      intricate litigant neighbors; quarrels now and then not to be settled
      without strokes. His worst war was with Pommern,&mdash;just claims
      disputed there, and much confused bickering, sieging and harassing in
      consequence: of which quarrel we must speak anon. It was he who first
      built the conspicuous Schloss or Palace at Berlin, having got the ground
      for it (same ground still covered by the actual fine Edifice, which is a
      second edition of Friedrich's) from the repentant Burghers; and took up
      his chief residence there. [1442-1431 (Nicolari, i. 81).]
    </p>
    <p>
      But his principal achievement in Brandenburg History is his recovery of
      the Province called the Neumark to that Electorate. In the thriftless
      Sigismund times, the Neumark had been pledged, had been sold; Teutsch
      Ritterdom, to whose dominions it lay contiguous, had purchased it with
      money down. The Teutsch Ritters were fallen moneyless enough since then;
      they offered to pledge the Neumark to Friedrich, who accepted, and
      advanced the sum: after a while the Teutsch Ritters, for a small farther
      sum, agreed to sell Neumark. [Michaelis, i. 301.] Into which Transaction,
      with its dates and circumstances, let us cast one glance, for our behoof
      afterwards. The Teutsch Ritters were an opulent domineering Body in
      Sigismund's early time; but they are now come well down in Friedrich
      II.'s! And are coming ever lower. Sinking steadily, or with desperate
      attempts to rise, which only increase the speed downwards, ever since that
      fatal Tannenberg Business, 15th July, 1410. Here is the sad progress of
      their descent to the bottom; divided into three stages or periods:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "PERIOD FIRST is of Thirty years: 1410-1440. A peace with Poland soon
      followed that Defeat of Tannenberg; humiliating peace, with mulct in
      money, and slightly in territory, attached to it. Which again was soon
      followed by war, and ever again; each new peace more humiliating than its
      foregoer. Teutsch Order is steadily sinking,&mdash;into debt, among other
      things; driven to severe finance-measures (ultimately even to 'debase its
      coin'), which produce irritation enough. Poland is gradually edging itself
      into the territories and the interior troubles of Preussen; prefatory to
      greater operations that lie ahead there.
    </p>
    <p>
      "SECOND PERIOD, of Fourteen years. So it had gone on, from bad to worse,
      till 1440; when the general population, through its Heads, the Landed
      Gentry and the Towns, wearied out with fiscal and other oppressions from
      its domineering Ritterdom brought now to such a pinch, began everywhere to
      stir themselves into vocal complaint. Complaint emphatic enough: 'Where
      will you find a man that has not suffered injury in his rights, perhaps in
      his person? Our friends they have invited as guests, and under show of
      hospitality have murdered them. Men, for the sake of their beautiful
      wives, have been thrown into the river like dogs,'&mdash;and enough of the
      like sort. [Voigt, vii. 747; quoting evidently, not an express manifesto,
      but one manufactured by the old Chroniclers.] No want of complaint, nor of
      complainants: Town of Thorn, Town of Dantzig, Kulm, all manner of Towns
      and Baronages, proceeded now to form a BUND, or general Covenant for
      complaining; to repugn, in hotter and hotter form, against a domineering
      Ritterdom with back so broken; in fine, to colleague with Poland,&mdash;what
      was most ominous of all. Baronage, Burgherage, they were German mostly by
      blood, and by culture were wholly German; but preferred Poland to a
      Teutsch Ritterdom of that nature. Nothing but brabblings, scufflings,
      objurgations; a great outbreak ripening itself. Teutsch Ritterdom has to
      hire soldiers; no money to pay them. It was in these sad years that the
      Teutsch Ritterdom, fallen moneyless, offered to pledge the Neumark to our
      Kurfurst; 1444, that operation was consummated. [Pauli, ii. 187,&mdash;does
      not name the sum.] All this goes on, in hotter and hotter form, for ten
      years longer.
    </p>
    <p>
      "PERIOD THIRD begins, early in 1454, with an important special
      catastrophe; and ends, in the Thirteenth year after, with a still more
      important universal one of the same nature. Prussian BUND, or
      Anti-Oppression Covenant of the Towns and Landed Gentry, rising in
      temperature for fourteen years at this rate, reached at last the igniting
      point, and burst into fire. February 4th, 1454, the Town of Thorn, darling
      first-child of Teutsch Ritterdom,&mdash;child 223 years old at this time,
      ['Founded 1231, as a wooden Burg, just across the river, on the Heathen
      side, mainly round the stem of an immense old Oak that grew handy there,&mdash;Seven
      Barges always on the river (Weichsel), to fly to our own side if quite
      overwhelmed' <i>Oak and Seven Barges</i> is still the Town's-Arms of
      Thorn. See Kohler, <i>Munzbelustigungen,</i>xxii. 107; quoting Dusburg (a
      Priest of the Order) and his old <i>Chronica Terrae Prusciae,</i> written
      in 1326.] and grown very big, and now very angry,&mdash;suddenly took its
      old parent by the throat, so to speak, and hurled him out to the dogs; to
      the extraneous Polacks first of all. Town of Thorn, namely, sent that day
      its 'Letter of Renunciation' to the Hochmeister over at Marienburg; seized
      in a day or two more the Hochmeister's Official Envoys, Dignitaries of the
      Order; led them through the streets, amid universal storm of execrations,
      hootings and unclean projectiles, straight, to jail; and besieged the
      Hochmeister's Burg (BASTILLE of Thorn, with a few Ritters in it), all the
      artillery and all the throats and hearts of the place raging deliriously
      upon it. So that the poor Bitters, who had no chance in resisting, were in
      few days obliged to surrender; [8th February, 1454, says Voigt (viii.
      361); 16th, says Kohler <i> (Munzbelustigungen,</i> xxii. 110).] had to
      come out in bare jerkin; and Thorn ignominiously dismissed them into space
      forevermore,&mdash;with actual 'kicks,' I have read in some Books, though
      others veil that sad feature. Thorn threw out its old parent in this
      manner; swore fealty to the King of Poland; and invited other Towns and
      Knightages to follow the example. To which all were willing, wherever
      able.
    </p>
    <p>
      "War hereupon, which blazed up over Preussen at large,&mdash;Prussian
      Covenant and King of Poland VERSUS Teutsch Ritterdom,&mdash;and lasted
      into the thirteenth year, before it could go out again; out by lack of
      fuel mainly. One of the fellest wars on record, especially for burning and
      ruining; above '300,000 fighting-men' are calculated to have perished in
      it; and of towns, villages, farmsteads, a cipher which makes the fancy, as
      it were, black and ashy altogether. Ritterdom showed no lack of fighting
      energy; but that could not save it, in the pass things were got to.
      Enormous lack of wisdom, of reality and human veracity, there had long
      been; and the hour was now come. Finance went out, to the last coin. Large
      mercenary armies all along; and in the end not the color of money to pay
      them with; mercenaries became desperate; 'besieged the Hochmeister and his
      Ritters in Marienburg;'&mdash;finally sold the Country they held; formally
      made it over to the King of Poland, to get their pay out of it.
      Hochmeister had to see such things, and say little. Peace, or extinction
      for want of fuel, came in the year 1466. Poland got to itself the whole of
      that fine German Country, henceforth called 'WEST Preussen' to distinguish
      it, which goes from the left bank of the Weichsel to the borders of
      Brandenburg and Neumark;&mdash;would have got Neumark too, had not
      Kurfurst Friedrich been there to save it. The Teutsch Order had to go
      across the Weichsel, ignominiously driven; to content itself with 'EAST
      Preussen,' the Konigsberg-Memel country, and even to do homage to Poland
      for that. Which latter was the bitterest clause of all: but it could not
      be helped, more than the others. In this manner did its revolted children
      fling out Teutsch Ritterdom ignominiously to the dogs, to the Polacks,
      first of all,&mdash;Thorn, the eldest child, leading off or setting the
      example."
    </p>
    <p>
      And so the Teutsch Ritters are sunk beyond retrieval; and West Preussen,
      called subsequently "Royal Preussen," NOT having homage to pay as the
      "Ducal" or East Preussen had, is German no longer, but Polish, Sclavic;
      not prospering by the change. [What Thorn had sunk to, out of its palmy
      state, see in Nanke's <i>Wanderungen durch Preussen</i> (Hamburg &amp;
      Altona, 1800), ii. 177-200:&mdash;a pleasant little Rook, treating mainly
      of Natural History; but drawing you, by its innocent simplicity and
      geniality, to read with thanks whatever is in it.] And all that fine
      German country, reduced to rebel against its unwise parent, was cut away
      by the Polish sword, and remained with Poland, which did not prove very
      wise either; till&mdash;till, in the Year 1773, it was cut back by the
      German sword! All readers have heard of the Partition of Poland: but of
      the Partition of Preussen, 307 years before, all have not heard.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was in the second year of that final tribulation, marked above as
      Period Third, that the Teutsch Ritters, famishing for money, completed the
      Neumark transaction with Kurfurst Friedrich; Neumark, already pawned to
      him ten years before, they in 1455, for a small farther sum, agreed to
      sell; and he, long carefully steering towards such an issue, and
      dexterously keeping out of the main broil, failed not to buy. Friedrich
      could thenceforth, on his own score, protect the Neumark; keep up an
      invisible but impenetrable wall between it and the neighboring anarchic
      conflagrations of thirteen years; and the Neumark has ever since remained
      with Brandenburg, its original owner.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to Friedrich's Pomeranian quarrel, this is the figure of it. Here is a
      scene from Rentsch, which falls out in Friedrich's time; and which brought
      much battling and broiling to him and his. Symbolical withal of much that
      befell in Brandenburg, from first to last. Under the Hohenzollerns as
      before, Brandenburg grew by aggregation, by assimilation; and we see here
      how difficult the process often was.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pommern (POMERANIA), long Wendish, but peaceably so since the time of
      Albert the Bear, and growing ever more German, had, in good part,
      according to Friedrich's notion, if there were force in human Treaties and
      Imperial Laws, fallen fairly to Brandenburg,&mdash;that is to say, the
      half of it, Stettin-Pommern had fairly fallen,&mdash;in the year 1464,
      when Duke Otto of Stettin, the last Wendish Duke, died without heirs. In
      that case by many bargains, some with bloody crowns, it had been settled,
      If the Wendish Dukes died out, the country was to fall to Brandenburg;&mdash;and
      here they were dead. "At Duke Otto's burial, accordingly, in the High
      Church of Stettin, when the coffin was lowered into its place, the Stettin
      Burgermeister, Albrecht Glinde, took sword and helmet, and threw the same
      into the grave, in token that the Line was extinct. But Franz von
      Eichsted," apparently another Burgher instructed for the nonce, "jumped
      into the grave, and picked them out again; alleging, No, the Dukes of
      WOLGAST-Pommern were of kin; these tokens we must send to his Grace at
      Wolgast, with offer of our homage, said Franz von Eichsted." [Rentsch, p.
      110 (whose printer has put his date awry); Stenzel (i. 233) calls the man
      "LORENZ Eikstetten, a resolute Gentleman."]&mdash;And sent they were, and
      accepted by his Grace. And perhaps half-a-score of bargains, with bloody
      crowns to some of them; and yet other chances, and centuries, with the
      extinction of new Lines,&mdash;had to supervene, before even
      Stettin-Pommern, and that in no complete state, could be got. [1648, by
      Treaty of Westphalia.] As to Pommern at large, Pommern not denied to be
      due, after such extinction and re-extinction of native Ducal Lines, did
      not fall home for centuries more; and what struggles and inextricable
      armed-litigations there were for it, readers of Brandenburg-History too
      wearisomely know. The process of assimilation not the least of an easy
      one!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      This Friedrich was second son: his Father's outlook for him had, at first,
      been towards a Polish Princess and the crown of Poland, which was not then
      so elective as afterwards: and with such view his early breeding had been
      chiefly in Poland; Johann, the eldest son and heir-apparent, helping his
      Father at home in the mean while. But these Polish outlooks went to
      nothing, the young Princess having died; so that Friedrich came home;
      possessed merely of the Polish language, and of what talents the gods had
      given him, which were considerable. And now, in the mean while, Johann,
      who at one time promised well in practical life, had taken to Alchemy; and
      was busy with crucibles and speculations, to a degree that seemed
      questionable. Father Friedrich, therefore, had to interfere, and deal with
      this "Johann the Alchemist" (JOHANNES ALCHEMISTA, so the Books still name
      him); who loyally renounced the Electorship, at his Father's bidding, in
      favor of Friedrich; accepted Baireuth (better half of the Culmbach
      Territory) for apanage; and there peacefully distilled and sublimated at
      discretion; the government there being an easier task, and fitter for a
      soft speculative Herr. A third Brother, Albert by name, got Anspach, on
      the Father's decease; very capable to do any fighting there might be
      occasion for, in Culmbach.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the Burggrafship, it was now done, all but the Title. The First
      Friedrich, once he was got to be Elector, wisely parted with it. The First
      Friedrich found his Electorship had dreadfully real duties for him, and
      that this of the Burggrafship had fallen mostly obsolete; so he sold it to
      the Nurnbergers for a round sum: only the Principalities and Territories
      are retained in that quarter. About which too, and their feudal duties,
      boundaries and tolls, with a jealous litigious Nurnberg for neighbor,
      there at length came quarrelling enough. But Albert the third Brother,
      over at Anspach, took charge of all that; and nothing of it fell in
      Johann's way.
    </p>
    <p>
      The good Alchemist died,&mdash;performed his last sublimation, poor man,&mdash;six
      or seven years before his Brother Friedrich; age then sixty-three. [14th
      November, 1464.] Friedrich, with his Iron Teeth and faculties, only held
      out till fifty-eight,&mdash;10th February, 1471. The manner of his end was
      peculiar. In that War with Pommern, he sat besieging a Pomeranian town,
      Uckermunde the name of it: when at dinner one day, a cannon-ball plunged
      down upon the table, [Michaelis, i. 303.] with such a crash as we can
      fancy;&mdash;which greatly confused the nerves of Friedrich; much injured
      his hearing, and even his memory thenceforth. In a few months afterwards
      he resigned, in favor of his Successor; retired to Plassenburg, and there
      died in about a year more.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter IV. &mdash; KURFURST ALBERT ACHILLES, AND HIS SUCCESSOR.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Neither Friedrich nor Johann left other than daughters: so that the united
      Heritage, Brandenburg and Culmbach both, came now to the third Brother,
      Albert; who has been in Culmbath these many years already. A tall, fiery,
      tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting, who was called the
      "ACHILLES OF GERMANY" in his day; being then a very blazing far-seen
      character, dim as he has now grown. [Born 1414; Kurfurst, 1471-1486.] This
      Albert Achilles was the Third Elector; Ancestor he of all the Brandenburg
      and Culmbach Hohenzollern Princes that have since figured in the world.
      After him there is no break or shift in the succession, down to the little
      Friedrich now born;&mdash;Friedrich the old Grandfather, First KING, was
      the Twelfth KURFURST.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have to say, they followed generally in their Ancestors' steps, and had
      success of the like kind, more or less; Hohenzollerns all of them, by
      character and behavior as well as by descent. No lack of quiet energy, of
      thrift, sound sense. There was likewise solid fair-play in general, no
      founding of yourself on ground that will not carry;&mdash;and there was
      instant, gentle but inexorable, crushing of mutiny, if it showed itself;
      which, after the Second Elector, or at most the Third, it had altogether
      ceased to do. Young Friedrich II., upon whom those Berlin Burghers had
      tried to close their gates, till he should sign some "Capitulation" to
      their mind, got from them, and not quite in ill-humor, that name
      IRONTEETH:&mdash;"Not the least a Nose-of-wax, this one! No use trying
      here, then!"&mdash;which, with the humor attached to it, is itself
      symbolical of Friedrich and these Hohenzollern Sovereigns. Albert, his
      Brother, had plenty of fighting in his time: but it was in the Nurnberg
      and other distant regions; no fighting, or hardly any, needed in
      Brandenburg henceforth.
    </p>
    <p>
      With Nurnberg, and the Ex-Burggrafship there, now when a new generation
      began to tug at the loose clauses of that Bargain with Friedrich I., and
      all Free-Towns were going high upon their privileges, Albert had at one
      time much trouble, and at length actual furious War;&mdash;other
      Free-Towns countenancing and assisting Nurnberg in the affair; numerous
      petty Princes, feudal Lords of the vicinity, doing the like by Albert.
      Twenty years ago, all this; and it did not last, so furious was it. "Eight
      victories," they count on Albert's part,&mdash;furious successful
      skirmishes, call them;&mdash;in one of which, I remember, Albert plunged
      in alone, his Ritters being rather shy; and laid about him hugely, hanging
      by a standard he had taken, till his life was nearly beaten out. [1449
      (Rentsch, p. 399).] Eight victories; and also one defeat, wherein Albert
      got captured, and had to ransom himself. The captor was one Kunz of
      Kauffungen, the Nurnberg hired General at the time: a man known to some
      readers for his Stealing of the Saxon Princes (PRINZENRAUB, they call it);
      a feat which cost Kunz his head. [Carlyle's <i>Miscellanies</i> (London,
      1869), vi. ? PRINZENRAUB.] Albert, however, prevailed in the end, as he
      was apt to do; and got his Nurnbergers fixed to clauses satisfactory to
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      In his early days he had fought against Poles, Bohemians and others, as
      Imperial general. He was much concerned, all along, in those abstruse
      armed-litigations of the Austrian House with its dependencies; and
      diligently helped the Kaiser,&mdash;Friedrich III., rather a weakish, but
      an eager and greedy Kaiser,&mdash;through most of them. That inextricable
      Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish DONNYBROOK (so we may call it) which Austria had
      on hand, one of Sigismund's bequests to Austria; distressingly tumultuous
      Donnybrook, which goes from 1440 to 1471, fighting in a fierce confused
      manner;&mdash;the Anti-Turk Hunniades, the Anti-Austrian Corvinus, the
      royal Majesties George Podiebrad, Ladislaus POSTHUMUS, Ludwig OHNE HAUT
      (Ludwig NO-SKIN), and other Ludwigs, Ladislauses and Vladislauses,
      striking and getting struck at such a rate:&mdash;Albert was generally
      what we may call chief-constable in all that; giving a knock here and then
      one there, in the Kaiser's name. [Hormayr, ii. 138, 140 (? HUNYADY
      CORVIN); Rentsch, pp. 389-422; Michaelis, i. 304-313.] Almost from
      boyhood, he had learned soldiering, which he had never afterwards leisure
      to forget. Great store of fighting he had,&mdash;say half a century of it,
      off and on, during the seventy and odd years he lasted in this world. With
      the Donnybrook we spoke of; with the Nurnbergers; with the Dukes of
      Bavaria (endless bickerings with these Dukes, Ludwig BEARDY, Ludwig
      SUPERBUS, Ludwig GIBBOSUS or Hunchback, against them and about them, on
      his own and the Kaiser's score); also with the French, already clutching
      at Lorraine; also with Charles the Rash of Burgundy;&mdash;lastly with the
      Bishop of Bamberg, who got him excommunicated and would not bury the dead.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kurfurst Albert's Letter on this last emergency, to his Viceregent in
      Culmbach, is a famed Piece still extant (date 1481); [Rentsch, p. 409.]
      and his plan in such emergency, is a simple and likely one: "Carry the
      dead bodies to the Parson's house; let him see whether he will not bury
      them by and by!&mdash;One must fence off the Devil by the Holy Cross,"
      says Albert,&mdash;appeal to Heaven with what honest mother-wit Heaven has
      vouchsafed one, means Albert. "These fellows" (the Priests), continues he,
      "would fain have the temporal sword as well as the spiritual. Had God
      wished there should be only one sword, he could have contrived that as
      well as the two. He surely did not want for intellect <i>(Er war gar ein
      weiser Mann),"</i>&mdash;want of intellect it clearly was not!&mdash;In
      short, they had to bury the dead, and do reason; and Albert hustled
      himself well clear of this broil, as he had done of many.
    </p>
    <p>
      Battle enough, poor man, with steel and other weapons:&mdash;and we see he
      did it with sharp insight, good forecast; now and then in a wildly leonine
      or AQUILINE manner. A tall hook-nosed man, of lean, sharp, rather taciturn
      aspect; nose and look are very aquiline; and there is a cloudy sorrow in
      those old eyes, which seems capable of sudden effulgence to a dangerous
      extent. He was a considerable, diplomatist too: very great with the
      Kaiser, Old Friedrich III. (Max's father, Charles V.'s Great-Grandfather);
      [How admirable Albert is, not to say "almost divine," to the Kaiser's then
      Secretary, oily-mouthed AEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope, Rentsch can
      testify (pp. 401, 586); quoting AEneas's eulogies and gossipries (<i>Historia
      Rerum Frederici Imperatoris,</i> I conclude, though no book is named).
      Oily diligent AEneas, in his own young years and in Albert's prime, had of
      course seen much of this "miracle" of Arms and Art,&mdash;"miracle" and
      "almost divine," so to speak.] and managed many things for him. Managed to
      get the thrice-lovely Heiress of the Netherlands and Burgundy, Daughter of
      that Charles the Rash, with her Seventeen Provinces, for Max, (1477) who
      was thought thereupon by everybody to be the luckiest man alive; though
      the issue contradicted it before long.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kurfurst Albert died in 1486, March 11, aged seventy-two. It was some
      months after Bosworth Fight, where our Crooked Richard got his quietus
      here in England and brought the Wars of the Roses to their finale:&mdash;a
      little chubby Boy, the son of poor parents at Eisleben in Saxony, Martin
      Luther the name of him, was looking into this abtruse Universe, with those
      strange eyes of his, in what rough woollen or linsey-woolsey short-clothes
      we do not know. [Born 10th November, 1483]
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert's funeral was very grand; the Kaiser himself, and all the Magnates
      of the Diet and Reich attending him from Frankfurt to his last
      resting-place, many miles of road. For he died at the Diet, in
      Frankfurt-on-Mayn; having fallen ill there while busy,&mdash;perhaps too
      busy for that age, in the harsh spring weather,&mdash;electing Prince
      Maximilian ("lucky Max,") who will be Kaiser too before long, and is
      already deep in ILL-luck, tragical and other to be King of the Romans. The
      old Kaiser had "looked in on him at Onolzbach" (Anspach), and brought him
      along; such a man could not be wanting on such an occasion. A man who
      "perhaps did more for the German Empire than for the Electorate of
      Brandenburg," hint some. The Kaiser himself, Friedrich III., was now
      getting old; anxious to see Max secure, and to set his house in order. A
      somewhat anxious, creaky, close-fisted, ineffectual old Kaiser; [See
      Kohler (<i>Munzbelustigungen,</i> vi. 393-401; ii. 89-96, &amp;c.) for a
      vivid account of him.] distinguished by his luck in getting Max so
      provided for, and bringing the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands to
      his House. He is the first of the Hapsburg Kaisers who had what has since
      been called the "Austrian lip"&mdash;protrusive under-jaw, with heavy lip
      disinclined to shut. He got it from his Mother, and bequeathed it in a
      marked manner; his posterity to this day bearing traces of it. Mother's
      name was Cimburgis, a Polish Princess, "Duke of Masovia's daughter;" a
      lady who had something of the MAULTASCHE in her, in character as well as
      mouth.&mdash;In old Albert, the poor old Kaiser has lost his right hand;
      and no doubt muses sadly as he rides in the funeral procession.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert is buried at Heilsbronn in Frankenland, among his Ancestors,&mdash;burial
      in Brandenburg not yet common for these new Kurfursts:&mdash;his skull, in
      an after-time, used to be shown there, laid on the lid of the tomb; skull
      marvellous for strength, and for "having no visible sutures," says
      Rentsch. Pious Brandenburg Officiality at length put an end to that
      profanation, and restored the skull to its place,&mdash;marvellous enough,
      with what had once dwelt in it, whether it had sutures or not.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      JOHANN THE CICERO IS FOURTH KURFURST, AND LEAVES TWO NOTABLE SONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Albert's eldest Son, the Fourth Kurfurst, was Johannes Cicero (1486-1499):
      Johannes was his natural name, to which the epithet "Cicero of Germany
      (CICERO GERMANIAE)" was added by an admiring public. He had commonly
      administered the Electorate during his Father's absences; and done it with
      credit to himself. He was an active man, nowise deficient as a Governor;
      creditably severe on highway robbers, for one thing,&mdash;destroys you
      "fifteen baronial robber-towers" at a stroke; was also concerned in the
      Hungarian-Bohemian DONNYBROOK, and did that also well. But nothing struck
      a discerning public like the talent he had for speaking. Spoke "four hours
      at a stretch in Kaiser Max's Diets, in elegantly flowing Latin;" with a
      fair share of meaning, too;&mdash;and had bursts of parliamentary
      eloquence in him that were astonishing to hear. A tall, square-headed man,
      of erect, cheerfully composed aspect, head flung rather back if anything:
      his bursts of parliamentary eloquence, once glorious as the day, procured
      him the name "Johannes CICERO;" and that is what remains of them: for they
      are sunk now, irretrievable he and they, into the belly of eternal Night;
      the final resting-place, I do perceive, of much Ciceronian ware in this
      world. Apparently he had, like some of his Descendants, what would now be
      called "distinguished literary talents,"&mdash;insignificant to mankind
      and us. I find he was likewise called DER GROSSE, "John the GREAT;" but on
      investigation it proves to be mere "John the BIG," a name coming from his
      tall stature and ultimate fatness of body.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the rest, he left his family well off, connected with high Potentates
      all around; and had increased his store, to a fair degree, in his time.
      Besides his eldest Son who followed as Elector, by name Joachim I., a
      burly gentleman of whom much is written in Books, he left a second Son,
      Archbishop of Magdeburg, who in time became Archbishop of Mainz and
      Cardinal of Holy Church, [Ulrich van Hutten's grand "Panegyric" upon this
      Albert on his first Entrance into Mainz (9th October, 1514),&mdash;"entrance
      with a retinue of 2,000 horse, mainly furnished by the Brandenburg and
      Culmbach kindred," say the old Books,&mdash;is in <i>Ulrichi ab Hutten
      Equitis Germani Opera</i> (Munch's edition; Berlin, 1821), i. 276-310.]&mdash;and
      by accident got to be forever memorable in Church-History, as we shall see
      anon. Archbishop of Mainz means withal KUR-MAINZ, Elector of Mainz; who is
      Chief of the Seven Electors, and as it were their President or "Speaker."
      Albert was the name of this one; his elder Brother, the then
      Kur-Brandenburg, was called Joachim. Cardinal Albert Kur-Mainz, like his
      brother Joachim Kur-Brandenburg, figures much, and blazes widely abroad,
      in the busy reign of Karl V., and the inextricable Lutheran-Papal,
      Turk-Christian business it had.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the notable point in this Albert of Mainz was that of Leo X. and the
      Indulgences. [Pauli, v. 496-499; Rentsch, p. 869.] Pope Leo had permitted
      Albert to retain his Archbishopric of Magdeburg and other dignities along
      with that of Mainz; which was an unusual favor. But the Pope expected to
      be paid for it,&mdash;to have 30,000 ducats (15,000 pounds), almost a
      King's ransom at that time, for the "Pallium" to Mainz; PALLIUM, or little
      Bit of woollen Cloth, on sale by the Pope, without which Mainz could not
      be held. Albert, with all his dignities, was dreadfully short of money at
      the time. Chapter of Mainz could or would do little or nothing, having
      been drained lately; Magdeburg, Halberstadt, the like. Albert tried
      various shifts; tried a little stroke of trade in relics,&mdash;gathered
      in the Mainz district "some hundreds of fractional sacred bones, and three
      whole bodies," which he sent to Halle for pious purchase;&mdash;but
      nothing came of this branch. The 15,000 pounds remained unpaid; and Pope
      Leo, building St. Peter's, "furnishing a sister's toilet," and doing worse
      things, was in extreme need of it. What is to be done? "I could borrow the
      money from the Fuggers of Augsburg," said the Archbishop hesitatingly;
      "but then&mdash;?"&mdash;"I could help you to repay it." said his
      Holiness: "Could repay the half of it,&mdash;if only we had (but they
      always make such clamor about these things) an Indulgence published in
      Germany!"&mdash;"Well; it must be!" answered Albert at last, agreeing to
      take the clamor on himself, and to do the feat; being at his wits'-end for
      money. He draws out his Full-Power, which, as first Spiritual Kurfurst, he
      has the privilege to do; nominates (1516) one Tetzel for Chief Salesman, a
      Priest whose hardness of face, and shiftiness of head and hand, were known
      to him; and&mdash;here is one Hohenzollern that has a place in History!
      Poor man, it was by accident, and from extreme tightness for money. He was
      by no means a violent Churchman; he had himself inclinations towards
      Luther, even of a practical sort, as the thing went on. But there was no
      help for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cardinal Albert, Kur-Mainz, shows himself a copious dexterous public
      speaker at the Diets and elsewhere in those times; a man intent on
      avoiding violent methods;&mdash;uncomfortably fat in his later years, to
      judge by the Portraits. Kur-Brandenburg, Kur-Mainz (the younger now
      officially even greater than the elder), these names are perpetually
      turning up in the German Histories of that Reformation-Period; absent on
      no great occasion; and they at length, from amid the meaningless bead-roll
      of Names, wearisomely met with in such Books, emerge into Persons for us
      as above.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter V. &mdash; OF THE BAIREUTH-ANSPACH BRANCH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Albert Achilles the Third Elector had, before his accession, been Margraf
      of Anspach, and since his Brother the Alchemist's death, Margraf of
      Baireuth too, or of the whole Principality,&mdash;"Margraf of Culmbach" we
      will call it, for brevity's sake, though the bewildering old Books have
      not steadily any name for it. [A certain subaltern of this express title,
      "Margraf of Culmbach" (a Cadet, with some temporary appanage there, who
      was once in the service of him they call the Winter-King, and may again be
      transiently heard of by us here), is the altogether Mysterious Personage
      who prints himself "MARQUIS DE LULENBACH" in Bromley's <i>Collection of
      Royal Letters</i> (London, 1787), pp. 52, &amp;c.:&mdash;one of the most
      curious Books on the Thirty-Years War; "edited" with a composed stupidity,
      and cheerful infinitude of ignorance, which still farther distinguish it.
      The BROMLEY Originals well worth a real editing, turn out, on inquiry, to
      have been "sold as Autographs, and dispersed beyond recovery, about fifty
      years ago."] After his accession, Albert Achilles naturally held both
      Electorate and Principality during the rest of his life. Which was an
      extremely rare predicament for the two Countries, the big and the little.
    </p>
    <p>
      No other Elector held them both, for nearly a hundred years; nor then,
      except as it were for a moment. The two countries, Electorate and
      Principality, Hohenzollern both, and constituting what the Hohenzollerns
      had in this world, continued intimately connected; with affinity and
      clientship carefully kept, up, and the lesser standing always under the
      express protection and as it were COUSINSHIP of the greater. But they had
      their separate Princes, Lines of Princes; and they only twice, in the time
      of these Twelve Electors, came even temporarily under the same head. And
      as to ultimate union, Brandenburg-Baireuth and Brandenburg-Anspach were
      not incorporated with Brandenburg-Proper, and its new fortunes, till
      almost our own day, namely in 1791; nor then either to continue; having
      fallen to Bavaria, in the grand Congress of Vienna, within the next
      five-and-twenty years. All which, with the complexities and perplexities
      resulting from it here, we must, in some brief way, endeavor to elucidate
      for the reader.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      TWO LINES IN CULMBACH OR BAIREUTH-ANSPACH: THE GERA BOND OF 1598.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Culmbach the Elector left, at his death, to his Second Son,&mdash;properly
      to two sons, but one of them soon died, and the other became sole
      possessor;&mdash;Friedrich by name; who, as founder of the Elder Line of
      Brandenburg-Culmbach Princes, must not be forgotten by us. Founder of the
      First or Elder Line, for there are two Lines; this of Friedrich's having
      gone out in about a hundred years; and the Anspach-Baireuth territories
      having fallen home again to Brandenburg;&mdash;where, however, they
      continued only during the then Kurfurst's life. Johann George (1525-1598),
      Seventh Kurfurst, was he to whom Brandenburg-Culmbach fell home,&mdash;nay,
      strictly speaking, it was but the sure prospect of it that fell home, the
      thing itself did not quite fall in his time, though the disposal of it
      did, ["Disposal," 1598; thing itself, 1603, in his Son's time.]&mdash;to
      be conjoined again with Brandenburg-Proper. Conjoined for the short
      potential remainder of his own life; and then to be disposed of as an
      apanage again;&mdash;which latter operation, as Johann George had
      three-and-twenty children, could be no difficult one.
    </p>
    <p>
      Johann George, accordingly (Year 1598), split the Territory in two;
      Brandenburg-Baireuth was for his second son, Brandenburg-Anspach for his
      third: hereby again were two new progenitors of Culmbach Princes
      introduced, and a New Line, Second or "Younger Line" they call it (Line
      mostly split in two, as heretofore); which&mdash;after complex adventures
      in its split condition, Baireuth under one head, Anspach under another&mdash;continues
      active down to our little Fritz's time and farther. As will become but too
      apparent to us in the course of this History!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      From of old these Territories had been frequently divided: each has its
      own little capital, Town of Anspach, Town of Baireuth, [Populations about
      the same; 16,000 to 17,000 in our time.] suitable for such arrangement.
      Frequently divided; though always under the closest cousinship, and ready
      for reuniting, if possible. Generally under the Elder Line too, under
      Friedrich's posterity, which was rather numerous and often in need of
      apanages, they had been in separate hands. But the understood practice was
      not to divide farther; Baireuth by itself, Anspach by itself (or still
      luckier if one hand could get hold of both),&mdash;and especially
      Brandenburg by itself, uncut by any apanage: this, I observe, was the
      received practice. But Johann George, wise Kurfurst as he was, wished now
      to make it surer; and did so by a famed Deed, called the Gera Bond
      (GERAISCHE VERTRAG), dated 1598, [Michaelis, i. 345.] the last year of
      Johann George's life.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hereby, in a Family Conclave held at that Gera, a little town in
      Thuringen, it was settled and indissolubly fixed, That their Electorate,
      unlike all others in Germany, shall continue indivisible; Law of
      Primogeniture, here if nowhere else, is to be in full force; and only the
      Culmbach Territory (if otherwise unoccupied) can be split off for younger
      sons. Culmbach can be split off; and this again withal can be split, if
      need be, into two (Baireuth and Anspach); but not in any case farther.
      Which Household-Law was strictly obeyed henceforth. Date of it 1598;
      principal author, Johann George, Seventh Elector. This "Gera Bond" the
      reader can note for himself as an excellent piece of Hohenzollern thrift,
      and important in the Brandenburg annals. On the whole, Brandenburg keeps
      continually growing under these Twelve Hohenzollerns, we perceive; slower
      or faster, just as the Burggrafdom had done, and by similar methods. A
      lucky outlay of money (as in the case of Friedrich Ironteeth in the
      Neumark) brings them one Province, lucky inheritance another:&mdash;good
      management is always there, which is the mother of good luck.
    </p>
    <p>
      And so there goes on again, from Johann George downwards, a new stream of
      Culmbach Princes, called the Younger or New Line,&mdash;properly two
      contemporary Lines, of Baireuthers and Anspachers;&mdash;always in close
      affinity to Brandenburg, and with ultimate reversion to Brandenburg,
      should both Lines fail; but with mutual inheritance if only one. They had
      intricate fortunes, service in foreign armies, much wandering about,
      sometimes considerable scarcity of cash: but, for a hundred and fifty
      years to come, neither Line by any means failed,&mdash;rather the
      contrary, in fact.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of this latter or New Culmbach Line, or split Line, especially of the
      Baireuth part of it, our little Wilhelmina, little Fritz's Sister, who
      became Margravine there, has given all the world notice. From the Anspach
      part of it (at that time in sore scarcity of cash) came Queen Caroline,
      famed in our George the Second's time. [See a Synoptic Diagram of these
      Genealogies, infra, p. 388a.] From it too came an unmomentous Margraf, who
      married a little Sister of Wilhelmina's and Fritz's; of whom we shall
      hear. There is lastly a still more unmomentous Margraf, only son of said
      Unmomentous and his said Spouse; who again combined the two Territories,
      Baireuth having failed of heirs; and who, himself without heirs, and with
      a frail Lady Craven as Margravine,&mdash;died at Hammersmith, close by us,
      in 1806; and so ended the troublesome affair. He had already, in 1791,
      sold off to Prussia all temporary claims of his; and let Prussia have the
      Heritage at once without waiting farther. Prussia, as we noticed, did not
      keep it long; and it is now part of the Bavarian Dominion;&mdash;for the
      sake of editors and readers, long may it so continue!
    </p>
    <p>
      Of this Younger Line, intrinsically rather insignificant to mankind, we
      shall have enough to write in time and place; we must at present direct
      our attention to the Elder Line.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE ELDER LINE OF CULMBACH: FRIEDRICH AND HIS THREE NOTABLE SONS THERE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Kurfurst Albert Achilles's second son, Friedrich (1460-1536), [Rentsch,
      pp. 593-602.] the founder of the Elder Culmbach Line, ruled his country
      well for certain years, and was "a man famed for strength of body and
      mind;" but claims little notice from us, except for the sons he had. A
      quiet, commendable, honorable man,&mdash;with a certain pathetic dignity,
      visible even in the eclipsed state he sank into. Poor old gentleman, after
      grand enough feats in war and peace, he fell melancholy, fell imbecile,
      blind, soon after middle life; and continued so for twenty years, till he
      died. During which dark state, say the old Books, it was a pleasure to see
      with what attention his Sons treated him, and how reverently the eldest
      always led him out to dinner. [Ib. p. 612.] They live and dine at that
      high Castle of Plassenburg, where old Friedrich can behold the Red or
      White Mayn no more. Alas, alas, Plassenburg is now a Correction-House,
      where male and female scoundrels do beating of hemp; and pious Friedrich,
      like eloquent Johann, has become a forgotten object. He was of the German
      Reichs-Array, who marched to the Netherlands to deliver Max from durance;
      Max, the King of the Romans, whom, for all his luck, the mutinous Flemings
      had put under lock-and-key at one time. [1482 (Pauli, ii. 389): his
      beautiful young Wife, "thrown from her horse," had perished in a
      thrice-tragic way, short while before; and the Seventeen Provinces were
      unruly under the guardianship of Max.] That is his one feat memorable to
      me at present.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was Johann Cicero's HALF-brother, child by a second wife. Like his
      Uncle Kurfurst Friedrich II., he had married a Polish Princess; the sharp
      Achilles having perhaps an eye to crowns in that direction, during that
      Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish Donnybrook. But if so, there again came nothing
      of a crown with it; though it was not without its good results for
      Friedrich's children by and by.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had eight Sons that reached manhood; five or six of whom came to
      something considerable in the world, and Three are memorable down to this
      day. One of his daughters he married to the Duke of Liegnitz in Silesia;
      which is among the first links I notice of a connection that grew strong
      with that sovereign Duchy, and is worth remarking by my readers here. Of
      the Three notable Sons it is necessary that we say something. Casimir,
      George, Albert are the names of these Three.
    </p>
    <p>
      Casimir, the eldest, [1481-1527.] whose share of heritage is Baireuth, was
      originally intended for the Church; but inclining rather to secular and
      military things, or his prospects of promotion altering, he early quitted
      that; and took vigorously to the career of arms and business. A
      truculent-looking Herr, with thoughtful eyes, and hanging under-lip:&mdash;HAT
      of enviable softness; loose disk of felt flung carelessly on, almost like
      a nightcap artificially extended, so admirably soft;&mdash;and the look of
      the man Casimir, between his cataract of black beard and this
      semi-nightcap, is carelessly truculent. He had much fighting with the
      Nurnbergers and others; laid it right terribly on, in the way of strokes,
      when needful. He was especially truculent upon the Revolt of Peasants in
      their BAUERNKRIEG (1525). Them in their wildest rage he fronted; he, that
      others might rally to him: "Unhappy mortals, will you shake the world to
      pieces, then, because you have much to complain of?" and hanged the
      ringleaders of them literally by the dozen, when quelled and captured. A
      severe, rather truculent Herr. His brother George, who had Anspach for
      heritage, and a right to half those prisoners, admonished and forgave his
      half; and pleaded hard with Casimir for mercy to the others, in a fine
      Letter still extant; [In Rentsch, p. 627.] which produced no effect on
      Casimir. For the dog's sake, and for all sakes, "let not the dog learn to
      eat LEATHER;" (of which his indispensable leashes and muzzles are made)!
      That was a proverb often heard on the occasion, in Luther's mouth among
      the rest.
    </p>
    <p>
      Casimir died in 1527, age then towards fifty. For the last dozen years or
      so, when the Father's malady became hopeless, he had governed Culmbach,
      both parts of it; the Anspach part, which belonged to his next brother
      George, going naturally, in almost all things, along with Baireuth; and
      George, who was commonly absent, not interfering, except on important
      occasions. Casimir left one little Boy, age then only six, name Albert; to
      whom George, henceforth practical sovereign of Culmbach, as his Brother
      had been, was appointed Guardian. This youth, very full of fire, wildfire
      too much of it, exploded dreadfully on Germany by and by (Albert
      ALCIBIADES the name they gave him); nay, towards the end of his nonage, he
      had been rather sputtery upon his Uncle, the excellent Guardian who had
      charge of him.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      FRIEDRICH'S SECOND SON, MARGRAF GEORGE OF ANSPACH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Uncle George of Anspach, Casimir's next Brother, had always been of a
      peaceabler disposition than Casimir; not indeed without heat of temper,
      and sufficient vivacity of every kind. As a youth, he had aided Kaiser Max
      in two of his petty wars; but was always rather given "to reading Latin,"
      to Learning, and ingenious pursuits. His Polish Mother, who, we perceive,
      had given "Casimir" his name, proved much more important to George. At an
      early age he went to his Uncle Vladislaus, King of Hungary and Bohemia:
      for&mdash;Alas, after all, we shall have to cast a glance into that
      unbeautiful Hungarian-Bohemian scramble, comparable to an "Irish
      Donnybrook," where Albert Achilles long walked as Chief-Constable. It
      behooves us, after all, to point out some of the tallest heads in it; and
      whitherward, bludgeon in hand, they seem to be swaying and struggling.&mdash;Courage,
      patient reader!
    </p>
    <p>
      George, then, at an early age went to his Uncle Vladislaus, King of
      Hungary and Bohemia: for George's Mother, as we know, was of royal kin;
      daughter of the Polish King, Casimir IV. (late mauler of the Teutsch
      Ritters); which circumstance had results for George and us. Daughter of
      Casimir IV. the Lady was; and therefore of the Jagellon blood by her
      father, which amounts to little; but by her mother she was Granddaughter
      of that Kaiser Albert II. who "got Three Crowns in one year, and died the
      next;" whose posterity have ever since,&mdash;up to the lips in trouble
      with their confused competitive accompaniments, Hunniades, Corvinus,
      George Podiebrad and others, not to speak of dragon Turks coiling ever
      closer round you on the frontier,&mdash;been Kings of Hungary and Bohemia;
      TWO of the crowns (the HERITABLE two) which were got by Kaiser Albert in
      that memorable year. He got them, as the reader may remember, by having
      the daughter of Kaiser Sigismund to wife,&mdash;Sigismund
      SUPER-GRAMMATICAM, whom we left standing, red as a flamingo, in the
      market-place of Constance a hundred years ago. Thus Time rolls on in its
      many-colored manner, edacious and feracious.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is in this way that George's Uncle, Vladislaus, Albert's daughter's
      son, is now King of Hungary and Bohemia: the last King Vladislaus they
      had; and the last King but one, of any kind, as we shall see anon.
      Vladislaus was heir of Poland too, could he have managed to get it; but he
      gave up that to his brother, to various younger brothers in succession;
      having his hands full with the Hungarian and Bohemian difficulty. He was
      very fond of Nephew George; well recognizing the ingenuous, wise and loyal
      nature of the young man. He appointed George tutor of his poor son Ludwig;
      whom he left at the early age of ten, in an evil world, and evil position
      there. "Born without Skin," they say, that is, born in the seventh month;&mdash;called
      Ludwig OHNE HAUT (Ludwig NO-Skin), on that account. Born certainly, I can
      perceive, rather thin of skin; and he would have needed one of a
      rhinoceros thickness!
    </p>
    <p>
      George did his function honestly, and with success: Ludwig grew up a
      gallant, airy, brisk young King, in spite of difficulties, constitutional
      and other; got a Sister of the great Kaiser Karl V. to wife;&mdash;determined
      (A.D. 1526) to have a stroke at the Turk dragon; which, was coiling round
      his frontier, and spitting fire at an intolerable rate. Ludwig, a fine
      young man of twenty, marched away with much Hungarian chivalry, right for
      the Turk (Summer 1526); George meanwhile going busily to Bohemia, and
      there with all his strength levying troops for reinforcement. Ludwig
      fought and fenced, for some time, with the Turk outskirts; came at last to
      a furious general battle with the Turk (29th August, 1526), at a place
      called Mohacz, far east in the flats of the Lower Donau; and was there
      tragically beaten and ended. Seeing the Battle gone, and his chivalry all
      in flight, Ludwig too had to fly; galloping for life, he came upon bog
      which proved bottomless, as good as bottomless; and Ludwig, horse and man,
      vanished in it straightway from this world. Hapless young man, like a
      flash of lightning suddenly going down there&mdash;and the Hungarian
      Sovereignty along with him. For Hungary is part of Austria ever since;
      having, with Bohemia, fallen to Karl V.'s Brother Ferdinand, as now the
      nearest convenient heir of Albert with his Three Crowns. Up to the lips in
      difficulties to this day!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      George meanwhile, with finely appointed reinforcements, was in full march
      to join Ludwig; but the sad news of Mohacz met him: he withdrew, as soon
      as might be, to his own territory, and quitted Hungarian politics. This, I
      think, was George's third and last trial of war. He by no means delighted
      in that art, or had cultivated it like Casimir and some of his brothers.&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      George by this time had considerable property; part of it important to the
      readers of this History. Anspach we already know; but the Duchy of
      Jagerndorf,&mdash;that and its pleasant valleys, fine hunting-grounds and
      larch-clad heights, among the Giant Mountains of Silesia,&mdash;that is to
      us the memorable territory. George got it in this manner:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Some ten or fifteen years ago, the late King Vladislaus, our Uncle of
      blessed memory, loving George, and not having royal moneys at command,
      permitted him to redeem with his own cash certain Hungarian Domains,
      pledged at a ruinously cheap rate, but unredeemable by Vladislaus. George
      did so; years ago, guess ten or fifteen. George did not like the Hungarian
      Domains, with their Turk and other inconveniences; he proposed to exchange
      them with King Vladislaus for the Bohemian-Silesian Duchy of Jagerndorf;
      which had just then, by failure of heirs, lapsed to the King. This also
      Vladislaus, the beneficent cashless Uncle, liking George more and more,
      permitted to be done. And done it was; I see not in what year; only that
      the ultimate investiture (done, this part of the affair, by Ludwig OHNE
      HAUT, and duly sanctioned by the Kaiser) dates 1524, two years before the
      fatal Mohacz business.
    </p>
    <p>
      From the time of this purchase, and especially till Brother Casimir's
      death, which happened in 1527, George resided oftener at Jagerndorf than
      at Anspach. Anspach, by the side of Baireuth, needed no management; and in
      Jagerndorf much probably required the hand of a good Governor to put it
      straight again. The Castle of Jagerndorf, which towers up there in a
      rather grand manner to this day, George built: "the old Castle of the
      Schellenbergs" (extinct predecessor Line) now gone to ruins, "stands on a
      Hill with larches on it, some miles off." Margraf George was much esteemed
      as Duke of Jagerndorf. What his actions in that region were, I know not;
      but it seems he was so well thought of in Silesia, two smaller neighboring
      Potentates, the Duke of Oppeln and the Duke of Ratibor, who had no heirs
      of their body, bequeathed, with the Kaiser's assent, these towns and
      territories to George: [Rentsch, pp. 623, 127-131. Kaiser is Ferdinand,
      Karl V.'s Brother,&mdash;as yet only KING of Bohemia and Hungary, but
      supreme in regard to such points. His assent is dated "17th June, 1531" in
      Rentsch.]&mdash;in mere love to their subjects (Rentsch intimates), that
      poor men might be governed by a wise good Duke, in the time coming. The
      Kaiser would have got the Duchies otherwise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nay the Kaiser, in spite of his preliminary assent, proved extortionate to
      George in this matter; and exacted heavy sums for the actual possession of
      Oppeln and Ratibor. George, going so zealously ahead in Protestant
      affairs, grew less and less a favorite with Kaisers. But so, at any rate,
      on peaceable unquestionable grounds, grounds valid as Imperial Law and
      ready money, George is at last Lord of these two little Countries, in the
      plain of South-Silesia, as of Jagerndorf among the Mountains hard by.
      George has and holds the Duchy of Jagerndorf, with these appendages
      (Jagerndorf since 1524, Ratibor and Oppeln since some years later); and
      lives constantly, or at the due intervals, in his own strong
      Mountain-Castle of Jagerndorf there,&mdash;we have no doubt, to the marked
      benefit of good men in those parts. Hereby has Jagerndorf joined itself to
      the Brandenburg Territories: and the reader can note the circumstance, for
      it will prove memorable one day.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the business of the Reformation, Margraf George was very noble. A
      simple-hearted, truth-loving, modestly valiant man; rising unconsciously,
      in that great element, into the heroic figure. "George the Pious (DER
      FROMME)," "George the Confessor (BEKENNER)," were the names he got from
      his countrymen. Once this business had become practical, George interfered
      a little more in the Culmbach Government; his brother Casimir, who
      likewise had Reformation tendencies, rather hanging back in comparison to
      George.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1525 the Town-populations, in the Culmbach region, big Nurnberg in the
      van, had gone quite ahead in the new Doctrine; and were becoming
      irrepressibly impatient to clear out the old mendacities, and have the
      Gospel preached freely to them. This was a questionable step; feasible
      perhaps for a great Elector of Saxony;&mdash;but for a Margraf of Anspach?
      George had come home from Jagerndorf, some three hundred miles away, to
      look into it for himself; found it, what with darkness all round, what
      with precipices menacing on both hands, and zealous, inconsiderate
      Town-populations threatening to take the bit between their teeth, a
      frightfully intricate thing. George mounted his horse, one day this year,
      day not dated farther, and "with only six attendants" privately rode off,
      another two hundred miles, a good three days' ride, to Wittenberg; and
      alighted at Dr. Martinus Lutherus's door. [Rentsch, p. 625.] A notable
      passage; worth thinking of. But such visits of high Princes, to that poor
      house of the Doctor's, were not then uncommon. Luther cleared the doubts
      of George; George returned with a resolution taken; "Ahead then, ye poor
      Voigtland Gospel populations! I must lead you, we must on!"&mdash;And
      perils enough there proved to be, and precipices on each hand:
      BAUERNKRIEG, that is to say Peasants'-War, Anabaptistry and Red-Republic,
      on the one hand; REICHS-ACHT, Ban of Empire, on the other. But George,
      eagerly, solemnly attentive, with ever new light rising on him, dealt with
      the perils as they came; and went steadily on, in a simple, highly manful
      and courageous manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      He did not live to see the actual Wars that followed on Luther's
      preaching:&mdash;he was of the same age with Luther, born few months
      later, and died two years before Luther; [4th March, 1484,&mdash;27th
      Dec., 1543, George; 10th November, 1483&mdash;18th February, 1546, Luther.]&mdash;but
      in all the intermediate principal transactions George is conspicuously
      present; "George of Brandenburg," as the Books call him, or simply
      "Margraf George."
    </p>
    <p>
      At the Diet of Augsburg (1530), and the signing of the Augsburg Confession
      there, he was sure to be. He rode thither with his Anspach Knightage about
      him, "four hundred cavaliers,"&mdash;Seckendorfs, Huttens, Flanses and
      other known kindreds, recognizable among the lists; [Rentsch, p. 633.]&mdash;and
      spoke there, notbursts of parliamentary eloquence, but things that had
      meaning in them. One speech of his, not in the Diet, but in the Kaiser's
      Lodging (15th June, 1530; no doubt, in Anton Fugger's house, where the
      Kaiser "lodged for year and day" this time but WITHOUT the "fires of
      cinnamon" they talk of on other occasions [See Carlyle's <i>Miscellanies</i>
      (iii. 259 n.). The House is at present an Inn, <i>"Gasthaus zu den drei
      Mohren;"</i>where tourists lodge, and are still shown the room which the
      Kaiser occupied on such visits.]), is still very celebrated. It was the
      evening of the Kaiser Karl Fifth's arrival at the Diet; which was then
      already, some time since, assembled there. And great had been the Kaiser's
      reception that morning; the flower of Germany, all the Princes of the
      Empire, Protestant and Papal alike, riding out to meet him, in the open
      country, at the Bridge of the Lech. With high-flown speeches and
      benignities, on both sides;&mdash;only that the Kaiser willed all men,
      Protestant and other, should in the mean while do the Popish litanyings,
      waxlight processionings and idolatrous stage-performances with him on the
      morrow, which was CORPUS-CHRISTI Day; and the Protestants could not nor
      would. Imperial hints there had already been, from Innspruck; benign
      hopes, of the nature of commands, That loyal Protestant Princes would in
      the interim avoid open discrepancies,&mdash;perhaps be so loyal as keep
      their chaplains, peculiar divine-services, private in the interim? These
      were hints;&mdash;and now this of the CORPUS-CHRISTI, a still more
      pregnant hint! Loyal Protestants refused it, therefore; flatly declined,
      though bidden and again bidden. They attended in a body, old Johann of
      Saxony, young Philip of Hessen, and the rest; Margraf George, as
      spokesman, with eloquent simplicity stating their reasons,&mdash;to
      somewhat this effect:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Invinciblest all-gracious Kaiser, loyal are we to your high Majesty, ready
      to do your bidding by night and by day. But it is your bidding under God,
      not against God. Ask us not, O gracious Kaiser! I cannot, and we cannot;
      and we must not, and dare not. And "before I would deny my God and his
      Evangel," these are George's own words, "I would rather kneel down here
      before your Majesty, and have my head struck off,"&mdash;hitting his
      hind-head, or neck, with the edge of his hand, by way of accompaniment; a
      strange radiance in the eyes of him, voice risen into musical alt: <i>"Ehe
      Ich wolte meinen Gott und sein Evangelium verlaugnen, ehe wolte Ich hier
      vor Eurer Majestat niderknien, und mir den Kopf abhauen lassen."&mdash;"Nit
      Kop ab, lover Forst, nit Kop ab!"</i> answered Charles in his
      Flemish-German; "Not head off, dear Furst, not head off!" said the Kaiser,
      a faint smile enlightening those weighty gray eyes of his, and
      imperceptibly animating the thick Austrian under-lip. [Rentsch, p. 637.
      Marheineke, <i>Geschichte der Teutschen Reformation </i> (Berlin, 1831),
      ii. 487.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Speaker and company attended again on the morrow; Margraf George still
      more eloquent. Whose Speech flew over Germany, like fire over dry flax;
      and still exists,&mdash;both Speeches now oftenest rolled into one by
      inaccurate editors. [As by Rentsch, ubi supra.] And the CORPUS-CHRISTI
      idolatries were forborne the Margraf and his company this time;&mdash;the
      Kaiser himself, however, walking, nearly roasted in the sun, in heavy
      purple-velvet cloak, with a big wax-candle, very superfluous, guttering
      and blubbering in the right hand of him, along the streets of Augsburg.
      Kur-Brandenburg, Kur-Mainz, high cousins of George, were at this Diet of
      Augsburg; Kur-Brandenburg (Elector Joachim I., Cicero's son, of whom we
      have spoken, and shall speak again) being often very loud on the
      conservative side; and eloquent Kur-Mainz going on the conciliatory tack.
      Kur-Brandenburg, in his zeal, had ridden on to Innspruck, to meet the
      Kaiser there, and have a preliminary word with him. Both these high
      Cousins spoke, and bestirred themselves, a good deal, at this Diet. They
      had met the Kaiser on the plains of the Lech, this morning; and, no doubt,
      gloomed unutterable things on George and his Speech. George could not help
      it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Till his death in 1543, George is to be found always in the front line of
      this high Movement, in the line where Kur-Sachsen, John the Steadfast (DER
      BESTANDIGE), and young Philip the Magnanimous of Hessen were, and where
      danger and difficulty were. Readers of this enlightened gold-nugget
      generation can form to themselves no conception of the spirit that then
      possessed the nobler kingly mind. "The command of God endures through
      Eternity, <i> Verbum Dei Manet In AEternum,"</i> was the Epigraph and
      Life-motto which John the Steadfast had adopted for himself; "V. D. M. I.
      AE.," these initials he had engraved on all the furnitures of his
      existence, on his standards, pictures, plate, on the very sleeves of his
      lackeys,&mdash;and I can perceive, on his own deep heart first of all. V.
      D. M. I. E.:&mdash;or might it not be read withal, as Philip of Hessen
      sometimes said (Philip, still a young fellow, capable of sport in his
      magnanimous scorn), <i>"Verbum Diaboli Manet In Episcopis,</i> The Devil's
      Word sticks fast in the Bishops"?
    </p>
    <p>
      We must now take leave of Margraf George and his fine procedures in that
      crisis of World-History. He had got Jugerndorf, which became important for
      his Family and others: but what was that to the Promethean conquests (such
      we may call them) which he had the honor to assist in making for his
      Family, and for his Country, and for all men;&mdash;very unconscious he of
      "bringing fire from Heaven," good modest simple man! So far as I can
      gather, there lived, in that day, few truer specimens of the Honest Man. A
      rugged, rough-hewn, rather blunt-nosed physiognomy: cheek-bones high,
      cheeks somewhat bagged and wrinkly; eyes with a due shade of anxiety and
      sadness in them; affectionate simplicity, faithfulness, intelligence,
      veracity looking out of every feature of him. Wears plentiful white beard
      short-cut, plentiful gold-chains, ruffs, ermines;&mdash;a hat not to be
      approved of, in comparison with brother Casimir's; miserable
      inverted-colander of a hat; hanging at an angle of forty-five degrees;
      with band of pearls round the top not the bottom of it; insecure upon the
      fine head of George, and by no means to its embellishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of his Daughters he married to the Duke of Liegnitz, a new link in
      that connection. He left one Boy, George Friedrich; who came under
      ALCIBIADES, his Cousin of Baireuth's tutelage; and suffered much by that
      connection, or indeed chiefly by his own conspicuously Protestant turn, to
      punish which, the Alcibiades connection was taken as a pretext. In riper
      years, George Friedrich got his calamities brought well under; and lived
      to do good work, Protestant and other, in the world. To which we may
      perhaps allude again. The Line of Margraf George the Pious ends in this
      George Friedrich, who had no children; the Line of Margraf George, and the
      Elder Culmbach Line altogether (1603), Albert Alcibiades, Casimir's one
      son, having likewise died without posterity.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Of the younger Brothers," says my Authority, "some four were in the
      Church; two of whom rose to be Prelates;&mdash;here are the four:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "1. One, Wilhelm by name, was Bishop of Riga, in the remote Prussian
      outskirts, and became Protestant;&mdash;among the first great Prelates who
      took that heretical course; being favored by circumstances to cast out the
      'V. D. <i>(Verbum Diaboli),'</i> as Philip read it. He is a wise-looking
      man, with magnificent beard, with something of contemptuous patience in
      the meditative eyes of him. He had great troubles with his Riga people,&mdash;as
      indeed was a perennial case between their Bishop and them, of whatever
      creed he might be.
    </p>
    <p>
      "2. The other Prelate held fast by the Papal Orthodoxy: he had got upon
      the ladder of promotion towards Magdeburg; hoping to follow his Cousin
      KUR-MAINZ, the eloquent conciliatory Cardinal, in that part of his
      pluralities. As he did,&mdash;little to his comfort, poor man; having
      suffered a good deal in the sieges and religious troubles of his
      Magdeburgers; who ended by ordering him away, having openly declared
      themselves Protestant, at length. He had to go; and occupy himself
      complaining, soliciting Aulic-Councils and the like, for therest of his
      life.
    </p>
    <p>
      "3. The PROBST of Wurzburg (PROVOST, kind of Head-Canon there); orthodox
      Papal he too; and often gave his Brother George trouble.
    </p>
    <p>
      "4. A still more orthodox specimen, the youngest member of the family, who
      is likewise in orders: Gumbrecht ('Gumbertus, a Canonicus of' Something or
      other, say the Books); who went early to Rome, and became one of his
      Holiness Leo Tenth's Chamberlains;&mdash;stood the 'Sack of Rome'
      (Constable de Bourbon's), and was captured there and ransomed;&mdash;but
      died still young (1528). These three were Catholics, he of Wurzburg a
      rather virulent one."
    </p>
    <p>
      Catholic also was JOHANNES, a fifth Brother, who followed the soldiering
      and diplomatic professions, oftenest in Spain; did Government-messages to
      Diets, and the like, for Karl V.; a high man and well seen of his Kaiser;&mdash;he
      had wedded the young Widow of old King Ferdinand in Spain; which proved,
      seemingly, a troublous scene for poor Johannes. What we know is, he was
      appointed Commandant of Valencia; and died there, still little turned of
      thirty,&mdash;by poison it is supposed,&mdash;and left his young Widow to
      marry a third time.
    </p>
    <p>
      These are the Five minor Brothers, four of them Catholic, sons of old
      blind Friedrich of Plassenburg; who are not, for their own sake,
      memorable, but are mentionable for the sake of the three major Brothers.
      So many orthodox Catholics, while Brother George and others went into the
      heresies at such a rate! A family much split by religion:&mdash;and blind
      old Friedrich, dim of intellect, knew nothing of it; and the excellent
      Polish Mother said and thought, we know not what. A divided Time!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Johannes of Valencia, and these Chief Priests, were all men of mark;
      conspicuous to the able editors of their day: but the only Brother now
      generally known to mankind is Albert, Hochmeister of the Teutsch
      Ritterdom; by whom Preussen came into the Family. Of him we must now speak
      a little.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter VI. &mdash; HOCHMEISTER ALBERT, THIRD NOTABLE SON OF FRIEDRICH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Albert was born in 1490; George's junior by six years, Casimir's by nine.
      He too had been meant for the Church; but soon quitted that, other
      prospects and tendencies opening. He had always loved the ingenuous arts;
      but the activities too had charms for him. He early shone in his exercises
      spiritual and bodily; grew tall above his fellows, expert in arts,
      especially in arms;&mdash;rode with his Father to Kaiser Max's Court; was
      presented by him, as the light of his eyes, to Kaiser Max; who thought him
      a very likely young fellow; and bore him in mind, when the Mastership of
      the Teutsch Ritterdom fell vacant. [Rentsch, pp. 840-863.]
    </p>
    <p>
      The Teutsch Ritterdom, ever since it got its back broken in that Battle of
      Tannenberg in 1410, and was driven out of West-Preussen with such
      ignominious kicks, has been lying bedrid, eating its remaining revenues,
      or sprawling about in helpless efforts to rise again, which require no
      notice from us. Hopeless of ever recovering West-Preussen, it had quietly
      paid its homage to Poland for the Eastern part of that Country; quietly
      for some couple of generations. But, in the third or fourth generation
      after Tannenberg, there began to rise murmurs,&mdash;in the Holy Roman
      Empire first of all. "Preussen is a piece of the Reich," said hot,
      inconsiderate people; "Preussen could not be alienated without consent of
      the Reich!" To which discourses the afflicted Ritters listened only too
      gladly; their dull eyes kindling into new false hopes at sound of them.
      The point was, To choose as Hochmeister some man of German influence, of
      power and connection in the Country, who might help them to their
      so-called right. With this view, they chose one and then another of such
      sort;&mdash;and did not find it very hopeful, as we shall see.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert was chosen Grand-Master of Preussen, in February, 1511; age then
      twenty-one. Made his entry into Konigsberg, November next year; in grand
      cavalcade, "dreadful storm of rain and wind at the time,"&mdash;poor
      Albert all in black, and full of sorrow, for the loss of his Mother, the
      good Polish Princess, who had died since he left home. Twenty months of
      preparation he had held since his Election, before doing anything: for
      indeed the case was intricate. He, like his predecessor in office, had
      undertaken to refuse that Homage to Poland; the Reich generally, and
      Kaiser Max himself, in a loose way of talk, encouraging him: "A piece of
      the Reich," said they all; "Teutsch Ritters had no power to give it away
      in that manner." Which is a thing more easily said, than made good in the
      way of doing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert's predecessor, chosen on this principle, was a Saxon Prince,
      Friedrich of Meissen; cadet of Saxony; potently enough connected, he too;
      who, in like manner, had undertaken to refuse the Homage. And zealously
      did refuse it, though to his cost, poor man. From the Reich, for all its
      big talking, he got no manner of assistance; had to stave off a Polish War
      as he could, by fair-speaking, by diplomacies and contrivances; and died
      at middle age, worn down by the sorrows of that sad position.
    </p>
    <p>
      An idea prevails, in ill-informed circles, that our new Grand-Master
      Albert was no better than a kind of cheat; that he took this
      Grand-Mastership of Preussen; and then, in gayety of heart,
      surreptitiously pocketed Preussen for his own behoof. Which is an idle
      idea; inconsistent with the least inquiry, or real knowledge how the
      matter stood. [Voigt, ix. 740-749; Pauli, iv. 404-407.] By no means in
      gayety of heart, did Albert pocket Preussen; nor till after as tough a
      struggle to do other with it as could have been expected of any man.
    </p>
    <p>
      One thing not suspected by the Teutsch Ritters, and least of all by their
      young Hochmeister, was, That the Teutsch Ritters had well deserved that
      terrible down-come at Tannenberg, that ignominious dismissal out of
      West-Preussen with kicks. Their insolence, luxury, degeneracy had gone to
      great lengths. Nor did that humiliation mend them at all; the reverse
      rather. It was deeply hidden from the young Hochmeister as from them, That
      probably they were now at length got to the end of their capability: and
      ready to be withdrawn from the scene, as soon as any good way offered!&mdash;Of
      course, they Were reluctant enough to fulfil their bargain to Poland; very
      loath they to do Homage now for Preussen, and own themselves sunk to the
      second degree. For the Ritters had still their old haughtiness of humor,
      their deepseated pride of place, gone now into the unhappy CONSCIOUS
      state. That is usually the last thing that deserts a sinking House: pride
      of place, gone to the conscious state;&mdash;as if, in a reverse manner,
      the House felt that it deserved to sink.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the rest, Albert's position among them was what Friedrich of Sachsen's
      had been; worse, not better; and the main ultimate difference was, he did
      not die of it, like Friedrich of Sachsen; but found an outlet, not open in
      Friedrich's time, and lived. To the Ritters, and vague Public which called
      itself the Reich, Albert had promised he would refuse the Homage to
      Poland; on which Ritters and Reich had clapt their hands: and that was
      pretty much all the assistance he got of them. The Reich, as a formal
      body, had never asserted its right to Preussen, nor indeed spoken
      definitely on the subject: it was only the vague Public that had spoken,
      in the name of the Reich. From the Reich, or from any individual of it,
      Kaiser or Prince, when actually applied to, Albert could get simply
      nothing. From what, Ritters were in Preussen, he might perhaps expect
      promptitude to fight, if it came to that; which was not much as things
      stood. But, from the great body of the Ritters, scattered over Germany,
      with their rich territories (BALLEYS, bailliwicks), safe resources, and
      comfortable "Teutschmeister" over them, he got flat refusal: [The titles
      HOCHMEISTER and TEUTSCHMEISTER are defined, in many Books and in all
      manner of Dictionaries, as meaning the same thing. But that is not quite
      the case. They were at first synonymous, so far as I can see; and after
      Albert's time, they again became so; but at the date where we now are, and
      for a long while back, they represent different entities, and indeed
      oftenest, since the Prussian DECLINE began, antagonistic ones.
      Teutschmeister, Sub-president over the GERMAN affairs and possessions of
      the Order, resides at Mergentheim in that Country: Hochmeister is Chief
      President of the whole, but resident at Marienburg in Preussen, and feels
      there acutely where the shoe pinches,&mdash;much too acutely, thinks the
      Teutschmeister in his soft list-slippers, at Mergentheim in the safe
      Wurzburg region.] "We will not be concerned in the adventure at all; we
      wish you well through it!" Never was a spirited young fellow placed in
      more impossible position. His Brother Casimir (George was then in
      Hungary), his Cousin Joachim Kur-Brandenburg, Friedrich Duke of Liegnitz,
      a Silesian connection of the Family, ["Duke Friedrich II.:" comes by
      mothers from Kurfurst Friedrich I.; marries Margraf George's Daughter even
      now, 1519 (Hubner, tt. 179, 100, 101).] consulted, advised, negotiated to
      all lengths, Albert's own effort was incessant. "Agree with King
      Sigismund," said they; "Uncle Sigismund, your good Mother's Brother; a
      King softly inclined to us all!"&mdash;"How agree?" answered Albert: "He
      insists on the Homage, which I have promised not to give!" Casimir went
      and came, to Konigsberg, to Berlin; went once himself to Cracow, to the
      King, on this errand: but it was a case of "Yes AND No;" not to be solved
      by Casimir.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to King Sigismund, he was patient with it to a degree; made the
      friendliest paternal professions;&mdash;testifying withal, That the claim
      was undeniable; and could by him, Sigismund, never be foregone with the
      least shadow of honor, and of course never would: "My dear Nephew can
      consider whether his dissolute, vain-minded, half-heretical Ritterdom, nay
      whether this Prussian fraction of it, is in a condition to take Poland by
      the beard in an unjust quarrel; or can hope to do Tannenberg over again in
      the reverse way, by Beelzehub's help?"&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      For seven years, Albert held out in this intermediate state, neither peace
      nor war; moving Heaven and Earth to raise supplies, that he might be able
      to defy Poland, and begin war. The Reich answers, "We have really nothing
      for you." Teutschmeister answers again and again, "I tell you we have
      nothing!" In the end, Sigismund grew impatient; made (December, 1519) some
      movements of a hostile nature. Albert did not yield; eager only to
      procrastinate till he were ready. By superhuman efforts, of borrowing,
      bargaining, soliciting, and galloping to and fro, Albert did, about the
      end of next year, get up some appearance of an Army: "14,000 German
      mercenaries horse and foot," so many in theory; who, to the extent of
      8,000 in actual result, came marching towards him (October, 1520); to
      serve "for eight months." With these he will besiege Dantzig, besiege
      Thorn; will plunge, suddenly, like a fiery javelin, into the heart of
      Poland, and make Poland surrender its claim. Whereupon King Sigismund
      bestirred himself in earnest; came out with vast clouds of Polish
      chivalry; overset Albert's 8,000;&mdash;who took to eating the country,
      instead of fighting for it; being indeed in want of all things. One of the
      gladdest days Albert had yet seen, was when he got the 8,000 sent home
      again.
    </p>
    <p>
      What then is to be done? "Armistice for four years," Sigismund was still
      kind enough to consent to that: "Truce for four years: try everywhere, my
      poor Nephew; after that, your mind will perhaps become pliant." Albert
      tried the Reich again: "Four years, O Princes, and then I must do it, or
      be eaten!" Reich, busy with Lutheran-Papal, Turk-Christian quarrels,
      merely shrugged its shoulders upon Albert. Teutschmeister did the like;
      everybody the like. In Heaven or Earth, then, is there no hope for me?
      thought Albert. And his stock of ready money&mdash;we will not speak of
      that!
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile Dr. Osiander of Anspach had come to him; and the pious young man
      was getting utterly shaken in his religion. Monkish vows, Pope, Holy
      Church itself, what is one to think, Herr Doctor? Albert, religious to an
      eminent degree, was getting deep into Protestantism. In his many
      journeyings, to Nurnberg, to Brandenburg, and up and down, he had been at
      Wittenberg too: he saw Luther in person more than once there; corresponded
      with Luther; in fine believed in the truth of Luther. The Culmbach
      Brothers were both, at least George ardently was, inclined to
      Protestantism, as we have seen; but Albert was foremost of the three in
      this course. Osiander and flights of zealous Culmbach Preachers made many
      converts in Preussen. In these circumstances the Four Years came to a
      close.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert, we may believe, is greatly at a loss; and deep deliberations,
      Culmbach, Berlin, Liegnitz, Poland all called in, are held:&mdash;a case
      beyond measure intricate. You have given your word; word must be kept,&mdash;and
      cannot, without plain hurt, or ruin even, to those that took it of you.
      Withdraw, therefore; fling it up!&mdash;Fling it up? A valuable article to
      fling up; fling it up is the last resource. Nay, in fact, to whom will you
      fling it up? The Prussian Ritters themselves are getting greatly divided
      on the point; and at last on all manner of points, Protestantism ever more
      spreading among them. As for the German Brethren, they and their
      comfortable Teutschmeister, who refused to partake in the dangerous
      adventure at all; are they entitled to have much to say in the settlement
      of it now?&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Among others, or as chief oracle of all, Luther was consulted. "What would
      you have me do towards reforming the Teutsch Order?" inquired Albert of
      his oracle. Luther's answer was, as may be guessed, emphatic. "Luther,"
      says one reporter, "has in his Writings declared the Order to be 'a thing
      serviceable neither to God nor man,' and the constitution of it 'a
      monstrous, frightful, hermaphroditish, neither secular nor spiritual
      constitution.'" [C. J. Weber, <i>Daa Ritterwessen</i> (Stuttgard, 1837),
      iii. 208.] We do not know what Luther's answer to Albert was;&mdash;but
      can infer the purport of it: That such a Teutsch Ritterdom was not, at any
      rate, a thing long for this world; that white cloaks with black crosses on
      them would not, of themselves, profit any Ritterdom; that solemn vows and
      high supramundane professions, followed by such practice as was notorious,
      are an afflicting, not to say a damnable, spectacle on God's Earth;&mdash;that
      a young Herr had better marry; better have done with the wretched
      Babylonian Nightmare of Papistry altogether; better shake oneself awake,
      in God's name, and see if there are not still monitions in the eternal sky
      as to what it is wise to do, and wise not to do!&mdash;This I imagine to
      have been, in modern language, the purport of Dr. Luther's advice to
      Hochmeister Albrecht on the present interesting occasion.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is certain, Albert, before long, took this course; Uncle Sigismund and
      the resident Officials of the Ritterdom having made agreement to it as the
      one practicable course. The manner as follows: 1. Instead of Elected
      Hochmeister, let us be Hereditary Duke of Preussen, and pay homage for it
      to Uncle Sigismund in that character. 2. Such of the resident Officials of
      the Ritterdom as are prepared to go along with us, we will in like manner
      constitute permanent Feudal Proprietors of what they now possess as
      Life-rent, and they shall be Sub-vassals under us as Hereditary Duke. 3.
      In all which Uncle Sigismund and the Republic of Poland engage to maintain
      us against the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      That is, in sum, the Transaction entered into, by King Sigismund I. of
      Poland, on the one part, and Hochmeister Albert and his Ritter Officials,
      such as went along with him, (which of course none could do that were not
      Protestant), on the other part: done at Cracow, 8th April, 1525. [Rentsch,
      p. 850.&mdash;Here, certified by Rentsch, Voigt and others, is a worn-out
      patch of Paper, which is perhaps worth printing:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     1490, May 17, Albert is born.
     1511, February 14, Hochmeister.
     1519, December, King Sigismund's first hostile movements.
     1520, October, German Mercenaries arrive.
     1520, November, try Siege of Dantzig.
     1520, November 17, give it up.
     1521, April 10, Truce for Four Years.
     1523, June, Albert consults Luther.
     1524, November, sees Luther.
     1525, April 8, Peace of Cracow, and Albert to be Duke of
     Prussia.] Whereby Teutsch Ritterdom, the Prussian part of it,
     vanished from the world; dissolving itself, and its "hermaphrodite
     constitution," like a kind of Male Nunnery, as so many female ones
     had done in those years. A Transaction giving rise to endless
     criticism, then and afterwards. Transaction plainly not
     reconcilable with the letter of the law; and liable to have logic
     chopped upon it to any amount, and to all lengths of time.
     The Teutschmeister and his German Brethren shrieked murder;
     the whole world, then, and for long afterwards, had much to say
     and argue.
</pre>
    <p>
      To us, now that the logic-chaff is all laid long since, the question is
      substantial, not formal. If the Teutsch Ritterdom was actually at this
      time DEAD, actually stumbling about as a mere galvanized Lie beginning to
      be putrid,&mdash;then, sure enough, it behooved that somebody should bury
      it, to avoid pestilential effects in the neighborhood. Somebody or other;&mdash;first
      flaying the skin off, as was natural, and taking that for his trouble. All
      turns, in substance, on this latter question! If, again, the Ritterdom was
      not dead&mdash;?
    </p>
    <p>
      And truly it struggled as hard as Partridge the Almanac-maker to rebut
      that fatal accusation; complained (Teutschmeister and German-Papist part
      of it) loudly at the Diets; got Albert and his consorts put to the Ban
      (GEACHTET), fiercely menaced by the Kaiser Karl V. But nothing came of all
      that; nothing but noise. Albert maintained his point; Kaiser Karl always
      found his hands full otherwise, and had nothing but stamped parchments and
      menaces to fire off at Albert. Teutsch Ritterdom, the Popish part of it,
      did enjoy its valuable bailliwicks, and very considerable rents in various
      quarters of Germany and Europe, having lost only Preussen; and walked
      about, for three centuries more, with money in its pocket, and a solemn
      white gown with black cross on its back,&mdash;the most opulent Social
      Club in existence, and an excellent place for bestowing younger sons of
      sixteen quarters. But it was, and continued through so many centuries, in
      every essential respect, a solemn Hypocrisy; a functionless merely eating
      Phantasm, of the nature of goblin, hungry ghost or ghoul (of which kind
      there are many);&mdash;till Napoleon finally ordered it to vanish; its
      time, even as Phantasm, being come.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert, I can conjecture, had his own difficulties as Regent in Preussen.
      [1525-1568.] Protestant Theology, to make matters worse for him, had split
      itself furiously into 'DOXIES; and there was an OSIANDERISM (Osiander
      being the Duke's chaplain), much flamed upon by the more orthodox ISM.
      "Foreigners," too, German-Anspach and other, were ill seen by the native
      gentlemen; yet sometimes got encouragement. One Funccius, a shining
      Nurnberg immigrant there, son-in-law of Osiander, who from Theology got
      into Politics, had at last (1564) to be beheaded,&mdash;old Duke Albert
      himself "bitterly weeping" about him; for it was none of Albert's doing.
      Probably his new allodial Ritter gentlemen were not the most submiss, when
      made hereditary? We can only hope the Duke was a Hohenzollern, and not
      quite unequal to his task in this respect. A man with high bald brow;
      magnificent spade-beard; air much-pondering, almost gaunt,&mdash;gaunt
      kind of eyes especially, and a slight cast in them, which adds to his
      severity of aspect. He kept his possession well, every inch of it; and
      left all safe at his decease in 1568. His age was then near eighty. It was
      the tenth year of our Elizabeth as Queen; invincible Armada not yet built;
      but Alba very busy, cutting off high heads in Brabant; and stirring up the
      Dutch to such fury as was needful for exploding Spain and him.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Duke Albert was a profoundly religious man, as all thoughtful men
      then were. Much given to Theology, to Doctors of Divinity; being eager to
      know God's Laws in this Universe, and wholesomely certain of damnation if
      he should not follow them. Fond of the profane Sciences too, especially of
      Astronomy: Erasmus Reinhold and his <i>Tabulae Prutenicae</i> were once
      very celebrated; Erasmus Reinhold proclaims gratefully how these his
      elaborate Tables (done according to the latest discoveries, 1551 and
      onwards) were executed upon Duke Albert's high bounty; for which reason
      they are dedicated to Duke Albert, and called "PRUTENICAE," meaning
      PRUSSIAN. [Rentsch, p. 855.] The University of Konigsberg was already
      founded several years before, in 1544.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert had not failed to marry, as Luther counselled: by his first Wife he
      had only daughters; by his second, one son, Albert Friedrich, who, without
      opposition or difficulty, succeeded his Father. Thus was Preussen acquired
      to the Hohenzollern Family; for, before long, the Electoral branch managed
      to get MITBELEHNUNG (Co-infeftment), that is to say, Eventual Succession;
      and Preussen became a Family Heritage, as Anspach and Baireuth were.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter VII. &mdash; ALBERT ALCIBIADES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      One word must be spent on poor Albert, Casimir's son, [1522-1557] already
      mentioned. This poor Albert, whom they call ALCIBIADES, made a great noise
      in that epoch; being what some define as the "Failure of a Fritz;" who has
      really features of him we are to call "Friedrich the Great," but who burnt
      away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary shine for the able
      editors, and never came to anything.
    </p>
    <p>
      A high and gallant young fellow, left fatherless in childhood; perhaps he
      came too early into power:&mdash;he came, at any rate, in very volcanic
      times, when Germany was all in convulsion; the Old Religion and the New
      having at length broken out into open battle, with huge results to be
      hoped and feared; and the largest game going on, in sight of an
      adventurous youth. How Albert staked in it; how he played to immense
      heights of sudden gain, and finally to utter bankruptcy, I cannot explain
      here: some German delineator of human destinies, "Artist" worth the name,
      if there were any, might find in him a fine subject.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was ward of his Uncle George; and the probable fact is, no guardian
      could have been more faithful. Nevertheless, on approaching the years of
      majority, of majority but not discretion, he saw good to quarrel with his
      Uncle; claimed this and that, which was not granted: quarrel lasting for
      years. Nay matters ran so high at last, it was like to come to war between
      them, had not George been wiser. The young fellow actually sent a cartel
      to his Uncle; challenged him to mortal combat,&mdash;at which George only
      wagged his old beard, we suppose, and said nothing. Neighbors interposed,
      the Diet itself interposed; and the matter was got quenched again. Leaving
      Albert, let us hope, a repentant young man. We said he was full of fire,
      too much of it wildfire.
    </p>
    <p>
      His profession was Arms; he shone much in war; went slashing and fighting
      through those Schmalkaldic broils, and others of his time; a distinguished
      captain; cutting his way towards something high, he saw not well what. He
      had great comradeship with Moritz of Saxony in the wars: two sworn
      brothers they, and comrades in arms:&mdash;it is the same dexterous
      Moritz, who, himself a Protestant, managed to get his too Protestant
      Cousin's Electorate of Saxony into his hand, by luck of the game; the
      Moritz, too, from whom Albert by and by got his last defeat, giving Moritz
      his death in return. That was the finale of their comradeship. All things
      end, and nothing ceases changing till it end.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was by position originally on the Kaiser's side; had attained great
      eminence, and done high feats of arms and generalship in his service. But
      being a Protestant by creed, he changed after that Schmalkaldic downfall
      (rout of Muhlberg, 24th April, 1547), which brought Moritz an Electorate,
      and nearly cost Moritz's too Protestant Cousin his life as well as lands.
      [Account of it in De Wette, <i>Lebensgeschichte der Herzoge zu Sachsen</i>(Weimar,
      1770), pp. 32-35.] The victorious Kaiser growing now very high in his
      ways, there arose complaints against him from all sides, very loud from
      the Protestant side; and Moritz and Albert took to arms, with loud
      manifestos and the other phenomena.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was early in 1552, five years after Muhlberg Rout or Battle. The
      there victorious Kaiser was now suddenly almost ruined; chased like a
      partridge into the Innspruck Mountains,&mdash;could have been caught, only
      Moritz would not; "had no cage to hold so big a bird," he said. So the
      Treaty of Passau was made, and the Kaiser came much down from his lofty
      ways. Famed TREATY OF PASSAU (22d August, 1552), which was the finale of
      these broils, and hushed them up for a Fourscore years to come. That was a
      memorable year in German Reformation History.
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert, meanwhile, had been busy in the interior of the country; blazing
      aloft in Frankenland, his native quarter, with a success that astonished
      all men. For seven months he was virtually King of Germany; ransomed
      Bamberg, ransomed Wurzburg, Nurnberg (places he had a grudge at); ransomed
      all manner of towns and places,&mdash;especially rich Bishops and their
      towns, with VERBUM DIABOLI sticking in them,&mdash;at enormous sums. King
      of the world for a brief season;&mdash;must have had some strange thoughts
      to himself, had they been recorded for us. A pious man, too; not in the
      least like "Alcibiades," except in the sudden changes of fortune he
      underwent. His Motto, or old rhymed Prayer, which he would repeat on
      getting into the saddle for military work,&mdash;a rough rhyme of his own
      composing,&mdash;is still preserved. Let us give it, with an English
      fac-simile, or roughest mechanical pencil-tracing,&mdash;by way of glimpse
      into the heart of a vanished Time and its Man-at-arms: [Rentsch, p. 644.]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Das Walt der Herr Jesus Christ,
     Mit dem Vater, der uber uns ist:
     Wer starker ist als dieser Mann,
     Der komm und thu' ein Leid mir an.

     Guide it the Lord Jesus Christ, [Read "Chris"
               or "Chriz," for the rhyme's sake.]
     And the Father, who over us is:
     He that is stronger than that Man, [Sic.]
     Let him do me a hurt when he can.
</pre>
    <p>
      He was at the Siege of Metz (end of that same 1552), and a principal
      figure there. Readers have heard of the Siege of Metz: How Henry II. of
      France fished up those "Three Bishoprics" (Metz, Toul, Verdun, constituent
      part of Lorraine, a covetable fraction of Teutschland) from the troubled
      sea of German things, by aid of Moritz now KUR-SACHSEN, and of Albert; and
      would not throw them in again, according to bargain, when Peace, the PEACE
      OF PASSAU came. How Kaiser Karl determined to have them back before the
      year ended, cost what it might; and Henry II. to keep them, cost what it
      might. How Guise defended, with all the Chivalry of France; and Kaiser
      Karl besieged, [19th October, 1552, and onwards.] with an Army of 100,000
      men, under Duke Alba for chief captain. Siege protracted into midwinter;
      and the "sound of his cannon heard at Strasburg," which is eighty miles
      off, "in the winter nights." [Kohler, <i>Reichs-Historie,</i> p. 453;&mdash;and
      more especially <i>Munzbelustigungen</i> (Nurnberg, 1729-1750), ix.
      121-129. The Year of this Volume, and of the Number in question, is 1737;
      the MUNZE or Medal "recreated upon" in of Henri II.]
    </p>
    <p>
      It had depended upon Albert, who hung in the distance with an army of his
      own, whether the Siege could even begin; but he joined the Kaiser, being
      reconciled again; and the trenches opened. By the valor of Guise and his
      Chivalry,&mdash;still more perhaps by the iron frosts and by the sleety
      rains of Winter, and the hungers and the hardships of a hundred thousand
      men, digging vainly at the ice-bound earth, or trampling it when sleety
      into seas of mud, and themselves sinking in it, of dysentery, famine, toil
      and despair, as they cannonaded day and night,&mdash;Metz could not be
      taken. "Impossible!" said the Generals with one voice, after trying it for
      a couple of months. "Try it one other ten days," said the Kaiser with a
      gloomy fixity; "let us all die, or else do it!" They tried, with double
      desperation, another ten days; cannon booming through the winter midnight
      far and wide, four score miles round: "Cannot be done, your Majesty!
      Cannot,&mdash;the winter and the mud, and Guise and the walls; man's
      strength cannot do it in this season. We must march away!" Karl listened
      in silence; but the tears were seen to run down his proud face, now not so
      young as it once was: "Let us march, then!" he said, in a low voice, after
      some pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Alcibiades covered the retreat to Diedenhof (THIONVILLE they now call it):
      outmanoeuvred the French, retreated with success; he had already captured
      a grand Due d'Aumale, a Prince of the Guises,&mdash;valuable ransom to be
      looked for there. It was thought he should have made his bargain better
      with the Kaiser, before starting; but he had neglected that. Albert's
      course was downward thenceforth; Kaiser Karl's too. The French keep these
      "Three Bishoprics (TROIS EVECHES)," and Teutschland laments the loss of
      them, to this hour. Kaiser Karl, as some write, never smiled again;&mdash;abdicated,
      not long after; retired into the Monastery of St. Just, and there soon
      died. That is the siege of Metz, where Alcibiades was helpful. His own
      bargain with the Kaiser should have been better made beforehand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dissatisfied with any bargain he could now get; dissatisfied with the
      Treaty of Passau, with such a finale and hushing-up of the Religious
      Controversy, and in general with himself and with the world, Albert again
      drew sword; went loose at a high rate upon his Bamberg-Wurzburg enemies,
      and, having raised supplies there, upon Moritz and those Passau-Treatiers.
      He was beaten at last by Moritz, "Sunday, 9th July, 1553," at a place
      called Sievershausen in the Hanover Country, where Moritz himself perished
      in the action.&mdash;Albert fled thereupon to France. No hope in France.
      No luck in other small and desperate stakings of his: the game is done.
      Albert returns to a Sister he had, to her Husband's Court in Baden; a
      broken, bare and bankrupt man;&mdash;soon dies there, childless, leaving
      the shadow of a name. [Here, chiefly from Kohler <i>(Munzbelustigungen,</i>
      iii. 414-416), is the chronology of Albert's operations:&mdash;Seizure of
      Nurnberg &amp;c., 11th May to 22d June, 1552; Innspruck (with Treaty of
      Passau) follows. Then Siege of Metz, October to December, 1552; Bamberg,
      Wurzburg and Nurnberg ransomed again, April, 1553; Battle of
      Sievershausen, 9th July, 1553. Wurzburg &amp;c. explode against him; Ban
      of the Empire, 4th May, 1554. To France thereupon; returns, hoping to
      negotiate, end of 1556; dies at Pforzheim, at his Sister's, 8th January,
      1557.&mdash;See Pauli, iii. 120-138. See also Dr. Kapp, <i>Erinnerungen an
      diejenigen Markgrafen &amp;c.</i> (a reprint from the <i>Archiv fur
      Geschichte und Alterthumskunde in Ober-Franken,</i> Year 1841).]
    </p>
    <p>
      His death brought huge troubles upon Baireuth and the Family Possessions.
      So many neighbors, Bamberg, Wurzburg and the rest, were eager for
      retaliation; a new Kaiser greedy for confiscating. Plassenburg Castle was
      besieged, bombarded, taken by famine and burnt; much was burnt and torn to
      waste. Nay, had it not been for help from Berlin, the Family had gone to
      utter ruin in those parts. For this Alcibiades had, in his turn, been
      Guardian to Uncle George's Son, the George Friedrich we once spoke of,
      still a minor, but well known afterwards; and it was attempted, by an
      eager Kaiser Ferdinand, to involve this poor youth in his Cousin's
      illegalities, as if Ward and Guardian had been one person. Baireuth which
      had been Alcibiades's, Anspach which was the young man's own, nay
      Jagerndorf with its Appendages, were at one time all in the clutches of
      the hawk,&mdash;had not help from Berlin been there. But in the end, the
      Law had to be allowed its course; George Friedrich got his own Territories
      back (all but some surreptitious nibblings in the Jagerndorf quarter, to
      be noticed elsewhere), and also got Baireuth, his poor Cousin's
      Inheritance;&mdash;sole heir, he now, in Culmbath, the Line of Casimir
      being out.
    </p>
    <p>
      One owns to a kind of love for poor Albert Alcibiades. In certain sordid
      times, even a "Failure of a Fritz" is better than some Successes that are
      going. A man of some real nobleness, this Albert; though not with wisdom
      enough, not with good fortune enough. Could he have continued to "rule the
      situation" (as our French friends phrase it); to march the fanatical
      Papistries, and Kaiser Karl, clear out of it, home to Spain and San Justo
      a little earlier; to wave the coming Jesuitries away, as with a flaming
      sword; to forbid beforehand the doleful Thirty-Years War, and the still
      dolefuler spiritual atrophy (the flaccid Pedantry, ever rummaging and
      rearranging among learned marine-stores, which thinks itself Wisdom and
      Insight; the vague maunderings, flutings; indolent, impotent daydreaming
      and tobacco-smoking, of poor Modern Germany) which has followed therefrom,&mdash;ACH
      GOTT, he might have been a "SUCCESS of a Fritz" three times over! He might
      have been a German Cromwell; beckoning his People to fly, eagle-like,
      straight towards the Sun; instead of screwing about it in that sad,
      uncertain, and far too spiral manner!&mdash;But it lay not in him; not in
      his capabilities or opportunities, after all: and we but waste time in
      such speculations.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter VIII. &mdash; HISTORICAL MEANING OF THE REFORMATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The Culmbach Brothers, we observe, play a more important part in that era
      than their seniors and chiefs of Brandenburg. These Culmbachers, Margraf
      George aud Albert of Preussen at the head of them, march valiantly forward
      in the Reformation business; while KUR-BRANDENBURG, Joachim I., their
      senior Cousin, is talking loud at Diets, galloping to Innspruck and the
      like, zealous on the Conservative side; and Cardinal Albert, KUR-MAINZ,
      his eloquent brother, is eager to make matters smooth and avoid violent
      methods.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Reformation was the great Event of that Sixteenth Century; according
      as a man did something in that, or did nothing and obstructed doing, has
      he much claim to memory, or no claim, in this age of ours. The more it
      becomes apparent that the Reformation was the Event then transacting
      itself, was the thing that Germany and Europe either did or refused to do,
      the more does the historical significance of men attach itself to the
      phases of that transaction. Accordingly we notice henceforth that the
      memorable points of Brandenburg History, what of it sticks naturally to
      the memory of a reader or student, connect themselves of their own accord,
      almost all, with the History of the Reformation. That has proved to be the
      Law of Nature in regard to them, softly establishing itself; and it is
      ours to follow that law.
    </p>
    <p>
      Brandenburg, not at first unanimously, by no means too inconsiderately,
      but with overwhelming unanimity when the matter became clear, was lucky
      enough to adopt the Reformation;&mdash;and stands by it ever since in its
      ever-widening scope, amid such difficulties as there might be. Brandenburg
      had felt somehow, that it could do no other. And ever onwards through the
      times even of our little Fritz and farther, if we will understand the word
      "Reformation," Brandenburg so feels; being, at this day, to an honorable
      degree, incapable of believing incredibilities, of adopting solemn shams,
      or pretending to live on spiritual moonshine. Which has been of
      uncountable advantage to Brandenburg:&mdash;how could it fail? This was
      what we must call obeying the audible voice of Heaven. To which same
      "voice," at that time, all that did not give ear,&mdash;what has become of
      them since; have they not signally had the penalties to pay!
    </p>
    <p>
      "Penalties:" quarrel not with the old phraseology, good reader; attend
      rather to the thing it means. The word was heard of old, with a right
      solemn meaning attached to it, from theological pulpits and such places;
      and may still be heard there with a half-meaning, or with no meaning,
      though it has rather become obsolete to modern ears. But the THING should
      not have fallen obsolete; the thing is a grand and solemn truth,
      expressive of a silent Law of Heaven, which continues forever valid. The
      most untheological of men may still assert the thing; and invite all men
      to notice it, as a silent monition and prophecy in this Universe; to take
      it, with more of awe than they are wont, as a correct reading of the Will
      of the Eternal in respect of such matters; and, in their modern sphere, to
      bear the same well in mind. For it is perfectly certain, and may be seen
      with eyes in any quarter of Europe at this day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Protestant or not Protestant? The question meant everywhere: "Is there
      anything of nobleness in you, O Nation, or is there nothing? Are there, in
      this Nation, enough of heroic men to venture forward, and to battle for
      God's Truth VERSUS the Devil's Falsehood, at the peril of life and more?
      Men who prefer death, and all else, to living under Falsehood,&mdash;who,
      once for all, will not live under Falsehood; but having drawn the sword
      against it (the time being come for that rare and important step), throw
      away the scabbard, and can say, in pious clearness, with their whole soul:
      'Come on, then! Life under Falsehood is not good for me; and we will try
      it out now. Let it be to the death between us, then!'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Once risen into this divine white-heat of temper, were it only for a
      season and not again, the Nation is thenceforth considerable through all
      its remaining history. What immensities of DROSS and crypto-poisonous
      matter will it not burn out of itself in that high temperature, in the
      course of a few years! Witness Cromwell and his Puritans,&mdash;making
      England habitable even under the Charles-Second terms for a couple of
      centuries more. Nations are benefited, I believe, for ages, by being
      thrown once into divine white-heat in this manner. And no Nation that has
      not had such divine paroxysms at any time is apt to come to much.
    </p>
    <p>
      That was now, in this epoch, the English of "adopting Protestantism;" and
      we need not wonder at the results which it has had, and which the want of
      it has had. For the want of it is literally the want of loyalty to the
      Maker of this Universe. He who wants that, what else has he, or can he
      have? If you do not, you Man or you Nation, love the Truth enough, but try
      to make a Chapman-bargain with Truth, instead of giving yourself wholly
      soul and body and life to her, Truth will not live with you, Truth will
      depart from you; and only Logic, "Wit" (for example, "London Wit"),
      Sophistry, Virtu, the AEsthetic Arts, and perhaps (for a short while)
      Bookkeeping by Double Entry, will abide with you. You will follow falsity,
      and think it truth, you unfortunate man or nation. You will right surely,
      you for one, stumble to the Devil; and are every day and hour, little as
      you imagine it, making progress thither.
    </p>
    <p>
      Austria, Spain, Italy, France, Poland,&mdash;the offer of the Reformation
      was made everywhere; and it is curious to see what has become of the
      nations that would not hear it. In all countries were some that accepted;
      but in many there were not enough, and the rest, slowly or swiftly, with
      fatal difficult industry, contrived to burn them out. Austria was once
      full of Protestants; but the hide-bound Flemish-Spanish Kaiser-element
      presiding over it, obstinately, for two centuries, kept saying, "No; we,
      with our dull obstinate Cimburgis under-lip and lazy eyes, with our
      ponderous Austrian depth of Habituality and indolence of Intellect, we
      prefer steady Darkness to uncertain new Light!"&mdash;and all men may see
      where Austria now is. Spain still more; poor Spain, going about, at this
      time, making its "PRONUNCIAMIENTOS;" all the factious attorneys in its
      little towns assembling to PRONOUNCE virtually this, "The Old IS a lie,
      then;&mdash;good Heavens, after we so long tried hard, harder than any
      nation, to think it a truth!&mdash;and if it be not Rights of Man, Red
      Republic and Progress of the Species, we know not what now to believe or
      to do; and are as a people stumbling on steep places, in the darkness of
      midnight!"&mdash;They refused Truth when she came; and now Truth knows
      nothing of them. All stars, and heavenly lights, have become veiled to
      such men; they must now follow terrestrial IGNES FATUI, and think them
      stars. That is the doom passed upon them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Italy too had its Protestants; but Italy killed them; managed to
      extinguish Protestantism. Italy put up silently with Practical Lies of all
      kinds; and, shrugging its shoulders, preferred going into Dilettantism and
      the Fine Arts. The Italians, instead of the sacred service of Fact and
      Performance, did Music, Painting, and the like:&mdash;till even that has
      become impossible for them; and no noble Nation, sunk from virtue to
      VIRTU, ever offered such a spectacle before. He that will prefer
      Dilettantism in this world for his outfit, shall have it; but all the gods
      will depart from him; and manful veracity, earnestness of purpose, devout
      depth of soul, shall no more be his. He can if he like make himself a
      soprano, and sing for hire;&mdash;and probably that is the real goal for
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the sharpest-cut example is France; to which we constantly return for
      illustration. France, with its keen intellect, saw the truth and saw the
      falsity, in those Protestant times; and, with its ardor of generous
      impulse, was prone enough to adopt the former. France was within a
      hair's-breadth of becoming actually Protestant. But France saw good to
      massacre Protestantism, and end it in the night of St. Bartholomew, 1572.
      The celestial Apparitor of Heaven's Chancery, so we may speak, the Genius
      of Fact and Veracity, had left his Writ of Summons; Writ was read;&mdash;and
      replied to in this manner. The Genius of Fact and Veracity accordingly
      withdrew;&mdash;was staved off, got kept away, for two hundred years. But
      the writ of Summons had been served; Heaven's Messenger could not stay
      away forever. No; he returned duly; with accounts run up, on compound
      interest, to the actual hour, in 1792;&mdash;and then, at last, there had
      to be a "Protestantism;" and we know of what kind that was!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Nations did not so understand it, nor did Brandenburg more than the
      others; but the question of questions for them at that time, decisive of
      their history for half a thousand years to come, was, Will you obey the
      heavenly voice, or will you not?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter IX. &mdash; KURFURST JOACHIM I.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Brandenburg, in the matter of the Reformation, was at first&mdash;with
      Albert of Mainz, Tetzel's friend, on the one side, and Pious George of
      Anspach, "NIT KOP AB," on the other&mdash;certainly a divided house. But,
      after the first act, it conspicuously ceased to be divided; nay
      Kur-Brandenburg and Kur-Mainz themselves had known tendencies to the
      Reformation, and were well aware that the Church could not stand as it
      was. Nor did the cause want partisans in Berlin, in Brandenburg,&mdash;hardly
      to be repressed from breaking into flame, while Kurfurst Joachim was so
      prudent and conservative. Of this loud Kurfurst Joachim I., here and there
      mentioned already, let us now say a more express word. [1484, 1499, 1535:
      birth, accession, death of Joachim.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Joachim I., Big John's son, hesitated hither and thither for some time,
      trying if it would not do to follow the Kaiser Karl V.'s lead; and at
      length, crossed in his temper perhaps by the speed his friends were going
      at, declared formally against any farther Reformation; and in his own
      family and country was strict upon the point. He is a man, as I judge, by
      no means without a temper of his own; very loud occasionally in the Diets
      and elsewhere;&mdash;reminds me a little of a certain King Friedrich
      Wilhelm, whom my readers shall know by and by. A big, surly, rather
      bottle-nosed man, with thick lips, abstruse wearied eyes, and no eyebrows
      to speak of: not a beautiful man, when you cross him overmuch.
    </p>
    <p>
      OF JOACHIM'S WIFE AND BROTHER-IN-LAW.
    </p>
    <p>
      His wife was a Danish Princess, Sister of poor Christian II., King of that
      Country: dissolute Christian, who took up with a huckster-woman's
      daughter,&mdash;"mother sold gingerbread," it would appear, "at Bergen in
      Norway," where Christian was Viceroy; Christian made acceptable love to
      the daughter, "DIVIKE (Dovekin, COLUMBINA)," as he called her. Nay he made
      the gingerbread mother a kind of prime-minister, said the angry public,
      justly scandalized at this of the "Dovekin." He was married, meanwhile, to
      Karl V.'s own Sister; but continued that other connection. [Here are the
      dates of this poor Christian, in a lump. Born, 1481; King, 1513 (Dovekin
      before); married, 1515; turned off, 1523; invades, taken prisoner, 1532;
      dies, 1559. Cousin, and then Cousin's Son, succeeded.] He had rash
      notions, now for the Reformation, now against it, when he got to be King;
      a very rash, unwise, explosive man. He made a "Stockholm BLUTBAD" still
      famed in History (kind of open, ordered or permitted, Massacre of eighty
      or a hundred of his chief enemies there), "Bloodbath," so they name it; in
      Stockholm, where indeed he was lawful King, and not without unlawful
      enemies, had a bloodbath been the way to deal with them. Gustavus Vasa was
      a young fellow there, who dexterously escaped this Bloodbath, and
      afterwards came to something.
    </p>
    <p>
      In Denmark and Sweden, rash Christian made ever more enemies; at length he
      was forced to run, and they chose another King or successive pair of
      Kings. Christian fled to Kaiser Karl at Brussels; complained to Kaiser
      Karl, his Brother-in-law,&mdash;whose Sister he had not used well. Kaiser
      Karl listened to his complaints, with hanging under-lip, with heavy, deep,
      undecipherable eyes; evidently no help from Karl.
    </p>
    <p>
      Christian, after that, wandered about with inexecutable speculations, and
      projects to recover his crown or crowns; sheltering often with Kurfurst
      Joachim, who took a great deal of trouble about him, first and last; or
      with the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich the Wise, or after him, with Johann
      the Steadfast ("V. D. M. I. AE." whom we saw at Augsburg), who were his
      Mother's Brothers, and beneficent men. He was in Saxony, on such terms,
      coming and going, when a certain other Flight thither took place, soon to
      be spoken of, which is the cause of our mentioning him here.&mdash;In the
      end (A.D. 1532) he did get some force together, and made sail to Norway;
      but could do no execution whatever there;&mdash;on the contrary, was
      frozen in on the coast during winter; seized, carried to Copenhagen, and
      packed into the "Castle of Sonderburg," a grim sea-lodging on the shore of
      Schleswig,&mdash;prisoner for the rest of his life, which lasted long
      enough. Six-and-twenty years of prison; the first seventeen years of it
      strict and hard, almost of the dungeon sort; the remainder, on his fairly
      abdicating, was in another Castle, that of Callundborg in the Island of
      Zealand, "with fine apartments and conveniences," and even "a good house
      of liquor now and then," at discretion of the old soul. That was the end
      of headlong Christian II.; he lasted in this manner to the age of
      seventy-eight. [Kohler, <i>Munzbelustigungen,</i>xi. 47, 48; Holberg, <i>Danemarckische
      Staats-und Reichs-Historie</i> (Copenhagen, 1731, NOT the big Book by
      Holberg), p. 241; Buddaus, <i>Allgemeines Historisches Lexicon</i>
      (Leipzig, 1709),? Christianus II.]
    </p>
    <p>
      His Sister Elizabeth at Brandenburg is perhaps, in regard to natural
      character, recognizably of the same kin as Christian; but her behavior is
      far different from his. She too is zealous for the Reformation; but she
      has a right to be so, and her notions that way are steady; and she has
      hitherto, though in a difficult position, done honor to her creed. Surly
      Joachim is difficult to deal with; is very positive now that he has
      declared himself: "In my house at least shall be nothing farther of that
      unblessed stuff." Poor Lady, I see domestic difficulties very thick upon
      her; nothing but division, the very children ranging themselves in
      parties. She can pray to Heaven; she must do her wisest.
    </p>
    <p>
      She partook once, by some secret opportunity, of the "communion under both
      kinds;" one of her Daughters noticed and knew; told Father of it. Father
      knits up his thick lips; rolls his abstruse dissatisfied eyes, in an
      ominous manner: the poor Lady, probably possessed of an excitable
      imagination too, trembles for herself. "It is thought, His DURCHLAUCHT
      will wall you up for life, my Serene Lady; dark prison for life, which
      probably may not be long!" These surmises were of no credibility: but
      there and then the poor Lady, in a shiver of terror, decides that she must
      run; goes off actually, one night ("Monday after the LAETARE," which we
      find is 24th March) in the year 1528, (Pauli (ii. 584); who cites
      Seckendorf, and this fraction of a Letter of Luther's, to one "LINCKUS" or
      Lincke, written on the Friday following (28th March, 1528):&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Electress [MARGRAVINE he calls her] has fled from Berlin, by help of
      her Brother the King of Denmark [poor Christian II.] to our Prince [Johann
      the Steadfast], because her Elector had determined to wall her up, as is
      reported, on account of the Eucharist under both species. Pray for our
      Prince; <i>the pious man and affectionate soul gets a great deal of
      trouble with his kindred."</i> Or thus in the Original:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>"Marchionissa aufugit a Berlin, auxilio fratris, Regis Daniae, ad
      nostrum Principem, quod Marchio statuerat eam immurare (ut dicitur)
      propter Eucharistiam utriusque speciei. Ora pro nostro Principe;</i> der
      fromme Mann und herzliche Mensch ist doch ja wohl geplaget" (Seckendorf,
      <i>Historia Lutheranismi,</i> ii.? 62, No. 8, p. 122).) in a mean vehicle
      under cloud of darkness, with only one maid and groom,&mdash;driving for
      life. That is very certain: she too is on flight towards Saxony, to
      shelter with her uncle Kurfurst Johann,&mdash;unless for reasons of state
      he scruple? On the dark road her vehicle broke down; a spoke given way,&mdash;"Not
      a bit of rope to splice it," said the improvident groom. "Take my
      lace-veil here," said the poor Princess; and in this guise she got to
      Torgau (I could guess, her poor Brother's lodging),&mdash;and thence, in
      short time, to the fine Schloss of Lichtenberg hard by; Uncle Johann, to
      whom she had zealously left an option of refusal, having as zealously
      permitted and invited her to continue there. Which she did for many years.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor did she get the least molestation from Husband Joachim;&mdash;who I
      conjecture had intended, though a man of a certain temper, and strict in
      his own house, something short of walling up for life:&mdash;poor Joachim
      withal! "However, since you are gone, Madam, go!" Nor did he concern
      himself with Christian II. farther, but let him lie in prison at his
      leisure. As for the Lady, he even let his children visit her at
      Lichtenberg; Crypto-Protestants all; and, among them, the repentant
      Daughter who had peached upon her.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Joachim, he makes a pious speech on his death-bed, solemnly warning
      his Son against these new-fangled heresies; the Son being already
      possessed of them in his heart. [Speech given in Rentsch, pp. 484-439.]
      What could Father do more? Both Father and Son, I suppose, were weeping.
      This was in 1535, this last scene; things looking now more ominous than
      ever. Of Kurfurst Joachim I will remember nothing farther, except that
      once, twenty-three years before, he "held a Tourney in Neu-Ruppin," year
      1612; Tourney on the most magnificent scale, and in New-Ruppin, [Pauli,
      ii. 466.] a place we shall know by and by.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the Lady, she lived eighteen years in that fine Schloss of
      Lichtenberg; saw her children as we said; and, silently or otherwise,
      rejoiced in the creed they were getting. She saw Luther's self sometimes;
      "had him several times to dinner;" he would call at her Mansion, when his
      journeys lay that way. She corresponded with him diligently; nay once, for
      a three months, she herself went across and lodged with Dr. Luther and his
      Kate; as a royal Lady might with a heroic Sage,&mdash;though the Sage's
      income was only Twenty-four pounds sterling annually. There is no doubt
      about that visit of three months; one thinks of it, as of something human,
      something homely, ingenuous and pretty. Nothing in surly Joachim's history
      is half so memorable to me, or indeed memorable at all in the stage we are
      now come to.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Lady survived Joachim twenty years; of these she spent eleven still at
      Lichtenberg, in no over-haste to return. However, her Son, the new
      Elector, declaring for Protestantism, she at length yielded to his
      invitations: came back (1546), and ended her days at Berlin in a peaceable
      and venerable manner. Luckless Brother Christian is lying under
      lock-and-key all this while; smuggling out messages, and so on; like a
      voice from the land of Dreams or of Nightmares, painful, impracticable,
      coming now and then.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter X. &mdash; KURFURST JOACHIM II.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Joachim II., Sixth Elector, no doubt after painful study, and intricate
      silent consideration ever since his twelfth year when Luther was first
      heard of over the world, came gradually, and before his Father's death had
      already come, to the conclusion of adopting the Confession of Augsburg, as
      the true Interpretation of this Universe, so far as we had yet got; and
      did so, publicly, in the year 1539. [Rentsch, p. 452.] To the great joy of
      Berlin and the Brandenburg populations generally, who had been of a
      Protestant humor, hardly restrainable by Law, for some years past. By this
      decision Joachim held fast, with a stout, weighty grasp; nothing spasmodic
      in his way of handling the matter, and yet a heartiness which is agreeable
      to see. He could not join in the Schmalkaldic War; seeing, it is probable,
      small chance for such a War, of many chiefs and little counsel; nor was he
      willing yet to part from the Kaiser Karl V., who was otherwise very good
      to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had fought personally for this Kaiser, twice over, against the Turks;
      first as Brandenburg Captain, learning his art; and afterwards as Kaiser's
      Generalissimo, in 1542. He did no good upon the Turks, on that latter
      occasion; as indeed what good was to be done, in such a quagmire of
      futilities as Joachim's element there was? "Too sumptuous in his dinners,
      too much wine withal!" hint some calumniously. [Paulus Jovius, &amp;c. See
      Pauli, iii. 70-73.] "Hector of Germany!" say others. He tried some small
      prefatory Siege or scalade of Pesth; could not do it; and came his ways
      home again, as the best course. Pedant Chroniclers give him the name
      HECTOR, "Joachim Hector,"&mdash;to match that of CICERO and that of
      ACHILLES. A man of solid structure, this our Hector, in body and mind:
      extensive cheeks, very large heavy-laden face; capable of terrible bursts
      of anger, as his kind generally were.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Schmalkaldic War went to water, as the Germans phrase it: Kur-Sachsen,&mdash;that
      is, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, Son of Johann "V. D. M. I. AE.," and
      Nephew of Friedrich the Wise,&mdash;had his sorrowfully valid reasons for
      the War; large force too, plenty of zealous copartners, Philip of Hessen
      and others; but no generalship, or not enough, for such a business. Big
      Army, as is apt enough to happen, fell short of food; Kaiser Karl hung on
      the outskirts, waiting confidently till it came to famine. Johann
      Friedrich would attempt nothing decisive while provender lasted;&mdash;and
      having in the end, strangely enough, and somewhat deaf to advice, divided
      his big Army into three separate parts;&mdash;Johann Friedrich was
      himself, with one of those parts, surprised at Muhlberg, on a Sunday when
      at church (24th April, 1547); and was there beaten to sudden ruin, and
      even taken captive, like to have his head cut off, by the triumphant angry
      Kaiser. Philip of Hessen, somewhat wiser, was home to Marburg, safe with
      HIS part, in the interim.&mdash;Elector Joachim II. of Brandenburg had
      good reason to rejoice in his own cautious reluctances on this occasion.
      However, he did now come valiantly up, hearing what severities were in the
      wind.
    </p>
    <p>
      He pleaded earnestly, passionately, he and Cousin or already "Elector"
      Moritz, [Pauli, iii. 102.]&mdash;who was just getting Johann Friedrich's
      Electorship fished away from him out of these troubles, [Kurfurst, 4th
      June, 1547.]&mdash;for Johann Friedrich of Saxony's life, first of all.
      For Johann's life FIRST; this is a thing not to be dispensed with, your
      Majesty, on any terms whatever; a <i>sine qua non,</i> this life to
      Protestant Germany at large. To which the Kaiser indicated, "He would see;
      not immediate death at any rate; we will see." A life that could not and
      must not be taken in this manner: this was the FIRST point. Then,
      SECONDLY, that Philip of Hessen, now home again at Marburg,&mdash;not a
      bad or disloyal man, though headlong, and with two wives,&mdash;might not
      be forfeited; but that peace and pardon might be granted him, on his
      entire submission. To which second point the Kaiser answered, "Yes, then,
      on his submission." These were the two points. These pleadings went on at
      Halle, where the Kaiser now lies, in triumphantly victorious humor, in the
      early days of June, Year 1547. Johann Friedrich of Saxony had been, by
      some Imperial Court-Council or other,&mdash;Spanish merely, I suppose,&mdash;doomed
      to die. Sentence was signified to him while he sat at chess: "Can wait
      till we end the game," thought Johann;&mdash;"PERGAMUS," said he to his
      comrade, "Let us go on, then!" Sentence not to be executed till one see.
    </p>
    <p>
      With Philip of Hessen things had a more conclusive aspect. Philip had
      accepted the terms procured for him; which had been laboriously
      negotiated, brought to paper, and now wanted only the sign-manual to them:
      <i>"Ohne einigen Gefangniss</i>(without any imprisonment)," one of the
      chief clauses. And so Philip now came over to Halle; was met and welcomed
      by his two friends, Joachim and Moritz, at Naumburg, a stage before Halle;&mdash;clear
      now to make his submission, and beg pardon of the Kaiser, according to
      bargain. On the morrow, 19th June, 1547, the Papers were got signed. And
      next day, 20th June, Philip did, according to bargain, openly beg pardon
      of the Kaiser, in his Majesty's Hall of Audience (Town House of Halle, I
      suppose); "knelt at the Kaiser's feet publicly on both knees, while his
      Kanzler read the submission and entreaty, as agreed upon;" and, alas, then
      the Kaiser said nothing at all to him! Kaiser looked haughtily, with
      impenetrable eyes and shelf-lip, over the head of him; gave him no hand to
      kiss; and left poor Philip kneeling there. An awkward position indeed;&mdash;which
      any German Painter that there were, might make a Picture of, I have
      sometimes thought. Picture of some real meaning, more or less,&mdash;if
      for symbolic. Towers of Babel, medieval mythologies, and extensive
      smearings of that kind, he could find leisure!&mdash;Philip having knelt a
      reasonable time, and finding there was no help for it, rose in the dread
      silence (some say, with too sturdy an expression of countenance); and
      retired from the affair, having at least done his part of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next practical thing was now supper, or as we of this age should call
      it, dinner. Uncommonly select and high supper: host the Duke of Alba;
      where Joachim, Elector Moritz, and another high Official, the Bishop of
      Arras, were to welcome poor Philip after his troubles. How the grand
      supper went, I do not hear: possibly a little constrained; the Kaiser's
      strange silence sitting on all men's thoughts; not to be spoken of in the
      present company. At length the guests rose to go away. Philip's lodging is
      with Moritz (who is his son-in-law, as learned readers know): "You Philip,
      your lodging is mine; my lodging is yours,&mdash;I should say! Cannot we
      ride together?"&mdash;"Philip is not permitted to go," said Imperial
      Officiality; "Philip is to continue here, and we fear go to prison."&mdash;"Prison?"
      cried they all: "OHNE EINIGEN GEFANGNISS (without ANY imprisonment)!"&mdash;"As
      we read the words, it is 'OHNE EWIGEN GEFANGNISS (without ETERNAL
      imprisonment),'" answer the others. And so, according to popular
      tradition, which has little or no credibility, though printed in many
      Books, their false Secretary had actually modified it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "No intention of imprisoning his DURCHLAUCHT of Hessen FOREVER; not
      forever!" answered they. And Kurfurst Joachim, in astonished indignation,
      after some remonstrating and arguing, louder and louder, which profited
      nothing, blazed out into a very whirlwind of rage; drew his sword, it is
      whispered with a shudder,&mdash;drew his sword, or was for drawing it,
      upon the Duke of Alba; and would have done, God knows what, had not
      friends flung themselves between, and got the Duke away, or him away.
      [Pauli, iii. 103.] Other accounts bear, that it was upon the Bishop of
      Arras he drew his sword; which is a somewhat different matter. Perhaps he
      drew it on both; or on men and things in general;&mdash;for his
      indignation knew no bounds. The heavy solid man; yet with a human heart in
      him after all, and a Hohenzollern abhorrence of chicanery, capable of
      rising to the transcendent pitch! His wars against the Turks, and his
      other Hectorships, I will forget; but this, of a face so extensive kindled
      all into divine fire for poor Philip's sake, shall be memorable to me.
    </p>
    <p>
      Philip got out by and by, though with difficulty; the Kaiser proving very
      stiff in the matter; and only yielding to obstinate pressures, and the
      force of time and events. Philip got away; and then how Johann Friedrich
      of Sachsen, after being led about for five years, in the Kaiser's train, a
      condemned man, liable to be executed any day, did likewise at last get
      away, with his head safe and Electorate gone: these are known Historical
      events, which we glanced at already, on another score.
    </p>
    <p>
      For, by and by, the Kaiser found tougher solicitation than this of
      Joachim's. The Kaiser, by his high carriage in this and other such
      matters, had at length kindled a new War round him; and he then soon found
      himself reduced to extremities again; chased to the Tyrol Mountains, and
      obliged to comply with many things. New War, of quite other emphasis and
      management than the Schmalkaldic one; managed by Elector Moritz and our
      poor friend Albert Alcibiades as principals. A Kaiser chased into the
      mountains, capable of being seized by a little spurring;&mdash;"Capture
      him?" said Albert. "I have no cage big enough for such a bird!" answered
      Moritz; and the Kaiser was let run. How he ran then towards Treaty of
      Passau (1552), towards Siege of Metz and other sad conclusions,
      "Abdication" the finale of them: these also are known phases in the
      Reformation History, as hinted at above.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here at Halle, in the year 1547, the great Kaiser, with Protestantism
      manacled at his feet, and many things going prosperous, was at his
      culminating point. He published his INTERIM (1548, What you troublesome
      Protestants are to do, in the mean time, while the Council of Trent is
      sitting, and till it and I decide for you); and in short, drove and
      reined-in the Reich with a high hand and a sharp whip, for the time being.
      Troublesome Protestants mostly rejected the Interim; Moritz and
      Alcibiades, with France in the rear of them, took to arms in that way;
      took to ransoming fat Bishoprics ("<i>Verbum Diaboli Manet</i>," we know
      where!);&mdash;took to chasing Kaisers into the mountains;&mdash;and times
      came soon round again. In all these latter broils Kurfurst Joachim II.,
      deeply interested, as we may fancy, strove to keep quiet; and to prevail,
      by weight of influence and wise counsel, rather than by fighting with his
      Kaiser.
    </p>
    <p>
      One sad little anecdote I recollect of Joachim: an Accident, which
      happened in those Passau-Interim days, a year or two after that drawing of
      the sword on Alba. Kurfurst Joachim unfortunately once fell through a
      staircase, in that time; being, as I guess, a heavy man. It was in the
      Castle of Grimnitz, one of his many Castles, a spacious enough old
      Hunting-seat, the repairs of which had not been well attended to. The good
      Herr, weighty of foot, was leading down his Electress to dinner one day in
      this Schloss of Grimnitz; broad stair climbs round a grand Hall, hung with
      stag-trophies, groups of weapons, and the like hall-furniture. An unlucky
      timber yielded; yawning chasm in the staircase; Joachim and his good
      Princess sank by gravitation; Joachim to the floor with little hurt; his
      poor Princess (horrible to think of), being next the wall, came upon the
      stag-horns and boar-spears down below! [Pauli, iii. 112.] The poor Lady's
      hurt was indescribable: she walked lame all the rest of her clays; and
      Joachim, I hope (hope, but not with confidence), [Ib. iii. 194.] loved her
      all the better for it. This unfortunate old Schloss of Grimnitz, some
      thirty miles northward of Berlin, was&mdash;by the Eighth Kurfurst,
      Joachim Friedrich, Grandson of this one, with great renown to himself and
      to it&mdash;converted into an Endowed High School: the famed <i>Joachimsthal
      Gymnasium,</i> still famed, though now under some change of circumstances,
      and removed to Berlin itself. [Nicolai, p. 725.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Joachim's first Wife, from whom descend the following Kurfursts, was a
      daughter of that Duke George of Saxony, Luther's celebrated friend, "If it
      rained Duke-Georges nine days running."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      JOACHIM GETS CO-INVESTMENT IN PREUSSEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      This second Wife, she of the accident at Grimnitz, was Hedwig, King
      Sigismund of Poland's daughter; which connection, it is thought, helped
      Joachim well in getting what they call the MITBELEHNUNG of Preussen (for
      it was he that achieved this point) from King Sigismund.
    </p>
    <p>
      MITBELEHNUNG (Co-infeftment) in Preussen;&mdash;whereby is solemnly
      acknowledged the right of Joachim and his Posterity to the reversion of
      Preussen, should the Culmbach Line of Duke Albert happen to fail. It was a
      thing Joachim long strove for; till at length his Father-in-law did, some
      twenty years hence, concede it him. [Date, Lublin, 19th July, 1568: Pauli,
      iii. 177-179, 193; Rentsch, p. 457; Stenzel, i. 341, 342.] Should Albert's
      Line fail, then, the other Culmbachers get Preussen; should the
      Culmbachers all fail, the Berlin Brandenburgers get it. The Culmbachers
      are at this time rather scarce of heirs: poor Alcibiades died childless,
      as we know, and Casimir's Line is extinct; Duke Albert himself has left
      only one Son, who now succeeds in Preussen; still young, and not of the
      best omens. Margraf George the Pious, he left only George Friedrich; an
      excellent man, who is now prosperous in the world, and wedded long since,
      but has no children. So that, between Joachim's Line and Preussen there
      are only two intermediate heirs;&mdash;and it was a thing eminently worth
      looking after. Nor has it wanted that. And so Kurfurst Joachim, almost at
      the end of his course, has now made sure of it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      JOACHIM MAKES "HERITAGE-BROTHERHOOD" WITH THE DUKE OF LIEGNITZ.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Another feat of like nature Joachim II. had long ago achieved; which
      likewise in the long-run proved important in his Family, and in the
      History of the world: an "ERBVERBRUDERUNG," so they term it, with the Duke
      of Liegnitz,&mdash;date 1537. ERBVERBRUDERUNG ("Heritage-brotherhood,"
      meaning Covenant to succeed reciprocally on Failure of Heirs to either)
      had in all times been a common paction among German Princes well affected
      to each other. Friedrich II., the then Duke of Liegnitz, we have
      transiently seen, was related to the Family; he had been extremely helpful
      in bringing his young friend Albert of Preussen's affairs to a good issue,&mdash;whose
      Niece, withal, he had wedded:&mdash;in fact, he was a close friend of this
      our Joachim's; and there had long been a growing connection between the
      two Houses, by intermarriages and good offices.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Dukes of Liegnitz were Sovereign-Princes, come of the old Piasts of
      Poland; and had perfect right to enter into this transaction of an
      ERBVERBRUDERUNG with whom they liked. True, they had, above two hundred
      years before, in the days of King Johann ICH-DIEN (A.D. 1329), voluntarily
      constituted themselves Vassals of the Crown of Bohemia: [Pauli, iii. 22.]
      but the right to dispose of their Lands as they pleased had, all along,
      been carefully acknowledged, and saved entire. And, so late as 1521, just
      sixteen years ago, the Bohemian King Vladislaus the Last, our good Margraf
      George's friend, had expressly, in a Deed still extant, confirmed to them,
      with all the emphasis and amplitude that Law-Phraseology could bring to
      bear upon it, the right to dispose of said Lands in any manner of way: "by
      written testament, or by verbal on their death-bed, they can, as they see
      wisest, give away, sell, pawn, dispose of, and exchange <i>(vergeben,
      verkaufen, versetzen, verschaffen, verwechseln)</i> these said lands," to
      all lengths, and with all manner of freedom. Which privilege had likewise
      been confirmed, twice over (1522, 1524), by Ludwig the next King, Ludwig
      OHNE-HAUT, who perished in the bogs of Mohacz, and ended the native Line
      of Bohemian-Hungarian Kings. Nay, Ferdinand, King of the Romans, Karl V.'s
      Brother, afterwards Kaiser, who absorbed that Bohemian Crown among the
      others, had himself, by implication, sanctioned or admitted the privilege,
      in 1529, only eight years ago. [Stenzel, i. 323.] The right to make the
      ERBVERBRUDERUNG could not seem doubtful to anybody.
    </p>
    <p>
      And made accordingly it was: signed, sealed, drawn out on the proper
      parchments, 18th October, 1537; to the following clear effect: "That if
      Duke Friedrich's Line should die out, all his Liegnitz countries,
      Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau, should fall to the Hohenzollern Brandenburgers:
      and that, if the Line of Hohenzollern Brandenburg should first fail, then
      all and singular the Bohemian Fiefs of Brandenburg (as Crossen, Zullichau
      and seven others there enumerated) should fall to the House of Liegnitz."
      [Stenzel, i. 320.] It seemed a clear Paction, questionable by no mortal.
      Double-marriage between the two Houses (eldest Son, on each side, to
      suitable Princess on the other) was to follow: and did follow, after some
      delays, 17th February, 1545. So that the matter seemed now complete:
      secure on all points, and a matter of quiet satisfaction to both the
      Houses and to their friends.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Ferdinand, King of the Romans, King of Bohemia and Hungary, and coming
      to be Emperor one day, was not of that sentiment. Ferdinand had once
      implicitly recognized the privilege, but Ferdinand, now when he saw the
      privilege turned to use, and such a territory as Liegnitz exposed to the
      possibility of falling into inconvenient hands, explicitly took other
      thoughts: and gradually determined to prohibit this ERBVERBRUDERUNG. The
      States of Bohemia, accordingly, in 1544 (it is not doubtful, by
      Ferdinand's suggestion), were moved to make inquiries as to this
      Heritage-Fraternity of Liegnitz. [Ib. i. 322.] On which hint King
      Ferdinand straightway informed the Duke of Liegnitz that the act was not
      justifiable, and must be revoked. The Duke of Liegnitz, grieved to the
      heart, had no means of resisting. Ferdinand, King of the Romans, backed by
      Kaiser Karl, with the States of Bohemia barking at his wink, were too
      strong for poor Duke Friedrich of Liegnitz. Great corresponding between
      Berlin, Liegnitz, Prag ensued on this matter: but the end was a summons to
      Duke Friedrich,&mdash;summons from King Ferdinand in March, 1546, "To
      appear in the Imperial Hall (KAISERHOF) at Breslau," and to submit that
      Deed of EBVERBRUDERUNG to the examination of the States there. The States,
      already up to the affair, soon finished their examination of it (8th May,
      1546). The deed was annihilated: and Friedrich was ordered, furthermore,
      to produce proofs within six months that his subjects too were absolved of
      all oaths or the like regarding it, and that in fact the Transaction was
      entirely abolished and reduced to zero. Friedrich complied, had to comply:
      very much chagrined, he returned home: and died next year,&mdash;it is
      supposed, of heartbreak from this business. He had yielded outwardly: but
      to force only. In a Codicil appended to his last Will, some months
      afterwards (which Will, written years ago, had treated the ERBVERBRUDERUNG
      as a Fact settled), he indicates, as with his last breath, that he
      considered the thing still valid, though overruled by the hand of power.
      Let the reader mark this matter; for it will assuredly become memorable,
      one day.
    </p>
    <p>
      The hand of power, namely, Ferdinand, King of the Romans, had applied in
      like manner to Joachim of Brandenburg to surrender his portion of the
      Deed, and annihilate on his side too this ERBVERBRUDERUNG. But Joachim
      refused steadily, and all his successors steadily, to give up this Bit of
      Written Parchment: kept the same, among their precious documents, against
      some day that might come (and I suppose it lies in the Archives of Berlin
      even now): silently, or in words, asserting that the Deed of
      Heritage-Brothership was good, and that though some hands might have the
      power, no hand could have the right to abolish it on those terms.
    </p>
    <p>
      How King Ferdinand permitted himself such a procedure? Ferdinand, says one
      of his latest apologists in this matter, "considered the privileges
      granted by his Predecessors, in respect to rights of Sovereignty, as
      fallen extinct on their death." [Stenzel, i. 323.] Which&mdash;if Reality
      and Fact would but likewise be so kind as "consider" it so&mdash;was no
      doubt convenient for Ferdinand!
    </p>
    <p>
      Joachim was not so great with Ferdinand as he had been with Charles the
      Imperial Brother. Joachim and Ferdinand had many debates of this kind,
      some of them rather stiff. Jagerndorf, for instance, and the
      Baireuth-Anspach confiscations, in George Friedrich's minority. Ferdinand,
      now Kaiser, had snatched Jagerndorf from poor young George Friedrich, son
      of excellent Margraf George whom we knew: "Part of the spoils of Albert
      Alcibiades," thought Ferdinand, "and a good windfall,"&mdash;though young
      George Friedrich had merely been the Ward of Cousin Alcibiades, and
      totally without concern in those political explosions. "Excellent
      windfall," thought Ferdinand: and held his grip. But Joachim, in his
      weighty steady way, intervened: Joachim, emphatic in the Diets and
      elsewhere, made Ferdinand quit grip, and produce Jagerndorf again.
      Jagerndorf and the rest had all to be restored: and, except some filchings
      in the Jagerndorf Appendages (Ratibor and Oppeln, "restored" only in
      semblance, and at length juggled away altogether), [Rentsch, pp. 129,
      130.] everything came to its right owner again. Nor would Joachim rest
      till Alcibiades's Territories too were all punctually given back, to this
      same George Friedrich: to whom, by law and justice, they belonged, In
      these points Joachim prevailed against a strong-handed Kaiser, apt to
      "consider one's rights fallen extinct" now and then. In this of Liegnitz
      all he could do was to keep the Deed, in steady protest silent or vocal.
    </p>
    <p>
      But enough now of Joachim Hector, Sixth Kurfurst, and of his workings and
      his strugglings. He walked through this world, treading as softly as might
      be, yet with a strong weighty step: rending the jungle steadily asunder;
      well seeing whither he was bound. Rather an expensive Herr: built a good
      deal, completion of the Schloss at Berlin one example: [Nicolai, p. 82.]
      and was not otherwise afraid of outlay, in the Reich's Politics, or in
      what seemed needful: If there is a harvest ahead, even a distant one, it
      is poor thrift to be stingy of your seed-corn!
    </p>
    <p>
      Joachim was always a conspicuous Public Man, a busy Politician in the
      Reich: stanch to his kindred, and by no means blind to himself or his own
      interests. Stanch also, we must grant, and ever active, though generally
      in a cautious, weighty, never in a rash swift way, to the great Cause of
      Protestantism, and to all good causes. He was himself a solemnly devout
      man; deep awe-stricken reverence dwelling in his view of this Universe.
      Most serious, though with a jocose dialect commonly, having a cheerful wit
      in speaking to men. Luther's Books he called his SEELENSCHATZ
      (Soul's-treasure): Luther and the Bible were his chief reading. Fond of
      profane learning too, and of the useful or ornamental Arts; given to
      music, and "would himself sing aloud" when he had a melodious
      leisure-hour. Excellent old gentleman: he died, rather suddenly, but with
      much nobleness, 3d January, 1571; age sixty-six. Old Rentsch's account of
      this event is still worth reading: [Rentsch, p. 458.] Joachim's
      death-scene has a mild pious beauty which does not depend on creed.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had a Brother too, not a little occupied with Politics, and always on
      the good side: a wise pious man, whose fame was in all the churches:
      "Johann of Custrin," called also "Johann THE WISE," who busied himself
      zealously in Protestant matters, second only in piety and zeal to his
      Cousin, Margraf George the Pious; and was not so held back by official
      considerations as his Brother the Elector now and then. Johann of Custrin
      is a very famous man in the old Books: Johann was the first that fortified
      Custrin: built himself an illustrious Schloss, and "roofed it with
      copper," in Custrin (which is a place we shall be well acquainted with by
      and by); and lived there, with the Neumark for apanage, a true man's life;&mdash;mostly
      with a good deal of business, warlike and other, on his hands; with good
      Books, good Deeds, and occasionally good Men, coming to enliven it,&mdash;according
      to the terms then given.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XI. &mdash; SEVENTH KURFURST, JOHANN GEORGE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Kaiser Karl, we said, was very good to Joachim; who always strove,
      sometimes with a stretch upon his very conscience, to keep well with the
      Kaiser. The Kaiser took Joachim's young Prince along with him to those
      Schmalkaldic Wars (not the comfortable side for Joachim's conscience, but
      the safe side for an anxious Father); Kaiser made a Knight of this young
      Prince, on one occasion of distinction; he wrote often to Papa about him,
      what a promising young hero he was,&mdash;seems really to have liked the
      young man. It was Johann George, Elector afterwards, Seventh Elector.&mdash;This
      little incident is known to me on evidence. [Rentsch, p. 465.] A small
      thing that certainly befell, at the siege of Wittenberg (A.D. 1547),
      during those Philip-of-Hessen Negotiations, three hundred and odd years
      ago.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Schmalkaldic War having come all to nothing, the Saxon Elector sitting
      captive with sword overhead in the way we saw, Saxon Wittenberg was
      besieged, and the Kaiser was in great hurry to get it. Kaiser in person,
      and young Johann George for sole attendant, rode round the place one day,
      to take a view of the works, and judge how soon, or whether ever, it could
      be compelled to give in. Gunners noticed them from the battlements;
      gunners Saxon-Protestant most likely, and in just gloom at the perils and
      indignities now lying on their pious Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the
      Magnanimous. "Lo, you! Kaiser's self riding yonder, and one of his silk
      JUNKERS. Suppose we gave the Kaiser's self a shot, then?" said the gunner,
      or thought: "It might help a better man from his life-perils, if such shot
      did&mdash;!" In fact the gun flashed off, with due outburst, and almost
      with due effect. The ball struck the ground among the very horses' feet of
      the two riders; so that they were thrown, or nearly so, and covered from
      sight with a cloud of earth and sand;&mdash;and the gunners thought, for
      some instants, an unjust, obstinate Kaiser's life was gone; and a pious
      Elector's saved. But it proved not so. Kaiser Karl and Johann George both
      emerged, in a minute or two, little the worse;&mdash;Kaiser Karl perhaps
      blushing somewhat, and flurried this time, I think, in the impenetrable
      eyes; and his Cimburgis lip closed for the moment;&mdash;and galloped out
      of shot-range. "I never forget this little incident," exclaims Smelfungus:
      "It is one of the few times I can get, after all my reading about that
      surprising Karl V., I do not say the least understanding or practical
      conception of him and his character and his affairs, but the least ocular
      view or imagination of him, as a fact among facts!" Which is unlucky for
      Smelfungus.&mdash;Johann George, still more emphatically, never to the end
      of HIS life forgot this incident. And indeed it must be owned, had the
      shot taken effect as intended, the whole course of human things would have
      been surprisingly altered;&mdash;and for one thing, neither FREDERICH THE
      GREAT, nor the present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH, had ever risen above ground,
      or troubled an enlightened public or me!
    </p>
    <p>
      Of Johann George, this Seventh Elector, [1525; 1571-1598.] who proved a
      good Governor, and carried on the Family Affairs in the old style of slow
      steady success, I will remember nothing more, except that he had the
      surprising number of Three-and-Twenty children; one of them posthumous,
      though he died at the age of seventy-three.&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      He is Founder of the New Culmbach line: two sons of these twenty-three
      children he settled, one in Baireuth, the other in Anspach; from whom come
      all the subsequent Heads of that Principality, till the last of them died
      in Hammersmith in 1806, as above said. [Rentsch, p. 475 (CHRISTIAN to
      Baireuth; JOACHIM ERNST to Anspach);&mdash;See Genealogical Diagram, inra,
      p. 309a.] He was a prudent, thrifty Herr; no mistresses, no luxuries
      allowed; at the sight of a new-fashioned coat, he would fly out on an
      unhappy youth, and pack him from his presence. Very strict in point of
      justice: a peasant once appealing to him, in one of his
      inspection-journeys through the country, "Grant me justice, DURCHLAUCHT,
      against So-and-so; I am your highness's born subject!"&mdash;"Thou
      shouldst have it, man, wert thou a born Turk!" answered Johann George.&mdash;There
      is something anxious, grave and, as it were, surprised in the look of this
      good Herr. He made the GERA BOND above spoken of;&mdash;founded the
      Younger Culmbach Line, with that important Law of Primogeniture strictly
      superadded. A conspicuous thrift, veracity, modest solidity, looks through
      the conduct of this Herr;&mdash;a determined Protestant he too, as indeed
      all the following were and are. [Rentsch, pp. 470, 471.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Of Joachim Friedrich, his eldest Son, who at one time was Archbishop of
      Magdeburg,&mdash;called home from the wars to fill that valuable Heirloom,
      which had suddenly fallen vacant by an Uncle's death, and keep it warm;&mdash;and
      who afterwards, in due course, carried on a LOBLICHE REGIERUNG of the old
      style and physiognomy, as Eighth Kurfurst, from his fiftieth to his
      sixtieth year (1598-1608): [Born, 1547; Magdehurg, 1566-1598 (when his
      Third Son got it,&mdash;very unlucky in the Thirty-Years War afterwards).]
      of him we already noticed the fine "JOACHIMS-thal Gymnasium," or
      Foundation for learned purposes, in the old Schloss of Grimnitz, where his
      serene Grandmother got lamed; and will notice nothing farther, in this
      place, except his very great anxiety to profit by the Prussian
      MITBELEHNUNG,&mdash;that Co-infeftment in Preussen, achieved by his
      Grandfather Joachim II., which was now about coming to its full maturity.
      Joachim Friedrich had already married his eldest Prince to the daughter of
      Albert Friedrich, Second Duke of Preussen, who it was by this time evident
      would be the last Duke there of his Line. Joachim Friedrich, having
      himself fallen a widower, did next year, though now counting fifty-six&mdash;But
      it will be better if we explain first, a little, how matters now stood
      with Preussen.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XII. &mdash; OF ALBERT FRIEDRICH, THE SECOND DUKE OF PREUSSEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Duke Albert died in 1568, laden with years, and in his latter time greatly
      broken down by other troubles. His Prussian RATHS (Councillors) were
      disobedient, his Osianders and Lutheran-Calvinist Theologians were all in
      fire and flame against each other: the poor old man, with the best
      dispositions, but without power to realize them, had much to do and to
      suffer. Pious, just and honorable, intending the best; but losing his
      memory, and incapable of business, as he now complained. In his sixtieth
      year he had married a second time, a young Brunswick Princess, with whose
      foolish Brother, Eric, he had much trouble; and who at last herself took
      so ill with the insolence and violence of these intrusive Councillors and
      Theologians, that the household-life she led beside her old Husband and
      them became intolerable to her; and she withdrew to another residence,&mdash;a
      little Hunting-seat at Neuhausen, half a dozen miles from Konigsberg;&mdash;and
      there, or at Labiau still farther off, lived mostly, in a separate
      condition, for the rest of her life. Separate for life:&mdash;nevertheless
      they happened to die on the same day; 20th March, 1568, they were
      simultaneously delivered from their troubles in this world. [Hubner, t.
      181; Stenzel, i. 342.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Albert left one Son; the second child of this last Wife: his one child by
      the former Wife, a daughter now of good years, was married to the Duke of
      Mecklenburg. Son's name was Albert Friedrich; age, at his Father's death,
      fifteen. A promising young Prince, but of sensitive abstruse temper;&mdash;held
      under heavy tutelage by his Raths and Theologians; and spurting up against
      them, in explosive rebellion, from time to time. He now (1568) was to be
      sovereign Duke of Preussen, and the one representative of the Culmbach
      Line in that fine Territory; Margraf George Friedrich of Anspach, the only
      other Culmbacher, being childless, though wedded.
    </p>
    <p>
      We need not doubt, the Brandenburg House&mdash;old Kurfurst Joachim II.
      still alive, and thrifty Johann George the Heir-Apparent&mdash;kept a
      watchful eye on those emergencies. But it was difficult to interfere
      directly; the native Prussian Raths were very jealous, and Poland itself
      was a ticklish Sovereignty to deal with. Albert Friedrich being still a
      Minor, the Polish King, Sigismund, proposed to undertake the guardianship
      of him, as became a superior lord to a subject vassal on such an occasion.
      But the Prussian Raths assured his Majesty, "Their young Prince was of
      such a lively intellect, he was perfectly fit to conduct the affairs of
      the Government," especially with such a Body of expert Councillors to help
      him, "and might be at once declared of age." Which was accordingly the
      course followed; Poland caring little for it; Brandenburg digesting the
      arrangement as it could. And thus it continued for some years, even under
      new difficulties that arose; the official Clique of Raths being the real
      Government of the Country; and poor young Albert Friedrich bursting out
      occasionally into tears against them, occasionally into futile humors of a
      fiery nature. Osiander-Theology, and the battle of the 'DOXIES, ran very
      high; nor was Prussian Officiality a beautiful thing.
    </p>
    <p>
      These Prussian Raths, and the Prussian RITTERSCHAFT generally (Knightage,
      Land-Aristocracy), which had its STANDE (States: or meetings of Parliament
      after a sort), were all along of a mutinous, contumacious humor. The idea
      had got into their minds, That they were by birth what the ancient Ritters
      by election had been; entitled, fit or not fit, to share the Government
      promotions among them: "The Duke is hereditary in his office; why not we?
      All Offices, are they not, by nature, ours to share among us?" The Duke's
      notion, again, was to have the work of his Offices effectually done; small
      matter by whom: the Ritters looked less to that side of the question;&mdash;regarded
      any "Foreigner" (German-Anspacher, or other Non-Prussian), whatever his
      merit, as an intruder, usurper, or kind of thief, when seen in office.
      Their contentions, contumacies and pretensions were accordingly manifold.
      They had dreams of an "Aristocratic Republic, with the Sovereign reduced
      to zero," like what their Polish neighbors grew to. They had various
      dreams; and individuals among them broke out, from time to time, into high
      acts of insolence and mutiny. It took a hundred and fifty years of
      Brandenburg horse-breaking, sometimes with sharp manipulation and a potent
      curb-bit, to dispossess them of that notion, and make them go steadily in
      harness. Which also, however, was at last got done by the Hohenzollerns.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      OF DUKE ALBERT FRIEDRICH'S MARRIAGE: WHO HIS WIFE WAS, AND WHAT HER
      POSSIBLE DOWRY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In a year or two, there came to be question of the marrying of young Duke
      Albert Friedrich. After due consultation, the Princess fixed upon was
      Maria Eleonora, eldest Daughter of the then Duke of Cleve: to him a proper
      Embassy was sent with that object; and came back with Yes for answer. Duke
      of Cleve, at that time, was Wilhelm, called "the Rich" in History-Books; a
      Sovereign of some extent in those lower Rhine countries. Whom I can
      connect with the English reader's memory in no readier way than by the
      fact, That he was younger brother, one year younger, of a certain "Anne of
      Cleves;"&mdash;a large fat Lady, who was rather scurvily used in this
      country; being called, by Henry VIII. and us, a "great Flanders mare,"
      unsuitable for espousal with a King of delicate feelings! This Anne of
      Cleves, who took matters quietly and lived on her pension, when rejected
      by King Henry, was Aunt of the young Lady now in question for Preussen.
      She was still alive here in England, pleasantly quiet, "at Burley on the
      Hill," till Maria Eleonora was seven years old;&mdash;who possibly enough
      still reads in her memory some fading vestige of new black frocks or
      trimmings, and brief court-mourning, on the death of poor Aunt Anne over
      seas.&mdash;Another Aunt is more honorably distinguished; Sibylla, Wife of
      our noble Saxon Elector, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, who lost his
      Electorate and almost his Life for religion's sake, as we have seen; by
      whom, in his perils and distresses, Sibylla stood always, like a very true
      and noble Wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      Duke Wilhelm himself was a man of considerable mark in his day. His Duchy
      of Cleve included not only Cleve-Proper, but Julich (JULIERS), Berg, which
      latter pair of Duchies were a better thing than Cleve-Proper:&mdash;Julich,
      Berg and various other small Principalities, which, gradually
      agglomerating by marriage, heritage and the chance of events in successive
      centuries, had at length come all into Wilhelm's hands; so that he got the
      name of Wilhelm the Rich among his contemporaries. He seems to have been
      of a headlong, blustery, uncertain disposition; much tossed about in the
      controversies of his day. At one time he was a Protestant declared; not
      without reasons of various kinds. The Duchy of Geldern (what we call
      GUELDERS) had fallen to him, by express bequest of the last Owner, whose
      Line was out; and Wilhelm took possession. But the Kaiser Karl V. quite
      refused to let him keep possession. Whereupon Wilhelm had joined with the
      French (it was in the Moritz-Alcibiades time); had declared war, and taken
      other high measures: but it came to nothing, or to less. The end was,
      Wilhelm had to "come upon his knees" before the Kaiser, and beg
      forgiveness; quite renouncing Geldern, which accordingly has gone its own
      different road ever since. Wilhelm was zealously Protestant in those days;
      as his people are, and as he still is, at the period we treat of. But he
      went into Papistry, not long after; and made other sudden turns and
      misventures: to all appearance, rather an abrupt, blustery, uncertain
      Herr. It is to him that Albert Friedrich, the young Duke of Preussen,
      guided by his Council, now (Year 1572) sends an Embassy, demanding his
      eldest Daughter, Maria Eleonora, to wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      Duke Wilhelm answered Yea; "sent a Counter-Embassy," with whatever else
      was necessary; and in due time the young Bride, with her Father, set out
      towards Preussen, such being the arrangement, there to complete the
      matter. They had got as far as Berlin, warmly welcomed by the Kurfurst
      Johann George; when, from Konigsberg, a sad message reached them: namely,
      that the young Duke had suddenly been seized with an invincible depression
      and overclouding of mind, not quite to be characterized by the name of
      madness, but still less by that of perfect sanity. His eagerness to see
      his Bride was the same as formerly; but his spiritual health was in the
      questionable state described. The young Lady paused for a little, in such
      mood as we may fancy. She had already lost two offers, Bridegrooms
      snatched away by death, says Pauli; [Pauli, iv. 512.] and thought it might
      be ominous to refuse the third. So she decided to go on; dashed aside her
      father's doubts; sent her unhealthy Bridegroom "a flower-garland as
      love-token," who duly responded; and Father Wilhelm and she proceeded, as
      if nothing were wrong. The spiritual state of the Prince, she found, had
      not been exaggerated to her. His humors and ways were strange,
      questionable; other than one could have wished. Such as he was, however,
      she wedded him on the appointed terms;&mdash;hoping probably for a
      recovery, which never came.
    </p>
    <p>
      The case of Albert's malady is to this day dim; and strange tales are
      current as to the origin of it, which the curious in Physiology may
      consult; they are not fit for reporting here. [Ib. iv. 476.] It seems to
      have consisted in an overclouding, rather than a total ruin of the mind.
      Incurable depression there was; gloomy torpor alternating with fits of
      vehement activity or suffering; great discontinuity at all times:&mdash;evident
      unfitness for business. It was long hoped he might recover. And Doctors in
      Divinity and in Medicine undertook him: Theologians, Exorcists,
      Physicians, Quacks; but no cure came of it, nothing but mutual
      condemnations, violences and even execrations, from the said Doctors and
      their respective Official patrons, lay and clerical. Must have been such a
      scene for a young Wife as has seldom occurred, in romance or reality!
      Children continued to be born; daughter after daughter; but no son that
      lived.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      MARGRAF GEORGE FRIEDRICH COMES TO PREUSSEN TO ADMINISTER.
    </h2>
    <p>
      After five years' space, in 1578, [Pauli, iv. 476, 481, 482.] cure being
      now hopeless, and the very Council admitting that the Duke was incapable
      of business,&mdash;George Friedrich of Anspach-Baireuth came into the
      country to take charge of him; having already, he and the other
      Brandenburgers, negotiated the matter with the King of Poland, in whose
      power it mostly lay.
    </p>
    <p>
      George Friedrich was by no means welcome to the Prussian Council, nor to
      the Wife, nor to the Landed Aristocracy;&mdash;other than welcome, for
      reasons we can guess. But he proved, in the judgment of all fair
      witnesses, an excellent Governor; and, for six-and-twenty years,
      administered the country with great and lasting advantage to it. His
      Portraits represent to us a large ponderous figure of a man, very fat in
      his latter years; with an air of honest sense, dignity, composed solidity;&mdash;very
      fit for the task now on hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      He resolutely, though in mild form, smoothed down the flaming fires of his
      Clergy; commanding now this controversy and then that other controversy <i>("de
      concreto et de inconcreto,"</i> or whatever they were) to fall strictly
      silent; to carry themselves on by thought and meditation merely, and
      without words. He tamed the mutinous Aristocracy, the mutinous
      Burgermeisters, Town-Council of Konigsberg, whatever mutiny there was. He
      drained bogs, says old Rentsch; he felled woods, made roads, established
      inns. Prussia was well governed till George's death; which happened in the
      year 1603. [Rentsch, pp. 666-688.] Anspach, in the mean while, Anspach,
      Baireuth and Jagerndorf, which were latterly all his, he had governed by
      deputy; no need of visiting those quiet countries, except for purposes of
      kindly recreation, or for a swift general supervision, now and then. By
      all accounts, an excellent, steadfast, wise and just man, this fat George
      Friedrich; worthy of the Father that produced him <i>("Nit Kop ab, lover
      Forst, nit Kop ab!"),&mdash;-</i> and that is saying much.
    </p>
    <p>
      By his death without children much territory fell home to the Elder House;
      to be disposed of as was settled in the GERA BOND five years before.
      Anspach and Baireuth went to two Brothers of the now Elector, Kurfurst
      Joachim Friedrich, sons of Johann George of blessed memory: founders,
      they, of the "New Line," of whom we know. Jagerndorf the Elector himself
      got; and he, not long after, settled it on one of his own sons, a new
      Johann George, who at that time was fallen rather landless and out of a
      career: "Johann George of Jagerndorf," so called thenceforth: whose
      history will concern us by and by. Preussen was to be incorporated with
      the Electorate,&mdash;were possession of it once had. But that is a
      ticklish point; still ticklish in spite of rights, and liable to perverse
      accidents that may arise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Joachim Friedrich, as we intimated once, was not wanting to himself on
      this occasion. But the affair was full of intricacies; a very wasps'-nest
      of angry humors; and required to be handled with delicacy, though with
      force and decision. Joachim Friedrich's eldest Son, Johann Sigismund,
      Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, had already, in 1594, married one of
      Albert Friedrich the hypochondriac Duke of Preussen's daughters; and there
      was a promising family of children; no lack of children. Nevertheless
      prudent Joachim Friedrich himself, now a widower, age towards sixty, did
      farther, in the present emergency, marry another of these Princesses, a
      younger Sister of his Son's Wife,&mdash;seven months after George
      Friedrich's death,&mdash;to make assurance doubly sure, A man not to be
      balked, if he can help it. By virtue of excellent management,&mdash;Duchess,
      Prussian STANDE (States), and Polish Crown, needing all to be contented,&mdash;Joachim
      Friedrich, with gentle strong pressure, did furthermore squeeze his way
      into the actual Guardianship of Preussen and the imbecile Duke, which was
      his by right. This latter feat he achieved in the course of another year
      (11th March, 1605); [Stenzel, i. 358.] and thereby fairly got hold of
      Preussen; which he grasped, "knuckles-white," as we may say; and which his
      descendants have never quitted since.
    </p>
    <p>
      Good management was very necessary. The thing was difficult;&mdash;and
      also was of more importance than we yet altogether see. Not Preussen only,
      but a still better country, the Duchy of Cleve, Cleve-Julich, Duke
      Wilhelm's Heritage down in the Rhineland,&mdash;Heritage turning out now
      to be of right his eldest Daughter's here, and likely now to drop soon,&mdash;is
      involved in the thing. This first crisis, of getting into the Prussian
      Administratorship, fallen vacant, our vigilant Kurfurst Joachim Friedrich
      has successfully managed; and he holds his grip, knuckles-white. Before
      long, a second crisis comes; where also he will have to grasp decisively
      in,&mdash;he, or those that stand for him, and whose knuckles can still
      hold, But that may go to a new Chapter.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XIII. &mdash; NINTH KURFURST, JOHANN SIGISMUND.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In the summer of 1608 (23d May, 1608) Johann Sigismund's (and his
      Father's) Mother-in-law, the poor Wife of the poor imbecile Duke of
      Preussen, died. [Maria Eleonora, Duke Wilhelm of Cleve's eldest Daughter:
      1550, 1573, 1608 (Hubner, t. 286).] Upon which Johann Sigismund,
      Heir-Apparent of Brandenburg and its expectancies, was instantly
      despatched from Berlin, to gather up the threads cut loose by that event,
      and see that the matter took no damage. On the road thither news reached
      him that his own Father, old Joachim Friedrich, was dead (18th July,
      1608); that he himself was now Kurfurst; [1572, 1608-1619.] and that
      numerous threads were loose at both ends of his affairs.
    </p>
    <p>
      The "young man"&mdash;not now so young, being full thirty-five and of fair
      experience&mdash;was in difficulty, under these overwhelming tidings; and
      puzzled, for a little, whether to advance or to return. He decided to
      advance, and settle Prussian matters, where the peril and the risk were;
      Brandenburg business he could do by rescripts.
    </p>
    <p>
      His difficulties in Preussen, and at the Polish Court, were in fact
      immense. But after a space of eight or nine months, he did, by excellent
      management, not sparing money judiciously laid out on individuals, arrive
      at some adjustment, better or worse, and got Preussen in hand; [29th
      April, 1609. Stenzel, i. 370.] legal Administrator of the imbecile Duke,
      as his Father had been. After which he had to run for Brandenburg, without
      loss of time: great matters being there in the wind. Nothing wrong in
      Brandenburg, indeed; but the great Cleve Heritage is dropping, has
      dropped; over in Cleve, an immense expectancy is now come to the point of
      deciding itself.
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    <h2>
      HOW THE CLEVE HERITAGE DROPPED, AND MANY SPRANG TO PICK IT UP.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Wilhelm of Cleve, the explosive Duke, whom we saw at Berlin and Konigsberg
      at the wedding of this poor Lady now deceased, had in the
      marriage-contract, as he did in all subsequent contracts and deeds of like
      nature, announced a Settlement of his Estates, which was now become of the
      highest moment for Johann Sigismund. The Country at that time called Duchy
      of Cleve, consisted, as we said above, not only of Cleve-Proper, but of
      two other still better Duchies, Julich and Berg; then of the GRAFSCHAFT
      (County) of Ravensburg, County of Mark, Lordship of&mdash;-In fact it was
      a multifarious agglomerate of many little countries, gathered by marriage,
      heritage and luck, in the course of centuries, and now united in the hand
      of this Duke Wilhelm. It amounted perhaps to two Yorkshires in extent.
      [See Busching, <i>Erdbeschreibung,</i> v. 642-734.] A naturally opulent
      Country, of fertile meadows, shipping capabilities, metalliferous hills;
      and, at this time, in consequence of the Dutch-Spanish War, and the
      multitude of Protestant refugees, it was getting filled with ingenious
      industries; and rising to be, what it still is, the busiest quarter of
      Germany. A Country lowing with kine; the hum of the flax-spindle heard in
      its cottages, in those old days,&mdash;"much of the linen called Hollands
      is made in Julich, and only bleached, stamped and sold, by the Dutch,"
      says Busching. A Country, in our days, which is shrouded at short
      intervals with the due canopy of coal-smoke, and loud with sounds of the
      anvil and the loom.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Duchy of Cleve, all this fine agglomerate of Duchies, Duke Wilhelm
      settled, were to be inherited in a piece, by his eldest (or indeed, as it
      soon proved, his only) Son and the heirs of that Son, if there were any.
      Failing heirs of that only Son, then the entire Duchy of Cleve was to go
      to Maria Eleonora as eldest Daughter, now marrying to Friedrich Albert,
      Duke of Prussia, and to their heirs lawfully begotten: heirs female, if
      there happened to be no male. The other Sisters, of whom there were three,
      were none of them to have the least pretence to inherit Cleve or any part
      of it. On the contrary, they were, in such event, of the eldest Daughter
      or her heirs coming to inherit Cleve, to have each of them a sum of ready
      money paid ["200,000 GOLDGULDEN," about 100,000 pounds; Pauli, vi. 542;
      iii. 504.] by the said inheritrix of Cleve or her heirs; and on receiving
      that, were to consider their claims entirely fulfilled, and to cease
      thinking of Cleve for the future.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Settlement, by express privilege of Kaiser Karl V., nay of Kaiser
      Maximilian before him, and the Laws of the Reich, Duke Wilhelm doubted not
      he was entitled to make; and this Settlement he made; his Lawyers writing
      down the terms, in their wearisome way, perhaps six times over; and
      struggling by all methods to guard against the least misunderstanding.
      Cleve with all its appurtenances, Julich, Berg and the rest, goes to the
      eldest Sister and her heirs, male or female: If she have no heirs, male or
      female, then, but not till then, the next Sister steps into her shoes in
      that matter: but if she have, then, we repeat for the sixth and last time,
      no Sister or Sister's Representative has the least word to say to it, but
      takes her 100,000 pounds, and ceases thinking of Cleve.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other three Sisters were all gradually married;&mdash;one of them to
      Pfalz-Neuburg, an eminent Prince, in the Bavarian region called the
      OBER-PFALZ (Upper Palatinate), who, or at least whose eldest Son, is much
      worth mentioning and remembering by us here;&mdash;and, in all these
      marriage-contracts, Wilhelm and his Lawyers expressed themselves to the
      like effect, and in the like elaborate sixfold manner: so that Wilhelm and
      they thought there could nowhere in the world be any doubt about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Shortly after signing the last of these marriage-contracts, or perhaps it
      was in the course of signing them, Duke Wilhelm had a stroke of palsy. He
      had, before that, gone into Papistry again, poor man. The truth is, he had
      repeated strokes; and being an abrupt, explosive Herr, he at last quite
      yielded to palsy; and sank slowly out of the world, in a cloud of
      semi-insanity, which lasted almost twenty years. [Died 25th January, 1592,
      age 76.] Duke Wilhelm did leave a Son, Johann Wilhelm, who succeeded him
      as Duke. But this Son also proved explosive; went half and at length
      wholly insane. Jesuit Priests, and their intrigues to bring back a
      Protestant country to the bosom of the Church, wrapped the poor man, all
      his days, as in a burning Nessus'-Shirt; and he did little but mischief in
      the world. He married, had no children; he accused his innocent Wife, the
      Jesuits and he, of infidelity. Got her judged, not properly sentenced; and
      then strangled her, he and they, in her bed:&mdash;"Jacobea of Baden
      (1597);" a thrice-tragic history. Then he married again; Jesuits being
      extremely anxious for an Orthodox heir: but again there came no heir;
      there came only new blazings of the Nessus'-Shirt. In fine, the poor man
      died (Spring, 1609), and made the world rid of him. Died 25th March, 1609;
      that is the precise date;&mdash;about a month before our new Elector,
      Johann Sigismund, got his affairs winded up at the Polish Court, and came
      galloping home in such haste. There was pressing need of him in the Cleve
      regions.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the painful exactitude of Duke Wilhelm and his Lawyers has profited
      little; and there are claimants on claimants rising for that valuable
      Cleve Country. As indeed Johann Sigismund had anticipated, and been warned
      from all quarters, to expect. For months past, he has had his faculties
      bent, with lynx-eyed attention, on that scene of things; doubly and trebly
      impatient to get Preussen soldered up, ever since this other matter came
      to the bursting-point. What could be done by the utmost vigilance of his
      Deputies, he had done. It was the 25th of March when the mad Duke died: on
      the 4th of April, Johann Sigismund's Deputy, attended by a Notary to
      record the act, "fixed up the Brandenburg Arms on the Government-House of
      Cleve;" [Pauli, vi. 566.] on the 5th, they did the same at Dusseldorf; on
      the following days, at Julich and the other Towns. But already on the 5th,
      they had hardly got done at Dusseldorf, when there appeared&mdash;young
      Wolfgang Wilhelm, Heir-Apparent of that eminent Pfalz-Neuburg, he in
      person, to put up the Pfalz-Neuburg Arms! Pfalz-Neuburg, who married the
      Second Daughter, he is actually claiming, then;&mdash;the whole, or part?
      Both are sensible that possession is nine points in law.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pfalz-Neuburg's claim was for the whole Duchy. "All my serene Mother's!"
      cried the young Heir of Pfalz-Neuburg: "Properly all mine!" cried he. "Is
      not she NEAREST of kin? Second Daughter, true; but the Daughter; not
      Daughter OF a Daughter, as you are (as your Serene Electress is), O
      DURCHLAUCHT of Brandenburg:&mdash;consider, besides, you are female, I am
      male!" That was Pfalz-Neuburg's logic: none of the best, I think, in
      forensic genealogy. His tenth point was perhaps rather weak; but he had
      possession, co-possession, and the nine points good. The other Two
      Sisters, by their Sons or Husbands, claimed likewise; but not the whole:
      "Divide it," said they: "that surely is the real meaning of Karl V.'s Deed
      of Privilege to make such a Testament. Divide it among the Four Daughters
      or their representatives, and let us all have shares!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor were these four claimants by any means all. The Saxon Princes next
      claimed; two sets of Saxon Princes. First the minor set, Gotha-Weimar and
      the rest, the Ernestine Line so called; representatives of Johann
      Friedrich the Magnanimous, who lost the Electorate for religion's sake at
      Muhlberg in the past century, and from MAJOR became MINOR in Saxon
      Genealogy. "Magnanimous Johann Friedrich," said they, "had to wife an Aunt
      of the now deceased Duke of Cleve; Wife Sibylla (sister of the Flanders
      Mare), of famous memory, our lineal Ancestress. In favor of whom HER
      Father, the then reigning Duke of Cleve, made a marriage-contract of
      precisely similar import to this your Prussian one: he, and barred all his
      descendants, if contracts are to be valid." This is the claim of the
      Ernestine Line of Saxon Princes; not like to go for much, in their present
      disintegrated condition.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the Albertine Line, the present Elector of Saxony, also claims: "Here
      is a Deed," said he, "executed by Kaiser Friedrich III. in the year 1483,
      [Pauli, ubi supra; Hubner, t. 286.] generations before your Kaiser Karl;
      Deed solemnly granting to Albert, junior of Sachsen, and to his heirs, the
      reversion of those same Duchies, should the Male Line happen to fail, as
      it was then likely to do. How could Kaiser Max revoke his Father's deed,
      or Kaiser Karl his Great-grandfather's? Little Albert, the Albert of the
      PRINZENRAUB, he who grew big, and fought lion-like for his Kaiser in the
      Netherlands and Western Countries; he and his have clearly the heirship of
      Cleve by right; and we, now grown Electors, and Seniors of Saxony, demand
      it of a grateful House of Hapsburg,&mdash;and will study to make ourselves
      convenient in return."&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, if that is your rule, that old Laws and Deeds are to come in bar of
      new, we," cry a multitude of persons,&mdash;French Dukes of Nevers, and
      all manner of remote, exotic figures among them,&mdash;"we are the real
      heirs! Ravensburg, Mark, Berg, Ravenstein, this patch and the other of
      that large Duchy of yours, were they not from primeval time expressly
      limited to heirs-male? Heirs-male; and we now are the nearest heirs-male
      of said patches and portions; and will prove it!"&mdash;In short, there
      never was such a Lawsuit,&mdash;so fat an affair for the attorney species,
      if that had been the way of managing it,&mdash;as this of Cleve was likely
      to prove.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE KAISER'S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT, AND THE WORLD'S.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What greatly complicated the affair, too, was the interest the Kaiser took
      in it. The Kaiser could not well brook a powerful Protestant in that
      country; still less could his Cousin the Spaniard. Spaniards, worn to the
      ground, coercing that world-famous Dutch Revolt, and astonished to find
      that they could not coerce it at all, had resolved at this time to take
      breath before trying farther. Spaniards and Dutch, after Fifty years of
      such fighting as we know, have made a Twelve-years' Truce (1609): but the
      battled Spaniard, panting, pale in his futile rage and sweat, has not
      given up the matter; he is only taking breath, and will try it again. Now
      Cleve is his road into Holland, in such adventure; no success possible if
      Cleve be not in good hands. Brandenburg is Protestant, powerful;
      Brandenburg will not do for a neighbor there.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor will Pfalz-Neuburg. A Protestant of Protestants, this Palatine Neuburg
      too,&mdash;junior branch, possible heir in time coming, of KUR-PFALZ
      (Elector Palatine) himself, in the Rhine Countries; of Kur-Pfalz, who is
      acknowledged Chief Protestant: official "President" of the "Evangelical
      Union" they have lately made among them in these menacing times;&mdash;Pfalz-Neuburg
      too, this young Wolfgang Wilhelm, if he do not break off kind, might be
      very awkward to the Kaiser in Cleve-Julich. Nay Saxony itself; for they
      are all Protestants:&mdash;unless perhaps Saxony might become pliant, and
      try to make itself useful to a munificent Imperial House?
    </p>
    <p>
      Evidently what would best suit the Kaiser and Spaniards, were this, That
      no strong Power whatever got footing in Cleve, to grow stronger by the
      possession of such a country:&mdash;BETTER than best it would suit, if he,
      the Kaiser, could himself get it smuggled into his hands, and there hold
      it fast! Which privately was the course resolved upon at headquarters.&mdash;In
      this way the "Succession Controversy of the Cleve Duchies" is coming to be
      a very high matter; mixing itself, up with the grand Protestant-Papal
      Controversy, the general armed-lawsuit of mankind in that generation.
      Kaiser, Spaniard, Dutch, English, French Henri IV. and all mortals, are
      getting concerned in the decision of it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XIV. &mdash; SYMPTOMS OF A GREAT WAR COMING.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Meanwhile Brandenburg and Neuburg both hold grip of Cleve in that manner,
      with a mutually menacing inquiring expression of countenance; each grasps
      it (so to speak) convulsively with the one hand, and has with the other
      hand his sword by the hilt, ready to fly out. But to understand this
      Brandenburg-Neuburg phenomenon and the then significance of the
      Cleve-Julich Controversy, we must take the following bits of Chronology
      along with us. For the German Empire, with Protestant complaints, and
      Papist usurpations and severities, was at this time all a continent of
      sour thick smoke, already breaking out into dull-red flashes here and
      there,&mdash;symptoms of the universal conflagration of a Thirty-Years
      War, which followed. SYMPTON FIRST is that of Donauworth, and dates above
      a year back.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      FIRST SYMPTOM; DONAUWORTH, 1608.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Donauworth, a Protestant Imperial Free-town, in the Bavarian regions, had
      been, for some fault on the part of the populace against a flaring
      Mass-procession which had no business to be there, put under Ban of the
      Empire; had been seized accordingly (December, 1607), and much cuffed, and
      shaken about, by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, as executor of the said Ban;
      [Michaeelis, ii. 216; Buddaei LEXICON, i. 853.]&mdash;who, what was still
      worse, would by no means give up the Town when he had done with it; Town
      being handy to him, and the man being stout and violently Papist. Hence
      the "Evangelical Union" which we saw,&mdash;which has not taken Donauworth
      yet. Nor ever will! Donauworth never was retaken; but is Bavarian at this
      hour, A Town namable in History ever since. Not to say withal, that it is
      where Marlborough, did "the Lines of Schellenberg" long after:
      Schellenberg ("Jingle-Hill," so to render it) looks down across the Danube
      or Donau River, upon Donauworth,&mdash;its "Lines," and other histories,
      now much abolished, and quiet under grass.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now all Protestantism sounding everywhere, in angry mournful tone,
      "Donauwarth! Give up Donauworth!"&mdash;and an "Evangelical Union," with
      moneys, with theoretic contingents of force, being on foot for that and
      the like objects;&mdash;we can fancy what a scramble this of Cleve-Julich
      was like to be; and especially what effect this duelling attitude of
      Brandenburg and Neuburg had on the Protestant mind. Protestant neighbors,
      Landgraf Moritz of Hessen-Cassel at their head, intervene in tremulous
      haste, in the Cleve-Julich affair: "Peace, O friends! Some bargain;
      peaceable joint-possession; any temporary bargain, till we see! Can two
      Protestants fall to slashing one another, in such an aspect of the Reich
      and its Jesuitries?"&mdash;And they did agree (Dortmund, 10th May, 1609)
      the first of their innumerable "agreements," to some temporary
      joint-possession;&mdash;the thrice-thankful Country doing homage to both,
      "with oath to the one that SHALL be found genuine." And they did endeavor
      to govern jointly, and to keep the peace on those terms, though it was not
      easy.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the Kaiser had already said (or his Aulic Council and Spanish Cousin,
      poor Kaiser Rodolf caring too little about these things, [Rodolf II.
      (Kepler's too insolvent "Patron"), 1576-1612; then Matthias, Rodolf's
      Brother, 1612-1619, rather tolerant to Protestants;&mdash;then Ferdinand
      II. his Uncle's Son, 1619-1637, much the reverse of tolerant, by whom
      mainly came the Thirty-Years War,&mdash;were the Kaisers of this Period.
      Ferdinand III., Son of II: (1637-1657), who finished out the Thirty-Years
      War, partly by fighting of his own in young days (Battle of Nordlingen his
      grandest feat), was Father of Kaiser Leopold (1658- 1705),&mdash;whose Two
      Sons were Kaiser Joseph (1705-1711) and Kaiser Karl VI. (1711-1740), Maria
      Theresa's Father.] had already said), Cleve must absolutely not go into
      wrong hands. For which what safe method is there, but that the Kaiser
      himself become proprietor? A Letter is yet extant, from the Aulic Council
      to their Vice-Chancellor, who had been sent to negotiate this matter with
      the parties; Letter to the effect, That such result was the only good one;
      that it must be achieved; "that he must devise all manner of quirks <i>(alle
      Spitzfindigkeiten auffordern sollte),"</i> and achieve it. [Pauli, iii.
      5055.] This curious Letter of a sublime Aulic Council, or Imperial
      HOF-RATH, to its VICE-KANZLER, still exists.
    </p>
    <p>
      And accordingly quirks did not prove undevisable on behalf of the Kaiser.
      "Since you cannot agree," said the Kaiser, "and there are so many of you
      who claim (we having privately stirred up several of you to the feat),
      there will be nothing for it, but the Kaiser must put the Country under
      sequestration, and take possession of it with his own troops, till a
      decision be arrived at,&mdash;which probably will not be soon!"
    </p>
    <p>
      SECOND SYMPTOM; SEIZURE OF JULICH BY THE KAISER, AND SIEGE AND RECAPTURE
      OF IT BY THE PROTESTANT PARTIES, 1610. WHEREUPON WHEREUPON "CATHOLIC
      LEAGUE," TO BALANCEE "EVANGELICAL UNION."
    </p>
    <p>
      And the Kaiser forthwith did as he had said; sent Archduke Leopold with
      troops, who forcibly took the Castle of Julich; commanding all other
      castles and places to surrender and sequestrate themselves, in like
      fashion; threatening Brandenburg and Neuburg, in a dreadful manner, with
      REICHS-ACHT (Ban of the Empire), if they presumed to show contumacy. Upon
      which Brandenburg and Neuburg, ranking themselves together, showed decided
      contumacy; "tore down the Kaiser's Proclamation," [Ib. iii. 524. Emperor's
      Proclamation, in Dusseldorf, 23d July, 1609,&mdash;taken down solemnly,
      1st August, 1609,] having good help at their back.
    </p>
    <p>
      And accordingly, "on the 4th of September, 1610," after a two-months'
      siege, they, or the Dutch, French, and Evangelical Union Troops bombarding
      along with them, and "many English volunteers" to help, retook Julich, and
      packed Leopold away again. [Ib. iii. 527.] The Dutch and the French were
      especially anxious about this Cleve business,&mdash;poor Henri IV. was
      just putting those French troops in motion towards Julich, when Ravaillac,
      the distracted Devil's-Jesuit, did his stroke upon him; so that another
      than Henri had to lead in that expedition. The actual Captain at the Siege
      was Prince Christian of Anhalt, by repute the first soldier of Germany at
      that period: he had a horse shot under him, the business being very hot
      and furious;&mdash;he had still worse fortune in the course of years.
      There were "many English volunteers" at this Siege; English nation hugely
      interested in it, though their King would not act except diplomatically.
      It was the talk of all the then world,&mdash;the evening song and the
      morning prayer of Protestants especially,&mdash;till it was got ended in
      this manner. It deserves to rank as SYMPTON SECOND in this business; far
      bigger flare of dull red in the universal smoke-continent, than that of
      Donauworth had been. Are there no memorials left of those "English
      volunteers," then? [In Carlyle's <i> Miscellanies</i> (vi.? "Two Hundred
      and Fifty Years ago: a Fragment about Duels") is one small scene belonging
      to them.] Alas, they might get edited as Bromley's <i>Royal Letters</i>
      are;&mdash;and had better lie quiet!
    </p>
    <p>
      "Evangelical Union," formed some two years before, with what cause we saw,
      has Kur-Pfalz [Winter-King's Father; died 9th September, 1610, few days
      after this recapture of Julich.] at the head of it: but its troops or
      operations were never of a very forcible character. Kur-Brandenburg now
      joined it formally, as did many more; Kur-Sachsen, anxious to make himself
      convenient in other quarters, never would. Add to these phenomena, the now
      decisive appearance of a "Catholic LIGA" (League of Catholic Princes),
      which, by way of counterpoise to the "Union," had been got up by Duke
      Maximilian of Bavaria several months ago; and which now, under the same
      guidance, in these bad circumstances, took a great expansion of figure.
      Duke Maximilian, "DONAUWORTH Max," finding the Evangelical Union go so
      very high, and his own Kaiser like to be good for little in such business
      (poor hypochondriac Kaiser Rodolf II., more taken up with turning-looms
      and blow-pipes than with matters political, who accordingly is swept out
      of Julich in such summary way),&mdash;Donauworth Max has seen this a
      necessary institution in the present aspect.&mdash;Both "Union" and
      "League" rapidly waxed under the sound of the Julich cannon, as was
      natural.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kur-Sachsen, for standing so well aloof from the Union, got from the
      thankful Kaiser written Titles for these Duchies of Cleve and Julich;
      Imperial parchments and infestments of due extent; but never any Territory
      in those parts. He never offered fight for his pretensions; and
      Brandenburg and Neuburg&mdash;Neuburg especially&mdash;always answered
      him, "No!" with sword half-drawn. So Kur-Sachsen faded out again, and took
      only parchments by the adventure. Practically there was no private
      Competitor of moment to Brandenburg, except this Wolfgang Wilhelm of
      Pfalz-Neuburg; he alone having clutched hold.&mdash;But we hasten to
      SYMPTOM THIRD, which particularly concerns us, and will be intelligible
      now at last.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      SYMPTOM THIRD: A DINNER-SCENE AT DUSSELDORF, 1613: SPANIARDS AND DUTCH
      SHOULDER ARMS IN CLEVE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Brandenburg and Neuburg stood together against third parties; but their
      joint-government was apt to fall in two, when left to itself, and the
      pressure of danger withdrawn. "They governed by the RATHS and STANDE of
      the Country;" old methods and old official men: each of the two had his
      own Vice-Regent (STATTHALTER) present on the ground, who jointly presided
      as they could. Jarrings were unavoidable; but how mend it? Settle the
      litigated Territory itself, and end their big lawsuit, they could not;
      often as they tried it, with the whole world encouraging and urging them.
      [Old Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton in his old days, remembers how he
      went Ambassador on this errand,&mdash;as on many others equally bootless;&mdash;and
      writes himself "Legatus," not only "thrice to Venice, twice to" &amp;c.
      &amp;c., but also "once to Holland in the Juliers matter <i>(semel in
      Juliacensi negotio):"</i> see <i>Reliquiae Wottonianae</i> (London, 1672),
      Preface. It was "in 1614," say the Biographies vaguely. His Despatches,
      are they in the Paper-Office still? His good old Book deserves new
      editing, his good old genially pious life a proper elucidation, by some
      faithful man.] The meetings they had, and the treaties and temporary
      bargains they made, and kept, and could not keep, in these and in the
      following years and generations, pass our power of recording.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1613 the Brandenburg STATTHALTER was Ernst, the Elector's younger
      Brother, Wolfgang Wilhelm in person, for his Father, or rather for himself
      as heir of his Mother, represented Pfalz-Neuburg. Ernst of Brandenburg had
      adopted Calvinism as his creed; a thing hateful and horrible to the
      Lutheran mind (of which sort was Wolfgang Wilhelm), to a degree now
      altogether inconceivable. Discord arose in consequence between the
      STATTHALTERS, as to official appointments, sacred and secular: "You are
      for promoting Calvinists!"&mdash;"And you, I see, are for promoting
      Lutherans!"&mdash;Johann Sigismund himself had to intervene: Wolfgang
      Wilhelm and he had their meetings, friendly colloquies:&mdash;the final
      celloquy of which is still memorable; and issues in SYMPTOM THIRD.
    </p>
    <p>
      We said, a strong flame of choler burnt in all these Hohenzollerns, though
      they held it well down. Johann Sigismund, an excellent man of business,
      knew how essential a mild tone is: nevertheless he found, as this colloquy
      went on, that human patience might at length get too much. The scene,
      after some examination, is conceivable in this wise: Place Dusseldorf,
      Elector's apartment in the Schloss there; time late in the Year 1613, Day
      not discoverable by me. The two sat at dinner, after much colloquy all
      morning: Johann Sigismund, a middle-aged, big-headed, stern-faced,
      honest-looking man; hair cropped, I observe; and eyelids slightly
      contracted, as if for sharper vision into matters: Wolfgang Wilhelm, of
      features fallen dim to me; an airy gentleman, well out of his teens, but,
      I doubt, not of wisdom sufficient; evidently very high and stiff in his
      ways.
    </p>
    <p>
      His proposal, by way of final settlement, and end to all these brabbles,
      was this, and he insisted on it: "Give me your eldest Princess to wife;
      let her dowry be your whole claim on Cleve-Julich; I will marry her on
      that condition, and we shall be friends!" Here evidently is a gentleman
      that does not want for conceit in himself:&mdash;consider too, in Johann
      Sigismund's opinion, he had no right to a square inch of these
      Territories, though for peace' sake a joint share had been allowed him for
      the time! "On that condition, jackanapes?" thought Johann Sigismund: "My
      girl is not a monster; nor at a loss for husbands fully better than you, I
      should hope!" This he thought, and could not help thinking; but endeavored
      to say nothing of it. The young jackanapes went on, insisting. Nature at
      last prevailed; Johann Sigismund lifted his hand (princely etiquettes
      melting all into smoke on the sudden), and gave the young jackanapes a
      slap over the face. Veritable slap; which opened in a dreadful manner the
      eyes of young Pfalz-Neuburg to his real situation; and sent him off
      high-flaming, vowing never-imagined vengeance. A remarkable slap; well
      testified to,&mdash;though the old Histories, struck blank with terror,
      reverence and astonishment, can for most part only symbol it in dumb-show;
      [Pufendorf <i>(Rer. Brandenb.</i> lib. iv.? 16, p. 213), and many others,
      are in this case. Tobias Pfanner <i>(Historia Pacis Westphalicae,</i> lib.
      i.? 9, p. 26) is explicit: <i>"Neque, ut infida regnandi societas est,
      Brandenburgio et Neoburgio diu conveniebat; eorumque jurgia, cum
      matrimonii faedere pacari posse propinqui ipsorum credidissent, acrius
      ezarsere; inter epulas, quibus futurum generum Septemvir</i> (the
      "Sevensman," or Elector, "One of The Seven") <i>excipiebat, hujus enim
      filia Wolfgango sperabatur, ob nescio quos sermones eo inter utrumque
      altercalione provecta, ut Elector irae impotestior, nulla dignitatis,
      hospitii, cognationis, affinitatisve verecundia cohibitus, intenderit
      Neoburgio manus, et contra tendentis os verberaverit. Ita, quae apud
      concordes vincula caritatis, incitamenta irarum apud infensos erant."</i>
      (Cited in Kohler, <i>Munzbelustiqungen,</i> xxi. 341; who refers also to
      Levassor, <i>Histoire de Louis XII.)</i>&mdash;Pauli (iii. 542) bedomes
      qnite vaporous.] a slap that had important consequences in this world.
    </p>
    <p>
      For now Wolfgang Wilhelm, flaming off in never-imagined vengeance, posted
      straight to Munchen, to Max of Bavaria there; declared himself convinced,
      or nearly so, of the Roman-Catholic Religion; wooed, and in a few weeks
      (10th November, 1613) wedded Max's younger Sister; and soon after, at
      Dusseldorf, pompously professed such his blessed change of Belief,&mdash;with
      immense flourish of trumpeting, and jubilant pamphleteering, from Holy
      Church. [Kohler, ubi supra.] His poor old Father, the devoutest of
      Protestants, wailed aloud his "Ichabod! the glory is departed!"&mdash;holding
      "weekly fast and humiliation" ever after,&mdash;and died in few months of
      a broken heart. The Catholic League has now a new Member on those terms.
    </p>
    <p>
      And on the other hand, Johann Sigismund, nearly with the like haste (25th
      December, 1613), declared himself convinced of Calvinism, his younger
      Brother's creed; [Pauli, iii. 546.]&mdash;which continues ever since the
      Brandenburg Court-creed, that of the People being mostly Lutheran. Men
      said, it was to please the Dutch, to please the Julichers, most of whom
      are Calvinist. Apologetic Pauli is elaborate, but inconclusive. It was
      very ill taken at Berlin, where even popular riot arose on the matter. In
      Prussia too it had its drawbacks. [Ib. iii. 544; Michaelis, i. 349.]
    </p>
    <p>
      And now, all being full of mutation, rearrangement and infinite rumor,
      there marched next year (1614), on slight pretext, resting on great
      suspicions, Spanish troops into the Julich-Cleve country, and,
      countenanced by Neuburg, began seizing garrisons there. Whereupon Dutch
      troops likewise marched, countenanced by Brandenburg, and occupied other
      fortresses and garrisons: and so, in every strong-place, these were either
      Papist-Spaniards or Calvinist-Dutch; who stood there, fronting one
      another, and could not by treatying be got out again;&mdash;like clouds
      positively electric VERSUS clouds negatively. As indeed was getting to be
      the case of Germany in general; case fatally visible in every Province,
      Principality and Parish there: till a thunder-storm, and succession of
      thunder-storms, of Thirty Years' continuance, broke out. Of which these
      huge rumors and mutations, and menacings of war, springing out of that
      final colloquy and slap in the face, are to be taken as the THIRD
      premonitory Symptom. Spaniards and Dutch stand electrically fronting one
      another in Cleve for seven years, till their Truce is out, before they
      clash together; Germany does not wait so long by a couple of years.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      SYMPTOM FOURTH, AND CATASTROPHE UPON THE HEELS OF IT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Five years more (1618), and there will have come a FOURTH Symptom, biggest
      of all, rapidly consummating the process;&mdash;Symptom still famed, of
      the following external figure: Three Official Gentlemen descending from a
      window in the Castle of Prag: hurled out by impatient Bohemian
      Protestantism, a depth of seventy feet,&mdash;happily only into dung, and
      without loss of life. From which follows a "King of Bohemia" elected
      there, King not unknown to us;&mdash;"thunder-clouds" all in one huge
      clash, and the "continent of sour smoke" blazing all into a continent of
      thunderous fire: THIRTY-YEARS WAR, as they now call it! Such a
      conflagration as poor Germany never saw before or since.
    </p>
    <p>
      These were the FOUR preliminary SYMPTOMS of that dismal business. "As to
      the primary CAUSES of it," says one of my Authorities, "these lie deep,
      deep almost as those of Original Sin. But the proximate causes seem to me
      to have been these two: FIRST, That the Jesuit-Priests and Principalities
      had vowed and resolved to have, by God's help and by the Devil's (this was
      the peculiarity of it), Europe made Orthodox again: and then SECONDLY, The
      fact that a Max of Bavaria existed at that time, whose fiery character,
      cunning but rash head, and fanatically Papist heart disposed him to
      attempt that enterprise, him with such resources and capacities, under
      their bad guidance."
    </p>
    <p>
      Johann Sigismund did many swift decisive strokes of business in his time,
      businesses of extensive and important nature; but this of the slap to
      Neuburg has stuck best in the idle memory of mankind. Dusseldorf, Year
      1613: it was precisely in the time when that same Friedrioh, not yet by
      any means "King of Bohemia," but already Kur-Pfalz (Cousin of this
      Neuburg, and head man of the Protestants), was over here in England, on a
      fine errand;&mdash;namely, had married the fair Elizabeth (14th February,
      1613), James the First's Princess; "Goody Palsgrave," as her Mother
      floutingly called her, not liking the connection. What kind of a "King of
      Bohemia" this Friedrich made, five or six years after, and what sea of
      troubles he and his entered into, we know; the "WINTER-KONIG"
      (Winter-King, fallen in times of FROST, or built of mere frost, a
      SNOW-king altogether soluble again) is the name he gets in German
      Histories. But here is another hook to hang Chronology upon.
    </p>
    <p>
      This brief Bohemian Kingship had not yet exploded on the Weissenberg of
      Prag, [Battle there, Sunday 8th November, 1620.] when old Sir Henry Wotton
      being sent as Ambassador "to LIE abroad" (as he wittily called it, to his
      cost) in that Business, saw, in the City of Lintz in the picturesque green
      country by the shores of the Donau there, an ingenious person, who is now
      recognizable as one of the remarkablest of mankind, Mr. John Kepler,
      namely: Keplar as Wotton writes him; addressing the great Lord Bacon
      (unhappily without strict date of any kind) on that among other subjects.
      Mr. John's now ever-memorable watching of those <i> Motions of the Star
      Mars,</i> [<i>De Motibus Stellae Martis;</i> Prag, 1609.] with
      "calculations repeated seventy times," and also with Discovery of the
      Planetary Laws of this Universe, some, ten years ago, appears to be
      unknown to Wotton and Bacon; but there is something else of Mr. John's
      devising [It seems, Baptista Porta (of Naples, dead some years before)
      must have given him the essential hint,&mdash;of whom, or whose hint, Mr.
      John does not happen to inform his Excellency at present.] which deserves
      attention from an Instaurator of Philosophy:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "He hath a little black Tent (of what stuff is not much importing)," says
      the Ambassador, "which he can suddenly set up where he will in a Field;
      and it is convertible (like a windmill) to all quarters at pleasure;
      capable of not much more than one man, as I conceive, and perhaps at no
      great ease; exactly close and dark,&mdash;save at one hole, about an inch
      and a half in the diameter, to which he applies a long perspective Trunk,
      with the convex glass fitted to the said hole, and the concave taken out
      at the other end, which extendeth to about the middle of this erected
      Tent: through which the visible radiations of all the Objects without are
      intromitted, falling upon a Paper, which is accommodated to receive them;
      and so he traceth them with his pen in their natural appearance; turning
      his little Tent round by degrees, till he hath designed the whole Aspect
      of the Field." [<i>Reliqui Wottonianae,</i> (london 1672), p. 300.]&mdash;In
      fact he hath a CAMERA OBSCURA, and is exhibiting the same for the
      delectation of Imperial gentlemen lounging that way. Mr. John invents such
      toys, writes almanacs, practises medicine, for good reasons; his
      encouragement from the Holy Roman Empire and mankind being only a pension
      of 18 pounds a year, and that hardly ever paid. An ingenious person,
      truly, if there ever was one among Adam's Posterity. Just turned of fifty
      and ill off for cash. This glimpse of him, in his little black tent with
      perspective glasses, while the Thirty-Years War blazes out, is welcome as
      a date.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      WHAT BECAME OF THE CLEVE-JULICH HERITAGE, AND OF THE PREUSSEN ONE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In the Cleve Duchies joint government had now become more difficult than
      ever: but it had to be persisted in,&mdash;under mutual offences,
      suspicions and outbreaks hardly repressed;&mdash;no final Bargain of
      Settlement proving by any method possible. Treaties enough, and
      conferences and pleadings, manifestoings:&mdash;Could not some painful
      German collector of Statistics try to give us the approximate quantity of
      impracticable treaties, futile conferences, manifestoes correspondences;
      in brief, some authentical cipher (say in round millions) of idle Words
      spoken by official human creatures and approximately (in square miles) the
      extent of Law Stationery and other Paper written, first and last, about
      this Controversy of the Cleve Duchies? In that form it might have a
      momentary interest.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the Winter-King's explosion took place, [Crowned at Prag, 4th
      November N.S. 1619; beaten to ruin there, and obliged to gallop (almost
      before dinner done), Sunday, 8th November, 1620.] and his own unfortunate
      Pfalz (Palatinate) became the theatre of war (Tilly, Spinola, VERSUS
      Pfalzers, English, Dutch), involving all the neighboring regions,
      Cleve-Julich did not escape its fate. The Spaniards and the Dutch, who had
      long sat in gloomy armed-truce, occupying with obstinate precaution the
      main Fortresses of these Julich-Cleve countries, did now straightway,
      their Twelve-Years' truce being out (1621), [Pauli, vi. 578-580.] fall to
      fighting and besieging one another there; the huge War, which proved of
      Thirty Years, being now all ablaze. What the country suffered in the
      interim may be imagined.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1624, in pity to all parties, some attempt at practical Division of the
      Territory was again made: Neuburg to have Berg and Julich, Brandenburg to
      have Cleve, Mark, Ravensburg and the minor appurtenances: and Treaty to
      that effect was got signed (11th May, 1624). But it was not well kept, nor
      could be; and the statistic cipher of new treaties, manifestoes,
      conferences, and approximate written area of Law-Paper goes on increasing.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was not till forty-two years after, in 1666, as will be more minutely
      noticeable by and by, that an effective partition could be practically
      brought about. Nor in this state was the Lawsuit by any means ended,&mdash;as
      we shall wearisomely see, in times long following that. In fact there
      never was, in the German Chanceries or out of them, such a Lawsuit, Armed
      or Wigged, as this of the Cleve Duchies first and last. And the sentence
      was not practically given, till the Congress of Vienna (1815) in our own
      day gave it; and the thing Johann Sigismund had claimed legally in 1609
      was actually handed over to Johann Sigismund's Descendant in the seventh
      generation, after two hundred and six years. Handed over to him then,&mdash;and
      a liberal rate of interest allowed. These litigated Duchies are now the
      Prussian Province Julich-Berg-Cleve, and the nucleus of Prussia's
      possessions in the Rhine country.
    </p>
    <p>
      A year before Johann Sigismund's death, Albert Friedrich, the poor
      eclipsed Duke of Prussia, died (8th August, 1618): upon which our swift
      Kurfurst, not without need of his dexterities there too, got peaceable
      possession of Prussia;&mdash;nor has his Family lost hold of that, up to
      the present time. Next year (23d December, 1619), he himself closed a
      swift busy life (labor enough in it for him perhaps, though only an age of
      forty-nine); and sank to his long rest, his works following him,&mdash;unalterable
      thenceforth, not unfruitful some of them.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XV. &mdash; TENTH KURFURST, GEORGE WILHELM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      By far the unluckiest of these Electors, whether the most unworthy of them
      or not, was George Wilhelm, Tenth Elector, who now succeeded Johann
      Sigismund his Father. The Father's eyes had closed when this great flame
      was breaking out; and the Son's days were all spent amid the hot ashes and
      fierce blazings of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The position of Brandenburg during this sad Thirty-Years War was passive
      rather than active; distinguished only in the former way, and as far as
      possible from being glorious or victorious. Never since the Hohenzollerns
      came to that Country had Brandenburg such a time. Difficult to have mended
      it; impossible to have quite avoided it;&mdash;and Kurfurst George Wilhelm
      was not a man so superior to all his neighbors, that he could clearly see
      his way in such an element. The perfect or ideal course was clear: To have
      frankly drawn sword for his Religion and his Rights, so soon as the battle
      fairly opened; and to have fought for these same, till he got either them
      or died. Alas, that is easily said and written; but it is, for a George
      Wilhelm especially, difficult to do! His capability in all kinds was
      limited; his connections, with this side and that, were very intricate.
      Gustavus and the Winter-King were his Brothers-in-law; Gustavus wedded to
      his Sister, he to Winter-King's. His relations to Poland, feudal superior
      of Preussen, were delicate; and Gustavus was in deadly quarrel with
      Poland. And then Gustavus's sudden laying-hold of Pommern, which had just
      escaped from Wallenstein and the Kaiser? It must be granted, poor George
      Wilhelm's case demanded circumspectness.
    </p>
    <p>
      One can forgive him for declining the Bohemian-King speculation, though
      his Uncle of Jagerndorf and his Cousins of Liegnitz were so hearty and
      forward in it. Pardonable in him to decline the Bohemian speculation;&mdash;though
      surely it is very sad that he found himself so short of "butter and
      firewood" when the poor Ex-King, and his young Wife, then in a specially
      interesting state, came to take shelter with him! [Solltl <i>(Geschichte
      des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges,</i>&mdash;a trivial modern Book) gives a
      notable memorial from the Brandenburg RATHS, concerning these their
      difficulties of housekeeping. Their real object, we perceive, was to get
      rid of a Guest so dangerous as the Ex-King, under Ban of the Empire, had
      now become.] But when Gustavus landed, and flung out upon the winds such a
      banner as that of his,&mdash;truly it was required of a Protestant
      Governor of men to be able to read said banner in a certain degree. A
      Governor, not too IMperfect, would have recognized this Gustavus, what his
      purposes and likelihoods were; the feeling would have been, checked by due
      circumspectness: "Up, my men, let us follow this man; let us live and die
      in the Cause this man goes for! Live otherwise with honor, or die
      otherwise with honor, we cannot, in the pass things have come to!"&mdash;And
      thus, at the very worst, Brandenburg would have had only one class of
      enemies to ravage it; and might have escaped with, arithmetically
      speaking, HALF the harrying it got in that long Business.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Protestant Germany&mdash;sad shame to it, which proved lasting sorrow
      as well&mdash;was all alike torpid; Brandenburg not an exceptional case.
      No Prince stood up as beseemed: or only one, and he not a great one;
      Landgraf Wilhelm of Hessen, who, and his brave Widow after him, seemed
      always to know what hour it was. Wilhelm of Hessen all along;&mdash;and a
      few wild hands, Christian of Brunswick, Christian of Anhalt, Johann George
      of Jagerndorf, who stormed out tumultuously at first, but were soon blown
      away by the Tilly-Wallenstein TRADE-WINDS and regulated armaments:&mdash;the
      rest sat still, and tried all they could to keep out of harm's way. The
      "Evangelical Union" did a great deal of manifestoing, pathetic, indignant
      and other; held solemn Meetings at Heilbronn, old Sir Henry Wotton going
      as Ambassador to them; but never got any redress. Had the Evangelical
      Union shut up its inkhorns sooner; girt on its fighting-tools when the
      time came, and done some little execution with them then, instead of none
      at all,&mdash;we may fancy the Evangelical Union would have better
      discharged its function. It might have saved immense wretchedness to
      Germany. But its course went not that way.
    </p>
    <p>
      In fact, had there been no better Protestantism than that of Germany, all
      was over with Protestantism; and Max of Bavaria, with fanatical Ferdinand
      II. as Kaiser over him, and Father Lammerlein at his right hand and Father
      Hyacinth at his left, had got their own sweet way in this world. But
      Protestant Germany was not Protestant Europe, after all. Over seas there
      dwelt and reigned a certain King in Sweden; there farmed, and walked
      musing by the shores of the Ouse in Huntingdonshire, a certain man;&mdash;there
      was a Gustav Adolf over seas, an Oliver Cromwell over seas; and "a company
      of poor men" were found capable of taking Lucifer by the beard,&mdash;who
      accordingly, with his Lammerleins, Hyacinths, Habernfeldts and others, was
      forced to withdraw, after a tough struggle!&mdash;
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XVI. &mdash; THIRTY-YEARS WAR.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The enormous Thirty-Years War, most intricate of modern Occurrences in the
      domain of Dryasdust, divides itself, after some unravelling, into Three
      principal Acts or Epochs; in all of which, one after the other, our
      Kurfurst had an interest mounting progressively, but continuing to be a
      passive interest.
    </p>
    <p>
      Act FIRST goes from 1620 to 1624; and might be entitled "The Bohemian King
      Made and Demolished." Personally the Bohemian King was soon demolished.
      His Kingship may be said to have gone off by explosion; by one Fight,
      namely, done on the Weissenberg near Prag (Sunday, 8th November, 1620),
      while he sat at dinner in the City, the boom of the cannon coming in with
      interest upon his high guests and him. He had to run, in hot haste, that
      night, leaving many of his important papers,&mdash;and becomes a
      Winter-King. Winter-King's account was soon settled. But the extirpating
      of his Adherents, and capturing of his Hereditary Lands, Palatinate and
      Upper-Palatinate, took three years more. Hard fighting for the Palatinate;
      Tilly and Company against the "Evangelical-Union Troops, and the English
      under Sir Horace Vere." Evangelical-Union Troops, though marching about
      there, under an Uncle of our Kurfurst (Margraf Joachim Ernst, that lucky
      Anspach Uncle, founder of "the Line"), who professed some skill in
      soldiering, were a mere Picture of an Army; would only "observe," and
      would not fight at all. So that the whole fighting fell to Sir Horace and
      his poor handful of English; of whose grim posture "in Frankendale"
      [Frankenthal, a little Town in the Palatinate, N.W. from Mannheim a short
      way.] and other Strongholds, for months long, there is talk enough in the
      old English History-Books.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then there were certain stern War-Captains, who rallied from the
      Weissenberg Defeat:&mdash;Christian of Brunswick, the chief of them,
      titular Bishop of Halberstadt, a high-flown, fiery young fellow, of
      terrible fighting gifts; he flamed up considerably, with "the Queen of
      Bohemia's glove stuck in his Hat:" "Bright Lady, it shall stick there,
      till I get you your own again, or die!" [1621-1623, age not yet
      twenty-five; died (by poison), 1626, having again become supremely
      important just then. <i>"Gottes Freund, der Pfaffen Feind</i> (God's
      Friend, Priests' Foe);" <i>"Alles fur Ruhm und Ihr (All for Glory and
      Her,"</i>&mdash;the bright Elizabeth, become Ex-Queen), were mottoes of
      his.&mdash;Buddaus IN VOCE (i. 649); Michaelis, i. 110.] Christian of
      Brunswick, George of Jagerndorf (our Kurfurst's Uncle), Count Mansfeldt
      and others, made stormy fight once and again, hanging upon this central
      "Frankendale" Business, till they and it became hopeless. For the Kaiser
      and his Jesuits were not in doubt; a Kaiser very proud, unscrupulous; now
      clearly superior in force,&mdash;and all along of great superiority in
      fraud.
    </p>
    <p>
      Christian of Brunswick, Johann George and Mansfeldt were got rid of:
      Christian by poison; Johann George and Mansfeldt by other methods,&mdash;chiefly
      by playing upon poor King James of England, and leading him by the long
      nose he was found to have. The Palatinate became the Kaiser's for the time
      being; Upper Palatinate (OBER-PFALZ) Duke Max of Bavaria, lying contiguous
      to it, had easily taken. "Incorporate the Ober-Pfalz with your Bavaria,"
      said the Kaiser, "you, illustrious, thrice-serviceable Max! And let
      Lammerlein and Hyacinth, with their Gospel of Ignatius, loose upon it.
      Nay, as a still richer reward, be yours the forfeited KUR (Electorship) of
      this mad Kur-Pfalz, or Winter-King. I will hold his Rhine-Lands, his
      UNTER-PFALZ: his Electorship and OBER-PFALZ, I say, are yours, Duke,
      henceforth KURFURST Maximilian!" [Kohler, <i>Reichs-Historie,</i> p. 520.]
      Which was a hard saying in the ears of Brandenburg, Saxony and the other
      Five, and of the Reich in general; but they had all to comply, after
      wincing. For the Kaiser proceeded with a high hand. He had put the Ex-King
      under Ban of the Empire (never asking "the Empire" about it); put his
      Three principal Adherents, Johann George of Jagerndorf one of them, Prince
      Christian of Anhalt (once captain at the Siege of Juliers) another,
      likewise under Ban of the Empire; [22d Jan. 1621 (ibid. p. 518).] and in
      short had flung about, and was flinging, his thunder-bolts in a very
      Olympian manner. Under all which, what could Brandenburg and the others
      do; but whimper some trembling protest, "Clear against Law!"&mdash;and sit
      obedient? The Evangelical Union did not now any more than formerly draw
      out its fighting-tools. In fact, the Evangelical Union now fairly
      dissolved itself; melted into a deliquium of terror under these
      thunder-bolts that were flying, and was no more heard of in the world.&mdash;
    </p>
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    <h2>
      SECOND ACT, OR EPOCH, 1624-1629. A SECOND UNCLE PUT TO THE BAN, AND
      POMMERN SNATCHED AWAY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Except in the "NETHER-SAXON CIRCLE" (distant Northwest region, with its
      Hanover, Mecklenburg, with its rich Hamburgs, Lubecks, Magdeburgs, all
      Protestant, and abutting on the Protestant North), trembling Germany lay
      ridden over as the Kaiser willed. Foreign League got up by France, King
      James, Christian IV. of Denmark (James's Brother-in-law, with whom he had
      such "drinking" in Somerset House, long ago, on Christian's visit hither
      [Old Histories of James I. (Wilson, &amp;c.)]), went to water, or worse.
      Only the "Nether-Saxon Circle" showed some life; was levying an army; and
      had appointed Christian of Brunswick its Captain, till he was got
      poisoned;&mdash;upon which the drinking King of Denmark took the command.
    </p>
    <p>
      Act SECOND goes from 1624 to 1627 or even 1629; and contains drunken
      Christian's Exploits. Which were unfortunate, almost to the ruin of
      Denmark itself, as well as of the Nether-Saxon Circle;&mdash;till in the
      latter of these years he slightly rallied, and got a supportable Peace
      granted him (Peace of Lubeck, 1629); after which he sits quiet,
      contemplative, with an evil eye upon Sweden now and then. The beatings he
      got, in quite regular succession, from Tilly and Consorts, are not worth
      mentioning: the only thing one now remembers of him is his alarming
      accident on the ramparts of Hameln, just at the opening of these
      Campaigns. At Hameln, which was to be a strong post, drunken Christian
      rode out once, on a summer afternoon (1624), to see that the ramparts were
      all right, or getting all right;&mdash;and tumbled, horse and self (self
      in liquor, it is thought), in an ominous alarming manner. Taken up for
      dead;&mdash;nay some of the vague Histories seem to think he was really
      dead:&mdash;but he lived to be often beaten after that, and had many moist
      years more.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our Kurfurst had another Uncle put to the Ban in this Second Act,&mdash;Christian
      Wilhelm Archbishop of Magdeburg, "for assisting the Danish King;" nor was
      Ban all the ruin that fell on this poor Archbishop. What could an
      unfortunate Kurfurst do, but tremble and obey? There was still a worse
      smart got by our poor Kurfurst out of Act Second; the glaring injustice
      done him in Pommern.
    </p>
    <p>
      Does the reader remember that scene in the High Church of Stettin a
      hundred and fifty years ago? How the Burgermeister threw sword and helmet
      into the grave of the last Duke of Pommern-Stettin there; and a forward
      Citizen picked them out again in favor of a Collateral Branch? Never
      since, any more than then, could Brandenburg get Pommern according to
      claim. Collateral Branch, in spite of Friedrich Ironteeth, in spite even
      of Albert Achilles and some fighting of his; contrived, by pleading at the
      Diets and stirring up noise, to maintain its pretensions: and Treaties
      without end ensued, as usual; Treaties refreshed and new-signed by every
      Successor of Albert, to a wearisome degree. The sum of which always was:
      "Pommern does actual homage to Brandenburg; vassal of Brandenburg;&mdash;and
      falls home to it, if the now Extant Line go extinct." Nay there is an
      ERBVERBRUDERUNG (Heritage-Fraternity) over and above, established this
      long time, and wearisomely renewed at every new Accession. Hundreds of
      Treaties, oppressive to think of:&mdash;and now the last Duke, old
      Bogislaus, is here, without hope of children; and the fruit of all that
      haggling, actual Pommern to wit, will at last fall home? Alas, no; far
      otherwise.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the Kaiser having so triumphantly swept off the Winter-King, and
      Christian IV. in the rear of him, and got Germany ready for converting to
      Orthodoxy,&mdash;wished now to have some hold of the Seaboard, thereby to
      punish Denmark; nay thereby, as is hoped, to extend the blessings of
      Orthodoxy into England, Sweden, Holland, and the other Heretic States, in
      due time. For our plans go far! This is the Kaiser's fixed wish, rising to
      the rank of hope now and then: all Europe shall become Papist again by the
      help of God and the Devil. So the Kaiser, on hardly any pretext, seized
      Mecklenburg from the Proprietors,&mdash;"Traitors, how durst you join
      Danish Christian?"&mdash;and made Wallenstein Duke of it. Duke of
      Mecklenburg, "Admiral of the EAST SEA (Baltic);" and set to "building
      ships of war in Rostock,"&mdash;his plans going far. [Kohler, <i>Reichs-Historie,</i>
      pp, 524, 525.] This done, he seized Pommern, which also is a fine
      Sea-country,&mdash;stirring up Max of Bavaria to make some idle pretence
      to Pommern, that so the Kaiser might seize it "in sequestration till
      decided on." Under which hard treatment, George Wilhelm had to sit sad and
      silent,&mdash;though the Stralsunders would not. Hence the world-famous
      Siege of Stralsund (1628); fierce Wallenstein declaring, "I will have the
      Town, if it hung by a chain from Heaven;" but finding he could not get it;
      owing to the Swedish succor, to the stubborn temper prevalent among the
      Townsfolk, and also greatly to the rains and peat-bogs.
    </p>
    <p>
      A second Uncle of George Wilhelm's, that unlucky Archbishop of Magdeburg
      above mentioned, the Kaiser, once more by his own arbitrary will, put
      under Ban of the Empire, in this Second Act: "Traitor, how durst you join
      with the Danes?" The result of which was Tilly's Sack of Magdeburg
      (10-12th May, 1631), a transaction never forgettable by mankind.&mdash;As
      for Pommern, Gustav Adolf, on his intervening in these matters, landed
      there: Pommern was now seized by Gustav Adolf, as a landing-place and
      place-of-arms, indispensable for Sweden in the present emergency; and was
      so held thenceforth. Pommern will not fall to George Wilhelm at this time.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THIRD ACT, AND WHAT THE KURFURST SUFFERED IN IT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      And now we are at Act THIRD:&mdash;Landing of Gustav Adolf "in the Isle of
      Usedom, 24th June, 1630," and onward for Eighteen Years till the Peace of
      Westphalia, in 1648;&mdash;on which, as probably better known to the
      reader, we will not here go into details. In this Third Act too, George
      Wilhelm followed his old scheme, peace at any price;&mdash;as shy of
      Gustav as he had been of other Champions of the Cause; and except
      complaining, petitioning and manifestoing, studiously did nothing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor man, it was his fate to stand in the range of these huge collisions,&mdash;Bridge
      of Dessau, Siege of Stralsund, Sack of Magdeburg, Battle of Leipzig,&mdash;where
      the Titans were bowling rocks at one another; and he hoped, by dexterous
      skipping, to escape share of the game. To keep well with his Kaiser,&mdash;and
      such a Kaiser to Germany and to him,&mdash;this, for George Wilhelm, was
      always the first commandment. If the Kaiser confiscate your Uncles,
      against law; seize your Pommern; rob you on the public highways,&mdash;George
      Wilhelm, even in such case, is full of dubitations. Nay his
      Prime-Minister, one Schwartzenberg, a Catholic, an Austrian Official at
      one time,&mdash;Progenitor of the Austrian Schwartzenbergs that now are,&mdash;was
      secretly in the Kaiser's interest, and is even thought to have been in the
      Kaiser's pay, all along.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gustav, at his first landing, had seized Pommern, and swept it clear of
      Austrians, for himself and for his own wants; not too regardful of George
      Wilhelm's claims on it. He cleared out Frankfurt-on-Oder, Custrin and
      other Brandenburg Towns, in a similar manner,&mdash;by cannon and storm,
      when needful;&mdash;drove the Imperialists and Tilly forth of these
      countries. Advancing, next year, to save Magdeburg, now shrieking under
      Tilly's bombardment, Gustav insisted on having, if not some bond of union
      from his Brother-in-law of Brandenburg, at least the temporary cession of
      two Places of War for himself, Spandau and Custrin, indispensable in any
      farther operation. Which cession Kurfurst George Wilhelm, though giving
      all his prayers to the Good Cause, could by no means grant. Gustav had to
      insist, with more and more emphasis; advancing at last, with military
      menace, upon Berlin itself. He was met by George Wilhelm and his Council,
      "in the woods of Copenick," short way to the east of that City: there
      George Wilhelm and his Council wandered about, sending messages,
      hopelessly consulting; saying among each other, <i>"Que faire; ils ont des
      canons,</i> what can one do; they have got cannon?" [<i>OEvres de Frederic
      le Grand</i> (Berlin, 1846-1856 et seqq.: <i>Memoires de Brandebourg</i>),
      i. 38. For the rest, Friedrich's Account of the Transaction is very loose
      and scanty: see Pauli (iv. 568) and his minute details.] For many hours
      so; round the inflexible Gustav,&mdash;who was there like a fixed
      milestone, and to all questions and comers had only one answer!&mdash;<i>"Que
      faire; ils ont des canons?"</i> This was the 3d May, 1631. This probably
      is about the nadir-point of the Brandenburg-Hohenzollern History. The
      little Friedrich, who became Frederick the Great, in writing of it, has a
      certain grim banter in his tone; and looks rather with mockery on the
      perplexities of his poor Ancestor, so fatally ignorant of the time of day
      it had now become.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the whole, George Wilhelm did what is to be called nothing, in the
      Thirty-Years War; his function was only that of suffering. He followed
      always the bad lead of Johann George, Elector of Saxony; a man of no
      strength, devoutness or adequate human worth; who proved, on these
      negative grounds, and without flagrancy of positive badness, an
      unspeakable curse to Germany. Not till the Kaiser fulminated forth his
      Restitution-Edict, and showed he was in earnest about it (1629-1631),
      "Restore to our Holy Church what you have taken from her since the Peace
      of Passau!"&mdash;could this Johann George prevail upon himself to join
      Sweden, or even to do other than hate it for reasons he saw. Seized by the
      throat in this manner, and ordered to DELIVER, Kur-Sachsen did, and
      Brandenburg along with him, make Treaty with the Swede. [8th February,
      1631 (Kohler, <i>Reichs-Historie,</i> pp. 526-531.) in consequence of
      which they two, some months after, by way of co-operating with Gustav on
      his great march Vienna-ward, sent an invading force into Bohemia,
      Brandenburg contributing some poor 3,000 to it; who took Prag, and some
      other open Towns; but "did almost nothing there," say the Histories,
      "except dine and drink." It is clear enough they were instantly scattered
      home [October, 1633 (Stenzel, i. 503).) at the first glimpse of
      Wallenstein dawning on the horizon again in those parts.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gustav having vanished (Field of Lutzen, 6th November, 1632 [Pauli, iv.
      576.]), Oxenstiern, with his high attitude, and "Presidency" of the "Union
      of Heilbronn," was rather an offence to Kur-Sachsen, who used to be
      foremost man on such occasions. Kur-Sachsen broke away again; made his
      Peace of Prag, [1635, 20th May (Stenzel, i. 513).] whom Brandenburg again
      followed; Brandenburg and gradually all the others, except the noble
      Wilhelm of Hessen-Cassel alone. Miserable Peace; bit of Chaos clouted up,
      and done over with Official varnish;&mdash;which proved to be the signal
      for continuing the War beyond visible limits, and rendering peace
      impossible.
    </p>
    <p>
      After this, George Wilhelm retires from the scene; lives in Custrin
      mainly; mere miserable days, which shall be invisible to us. He died in
      1640; and, except producing an active brave Son very unlike himself, did
      nothing considerable in the world. <i>"Que faire; ils ont des canons!"</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the innumerable sanguinary tusslings of this War are counted Three
      great Battles, Leipzig, Lutzen, Nordlingen. Under one great Captain,
      Swedish Gustav, and the two or three other considerable Captains, who
      appeared in it, high passages of furious valor, of fine strategy and
      tactic, are on record. But on the whole, the grand weapon in it, and
      towards the latter times the exclusive one, was Hunger. The opposing
      Armies tried to starve one another; at lowest, tried each not to starve.
      Each trying to eat the country, or at any rate to leave nothing eatable in
      it: what that will mean for the country, we may consider. As the Armies
      too frequently, and the Kaiser's Armies habitually, lived without
      commissariat, often enough without pay, all horrors of war and of being a
      seat of war, that have been since heard of, are poor to those then
      practised. The detail of which is still horrible to read. Germany, in all
      eatable quarters of it, had to undergo the process;&mdash;tortured, torn
      to pieces, wrecked, and brayed as in a mortar under the iron mace of war.
      [Curious incidental details of the state it was reduced to, in the Rhine
      and Danube Countries, turn up in the Earl of Arundel and Surrey's TRAVELS
      ("Arundel of the Marbles") as <i>Ambassador Extraordinary to the Emperor
      Ferdinando II. in 1636</i> (a small Volume, or Pamphlet, London, 1637).]
      Brandenburg saw its towns sieged and sacked, its country populations
      driven to despair, by the one party and the other. Three times,&mdash;first
      in the Wallenstein Mecklenburg period, while fire and sword were the
      weapons, and again, twice over, in the ultimate stages of the struggle,
      when starvation had become the method&mdash;Brandenburg fell to be the
      principal theatre of conflict, where all forms of the dismal were at their
      height. In 1638, three years after that precious "Peace of Prag," the
      Swedes (Banier VERSUS Gallas) starving out the Imperialists in those
      Northwestern parts, the ravages of the starving Gallas and his
      Imperialists excelled all precedent; and the "famine about Tangermunde had
      risen so high that men ate human flesh, nay human creatures ate their own
      children." [1638: Pauli, iv. 604.] <i>"Que faire; ils ont des canons!</i>"
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XVII. &mdash; DUCHY OF JAGERNDORF.
    </h2>
    <p>
      This unfortunate George Wilhelm failed in getting Pommern when due;
      Pommern, firmly held by the Swedes, was far from him. But that was not the
      only loss of territory he had. Jagerndorf,&mdash;we have heard of Johann
      George of Jagerndorf, Uncle of this George Wilhelm, how old Joachim
      Friedrich put him into Jagerndorf, long since, when it fell home to the
      Electoral House. Jagerndorf is now lost; Johann George is under
      REICHS-ACHT (Ban of Empire), ever since the Winter-King's explosion, and
      the thunder-bolts that followed; and wanders landless;&mdash;nay he is
      long since dead, and has six feet of earth for a territory, far away in
      Transylvania, or the RIESEN-GEBIRGE (Giant Mountains) somewhere.
      Concerning whom a word now.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      DUKE OF JAGERNDORF, ELECTOR'S UNCLE, IS PUT UNDER BAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Johann George, a frank-hearted valiant man, concerning whom only good
      actions, and no bad one, are on record, had notable troubles in the world;
      bad troubles to begin with, and worse to end in. He was second Son of
      Kurfurst Joachim Friedrich, who had meant him for the Church. [1577-1624:
      Rentsch, p. 486.] The young fellow was Coadjutor of Strasburg, almost from
      the time of getting into short-clothes. He was then, still very young,
      elected Bishop there (1592); Bishop of Strasburg,&mdash;but only by the
      Protestant part of the Canons; the Catholic part, unable to submit longer,
      and thinking it a good time for revolt against a Protestant population and
      obstinately heterodox majority, elected another Bishop,&mdash;one "Karl of
      the House of Lorraine;" and there came to be dispute, and came even to be
      fighting needed. Fighting; which prudent Papa would not enter into, except
      faintly at second-hand, through the Anspach Cousins, or others that were
      in the humor. Troublesome times for the young man; which lasted a dozen
      years or more. At last a Bargain was made (1604); Protestant and Catholic
      Canons splitting the difference in some way; and the House of Lorraine
      paying Johann George a great deal of money to go home again. [<i>OEuvres
      completes de Voltaire,</i> 97 vols. (Paris, 1825-1832), xxxiii. 284.&mdash;Kohler
      (<i>Reichs-Historie,</i> p. 487) gives the authentic particulars.] Poor
      Johann George came out of it in that way; not second-best, think several.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was then (1606) put into Jagerndorf, which had just fallen vacant; our
      excellent fat friend, George Friedrich of Anspach, Administrator of
      Preussen, having lately died, and left it vacant, as we saw. George
      Friedrich's death yielded fine apanages, three of them in all: FIRST
      Anspach, SECOND, Baireuth, and this THIRD of Jagerndorf for a still
      younger Brother. There was still a fourth younger Brother, Uncle of George
      Wilhelm; Archbishop of Magdeburg this one; who also, as we have seen, got
      into REICHS-ACHT, into deep trouble in the Thirty-Years War. He was in
      Tilly's thrice-murderous Storm of Magdeburg (10th May, 1631); was
      captured, tumbled about by the wild soldiery, and nearly killed there.
      Poor man, with his mitre and rochets left in such a state! In the end he
      even became CATHOLIC,&mdash;from conviction, as was evident, and
      bewilderment of mind;&mdash;and lived in Austria on a pension;
      occasionally publishing polemical pamphlets. [1587; 1628; 1665 (Rentsch,
      pp. 905-910).]&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      As to Johann George, he much repaired and beautified the Castle of
      Jagerndorf, says Rentsch: but he unfortunately went ahead into the
      Winter-King's adventure; which, in that sad battle of the Weissenberg,
      made total shipwreck of itself, drawing Johann George and much else along
      with it. Johann George was straightway tyrannously put to the Ban,
      forfeited of life and lands: [22d January, 1621 (Kohler, <i>Reichs-Historie,</i>
      p. 518: and rectify Hubner, t. 178).] Johann George disowned the said Ban;
      stood out fiercely for self and Winter-King; and did good fighting in the
      Silesian strongholds and mountain-passes: but was forced to seek temporary
      shelter in SIEBENBURGEN (Transylvania); and died far away, in a year or
      two (1624), while returning to try it again. Sleeps, I think, in the
      "Jablunka Pass;" the dumb Giant-Mountains (RIESEN-GEBIRGE) shrouding up
      his sad shipwreck and him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jagerndorf was thus seized by Ferdinand II. of the House of Hapsburg; and
      though it was contrary to all law that the Kaiser should keep it,&mdash;poor
      Johann George having left Sons very innocent of treason, and Brothers, and
      an Electoral. Nephew, very innocent,&mdash;to whom, by old compacts and
      new, the Heritage in defect of him was to fall,&mdash;neither Kaiser
      Ferdinand II. nor Kaiser Ferdinand III. nor any Kaiser would let go the
      hold; but kept Jagerndorf fast clenched, deaf to all pleadings, and
      monitions of gods or men. Till at length, in the fourth generation
      afterwards, one "Friedrich the Second," not unknown to us,&mdash;a sharp
      little man, little in stature, but large in faculty and renown, who is now
      called "Frederick the Great,"&mdash;clutched hold of the Imperial fist (so
      to speak), seizing his opportunity in 1740; and so wrenched and twisted
      said close fist, that not only Jagerndorf dropped out of it, but the whole
      of Silesia along with Jagerndorf, there being other claims withal. And the
      account was at last settled, with compound interest,&mdash;as in fact such
      accounts are sure to be, one way or other. And so we leave Johann George
      among the dumb Giant-Mountains again.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XVIII. &mdash; FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF
      THE SERIES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Brandenburg had again sunk very low under the Tenth Elector, in the
      unutterable troubles of the times. But it was gloriously raised up again
      by his Son Friedrich Wilhelm, who succeeded in 1640. This is he whom they
      call the "Great Elector (GROSSE KURFURST);" of whom there is much writing
      and celebrating in Prussian Books. As for the epithet, it is not uncommon
      among petty German populations, and many times does not mean too much:
      thus Max of Bavaria, with his Jesuit Lambkins and Hyacinths, is, by
      Bavarians, called "Maximilian the Great." Friedrich Wilhelm, both by his
      intrinsic qualities and the success he met with, deserves it better than
      most. His success, if we look where he started and where he ended, was
      beyond that of any other man in his day. He found Brandenburg annihilated,
      and he left Brandenburg sound and flourishing; a great country, or already
      on the way towards greatness. Undoubtedly a most rapid, clear-eyed, active
      man. There was a stroke in him swift as lightning, well-aimed mostly, and
      of a respectable weight, withal; which shattered asunder a whole world of
      impediments for him, by assiduous repetition of it for fifty years. [1620;
      1640; 1688.]
    </p>
    <p>
      There hardly ever came to sovereign power a young man of twenty under more
      distressing, hopeless-looking circumstances. Political significance
      Brandenburg had none; a mere Protestant appendage dragged about by a
      Papist Kaiser. His Father's Prime-Minister, as we have seen, was in the
      interest of his enemies; not Brandenburg's servant, but Austria's. The
      very Commandants of his Fortresses, Commandant of Spandau more especially,
      refused to obey Friedrich Wilhelm, on his accession; "were bound to obey
      the Kaiser in the first place." He had to proceed softly as well as
      swiftly; with the most delicate hand to get him of Spandau by the collar,
      and put him under lock-and-key, him as a warning to others.
    </p>
    <p>
      For twenty years past, Brandenburg had been scoured by hostile armies,
      which, especially the Kaiser's part of which, committed outrages new in
      human history. In a year or two hence, Brandenburg became again the
      theatre of business; Austrian Gallas advancing thither again (1644), with
      intent "to shut up Torstenson and his Swedes in Jutland," where they had
      been chastising old Christian IV., now meddlesome again, for the last
      time, and never a good neighbor to Sweden. Gallas could by no means do
      what he intended: on the contrary, he had to run from Torstenson, what
      feet could do; was hunted, he and his MERODE-BRUDER (beautiful inventors
      of the "Marauding" Art), "till they pretty much all died (CREPERTIN),"
      says Kohler. [<i>Reichs-Historie,</i> p. 556; Pauli, v. 24.] No great loss
      to society, the death of these Artists: but we can fancy what their life,
      and especially what the process of their dying, may have cost poor
      Brandenburg again!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Friedrich Wilhelm's aim, in this as in other emergencies, was sun-clear to
      himself, but for most part dim to everybody else. He had to walk very
      warily, Sweden on one hand of him, suspicious Kaiser on the other; he had
      to wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words; and advance
      noiselessly by many circuits. More delicate operation could not be
      imagined. But advance he did: advance and arrive. With extraordinary
      talent, diligence and felicity the young man wound himself out of this
      first fatal position: got those foreign Armies pushed out of his Country,
      and kept them out. His first concern had been to find some vestige of
      revenue, to put that upon a clear footing; and by loans or otherwise to
      scrape a little ready money together. On the strength of which a small
      body of soldiers could be collected about him, and drilled into real
      ability to fight and obey. This as a basis: on this followed all manner of
      things: freedom from Swedish-Austrian invasions, as the first thing.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was himself, as appeared by and by, a fighter of the first quality,
      when it came to that: but never was willing to fight if he could help it.
      Preferred rather to shift, manoeuvre and negotiate; which he did in a most
      vigilant, adroit and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to have,
      and could maintain it, an Army of 24,000 men: among the best troops then
      in being. With or without his will, he was in all the great Wars of his
      time,&mdash;the time of Louis XIV., who kindled Europe four times over,
      thrice in our Kurfurst's day. The Kurfurst's Dominions, a long straggling
      country, reaching from Memel to Wesel, could hardly keep out of the way of
      any war that might rise. He made himself available, never against the good
      cause of Protestantism and German Freedom, yet always in the place and way
      where his own best advantage was to be had. Louis XIV. had often much need
      of him: still oftener, and more pressingly, had Kaiser Leopold, the little
      Gentleman "in scarlet stockings, with a red feather in his hat," whom Mr.
      Savage used to see majestically walking about, with Austrian lip that said
      nothing at all. [<i>A Compleat History of Germany,</i> by Mr. Savage (8vo,
      London, 1702), p. 553. Who this Mr. Savage was, we have no trace. Prefixed
      to the volume is the Portrait of a solid Gentleman of forty: gloomily
      polite, with ample wig and cravat,&mdash;in all likelihood some studious
      subaltern Diplomatist in the Succession War. His little Book is very lean
      and barren: but faithfully compiled,&mdash;and might have some
      illumination in it, where utter darkness is so prevalent. Most likely,
      Addison picked his story of the <i>Siege of Weinsberg</i> ("Women carrying
      out their Husbands on their back,"&mdash;one of his best SPECTATORS) out
      of this poor Book.] His 24,000 excellent fighting-men, thrown in at the
      right time, were often a thing that could turn the balance in great
      questions. They required to be allowed for at a high rate,&mdash;which he
      well knew how to adjust himself for exacting and securing always.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      WHAT BECAME OF POMMERN AT THE PEACE; FINAL GLANCE INTO CLEVE-JULICH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When the Peace of Westphalia (1648) concluded that Thirty-Years
      Conflagration, and swept the ashes of it into order again, Friedrich
      Wilhelm's right to Pommern was admitted by everybody: and well insisted on
      by himself: but right had to yield to reason of state, and he could not
      get it. The Swedes insisted on their expenses: the Swedes held Pommern,
      had all along held it,&mdash;in pawn, they said, for their expenses.
      Nothing for it but to give the Swedes the better half of Pommern.
      FORE-Pommern (so they call it, "Swedish Pomerania" thenceforth), which
      lies next the Sea: this, with some Towns and cuttings over and above, was
      Sweden's share: Friedrich Wilhelm had to put up with HINDER-Pommern,
      docked furthermore of the Town of Stettin, and of other valuable cuttings,
      in favor of Sweden. Much to Friedrich Wilhelm's grief and just anger,
      could he have helped it.
    </p>
    <p>
      They gave him Three secularized Bishoprics, Magdeburg, Halberstadt,
      Minden, with other small remnants, for compensation; and he had to be
      content with these for the present. But he never gave up the idea of
      Pommern: much of the effort of his life was spent upon recovering
      Fore-Pommern: thrice-eager upon that, whenever lawful opportunity offered.
      To no purpose then: he never could recover Swedish Pommern; only his late
      descendants, and that by slowish degrees, could recover it all. Readers
      remember that Burgermeister of Stettin, with the helmet and sword flung
      into the grave and picked out again:&mdash;and can judge whether
      Brandenburg got its good luck quite by lying in bed!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Once, and once only, he had a voluntary purpose towards War, and it
      remained a purpose only. Soon after the Peace of Westphalia, old
      Pfalz-Neuburg, the same who got the slap on the face, went into tyrannous
      proceedings against the Protestant part of his subjects in Julich-Cleve:
      who called to Friedrich Wilhelm for help. Friedrich Wilhelm, a zealous
      Protestant, made remonstrances, retaliations: ere long the thought struck
      him, "Suppose, backed by the Dutch, we threw out this fantastic old
      gentleman, his Papistries, and pretended claims and self, clear out of
      it?" This was Friedrich Wilhelm's thought; and he suddenly marched troops
      into the Territory, with that view. But Europe was in alarm, the Dutch
      grew faint: Friedrich Wilhelm saw it would not do. He had a conference
      with old Pfalz-Neuburg: "Young gentleman, we remember how your Grandfather
      made free with us and our august countenance! Nevertheless we&mdash;" In
      fine, the "statistic of Treaties" was increased by One: and there the
      matter rested till calmer times.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1666, as already said, an effective Partition of these litigated
      Territories was accomplished: Prussia to have the Duchy of Cleve-Proper,
      the Counties of Mark and Ravensburg, with other Patches and Pertinents:
      Neuburg, what was the better share, to have Julich Duchy and Berg Duchy.
      Furthermore, if either of the Lines failed, in no sort was a collateral to
      be admitted: but Brandenburg was to inherit Neuburg, or Neuburg
      Brandenburg, as the case might be. [Pauli, v. 120-129.] A clear Bargain
      this at last: and in the times that had come, it proved executable so far.
      But if the reader fancies the Lawsuit was at last out in this way, he will
      be a simple reader! In the days of our little Fritz, the Line of
      Pfalz-Neuburg was evidently ending: but that Brandenburg and not a
      collateral should succeed it, there lay the quarrel,&mdash;open still, as
      if it had never been shut: and we shall hear enough about it!&mdash;
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE GREAT KURFURST'S WARS: WHAT HE ACHIEVED IN WAR AND PEACE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Friedrich Wilhelm's first actual appearance in War, Polish-Swedish War
      (1655-1660), was involuntary in the highest degree: forced upon him for
      the sake of his Preussen, which bade fair to be lost or ruined, without
      blame of his or its. Nevertheless, here too he made his benefit of the
      affair. The big King of Sweden had a standing quarrel with his big Cousin
      of Poland, which broke out into hot War; little Preussen lay between them,
      and was like to be crushed in the collision. Swedish King was Karl Gustav,
      Christina's Cousin, Charles Twelfth's Grandfather; a great and mighty man,
      lion of the North in his time: Polish King was one John Casimir;
      chivalrous enough, and with clouds of forward Polish chivalry about him,
      glittering with barbaric gold. Frederick III., Danish King for the time
      being, he also was much involved in the thing. Fain would Friedrich
      Wilhelm have kept out of it, but he could not. Karl Gustav as good as
      forced him to join: he joined; fought along with Karl Gustav an
      illustrious Battle; "Battle of Warsaw," three days long (28-30th July,
      1656), on the skirts of Warsaw,&mdash;crowds "looking from the upper
      windows" there; Polish chivalry, broken at last, going like chaff upon the
      winds, and John Casimir nearly ruined.
    </p>
    <p>
      Shortly after which, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had shone much in the Battle,
      changed sides. An inconsistent, treacherous man? Perhaps not, O reader;
      perhaps a man advancing "in circuits," the only way he has; spirally, face
      now to east, now to west, with his own reasonable private aim sun-clear to
      him all the while?
    </p>
    <p>
      John Casimir agreed to give up the "Homage of Preussen" for this service;
      a grand prize for Friedrich Wilhelm. [Treaty of Labiau, 10th November,
      1656 (Pauli, v. 73-75); 20th November (Stenzel, iv. 128,&mdash;who always
      uses NEW STYLE).] What the Teutsch Ritters strove for in vain, and lost
      their existence in striving for, the shifty Kurfurst has now got: Ducal
      Prussia, which is also called East Prussia, is now a free sovereignty,&mdash;and
      will become as "Royal" as the other Polish part. Or perhaps even more so,
      in the course of time!&mdash;Karl Gustav, in a high frame of mind, informs
      the Kurfurst, that he has him on his books, and will pay the debt one day!
    </p>
    <p>
      A dangerous debtor in such matters, this Karl Gustav. In these same
      months, busy with the Danish part of the Controversy, he was doing a feat
      of war, which set all Europe in astonishment. In January, 1658, Karl
      Gustav marches his Army, horse, foot and artillery, to the extent of
      twenty thousand, across the Baltic ice, and takes an Island without
      shipping,&mdash;Island of Funen, across the Little Belt; three miles of
      ice; and a part of the sea open, which has to be crossed on planks. Nay,
      forward from Funen, when once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of
      ice; and takes Zealand itself, [Holberg's <i>Danemarkische
      Reichs-Historie,</i> pp. 406-409.]&mdash;to the wonder of all mankind. An
      imperious, stern-browed, swift-striking man; who had dreamed of a new Goth
      Empire: The mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced again
      by noble Norse valor, and taught a new lesson. Has been known to lay his
      hand on his sword while apprising an Ambassador (Dutch High-Mightiness)
      what his royal intentions were: "Not the sale or purchase of groceries,
      observe you, Sir! My aims go higher!"&mdash;Charles Twelfth's Grandfather,
      and somewhat the same type of man.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Karl Gustav died, short while after; [13th February, 1660, age 38.]
      left his big wide-raging Northern Controversy to collapse in what way it
      could. Sweden and the fighting-parties made their "Peace of Oliva" (Abbey
      of Oliva, near Dantzig, 1st May, 1660); and this of Preussen was ratified,
      in all form, among the other points. No homage more; nothing now above
      Ducal Prussia but the Heavens; and great times coming for it. This was one
      of the successfulest strokes of business ever done by Friedrich Wilhelm;
      who had been forced, by sheer compulsion, to embark in that big game.&mdash;"Royal
      Prussia," the Western or POLISH Prussia: this too, as all Newspapers know,
      has, in our times, gone the same road as the other. Which probably, after
      all, it may have had, in Nature, some tendency to do? Cut away, for
      reasons, by the Polish sword, in that Battle of Tannenberg, long since;
      and then, also for reasons, cut back again! That is the fact;&mdash;not
      unexampled in human History.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old Johann Casimir, not long after that Peace of Oliva, getting tired of
      his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways, abdicated;&mdash;retired to
      Paris; and "lived much with Ninon de l'Enclos and her circle," for the
      rest of his life. He used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there
      was no solidity in them; nothing but outside glitter, with tumult and
      anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, the talent of Obeying;
      and has been heard to prophesy that a glorious Republic, persisting in
      such courses, would arrive at results which would surprise it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world; public men
      watching his procedure; Kings anxious to secure him,&mdash;Dutch
      printsellers sticking up his Portraits for a hero-worshipping Public.
      Fighting hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character,
      though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an Industrial man;
      great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become
      cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the waste-places of
      his Dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly encourages trade and work. The
      FRIEDRICH-WILHELM'S CANAL, which still carries tonnage from the Oder to
      the Spree, [Executed, 1662-1668; fifteen English miles long (Busching,
      ERDBESCHREIBUNG, vi, 2193).] is a monument of his zeal in this way;
      creditable, with the means he had. To the poor French Protestants, in the
      Edict-of-Nantes Affair, he was like an express Benefit of Heaven: one
      Helper appointed, to whom the help itself was profitable. He munificently
      welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human pity,
      as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some
      20,000 nimble French souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a
      home there;&mdash;made "waste sands about Berlin into potherb gardens;"
      and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture,
      which is still noticeable. [Erman (weak Biographer of Queen
      Sophie-Charlotte, already cited), <i>Memoires pour sevir a l'Histoire den
      Refugies Francais dans les Etats du Roi de Prusse</i> (Berlin, 1782-1794),
      8 tt. 8vo.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Certainly this Elector was one of the shiftiest of men. Not an unjust man
      either. A pious, God-fearing man rather, stanch to his Protestantism and
      his Bible; not unjust by any means,&mdash;nor, on the other hand, by any
      means thick-skinned in his interpretings of justice: Fair-play to myself
      always; or occasionally even the Height of Fair-play! On the whole, by
      constant energy, vigilance, adroit activity, by an ever-ready insight and
      audacity to seize the passing fact by its right handle, he fought his way
      well in the world; left Brandenburg a flourishing and greatly increased
      Country, and his own name famous enough.
    </p>
    <p>
      A thick-set stalwart figure; with brisk eyes, and high strong irregularly
      Roman nose. Good bronze Statue of him, by Schluter, once a famed man,
      still rides on the LANGE-BRUCKE (Long-Bridge) at Berlin; and his Portrait,
      in huge frizzled Louis-Quatorze wig, is frequently met with in German
      Galleries. Collectors of Dutch Prints, too, know him: here a gallant,
      eagle-featured little gentleman, brisk in the smiles of youth, with
      plumes, with truncheon, caprioling on his war-charger, view of tents in
      the distance;&mdash;there a sedate, ponderous, wrinkly old man, eyes
      slightly puckered (eyes BUSIER than mouth); a face well-ploughed by Time,
      and not found unfruitful; one of the largest, most laborious, potent faces
      (in an ocean of circumambient periwig) to be met with in that Century.
      [Both Prints are Dutch; the Younger, my copy of the Younger, has lost the
      Engraver's Name (Kurfurst's age is twenty-seven); the Elder is by MASSON,
      1633, when Friedrich Wilhelm was sixty-three.] There are many Histories
      about him, too; but they are not comfortable to read. [G. D. Geyler, <i>Leben
      und Thaten Friedrich Wihelms des Grossen</i> (Frankfort and Leipzig,
      1703), folio. Franz Horn, <i>Das Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des Grossen</i>
      (Berlin, 1814). Pauli, <i>Staats-Geschichte,</i> Band v. (Halle, 1764).
      Pufendorf, <i>De rebus gestis Friderici Wilhelmi Magni Electoris
      Brandenburgensis Commentaria</i> (Lips. et Berol. 1733, fol.)] He also has
      wanted a sacred Poet; and found only a bewildering Dryasdust.
    </p>
    <p>
      His Two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none of
      his greatest, but were of a kind to strike the imagination. They both
      relate to what was the central problem of his life,&mdash;the recovery of
      Pommern from the Swedes. Exploit First is the famed "Battle of FEHRBELLIN
      (Ferry of BellEEN)," fought on the 18th June, 1675. Fehrbellin is an
      inconsiderable Town still standing in those peaty regions, some
      five-and-thirty miles northwest of Berlin; and had for ages plied its poor
      Ferry over the oily-looking, brown, sluggish stream called Rhin, or Rhein
      in those parts, without the least notice from mankind, till this fell out.
      It is a place of pilgrimage to patriotic Prussians, ever since Friedrich
      Wilhelm's exploit there. The matter went thus:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Friedrich Wilhelm was fighting, far south in Alsace, on Kaiser Leopold's
      side, in the Louis-Fourteenth War; that second one, which ended in the
      treaty of Nimwegen. Doing his best there,&mdash;when the Swedes, egged on
      by Louis XIV., made war upon him; crossed the Pomeranian marches, troop
      after troop, and invaded his Brandenburg Territory with a force which at
      length amounted to some 16,000 men. No help for the moment: Friedrich
      Wilhelm could not be spared from his post. The Swedes, who had at first
      professed well, gradually went into plunder, roving, harrying, at their
      own will; and a melancholy time they made of it for Friedrich Wilhelm and
      his People. Lucky if temporary harm were all the ill they were likely to
      do; lucky if&mdash;! He stood steady, however; in his solid manner,
      finishing the thing in hand first, since that was feasible. He then even
      retired into winter-quarters, to rest his men; and seemed to have left the
      Swedish 16,000 autocrats of the situation; who accordingly went storming
      about at a great rate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not so, however; very far indeed from so. Having rested his men for
      certain months, Friedrich Wilhelm silently in the first days of June
      (1675) gets them under march again; marches, his Cavalry and he as first
      instalment, with best speed from Schweinfurt, [Stenzel, ii. 347.] which is
      on the river Main, to Magdeburg; a distance of two hundred miles. At
      Magdeburg, where he rests three days, waiting for the first handful of
      foot and a field-piece or two, he learns that the Swedes are in three
      parties wide asunder; the middle party of them within forty miles of him.
      Probably stronger, even this middle one, than his small body (of "six
      thousand Horse, twelve hundred Foot and three guns");&mdash;stronger, but
      capable perhaps of being surprised, of being cut in pieces, before the
      others can come up? Rathenau is the nearest skirt of this middle party:
      thither goes the Kurfurst, softly, swiftly, in the June night (16-17th
      June, 1675); gets into Rathenau, by brisk stratagem; tumbles out the
      Swedish Horse-regiment there, drives it back towards Fehrbellin.
    </p>
    <p>
      He himself follows hard;&mdash;swift riding enough, in the summer night,
      through those damp Havel lands, in the old Hohenzollern fashion: and
      indeed old Freisack Castle, as it chances,&mdash;Freisack, scene of
      Dietrich von Quitzow and LAZY PEG long since,&mdash;is close by! Follows
      hard, we say: strikes in upon this midmost party (nearly twice his number,
      but Infantry for the most part); and after fierce fight, done with good
      talent on both sides, cuts it into utter ruin, as proposed. Thereby he has
      left the Swedish Army as a mere head and tail WITHOUT body; has entirely
      demolished the Swedish Army. [Stenzel, ii. 350-357.] Same feat
      intrinsically as that done by Cromwell, on Hamilton and the Scots, in
      1648. It was, so to speak, the last visit Sweden paid to Brandenburg, or
      the last of any consequence; and ended the domination of the Swedes in
      those quarters. A thing justly to be forever remembered by Brandenburg;&mdash;on
      a smallish modern scale, the Bannockburn, Sempach, Marathon, of
      Brandenburg. [See Pauli, v. 161-169; Stenzel, ii. 335, 340-347, 354;
      Kausler, <i>Atlas des plus memorables Batailles, Combats et Sieges,</i> or
      <i>Atlas der merkwurdigsten Schlachten, Treffen und Belagerungen</i>
      (German and French, Carlsruhe and Freiburg, 1831), p. 417, Blatt 62.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Exploit Second was four years later; in some sort a corollary to this; and
      a winding-up of the Swedish business. The Swedes, in farther prosecution
      of their Louis-Fourteenth speculation, had invaded Preussen this time, and
      were doing sad havoc there. It was in the dead of winter, Christmas, 1678,
      more than four hundred miles off; and the Swedes, to say nothing of their
      other havoc, were in a case to take Konigsberg, and ruin Prussia
      altogether, if not prevented. Friedrich Wilhelm starts from Berlin, with
      the opening Year, on his long march; the Horse-troops first, Foot to
      follow at their swiftest; he himself (his Wife, his ever-true "Louisa,"
      accompanying, as her wont was) travels, towards the end, at the rate of
      "sixty miles a day." He gets in still in time, finds Konigsberg unscathed.
      Nay it is even said, the Swedes are extensively falling sick; having,
      after a long famine, found infinite "pigs, near Insterburg," in those
      remote regions, and indulged in the fresh pork overmuch.
    </p>
    <p>
      I will not describe the subsequent manoeuvres, which would interest
      nobody: enough if I say that on the 16th of January, 1679, it had become
      of the highest moment for Friedrich Wilhelm to get from Carwe (Village
      near Elbing) on the shore of the FRISCHE HAF, where he was, through
      Konigsberg, to Gilge on the CURISCHE HAF, where the Swedes are,&mdash;in a
      minimum of time. Distance, as the crow flies, is about a hundred miles;
      road, which skirts the two HAFS [Pauli, v. 215-222; Stenzel, ii. 392-397.]
      (wide shallow WASHES, as we should name them), is of rough quality, and
      naturally circuitous. It is ringing frost to-day, and for days back:&mdash;Friedrich
      Wilhelm hastily gathers all the sledges, all the horses of the district;
      mounts some four thousand men in sledges; starts, with the speed of light,
      in that fashion. Scours along all day, and after the intervening bit of
      land, again along; awakening the ice-bound silences. Gloomy Frische Haf,
      wrapt in its Winter cloud-coverlids, with its wastes of tumbled sand, its
      poor frost-bound fishing-hamlets, pine-hillocks,&mdash;desolate-looking,
      stern as Greenland or more so, says Busching, who travelled there in
      winter-time, [Busching's <i>Beitrage</i> (Halle, 1789), vi. 160.]&mdash;hears
      unexpected human noises, and huge grinding and trampling; the four
      thousand, in long fleet of sledges, scouring across it, in that manner.
      All day they rush along,&mdash;out of the rimy hazes of morning into the
      olive-colored clouds of evening again,&mdash;with huge loud-grinding
      rumble;&mdash;and do arrive in time at Gilge. A notable streak of things,
      shooting across those frozen solitudes, in the New-Year, 1679;&mdash;little
      short of Karl Gustav's feat, which we heard of, in the other or Danish end
      of the Baltic, twenty years ago, when he took Islands without ships.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Second Exploit&mdash;suggested or not by that prior one of Karl
      Gustav on the ice&mdash;is still a thing to be remembered by Hohenzollerns
      and Prussians. The Swedes were beaten here, on Friedrich Wilhelm's rapid
      arrival; were driven into disastrous rapid retreat Northward; which they
      executed, in hunger and cold; fighting continually, like Northern bears,
      under the grim sky; Friedrich Wilhelm sticking to their skirts,&mdash;holding
      by their tail, like an angry bear-ward with steel whip in his hand. A
      thing which, on the small scale, reminds one of Napoleon's experiences.
      Not till Napoleon's huge fighting-flight, a hundred and thirty-four years
      after, did I read of such a transaction in those parts. The Swedish
      invasion of Preussen has gone utterly to ruin.
    </p>
    <p>
      And this, then, is the end of Sweden, and its bad neighborhood on these
      shores, where it has tyrannously sat on our skirts so long? Swedish
      Pommern the Elector already had: last year, coming towards it ever since
      the Exploit of Fehrbellin, he had invaded Swedish Pommern; had besieged
      and taken Stettin, nay Stralsund too, where Wallenstein had failed;&mdash;cleared
      Pommern altogether of its Swedish guests. Who had tried next in Preussen,
      with what luck we see. Of Swedish Pommern the Elector might now say:
      "Surely it is mine; again mine, as it long was; well won a second time,
      since the first would not do!" But no:&mdash;Louis XIV. proved a gentleman
      to his Swedes. Louis, now that the Peace of Nimwegen had come, and only
      the Elector of Brandenburg was still in harness, said steadily, though
      anxious enough to keep well with the Elector: "They are my allies, these
      Swedes; it was on my bidding they invaded you: can I leave them in such a
      pass? It must not be!" So Pommern had to be given back. A miss which was
      infinitely grievous to Friedrich Wilhelm. The most victorious Elector
      cannot hit always, were his right never so good.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another miss which he had to put up with, in spite of his rights, and his
      good services, was that of the Silesian Duchies. The Heritage-Fraternity
      with Liegnitz had at length, in 1675, come to fruit. The last Duke of
      Liegnitz was dead: Duchies of Liegnitz, of Brieg, Wohlau, are
      Brandenburg's, if there were right done! But Kaiser Leopold in the scarlet
      stockings will not hear of Heritage-Fraternity. "Nonsense!" answers Kaiser
      Leopold: "A thing suppressed at once, ages ago; by Imperial power: flat
      ZERO of a thing at this time;&mdash;and you, I again bid you, return me
      your Papers upon it!" This latter act of duty Friedrich Wilhelm would not
      do; but continued insisting. [Pauli, v. 321.] "Jagerndorf at least, O
      Kaiser of the world," said he; "Jagerndorf, there is no color for your
      keeping that!" To which the Kaiser again answers, "Nonsense!"&mdash;and
      even falls upon astonishing schemes about it, as we shall see;&mdash;but
      gives nothing. Ducal Preussen is sovereign, Cleve is at Peace,
      Hinter-Pommern ours;&mdash;this Elector has conquered much: but the
      Silesian Heritages and Vor-Pommern, and some other things, he will have to
      do without. Louis XIV., it is thought, once offered to get him made King;
      [Ib. vii. 215.] but that he declined for the present.
    </p>
    <p>
      His married and domestic life is very fine and human; especially with that
      Oranien-Nassau Princess, who was his first Wife (1646-1667); Princess
      Louisa of Nassau-Orange; Aunt to our own Dutch William, King William III.,
      in time coming. An excellent wise Princess; from whom came the Orange
      Heritages, which afterwards proved difficult to settle:&mdash;Orange was
      at last exchanged for the small Principality of Neufchatel in Switzerland,
      which is Prussia's ever since. "Oranienburg (ORANGE-BURG)," a Royal
      Country-house, still standing, some twenty miles northwards from Berlin,
      was this Louisa's place: she had trimmed it up into a little jewel, of the
      Dutch type,&mdash;potherb gardens, training-schools for young girls, and
      the like;&mdash;a favorite abode of hers, when she was at liberty for
      recreation. But her life was busy and earnest: she was helpmate, not in
      name only, to an ever-busy man. They were married young; a marriage of
      love withal. Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship, wedding in Holland; the
      honest trustful walk and conversation of the two Sovereign Spouses, their
      journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears and manifold vicissitudes;
      till Death, with stern beauty, shut it in:&mdash;all is human, true and
      wholesome in it; interesting to look upon, and rare among sovereign
      persons.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not but that he had his troubles with his womankind. Even with this his
      first Wife, whom he loved truly, and who truly loved him, there were
      scenes; the Lady having a judgment of her own about everything that
      passed, and the Man being choleric withal. Sometimes, I have heard, "he
      would dash his hat at her feet," saying symbolically, "Govern you, then,
      Madam! Not the Kurfurst-Hat; a Coif is my wear, it seems!" [Forster, <i>Friedrich
      Wilhelm I. Konig von Preussen</i> (Potsdam, 1834), i. 177.] Yet her
      judgment was good; and he liked to have it on the weightiest things,
      though her powers of silence might halt now and then. He has been known,
      on occasion, to run from his Privy-Council to her apartment, while a
      complex matter was debating, to ask her opinion, hers too, before it was
      decided. Excellent Louisa; Princess full of beautiful piety, good-sense
      and affection; a touch of the Nassau-Heroic in her. At the moment of her
      death, it is said, when speech had fled, he felt, from her hand which lay
      in his, three slight, slight pressures: "Farewell!" thrice mutely spoken
      in that manner,&mdash;not easy to forget in this world. [Wegfuhrer, <i>Leben
      der Kurfurstin Luise</i> (Leipzig, 1838), p. 175.]
    </p>
    <p>
      His second Wife, Dorothea,&mdash;who planted the Lindens in Berlin, and
      did other husbandries, of whom we have heard, fell far short of Louisa in
      many things; but not in tendency to advise, to remonstrate, and
      plaintively reflect on the finished and unalterable. Dreadfully thrifty
      lady, moreover; did much in dairy produce, farming of town-rates,
      provision-taxes: not to speak again of that Tavern she was thought to have
      in Berlin, and to draw custom to in an oblique manner! What scenes she had
      with Friedrich her stepson, we have seen. "Ah, I have not my Louisa now;
      to whom now shall I run for advice or help!" would the poor Kurfurst at
      times exclaim.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had some trouble, considerable trouble now and then, with mutinous
      spirits in Preussen; men standing on antique Prussian franchises and
      parchments; refusing to see that the same were now antiquated,
      incompatible, not to say impossible, as the new Sovereign alleged; and
      carrying themselves very stiffly at times. But the Hohenzollerns had been
      used to such things; a Hohenzollern like this one would evidently take his
      measures, soft but strong, and ever stronger to the needful pitch, with
      mutinous spirits. One Burgermeister of Konigsberg, after much stroking on
      the back, was at length seized in open Hall, by Electoral writ,&mdash;soldiers
      having first gently barricaded the principal streets, and brought cannon
      to bear upon them. This Burgermeister, seized in such brief way, lay
      prisoner for life; refusing to ask his liberty, though it was thought he
      might have had it on asking. [Horn, <i>Das Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des
      Grossen</i> (Berlin, 1814), p. 68.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Another gentleman, a Baron von Kalkstein, of old Teutsch-Bitter kin, of
      very high ways, in the Provincial Estates (STANDE) and elsewhere, got into
      lofty almost solitary opposition, and at length into mutiny proper,
      against the new "Non-Polish SOVEREIGN," and flatly refused to do homage at
      his accession in that new capacity. [Supra, pp. 383, et seqq.] Refused,
      Kalkstein did, for his share; fled to Warsaw; and very fiercely, in a loud
      manner, carried on his mutinies in the Diets and Court-Conclaves there;
      his plea being, or plea for the time, "Poland is our liege lord [which it
      was not always], and we cannot be transferred to you, except by our
      consent asked and given," which too had been a little neglected on the
      former occasion of transfer. So that the Great Elector knew not what to do
      with Kalkstein; and at length (as the case was pressing) had him kidnapped
      by his Ambassador at Warsaw; had him "rolled into a carpet" there, and
      carried swiftly in the Ambassador's coach, in the form of luggage, over
      the frontier, into his native Province, there to be judged, and, in the
      end (since nothing else would serve him), to have the sentence executed,
      and his head cut off. For the case was pressing! [Horn, pp. 80-82.]&mdash;These
      things, especially this of Kalkstein, with a boisterous Polish Diet and
      parliamentary eloquence in the rear of him, gave rise to criticism; and
      required management on the part of the Great Elector.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of all his Ancestors, our little Fritz, when he grew big, admired this
      one. A man made like himself in many points. He seems really to have loved
      and honored this one. In the year 1750 there had been a new Cathedral got
      finished at Berlin; the ancestral bones had to be shifted over from the
      vaults of the old one,&mdash;the burying-place ever since Joachim II.,
      that Joachim who drew his sword on Alba. "King Friedrich, with some
      attendants, witnessed the operation, January, 1750. When the Great
      Kurfurst's coffin came, he made them open it; gazed in silence on the
      features for some time, which were perfectly recognizable; laid his hand
      on the hand long dead, and said, <i>'Messieurs, celui-ci a fait de grandes
      choses</i> (This one did a great work)!'" [See Preuss, i. 270.]
    </p>
    <p>
      He died 29th April, 1688;&mdash;looking with intense interest upon Dutch
      William's preparations to produce a Glorious Revolution in this Island;
      being always of an ardent Protestant feeling, and a sincerely religious
      man. Friedrich, Crown-Prince, age then thirty-one, and already married a
      second time, was of course left Chief Heir;&mdash;who, as we see, has not
      declined the Kingship, when a chance for it offered. There were four
      Half-brothers of Friedrich, too, who got apanages, appointments. They had
      at one time confidently looked for much more, their Mother being busy; but
      were obliged to be content, and conform to the GERA BOND and fundamental
      Laws of the Country. They are entitled Margraves; two of whom left
      children, Margraves of Brandenburg-Schwedt, HEERMEISTERS (Head of the
      Malta-Knighthood) at Sonnenburg, Statthalters in Magdeburg, or I know not
      what; whose names turn up confusedly in the Prussian Books; and, except as
      temporary genealogical puzzles, are not of much moment to the Foreign
      reader. Happily there is nothing else in the way of Princes of the Blood,
      in our little Friedrich's time; and happily what concern he had with
      these, or how he was related to them, will not be abstruse to us, if
      occasion rise.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XIX. &mdash; KING FRIEDRICH I. AGAIN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We said the Great Elector never could work his Silesian Duchies out of
      Kaiser Leopold's grip: to all his urgencies the little Kaiser in red
      stockings answered only in evasions, refusals; and would quit nothing. We
      noticed also what quarrels the young Electoral Prince, Friedrich,
      afterwards King, had got into with his Stepmother; suddenly feeling
      poisoned after dinner, running to his Aunt at Cassel, coming back on
      treaty, and the like. These are two facts which the reader knows: and out
      of these two grew a third, which it is fit he should know.
    </p>
    <p>
      In his last years, the Great Elector, worn out with labor, and harassed
      with such domestic troubles over and above, had evidently fallen much
      under his Wife's management; cutting out large apanages (clear against the
      GERA BOND) for her children;&mdash;longing probably for quiet in his
      family at any price. As to the poor young Prince, negotiated back from
      Cassel, he lived remote, and had fallen into open disfavor,&mdash;with a
      very ill effect upon his funds, for one thing. His father kept him
      somewhat tight on the money-side, it is alleged; and he had rather a turn
      for spending money handsomely. He was also in some alarm about the
      proposed apanages to his Half-brothers, the Margraves above mentioned, of
      which there were rumors going.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      HOW AUSTRIA SETTLED THE SILESIAN CLAIMS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Now in these circumstances the Austrian Court, who at this time (1685)
      greatly needed the Elector's help against Turks and others, and found him
      very urgent about these Silesian Duchies of his, fell upon what I must
      call a very extraordinary shift for getting rid of the Silesian question.
      "Serene Highness," said they, by their Ambassador at Berlin, "to end these
      troublesome talks, and to liquidate all claims, admissible and
      inadmissible, about Silesia, the Imperial Majesty will give you an actual
      bit of Territory, valuable, though not so large as you expected!" The
      Elector listens with both ears: What Territory, then? The "Circle of
      Schwiebus," hanging on the northwestern edge of Silesia, contiguous to the
      Elector's own Dominions in these Frankfurt-on-Oder regions: this the
      generous Imperial Majesty proposes to give in fee-simple to Friedrich
      Wilhelm, and so to end the matter. Truly a most small patch of Territory
      in comparison; not bigger than an English Rutlandshire, to say nothing of
      soil and climate! But then again it was an actual patch of territory; not
      a mere parchment shadow of one: this last was a tempting point to the old
      harassed Elector. Such friendly offer they made him, I think, in 1685, at
      the time they were getting 8,000 of his troops to march against the Turks
      for them; a very needful service at the moment. "By the bye, do not march
      through Silesia, you!&mdash;Or march faster!" said the cautious Austrians
      on this occasion: "Other roads will answer better than Silesia!" said
      they. [Pauli, v. 327, 332.] Baron Freytag, their Ambassador at Berlin, had
      negotiated the affair so far: "Circle of Schwiebus," said Freytag, "and
      let us have done with these thorny talks!"
    </p>
    <p>
      But Baron Freytag had been busy, in the mean while, with the young Prince;
      secretly offering Sympathy, counsel, help; of all which the poor Prince
      stood in need enough. "We will help you in that dangerous matter of the
      Apanages," said Freytag; "Help you in all things,"&mdash;I suppose he
      would say,&mdash;"necessary pocket-money is not a thing your Highness need
      want!" And thus Baron Freytag, what is very curious, had managed to
      bargain beforehand with the young Prince, That directly on coming to
      power, he would give up Schwiebus again, SHOULD the offer of Schwiebus be
      accepted by Papa. To which effect Baron Freytag held a signed Bond, duly
      executed by the young man, before Papa had concluded at all. Which is very
      curious indeed!&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor old Papa, worn out with troubles, accepted Schwiebus in liquidation
      of all claims (8th April, 1686), and a few days after set his men on march
      against the Turks:&mdash;and, exactly two months beforehand, on the 8th of
      February last, the Prince had signed HIS secret engagement, That Schwiebus
      should be a mere phantasm to Papa; that he, the Prince, would restore it
      on his accession. Both these singular Parchments, signed, sealed and done
      in the due legal form, lay simultaneously in Freytag's hand; and probably
      enough they exist yet, in some dusty corner, among the solemn sheepskins
      of the world. This is literally the plan hit upon by an Imperial Court, to
      assist a young Prince in his pecuniary and other difficulties, and get rid
      of Silesian claims. Plan actually not unlike that of swindling
      money-lenders to a young gentleman in difficulties, and of manageable
      turn, who has got into their hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Great Elector died two years after; Schwiebus then in his hand. The
      new Elector, once instructed as to the nature of the affair, refused to
      give up Schwiebus; [19th September, 1689 Pauli, vii. 74.] declared the
      transaction a swindle:&mdash;and in fact, for seven years more, retained
      possession of Schwiebus. But the Austrian Court insisted, with emphasis,
      at length with threats (no insuperable pressure from Louis, or the Turks,
      at this time); the poor cheated Elector had, at last, to give up
      Schwiebus, in terms of his promise. [31st December, 1694.] He took act
      that it had been a surreptitious transaction, palmed upon him while
      ignorant, and while without the least authority or power to make such a
      promise; that he was not bound by it, nor would be, except on compulsion
      thus far: and as to binding Brandenburg by it, how could he, at that
      period of his history, bind Brandenburg? Brandenburg was not then his to
      bind, any more than China was.
    </p>
    <p>
      His Raths had advised Friedrich against giving up Schwiebus in that
      manner. But his answer is on record: "I must, I will and shall keep my own
      word. But my rights on Silesia, which I could not, and do not in these
      unjust circumstances, compromise, I leave intact for my posterity to
      prosecute. If God and the course of events order it no otherwise than now,
      we must be content. But if God shall one day send the opportunity, those
      that come after me will know what they have to do in such case." [Pauli,
      vii. 150.] And so Schwiebus was given up, the Austrians paying back what
      Brandenburg had laid out in improving it, "250,000 GULDEN (25,000
      pounds);"&mdash;and the Hand of Power had in this way, finally as it
      hoped, settled an old troublesome account of Brandenburg's. Settled the
      Silesian-Duchies Claim, by the temporary Phantasm of a Gift of Schwiebus.
      That is literally the Liegnitz-Jagerndorf case; and the reader is to note
      it and remember it. For it will turn up again in History. The Hand of
      Power is very strong: but a stronger may perhaps get hold of its knuckles
      one day, at an advantageous time, and do a feat upon it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The "eventual succession to East Friesland," which had been promised by
      the Reich, some ten years ago, to the Great Elector, "for what he had done
      against the Turks, and what he had suffered from those Swedish Invasions,
      in the Common Cause:" this shadow of Succession, the Kaiser now said,
      should not be haggled with any more; but be actually realized, and the
      Imperial sanction to it now given,&mdash;effect to follow IF the Friesland
      Line died out. Let this be some consolation for the loss of Schwiebus and
      your Silesian Duchies. Here in Friesland is the ghost of a coming
      possession; there in Schwiebus was the ghost of a going one: phantasms you
      shall not want for; but the Hand of Power parts not with its realities,
      however come by.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      HIS REAL CHARACTER.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Poor Friedrich led a conspicuous life as Elector and King; but no public
      feat he did now concerns us like this private one of Schwiebus.
      Historically important, this, and requiring to be remembered, while so
      much else demands mere oblivion from us. He was a spirited man; did
      soldierings, fine Siege of Bonn (July-October, 1689), sieges and
      campaignings, in person,&mdash;valiant in action, royal especially in
      patience there,&mdash;during that Third War of Louis-Fourteenth's, the
      Treaty-of-Ryswick one. All through the Fourth, or Spanish Succession-War,
      his Prussian Ten-Thousand, led by fit generals, showed eminently what
      stuff they were made of. Witness Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau (still a YOUNG
      Dessauer) on the field of Blenheim;&mdash;Leopold had the right wing
      there, and saved Prince Eugene who was otherwise blown to pieces, while
      Marlborough stormed and conquered on the left. Witness the same Dessauer
      on the field of Hochstadt the year before, [Varnhagen von Ense, <i>Biographische
      Denkmale</i> (Berlin, 1845), ii, 155.] how he managed the retreat there.
      Or see him at the Bridge of Cassano (1705); in the Lines of Turin (1706);
      [<i> Des weltheruhnden Furstens Leopoldi von Anhult-Dessau Leben und
      Thaten</i> (Leipzig, 1742, anonymous, by one MICHAEL RANFFT), pp. 53, 61.]
      wherever hot service was on hand. At Malplaquet, in those murderous
      inexpugnable French Lines, bloodiest of obstinate Fights (upwards of
      thirty thousand left on the ground), the Prussians brag that it was they
      who picked their way through a certain peat-bog, reckoned impassable; and
      got fairly in upon the French wing,&mdash;to the huge comfort of
      Marlborough, and little Eugene his brisk comrade on that occasion.
      Marlborough knew well the worth of these Prussian troops, and also how to
      stroke his Majesty into continuing them in the field.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was an expensive King, surrounded by cabals, by Wartenbergs male and
      female, by whirlpools of intrigues, which, now that the game is over,
      become very forgettable. But one finds he was a strictly honorable man;
      with a certain height and generosity of mind, capable of other nobleness
      than the upholstery kind. He had what we may call a hard life of it; did
      and suffered a good deal in his day and generation, not at all in a
      dishonest or unmanful manner. In fact, he is quite recognizably a
      Hohenzollern,&mdash;with his back half broken. Readers recollect that sad
      accident: how the Nurse, in one of those headlong journeys which his
      Father and Mother were always making, let the poor child fall or jerk
      backward; and spoiled him much, and indeed was thought to have killed him,
      by that piece of inattention. He was not yet Hereditary Prince, he was
      only second son: but the elder died; and he became Elector, King; and had
      to go with his spine distorted,&mdash;distortion not glaringly
      conspicuous, though undeniable;&mdash;and to act the Hohenzollern SO. Nay
      who knows but it was this very jerk, and the half-ruin of his nervous
      system,&mdash;this doubled wish to be beautiful, and this crooked back
      capable of being hid or decorated into straightness,&mdash;that first set
      the poor man on thinking of expensive ornamentalities, and Kingships in
      particular? History will forgive the Nurse in that case.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perhaps History has dwelt too much on the blind side of this expensive
      King. Toland, on entering his country, was struck rather with the signs of
      good administration everywhere. No sooner have you crossed the Prussian
      Border, out of Westphalia, says Toland, than smooth highways, well-tilled
      fields, and a general air of industry and regularity, are evident: solid
      milestones, brass-bound, and with brass inscription, tell the traveller
      where he is; who finds due guidance of finger-posts, too, and the blessing
      of habitable inns. The people seem all to be busy, diligently occupied;
      villages reasonably swept and whitewashed;&mdash;never was a better set of
      Parish Churches; whether new-built or old, they are all in brand-new
      repair. The contrast with Westphalia is immediate and great; but indeed
      that was a sad country, to anybody but a patient Toland, who knows the
      causes of phenomena. No inns there, except of the naturally savage sort.
      "A man is very happy if he finds clean straw to sleep on, without
      expecting sheets or coverings; let him readily dispense with plates, forks
      and napkins, if he can get anything to eat.... He must be content to have
      the cows, swine and poultry for his fellow-lodgers, and to go in at the
      same passage that the smoke comes out at, for there's no other vent for it
      but the door; which makes foreigners commonly say that the people of
      Westphalia enter their houses by the chimney." And observe withal: "This
      is the reason why their beef and hams are so finely prepared and ripened;
      for the fireplace being backwards, the smoke must spread over all the
      house before it gets to the door; which makes everything within of a
      russet or sable color, not excepting the hands and faces of the meaner
      sort." [<i>An Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover,</i> by Mr.
      Toland (cited already), p. 4.] If Prussia yield to Westphalia in ham, in
      all else she is strikingly superior.
    </p>
    <p>
      He founded Universities, this poor King; University of Halle; Royal
      Academy of Berlin, Leibnitz presiding: he fought for Protestantism;&mdash;did
      what he could for the cause of Cosmos VERSUS Chaos, after his fashion. The
      magnificences of his Charlottenburgs, Oranienburgs and numerous
      Country-houses make Toland almost poetic. An affable kindly man withal,
      though quick of temper; his word sacred to him. A man of many troubles,
      and acquainted with "the infinitely little (L'INFINIMENT PETIT)," as his
      Queen termed it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      Chapter XX. &mdash; DEATH OF KING FRIEDRICH I.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Old King Friedrich I. had not much more to do in the world, after
      witnessing the christening of his Grandson of like name. His leading forth
      or sending forth of troops, his multiplex negotiations, solemn
      ceremonials, sad changes of ministry, sometimes transacted "with tears,"
      are mostly ended; the ever-whirling dust-vortex of intrigues, of which he
      has been the centre for a five-and-twenty years, is settling down finally
      towards everlasting rest. No more will Marlborough come and dexterously
      talk him over,&mdash;proud to "serve as cupbearer," on occasion, to so
      high a King&mdash;for new bodies of men to help in the next campaign: we
      have ceased to be a King worthy of such a cupbearer, and Marlborough's
      campaigns too are all ended.
    </p>
    <p>
      Much is ended. They are doing the sorrowful Treaty of Utrecht; Louis XIV.
      himself is ending; mournfully shrunk into the corner, with his Missal and
      his Maintenon; looking back with just horror on Europe four times set
      ablaze for the sake of one poor mortal in big periwig, to no purpose.
      Lucky if perhaps Missal-work, orthodox litanies, and even Protestant
      Dragonnades, can have virtue to wipe out such a score against a man!
      Unhappy Louis: the sun-bright gold has become dim as copper; we rose in
      storms, and we are setting in watery clouds. The Kaiser himself (Karl VI.,
      Leopold's Son, Joseph I.'s younger Brother) will have to conform to this
      Treaty of Utrecht: what other possibility for him?
    </p>
    <p>
      The English, always a wonderful Nation, fought and subsidied from side to
      side of Europe for this Spanish-Succession business; fought ten years,
      such fighting as they never did before or since, under "John Duke of
      Marlborough," who, as is well known, "beat the French thorough and
      thorough." French entirely beaten at last, not without heroic difficulty
      and as noble talent as was ever shown in diplomacy and war, are ready to
      do your will in all things; in this of giving up Spain, among others:&mdash;whereupon
      the English turn round, with a sudden new thought, "No, we will not have
      our WILL done; it shall be the other way, the way it WAS,&mdash;now that
      we bethink ourselves, after all this fighting for our will!" And make
      Peace on those terms, as if no war had been; and accuse the great
      Marlborough of many things, of theft for one. A wonderful People; and in
      their Continental Politics (which indeed consist chiefly of Subsidies)
      thrice wonderful. So the Treaty of Utrecht is transacting itself; which
      that of Rastadt, on the part of Kaiser and Empire, unable to get on
      without Subsidies, will have to follow: and after such quantities of
      powder burnt, and courageous lives wasted, general AS-YOU-WERE is the
      result arrived at.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old Friedrich's Ambassadors are present at Utrecht, jangling and pleading
      among the rest; at Berlin too the despatch of business goes lumbering on;
      but what thing, in the shape of business, at Utrecht or at Berlin, is of
      much importance to the old man? Seems as if Europe itself were waxing dim,
      and sinking to stupid sleep,&mdash;as we, in our poor royal person, full
      surely are. A Crown has been achieved, and diamond buttons worth 1,500
      pounds apiece; but what is a Crown, and what are buttons, after all?&mdash;I
      suppose the tattle and SINGERIES of little Wilhelmina, whom he would spend
      whole days with; this and occasional visits to a young Fritzchen's cradle,
      who is thriving moderately, and will speak and do aperies one day,&mdash;are
      his main solacements in the days that are passing. Much of this
      Friedrich's life has gone off like the smoke of fire-works, has faded
      sorrowfully, and proved phantasmal. Here is an old Autograph Note, written
      by him at the side of that Cradle, and touching on a slight event there;
      which, as it connects two venerable Correspondents and their Seventeenth
      Century with a grand Phenomenon of the Eighteenth, we will insert here.
      The old King addresses his older Mother-in-law, famed Electress Sophie of
      Hanover, in these terms (spelling corrected):&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "CHARLOTTENBURG, den 30 August, 1712.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Ew. Churf. Durchlaucht werden sich zweifelsohne mit uns
erfreuen, dass der kleine Printz (PRINZ) Fritz nuhnmero (NUNMEHR) 6
Zehne (ZAHNE) hat und ohne die geringste incommoditet (-TAT). Daraus
kann man auch die PREDESTINATION sehen, dass alle seine Bruder haben
daran sterben mussen, dieser aber bekommt sie ohne Muhe wie seine
Schwester. Gott erhalte ihn uns noch lange zum trohst (TROST), in dessen
Schutz ich dieselbe ergebe und lebenslang verbleibe,

  "Ew. Churf. Durchl. gehorsamster Diener und treuer Sohn,
</pre>
    <p>
      "FRIEDRICH R."
    </p>
    <p>
      [Preuss, <i>Friedrich der Grosse (Historische Skizze,</i> Berlin, 1838),
      p. 380.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Of which this is the literal English:&mdash;"Your Electoral Serenity will
      doubtless rejoice with us that the little Prince Fritz has now got his
      sixth tooth without the least INCOMMODITE. And therein we may trace a
      pre-destination, inasmuch as his Brothers died of teething [<i>Not of
      cannon-sound and weight of head-gear, then, your Majesty thinks? That were
      a painful thought?</i>]; and this one, as his Sister [WILHELMINA] did,
      gets them [THE TEETH] without trouble. God preserve him long for a comfort
      to us:&mdash;to whose protection I commit DIESELBE [<i>Your Electoral
      Highness, in the third person</i>], and remain lifelong,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Your Electoral Highness's most obedient Servant and true Son,
</pre>
    <p>
      "FRIEDRICH REX."
    </p>
    <p>
      One of Friedrich Rex's worst adventures was his latest; commenced some
      five or six years ago (1708), and now not far from terminating. He was a
      Widower, of weakly constitution, towards fifty: his beautiful ingenious
      "Serena," with all her Theologies, pinch-of-snuff Coronations and other
      earthly troubles, was dead; and the task of continuing the Hohenzollern
      progeny, given over to Friedrich Wilhelm the Prince Royal, was thought to
      be in good hands. Majesty Friedrich with the weak back had retired, in
      1708, to Karlsbad, to rest from his cares; to take the salutary waters,
      and recruit his weak nerves a little. Here, in the course of confidential
      promenadings, it was hinted, it was represented to him by some pickthank
      of a courtier, That the task of continuing the Hohenzollern progeny did
      not seem to prosper in the present good hands; that Sophie Dorothee,
      Princess Royal, had already borne two royal infants which had speedily
      died: that in fact it was to be gathered from the medical men, if not from
      their words, then from their looks and cautious innuendoes, that Sophie
      Dorothee, Princess Royal, would never produce a Prince or even Princess
      that would live; which task, therefore, did now again seem to devolve upon
      his Majesty, if his Majesty had not insuperable objections? Majesty had no
      insuperable objections; old Majesty listened to the flattering tale; and,
      sure enough, he smarted for it in a signal manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      By due industry, a Princess was fixed upon for Bride, Princess Sophie
      Louisa of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, age now twenty-four: she was got as Wife,
      and came home to Berlin in all pomp;&mdash;but good came not with her to
      anybody there. Not only did she bring the poor old man no children, which
      was a fault to be overlooked, considering Sophie Dorothee's success; but
      she brought a querulous, weak and self-sufficient female humor; found his
      religion heterodox,&mdash;he being Calvinist, and perhaps even
      lax-Calvinist, she Lutheran as the Prussian Nation is, and strict to the
      bone:&mdash;heterodox wholly, to the length of no salvation possible; and
      times rose on the Berlin Court such as had never been seen before! "No
      salvation possible, says my Dearest? Hah! And an innocent Court-Mask or
      Dancing Soiree is criminal in the sight of God and of the Queen? And we
      are children of wrath wholly, and a frivolous generation; and the Queen
      will see us all&mdash;!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The end was, his Majesty, through sad solitary days and nights, repented
      bitterly that he had wedded such a She-Dominic; grew quite estranged from
      her; the poor She-Dominic giving him due return in her way,&mdash;namely,
      living altogether in her own apartments, upon orthodoxy, jealousy and
      other bad nourishment. Till at length she went quite mad; and, except the
      due medical and other attendants, nobody saw her, or spoke of her, at
      Berlin. Was this a cheering issue of such an adventure to the poor old
      expensive Gentleman? He endeavored to digest in silence the bitter morsel
      he had cooked for himself; but reflected often, as an old King might, What
      dirt have I eaten!
    </p>
    <p>
      In this way stands that matter in the Schloss of Berlin, when little
      Friedrich, who will one day be called the Great, is born. Habits of the
      expensive King, hours of rising, modes of dressing, and so forth, are to
      be found in Pollnitz; [Pollnitz, <i>Memoiren zur Lebens-und
      Regierungs-Geschichte der Vier letzten Regenten des Preussischen Staats</i>
      (Berlin, 1791). A vague, inexact, but not quite uninstructive or
      uninteresting Book: Printed also in FRENCH, which was the Original, same
      place and time.] but we charitably omit them all. Even from foolish
      Pollnitz a good eye will gather, what was above intimated, that this
      feeble-backed, heavy-laden old King was of humane and just disposition;
      had dignity in his demeanor; had reticence, patience; and, though
      hot-tempered like all the Hohenzollerns, that he bore himself like a
      perfect gentleman for one thing; and tottered along his high-lying
      lonesome road not in an unmanful manner at all. Had not his nerves been
      damaged by that fall in infancy, who knows but we might have had something
      else to read of him than that he was regardless of expense in this world!
    </p>
    <p>
      His last scene, of date February, 1713, is the tragical ultimatum of that
      fine Karlsbad adventure of the Second marriage,&mdash;Third marriage, in
      fact, though the First, anterior to "Serena," is apt to be forgotten,
      having lasted short while, and produced only a Daughter, not memorable
      except by accident. This Third marriage, which had brought so many sorrows
      to him, proved at length the death of the old man. For he sat one morning,
      in the chill February days of the Year 1713, in his Apartment, as usual;
      weak of nerves, but thinking no special evil; when, suddenly with huge
      jingle, the glass door of his room went to sherds; and there rushed in&mdash;bleeding
      and dishevelled, the fatal "White Lady" (WEISSE FRAU), who is understood
      to walk that Schloss at Berlin, and announce Death to the Royal
      inhabitants. Majesty had fainted, or was fainting. "Weisse Frau? Oh no,
      your Majesty!"&mdash;not that; but indeed something almost worse.&mdash;Mad
      Queen, in her Apartments, had been seized, that day, when half or quarter
      dressed; with unusual orthodoxy or unusual jealousy. Watching her
      opportunity, she had whisked into the corridor, in extreme deshabille; and
      gone, like the wild roe, towards Majesty's Suite of Rooms; through
      Majesty's glass door, like a catapult; and emerged as we saw,&mdash;in
      petticoat and shift, with hair streaming, eyes glittering, arms cut, and
      the other sad trimmings. O Heaven, who could laugh? There are tears due to
      Kings and to all men. It was deep misery; deep enough "SIN and misery," as
      Calvin well says, on the one side and the other! The poor old King was
      carried to bed; and never rose again, but died in a few days. The date of
      the WEISSE FRAU'S death, one might have hoped, was not distant either; but
      she lasted, in her sad state, for above twenty years coming.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old King Friedrich's death-day was 25th February, 1713; the unconscious
      little Grandson being then in his Fourteenth month. To whom, after this
      long, voyage round the world, we now gladly return.
    </p>
    <p>
      By way of reinforcement to any recollection the reader may have of these
      Twelve Hohenzollern Kurfursts, I will append a continuous list of them,
      with here and there an indication.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE TWELVE HOHENZOLLERN ELECTORS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      1. FRIEDRICH I. (as Burggraf, was Friedrich VI.): born, it is inferred,
      1372 (Rentsch, p. 350); accession, 18th April, 1417; died 21st September,
      1440. Had come to Brandenburg, 1412, as Statthalter. The Quitzows and
      HEAVY PEG.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. FRIEDRICH II.: 19th November, 1413; 21st September, 1440; 10th
      February, 1472. Friedrich IRONTEETH; tames the Berlin Burghers. Spoke
      Polish, was to have been Polish King. Cannon-shot upon his dinner-table
      shatters his nerves so, that he abdicates, and soon dies. JOHANNES
      ALCHYMISTA his elder Brother; ALBERT ACHILLES his younger.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. ALBERT (Achilles): 24th November, 1414; 10th February, 1471; 11th
      March, 1486. Third son of Friedrich I.; is lineal Progenitor of all the
      rest. Eldest Son, JOHANN CICERO, follows as Kurfurst; a Younger Son,
      FRIEDRICH (by a different Mother), got Culmbach, and produced the Elder
      Line there. (See Genealogical Diagram.)
    </p>
    <p>
      4. JOHANN (Cicero): 2d August, 1455; 11th March, 1486; 9th January, 1499.
      Big John. Friedrich of Culmbach's elder (Half-) Brother.
    </p>
    <p>
      5. JOACHIM I.: 21st February, 1484; 9th January, 1499; 11th July, 1535.
      Loud in the Reformation times; finally declares peremptorily for the
      Conservative side. Wife (Sister of Christian II. of Denmark) runs away.
    </p>
    <p>
      Younger Brother Albert Kur-Mainz, whom Hutten celebrated; born 1490;
      Archbishop of Magdeburg and Halberstadt 1513, of Maim 1514; died 1545: set
      Tetzel, and the Indulgence, on foot.
    </p>
    <p>
      6. JOACHIM II. (Hector): 9th January, 1505; 11th July, 1535; 3d January,
      1571. Sword drawn on Alba once. ERBVERBRUDERUNG with Liegnitz. Staircase
      at Grimnitz. A weighty industrious Kurfurst.
    </p>
    <p>
      Declared himself Protestant, 1539. First Wife (mother of his Successor)
      was Daughter to Duke George of Saxony, Luther's "If it rained Duke
      Georges."&mdash;Johann of Custrin was a younger Brother of his: died ten
      days after Joachim; left no Son.
    </p>
    <p>
      7. JOHANN GEORGE: 11th September, 1525; 3d January, 1571; 8th January,
      1598. Cannon-shot, at Siege of Wittenberg, upon Kaiser Karl and him. Gera
      Bond.
    </p>
    <p>
      Married a Silesian Duke of Liegnitz's Daughter (result of the
      ERBVERBRUDERUNG there,&mdash;Antea, p. 231). Had twenty-three children. It
      was to him that Baireuth and Anspach fell home: he settled them on his
      second and his third sons, Christian and Joachim Ernst; founders of the
      New Line of Baireuth and Anspach. (See Genealogical Diagram.)
    </p>
    <p>
      8. JOACHIM FRIEDRICH: 27th January, 1546; 8th January, 1598; 18th July,
      1608. Archbishop of Magdeburg first of all,&mdash;to keep the place
      filled. Joachimsthal School at old Castle of Grimnitz. Very vigilant for
      Preussen; which was near falling due.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two of his Younger Sons, Johann George (1577-1624) to whom he gave
      JAGERNDORF, and that Archbishop of Magdeburg, who was present in Tilly's
      storm, got both wrecked in the Thirty-Years War;&mdash;not without
      results, in the Jagerndorf case.
    </p>
    <p>
      9. JOHANN SIGISMUND: 8th November, 1572; 18th July, 1608; 23d December,
      1619. Preussen: Cleve; Slap on the face to Neuburg.
    </p>
    <p>
      10. GEORGE WILHELM: 3d November, 1595; 22d November, 1619; 21st November,
      1640. The unfortunate of the Thirty-Years War. <i>"Que faire; ils ont des
      canons!"</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      11. FRIEDRICH WILHELM: 6th February, 1620; 21st November, 1640; 29th
      April, 1688. The Great Elector.
    </p>
    <p>
      12. FRIEDRICH III.: 1st July, 1657; 29th April, 1688; 25th February, 1713.
      First King (18th January, 1701).
    </p>
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    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      GENEALOGICAL DIAGRAM: THE TWO CULMBACH LINES.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      3d KURFURST (1471-1486) ALBERT ACHILLES. ELDER CULMBACH LINE.
    </h3>
    <p>
      FRIEDRICH, second son of Kurfurst Albert Achilles, younger Brother of
      Johannes Cicero, got CULMBACH: Anspach first, then Baireuth on the death
      of a younger Brother. Born 1460; got Anspach 1486; Baireuth 1495; followed
      Max in his VENETIAN CAMPAIGN, 1508; fell IMBECILE 1515; died 1536. Had a
      Polish Wife; from whom came interests in Hungary as well as Poland to his
      children. Friedrich had Three notable Sons,
    </p>
    <p>
      1. CASIMIR, who got BAIREUTH (1515): born 1481; died 1527. Very truculent
      in the Peasants' War. ALBERT ALEIBIADES: a man of great mark in his day
      (1522-1557); never married. Two Sisters, with one of whom he took shelter
      at last; no Brother.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. GEORGE THE PIOUS, who got ANSPACH (1515): born 1484; died 1543; got
      Jagerndorf, by purchase, from his Mother's Hungarian connection, 1524.
      Protestant declared, 1528; and makes honorable figure in the Histories
      thenceforth. The George of Kaiser Karl's <i>"Nit-Kop-ab."</i> One Son,
      GEORGE FRIEDRICH; born 1539; went to administer Preussen when Cousin
      became incompetent; died 1603. Heir to his Father in ANSPACH and
      JAGERNDORF; also to his Cousin Alcibiades in BAIREUTH. Had been left a
      minor (boy of 4, as the reader sees); Alcibiades his Guardian for a little
      while: from which came great difficulties, and unjust ruin would have
      come, had not Kurfurst Joachim I. been helpful and vigorous in his behalf.
      George Friedrich got at length most of his Territories into hand: Anspach
      and Baireuth unimpaired, Jagerndorf too, except that Ratibor and Oppeln
      were much eaten into by the Imperial chicaneries in that quarter. Died
      1603, without children;&mdash;upon which his Territories all reverted to
      the main Brandenburg line, namely, to Johann George Seventh Kurfurst, or
      his representatives, according to the GERA BOND; and the "Elder Culmbach
      Line" had ended in this manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. ALBERT; born 1490; Hochmeister of the Teutsch Ritters, 1511; declares
      himself Protestant, and Duke of Prussia, 1525; died 1568. One Son, ALB
      declared MELANCHOLIC 1573; died 1618. His Cousin George Friedrich
      administered for him till 1603; after which Joachim Friedrich; and then,
      lastly, Joachim Friedrich's Son, Johann Sigismund the Ninth Kurfurst. Had
      married the Heiress of Cleve (whence came a celebrated Cleve Controversy
      in after-times). No son; a good many daughters; eldest of whom was married
      to Kurfurst Johann Sigismund; from her came the controverted Cleve
      Property.
    </p>
    <p>
      7th KURFURST (1571-1598), JOHANN GEORGE. YOUNGER CULMBACH LINE.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kurfurst Johann George settled Baireuth and Anspach on Two of his Younger
      Sons, who are Founders of the "Younger Culmbach Line" (SPLIT Line or Pair
      of LINES). Jagerndorf the new Kurfurst, Joachim Friedrich, kept; settled
      it on one of his younger sons. Here are the two new Founders in Baireuth
      and Anspach, and some indication of their "Lines," so far as important to
      us at present:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                            BAIREUTH.
</pre>
    <p>
      (1.) CHRISTIAN, second son of Kurfurst Johann George: born 1581; got
      Baireuth 1603; died 1655. A distinguished Governor in his sphere. Had two
      sons; the elder died before him, but left a son, Christian Ernst; who (2.)
      succeeded, and (3.) whose son, George Wilhelm: 1644, 1655, 1712; 1678,
      1712, 1726 (are BIRTH, ACCESSION, END of these two); the latter of whom
      had no son that lived. Upon which the posterity of Christian's second son
      succeeded. Second son of Christian notable to us in two little ways:
      FIRST, That HE, George Albert, Margraf of CULMbach, is the inscrutable
      "Marquis de LULENbach" of <i>Bromley's Letters</i> (antea p. 184, let the
      Commentators take comfort!); SECOND and better, That from him came our
      little Wilhelmina's Husband,&mdash;as will be afterwards explained. It was
      his grandson (4.) that succeeded in Baireuth, George Friedrich Karl (1688,
      1726, 1735); Father of Wilhelmina's Husband. After whom (5.) his Son
      Friedrich (1711, 1735, 1763), Wilhelmina's Husband; who leaving (1763)
      nothing hut a daughter, Baireuth fell to Anspach, 1769, after an old Uncle
      (6.), childless, had also died. SIX Baireuth Margraves of this Line; FIVE
      generations; and then to Anspach, in 1769.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                             ANSPACH.
</pre>
    <p>
      (1.) JOACHIM ERNST, third son of Kurfurst Johann George: born 1583; got
      Anspach 1603; died 1625. Had military tendencies, experiences; did not
      thrive as Captain of the EVANGELICAL UNION (1619-1620) when WINTER-KING
      came up and THIRTY-YEARS WAR along with him. Left two sons; elder of whom,
      (2.) Friedrich, nominally Sovereign, age still only eighteen, fell in the
      Battle of Nordlingen (worst battle of the Thirty-Years War, 1634); and the
      younger of whom, (3.) Albert, succeeded (1620, 1634, 1667), and his son,
      (4.) Johann Friedrich (1654, 1667, 1686); and (5, 6, 7.) no fewer than
      three grandsons,&mdash;children mostly, though entitled "sovereign"&mdash;in
      a PARALLEL way (Christian Albert, 1675, 1686, 1692; George Friedrich,
      1678, 1692, 1703; Wilhelm Friedrich, 1685, 1703, 1723). Two little points
      notable here also, and no third:
    </p>
    <p>
      FIRST, That one of the grand-DAUGHTERS, full-sister of the last of these
      three parallel figures, half-sister of the two former, was&mdash;Queen
      Caroline, George II.'s wife, who has still some fame with us.
    </p>
    <p>
      SECOND, That the youngest of said three grandsons, Queen Caroline's
      full-brother, left a son then minor, who became major, (8.) and wedded a
      Sister of our dear little Wilhelmina's, of whom we shall hear (Karl
      Wilhelm Friedrich, 1712, 1723, 1757); unmomentous Margraf otherwise. His
      and her one son it was, (9.) Christian Friedrich Karl Alexander (1736,
      1757, 1806), who inherited Baireuth, inherited Actress Clairon, Lady
      Craven, and at Hammersmith (House once Bubb Doddington's, if that has any
      charm) ended the affair.
    </p>
    <p>
      NINE Anspach Margraves; in FIVE generations: end, 1806.
    </p>
    <p>
      END OF BOOK III <br /><br />
    </p></html>