History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume III Part 2

Uncle George of Ans.p.a.ch, 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--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.--Courage, patient reader!

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 circ.u.mstance 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,--up to the lips in trouble with their confused compet.i.tive accompaniments, Hunniades, Corvinus, George Podiebrad and others, not to speak of dragon Turks coiling ever closer round you on the frontier,--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,--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.

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;--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!

George did his function honestly, and with success: Ludwig grew up a gallant, airy, brisk young King, in spite of difficulties, const.i.tutional and other; got a Sister of the great Kaiser Karl V.

to wife;--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--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!--

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.--

George by this time had considerable property; part of it important to the readers of this History. Ans.p.a.ch we already know; but the Duchy of Jagerndorf,--that and its pleasant valleys, fine hunting-grounds and larch-clad heights, among the Giant Mountains of Silesia,--that is to us the memorable territory. George got it in this manner:--

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 invest.i.ture (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.

From the time of this purchase, and especially till Brother Casimir's death, which happened in 1527, George resided oftener at Jagerndorf than at Ans.p.a.ch. Ans.p.a.ch, 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 Sch.e.l.lenbergs" (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 a.s.sent, these towns and territories to George: [Rentsch, pp. 623, 127-131. Kaiser is Ferdinand, Karl V.'s Brother,--as yet only KING of Bohemia and Hungary, but supreme in regard to such points. His a.s.sent is dated "17th June, 1531" in Rentsch.]--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.

Nay the Kaiser, in spite of his preliminary a.s.sent, 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,--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 circ.u.mstance, for it will prove memorable one day.

In the business of the Reformation, Margraf George was very n.o.ble.

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.

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;--but for a Margraf of Ans.p.a.ch?

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 pa.s.sage; 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!"--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.

He did not live to see the actual Wars that followed on Luther's preaching:--he was of the same age with Luther, born few months later, and died two years before Luther; [4th March, 1484,--27th Dec., 1543, George; 10th November, 1483--18th February, 1546, Luther.]--but in all the intermediate princ.i.p.al transactions George is conspicuously present; "George of Brandenburg," as the Books call him, or simply "Margraf George."

At the Diet of Augsburg (1530), and the signing of the Augsburg Confession there, he was sure to be. He rode thither with his Ans.p.a.ch Knightage about him, "four hundred cavaliers,"--Seckendorfs, Huttens, Flanses and other known kindreds, recognizable among the lists; [Rentsch, p. 633.]--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 _Miscellanies_ (iii. 259 n.). The House is at present an Inn, _"Gasthaus zu den drei Mohren;"_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, a.s.sembled 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;--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,--perhaps be so loyal as keep their chaplains, peculiar divine-services, private in the interim? These were hints;--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,--to somewhat this effect:--

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 G.o.d, not against G.o.d. Ask us not, O gracious Kaiser! I cannot, and we cannot; and we must not, and dare not. And "before I would deny my G.o.d and his Evangel," these are George's own words, "I would rather kneel down here before your Majesty, and have my head struck off,"--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: _"Ehe Ich wolte meinen Gott und sein Evangelium verlaugnen, ehe wolte Ich hier vor Eurer Majestat niderknien, und mir den Kopf abhauen la.s.sen."--"Nit Kop ab, lover Forst, nit Kop ab!"_ 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, _Geschichte der Teutschen Reformation _ (Berlin, 1831), ii. 487.]

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,--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;--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.

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 n.o.bler kingly mind. "The command of G.o.d endures through Eternity, _ Verb.u.m Dei Manet In AEternum,"_ 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,--and I can perceive, on his own deep heart first of all. V. D. M. I. E.:--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), _"Verb.u.m Diaboli Manet In Episcopis,_ The Devil's Word sticks fast in the Bishops"?

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 a.s.sist in making for his Family, and for his Country, and for all men;--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;--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.

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.

"Of the younger Brothers," says my Authority, "some four were in the Church; two of whom rose to be Prelates;--here are the four:--

"1. One, Wilhelm by name, was Bishop of Riga, in the remote Prussian outskirts, and became Protestant;--among the first great Prelates who took that heretical course; being favored by circ.u.mstances to cast out the 'V. D. _(Verb.u.m Diaboli),'_ 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,--as indeed was a perennial case between their Bishop and them, of whatever creed he might be.

"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,--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.

"3. The PROBST of Wurzburg (PROVOST, kind of Head-Canon there); orthodox Papal he too; and often gave his Brother George trouble.

"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;--stood the 'Sack of Rome'

(Constable de Bourbon's), and was captured there and ransomed;--but died still young (1528). These three were Catholics, he of Wurzburg a rather virulent one."

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;--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,--by poison it is supposed,--and left his young Widow to marry a third time.

These are the Five minor Brothers, four of them Catholic, sons of old blind Friedrich of Pla.s.senburg; 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:--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!--

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.

Chapter VI. -- HOCHMEISTER ALBERT, THIRD NOTABLE SON OF FRIEDRICH.

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;--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 Masters.h.i.+p of the Teutsch Ritterdom fell vacant. [Rentsch, pp. 840-863.]

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,--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;--and did not find it very hopeful, as we shall see.

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,"--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.

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 a.s.sistance; 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.

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-Masters.h.i.+p of Preussen; and then, in gayety of heart, surrept.i.tiously 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.

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!--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;--as if, in a reverse manner, the House felt that it deserved to sink.

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 a.s.sistance he got of them. The Reich, as a formal body, had never a.s.serted 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 prompt.i.tude 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 t.i.tles 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 ent.i.ties, 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,--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!"--"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.

As to King Sigismund, he was patient with it to a degree; made the friendliest paternal professions;--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?"--

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;--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.

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--we will not speak of that!

Meanwhile Dr. Osiander of Ans.p.a.ch 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 circ.u.mstances the Four Years came to a close.