History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume III Part 6

Chapter XIII. -- NINTH KURFURST, JOHANN SIGISMUND.

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.

The "young man"--not now so young, being full thirty-five and of fair experience--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.

His difficulties in Preussen, and at the Polish Court, were in fact immense. But after a s.p.a.ce 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.

HOW THE CLEVE HERITAGE DROPPED, AND MANY SPRANG TO PICK IT UP.

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, Lords.h.i.+p of---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 Yorks.h.i.+res in extent. [See Busching, _Erdbeschreibung,_ v. 642-734.]

A naturally opulent Country, of fertile meadows, s.h.i.+pping capabilities, metalliferous hills; and, at this time, in consequence of the Dutch-Spanish War, and the mult.i.tude 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,--"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.

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.

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 ent.i.tled 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.

The other three Sisters were all gradually married;--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;--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.

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'-s.h.i.+rt; 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:--"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'-s.h.i.+rt. In fine, the poor man died (Spring, 1609), and made the world rid of him. Died 25th March, 1609; that is the precise date;--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.

For the painful exact.i.tude 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 antic.i.p.ated, 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--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;--the whole, or part? Both are sensible that possession is nine points in law.

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:--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!"

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.

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 heirs.h.i.+p of Cleve by right; and we, now grown Electors, and Seniors of Saxony, demand it of a grateful House of Hapsburg,--and will study to make ourselves convenient in return."--

"Nay, if that is your rule, that old Laws and Deeds are to come in bar of new, we," cry a mult.i.tude of persons,--French Dukes of Nevers, and all manner of remote, exotic figures among them,--"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!"--In short, there never was such a Lawsuit,--so fat an affair for the attorney species, if that had been the way of managing it,--as this of Cleve was likely to prove.

THE KAISER'S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT, AND THE WORLD'S.

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.

Nor will Pfalz-Neuburg. A Protestant of Protestants, this Palatine Neuburg too,--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;--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:--unless perhaps Saxony might become pliant, and try to make itself useful to a munificent Imperial House?

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:--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.--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.

Chapter XIV. -- SYMPTOMS OF A GREAT WAR COMING.

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,--symptoms of the universal conflagration of a Thirty-Years War, which followed. SYMPTON FIRST is that of Donauworth, and dates above a year back.

FIRST SYMPTOM; DONAUWORTH, 1608.

Donauworth, a Protestant Imperial Free-town, in the Bavarian regions, had been, for some fault on the part of the populace against a flaring Ma.s.s-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.]--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,--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 Sch.e.l.lenberg"

long after: Sch.e.l.lenberg ("Jingle-Hill," so to render it) looks down across the Danube or Donau River, upon Donauworth,--its "Lines," and other histories, now much abolished, and quiet under gra.s.s.

But now all Protestantism sounding everywhere, in angry mournful tone, "Donauwarth! Give up Donauworth!"--and an "Evangelical Union," with moneys, with theoretic contingents of force, being on foot for that and the like objects;--we can fancy what a scramble this of Cleve-Julich was like to be; and especially what effect this duelling att.i.tude of Brandenburg and Neuburg had on the Protestant mind. Protestant neighbors, Landgraf Moritz of Hessen-Ca.s.sel 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 slas.h.i.+ng one another, in such an aspect of the Reich and its Jesuitries?"--And they did agree (Dortmund, 10th May, 1609) the first of their innumerable "agreements," to some temporary joint-possession;--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.

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;--then Ferdinand II. his Uncle's Son, 1619-1637, much the reverse of tolerant, by whom mainly came the Thirty-Years War,--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),--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 _(alle Spitzfindigkeiten auffordern sollte),"_ and achieve it. [Pauli, iii. 5055.] This curious Letter of a sublime Aulic Council, or Imperial HOF-RATH, to its VICE-KANZLER, still exists.

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,--which probably will not be soon!"

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."

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 fas.h.i.+on; 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,--taken down solemnly, 1st August, 1609,] having good help at their back.

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,--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;--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,--the evening song and the morning prayer of Protestants especially,--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 _ Miscellanies_ (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 _Royal Letters_ are;--and had better lie quiet!

"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 circ.u.mstances, 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),--Donauworth Max has seen this a necessary inst.i.tution in the present aspect.--Both "Union" and "League" rapidly waxed under the sound of the Julich cannon, as was natural.

Kur-Sachsen, for standing so well aloof from the Union, got from the thankful Kaiser written t.i.tles 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--Neuburg especially--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 Compet.i.tor of moment to Brandenburg, except this Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg; he alone having clutched hold.--But we hasten to SYMPTOM THIRD, which particularly concerns us, and will be intelligible now at last.

SYMPTOM THIRD: A DINNER-SCENE AT DUSSELDORF, 1613: SPANIARDS AND DUTCH SHOULDER ARMS IN CLEVE.

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 Amba.s.sador on this errand,--as on many others equally bootless;--and writes himself "Legatus," not only "thrice to Venice, twice to" &c. &c., but also "once to Holland in the Juliers matter _(semel in Juliacensi negotio):"_ see _Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (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, pa.s.s our power of recording.

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!"--"And you, I see, are for promoting Lutherans!"--Johann Sigismund himself had to intervene: Wolfgang Wilhelm and he had their meetings, friendly colloquies:--the final celloquy of which is still memorable; and issues in SYMPTOM THIRD.

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.