Chapter XIV: Part 14

This exodus of the foreigners had left Huss, who was now rector of the university, with a freer field than before. But church matters at Prague did not mend; they became more confused and threatening every day, until presently Huss stood in open opposition with the hierarchy of his time. Pope John XXIII, having a quarrel with the King of Naples, proclaimed a crusade against him, with what had become a constant accompaniment of this--indulgences to the crusaders. But to denounce indulgences, as Huss with fierce indignation did now, was to wound Pope John in a most sensitive part. He was excommunicated at once, and every place which should harbor him stricken with an interdict. While matters were in this frame the Council of Constance was opened, which should appease all the troubles of Christendom and correct whatever was amiss. The Bohemian difficulty could not be omitted, and Huss was summoned to make answer at Constance for himself.

He had not been there four weeks when he was required to appear before the Pope and cardinals, November 18, 1414. After a brief informal hearing he was committed to harsh durance, from which he never issued as a free man again. Sigismund, the German King and Emperor-elect, who had furnished Huss with a safe-conduct which should protect him, "going to the Council, tarrying at the Council, returning from the Council," was absent from Constance at the time, and heard with real displeasure how lightly regarded this promise and pledge of his had been.

Some big words, too, he spoke, threatening to come himself and release the prisoner by force; but, being waited on by a deputation from the council, who represented to him that he, as a layman, in giving such a safe-conduct had exceeded his powers, and intruded into a region which was not his, Sigismund was convinced, or affected to be convinced. Doubtless the temptations to be convinced were strong. Had he insisted on the liberation of Huss, the danger was imminent that the council, for which he had labored so earnestly, would be broken up on the plea that its rightful freedom was denied it. He did not choose to run this risk, preferring to leave an everlasting blot upon his name.

Some modern sophists assure us that this safe-conduct--or free pass, as they prefer to call it--engaged the imperial word for Huss' safety in going to the council, but for nothing more--a most perfidious document, if this is all which it undertook; for the words--I quote the more important of them in the original Latin--are as follows: "_ut ei transire, stare, morari, redire permittatis_." But the treachery was not in the document, and nobody at the time attempted to find it there. If this had not engaged the honor of the Emperor, what cause of complaint would he have had against the cardinals as having entangled him in a breach of his word? what need of their solemn ambassage to him? Untrue also is the assertion that this was so little regarded by Huss himself as a safe-conduct covering the whole period during which he should be exposed to the malice of his enemies that he never appealed to it or claimed protection from it. He did so appeal at this second formal hearing, June 7th, the first at which Sigismund was present. "I am here," he there said, "under the King's promise that I should return to Bohemia in safety"; while at his last, by a look and by a few like words, he brought the royal word-breaker to a blush, evident to all present, July 6th.

But to return a little. More than seven months elapsed before Huss could obtain a hearing before the council. This was granted to him at last. Thrice heard, June 5, 7, 8, 1415--if, indeed, such tumultuary sittings, where the man speaking for his life, and for much more than his life, was continually interrupted and overborne by hostile voices, by loud cries of "Recant, recant!" may be reckoned as hearings at all--he bore himself, by the confession of all, with courage, meekness, and dignity. The charges brought against him were various; some so far-fetched as that urged by a Nominalist from the University of Paris--for Paris was Nominalist now--namely, that as a Realist he could not be sound on the doctrine of the eucharist. Others were vague enough, as that he had sown discord between the church and the state. Nor were accusations wanting which touched a really weak point in his teaching, namely, the subjective aspect which undoubtedly some aspects of it wore; as when he taught that not the baptized, but the predestinated to life, constituted the Church. Beset as he was by the most accomplished theologians of the age, the best or the worst advantage was sure to be made of any vulnerable side which he exposed.

But there were charges against him with more in them of danger than these. The point which was really at issue between him and his adversaries concerned the relative authority of the Church and of Scripture. What they demanded of him was a retractation of all the articles brought against him, with an unconditional submission to the council. Some of the articles, he replied, charged him with teaching things which he had never taught, and he could not by this formal act of retractation admit that he had taught them. Let any doctrine of his be shown to be contrary to God's holy Word, and he would retract it; but such unconditional submission he could not yield.

His fate was now sealed--that is, unless he could be induced to recant; in which event, though he did not know it, his sentence would have been degradation from the priesthood and a lifelong imprisonment. Many efforts up to the last moment were made by friend and foe to persuade him to this, but in vain. And now once more, July 6th, he is brought before the council, but this time for sentence and for doom. The sentence passed, his suffering begins. The long list of his heresies, among which they are not ashamed to include many which he has distinctly repudiated, is read out in his hearing. He is clothed with priestly garments, that these, piece by piece, and each with an appropriate insult malediction, may be stripped from him again. The sacred vessels are placed in his hands, that from him, "accursed Judas that he is," they may be taken again. There is some difficulty in erasing his tonsure; but this difficulty with a little violence and cruelty is overcome. A tall paper cap, painted over with flames and devils, and inscribed "Heresiarch," is placed upon his head. This done, and his soul having been duly delivered to Satan, his body is surrendered to the secular arm. One last touch is not wanting. As men bind him to the stake, attention is called to the fact that his face is turned to the east. This honor must not be his, upon whom no sun of righteousness shall ever rise. He is unfastened, and refastened anew. All is borne with perfect meekness, in the thought and in the strength of Him who had borne so much more for sinners, the Just for the unjust; and so, in his fire-chariot of a painful martyrdom, Huss passes from our sight.

Some may wonder that he, a reformer, should have been so treated by a council, itself also reforming, and with a man like Gerson--_Doctor Christianissimus_ was the title he bore--virtually at its head. But a little consideration will dispel this surprise, and lead us to the conclusion that a council less earnestly bent on reforms of its own would probably have dealt more mildly with him. His position and theirs, however we may ascribe alike to him and to them a desire to reform the Church, were fundamentally different. They, when they deposed a pope, where they proclaimed the general superiority of councils over popes, had no intention of diminishing one jot the Church's authority in matters of faith, but only of changing the seat of that authority, substituting an ecclesiastical aristocracy for an ecclesiastical monarchy--or despotism, as long since it had grown to be. And thus the more earnest the council was to carry out a reformation in discipline, the more eager was it also to make evident to all the world that it did not intend to touch doctrine, but would uphold this as it had received it. It is not then uncharitable to suspect that the leading men of the council--like those reformers at Geneva who a century and a half later, 1553, sent Servetus to the stake--were not sorry to be able to give so signal an evidence of their zeal for the maintenance of the faith which they had received, as thus, in the condemnation of Huss, they had the opportunity of doing. Nor may we leave altogether out of account that the German element must of necessity have been strong in a council held on the shores of the Bodensee; while in his vindication of Bohemian nationality, perhaps an excessive vindication, Huss had offended and embittered the Germans to the uttermost.

If any had flattered themselves that with the death of Huss the Reformation in Bohemia had also received its death-blow, they had not long to wait for a painful undeception. Words fail to describe the tempest of passionate indignation with which the tidings of his execution, followed within a year by that of Jerome, were received there. Both were honored as martyrs, and already, in the fierce exasperation of men's spirits against the authors of their doom, there was a prophecy of the unutterable woes which were even at the door. Some watchword by which his followers could know and be known--this watchword, if possible, a spell of power like that which Luther had found in the doctrine of justification by faith--was still wanting. One, however, was soon found; which indeed had this drawback, that it concerned a matter disciplinary rather than doctrinal, yet having a real value as a visible witness for the rights of the laity in the Church of Christ. So far as we know, Huss had not himself laid any special stress on communion under both kinds; but in 1414--he was then already at Constance--the subject had come to the forefront at Prague; and, being consulted, Huss had entirely approved of such communion as most conformable to the original institution and to the practice of the primitive Church. On the other hand, the council, learning the agitation of men's spirits in this direction, had declared what is called the "Concomitance"--that is, that wherever one kind was present, there was also the other, which being so, nothing was, indeed, withholden from the communicant through the withholding of the cup. At the same time the council had solemnly condemned as a heretic everyone who refused to submit himself to the decision of the Church in this matter, June 15, 1415.

But there was no temper of submission in Bohemia--least of all when the University of Prague gave its voice in favor of this demand. Wenceslaus, the well-intentioned but poor-spirited King, was quite unable to keep peace between the rival factions, and could only slip out of his difficulties by dying, August 16, 1419. Sigismund, his brother, was also his successor; but of one thing the Bohemians were at this time resolved; namely, that the royal betrayer of his word should not reign over them. And thus a condition of miserable anarchy followed, and, in the end, of open war; which, lasting for eleven years, could be matched by few wars in the cruelties and atrocities by which on both sides it was disgraced. In Ziska, their blind chief, the Hussites had a leader with a born genius for war. It was he who invented the movable wagon-fortress whereof we hear so much, against which the German chivalry would break as idle waves upon a rock. Three times crusading armies--for this name they bore, thinking with no serious opposition to enforce the decrees of the council--invaded Bohemia, to be thrice driven back with utter defeat, disgrace, and loss; the Hussites, who for a long while were content with merely repelling the invaders, after a while, and as the only way of conquering a peace, turning the tables, and wasting with fire and sword all neighboring German lands.

A conflict so hideous could not long be waged without a rapid deterioration of all who were engaged in it. The spirit of Huss more and more departed from those who called themselves by his name. Intestine strifes devoured their strength. There were first the Moderates--Calixtines, Utraquists, or "Those of Prague," they were called--who, weary of the long struggle, were willing to return to the bosom of the Church if only the cup (_calix_), and thus communion under both kinds (_sub utraque_), were guaranteed to them, with two or three secondary matters. Not so the Taborites, who drew their name from a mountain fastness which they fortified and called Mount Tabor. These, the Ultras, the democratic radical party, separating themselves off as early as 1419, had left Huss and his teaching very far behind. Ignoring the whole historical development of Christianity, they demanded that a clean sweep should be made of everything in the Church's practice for which an express and literal warrant in Scripture could not be found. When at the Council of Basel an agreement was patched up with the Calixtines on the footing which I have just named, 1433, a few further promises being thrown in which might mean anything and, as the issue proved, did mean nothing, the Taborites would not listen to the compromise. Again they appealed to arms: but now their old comrades and allies had passed to the other side; and, defeated in battle, 1434, their stronghold taken and destroyed, 1453, their political power forever broken, they, too, as so many before and since, were doomed to learn that violence is weakness in disguise, and that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Whether the Church of Rome made the concessions to the Calixtines which she did, with the intention of retracting them at the first opportunity, it is impossible to say. This, however, is certain, that half a dozen years had scarcely elapsed before these concessions were brought into question and dispute; while, in less than thirty, Pope Pius II formally withdrew altogether the papal recognition of them, 1462; though a struggle for their maintenance, not always unsuccessful, lasted on into the century ensuing.

It was in truth a melancholy close of a movement so hopefully begun. And yet not altogether the close; for, indeed, nothing, in which any elements of true heroism are mingled, so disappears as to leave no traces of itself behind. If it does no more, it serves to feed the high tradition of the world--that most precious of all bequests to the present age from the ages which are behind it. But there was more than this. If much was consumed, yet not all. Something--and that the best worth the saving--was saved from the fires, having first been purified in them. The stormy zealots, as many as had taken the sword, had for the most part perished by the sword.

But there were some who made for themselves a better future than the sword could have ever made. A feeble remnant, extricating themselves from the wreck and ruin of their party, and having been taught of God in his severest school, pious Calixtines, too, that were little content with the Compacts of Basel, a few stray Waldensians mingling with them, all these, drawing together in an evil time, refashioned and reconstituted themselves in humblest guise, though not in guise so humble that they could escape the cruel attentions of Rome. Seeking to build on a true scriptural foundation, with a scheme of doctrine, it may be, dogmatically incomplete--even as that of Huss himself had been--with their episcopate lost and never since recovered, the Unitas Fratrum, the Moravian Brethren, trampled and trodden down, but overcoming now, not by weapons of carnal warfare, but by the blood of the Cross, lived on to hail the breaking of a fairer dawn, and to be themselves greeted as witnesses for God, who in a dark and gloomy day, and having but a little strength, had kept his word, and not denied his name.

THE HOUSE OF HOHENZOLLERN ESTABLISHED IN BRANDENBURG

A.D. 1415

THOMAS CARLYLE

The German princely family of Hohenzollern, which ruled over
Brandenburg from 1415, has furnished the kings of Prussia
since 1701, and since 1871 those kings have also been German
emperors. The Hohenzollerns were originally owners of a
castle on the Upper Danube, at no great distance from the
ancestral seat of the Hapsburg family. They acquired
influence at the court of Swabia, and in 1192 had
established themselves in Nuremberg, where in that year
Frederick I became burggraf. When Rudolph I, founder of the
house of Hapsburg, finally defeated his rival, Ottocar of
Bohemia (1278), his cause was saved by the assistance of a
Hohenzollern--Frederick of Nuremberg.

The Hohenzollerns made fortunate marriages and shrewd
purchases and the descendants of Frederick I, succeeding to
his burggravate, in the course of time acquired great
estates in Franconia, Moravia, and Burgundy. Through their
increasing wealth--whereby in the fifteenth century they had
gained a position similar to that of the present
Rothschilds--and by use of their political abilities, they
attained commanding influence in the councils of the German
princes.

Such was the eminence of this powerful family at the time
when they acquired the electorate of Brandenburg, the
nucleus of the present kingdom of Prussia. Brandenburg was a
district formerly inhabited by the Wends, a Slavic people,
from whom it was taken in 926 by Henry the Fowler, King of
Germany, of which kingdom it afterward became a margravate.
Its first margrave was Albert the Bear, under whom, about
1150, it was made an electorate; from Albert's line it
passed to Louis the Bavarian, in 1319; and in 1371 it was
transferred to Charles (Karl) IV. On the death of Charles,
his son and successor Wenzel (Wenceslaus) relinquished
Brandenburg to his brothers, as told by Carlyle, who in his
own pictorial manner describes the subsequent complications
which finally resulted in giving that possession to the
ancestors of the present ruling house of Germany.

Karl[74] left three young sons, Wenzel, Sigismund, Johann; and also a certain nephew much older; all of whom now more or less concern us in this unfortunate history.

Wenzel, the eldest son, heritable Kurfuerst of Brandenburg as well as King of Bohemia, was as yet only seventeen, who nevertheless got to be kaiser--and went widely astray, poor soul. The nephew was no other than Margrave Jobst of Moravia, now in the vigor of his years and a stirring man: to him, for a time, the chief management in Brandenburg fell, in these circumstances. Wenzel, still a minor, and already Kaiser and King of Bohemia, gave up Brandenburg to his two younger brothers, most of it to Sigismund, with a cutting for Johann, to help their appanages; and applied his own powers to govern the Holy Roman Empire, at that early stage of life.

To govern the Holy Roman Empire, poor soul--or rather "to drink beer and dance with the girls"; in which, if defective in other things, Wenzel had an eminent talent. He was one of the worst kaisers and the least victorious on record. He would attend to nothing in the Reich; "the Prag white beer, and girls" of various complexion, being much preferable, as he was heard to say. He had to fling his poor Queen's Confessor into the river Moldau--Johann of Nepomuk, Saint so called, if he is not a fable altogether; whose Statue stands on Bridges ever since, in those parts. Wenzel's Bohemians revolted against him; put him in jail; and he broke prison, a boatman's daughter helping him out, with adventures. His Germans were disgusted with him; deposed him from the kaisership; chose Rupert of the Pfalz; and then, after Rupert's death, chose Wenzel's own brother Sigismund in his stead--left Wenzel to jumble about in his native Bohemian element, as king there, for nineteen years longer, still breaking pots to a ruinous extent.

He ended by apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Ziska,[75] as it were, killing him at second hand. For Ziska, stout and furious, blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven mad, had risen out of the ashes of murdered Huss, and other bad papistic doings, in the interim; and was tearing up the world at a huge rate. Rhinoceros Ziska was on the Weissenberg, or a still nearer hill of Prag since called Ziska-berg (Ziska Hill); and none durst whisper of it to the King. A servant waiting at dinner inadvertently let slip the word: "Ziska there? Deny it, slave!" cried Wenzel, frantic. Slave durst not deny. Wenzel drew his sword to run at him, but fell down dead: that was the last pot broken by Wenzel. The hapless royal ex-imperial phantasm self-broken in this manner. Poor soul, he came to the kaisership too early; was a thin violent creature, sensible to the charms and horrors of created objects; and had terrible rhinoceros ziskas and unruly horned cattle to drive. He was one of the worst kaisers ever known--could have done Opera Singing much better--and a sad sight to Bohemia. Let us leave him there: he was never actual Elector of Brandenburg, having given it up in time; never did any ill to that poor country.

The real Kurfürst of Brandenburg all this while was Sigismund, Wenzel's next brother, under tutelage of cousin Jobst or otherwise--a real and yet imaginary, for he never himself governed, but always had Jobst of Mähren or some other in his place there. Sigismund was to have married a daughter of Burggraf Friedrich V;[76] and he was himself, as was the young lady, well inclined to this arrangement. But the old people being dead, and some offer of a king's daughter turning up for Sigismund, Sigismund broke off; and took the king's daughter, King of Hungary's--not without regret then and afterward, as is believed. At any rate, the Hungarian charmer proved a wife of small merit, and a Hungarian successor she had was a wife of light conduct even; Hungarian charmers, and Hungarian affairs, were much other than a comfort to Sigismund.

As for the disappointed princess, Burggraf Friedrich's daughter, she said nothing that we hear; silently became a Nun, an Abbess: and through a long life looked out, with her thoughts to herself, upon the loud whirlwind of things, where Sigismund (oftenest an imponderous rag of conspicuous color) was riding and tossing. Her two brothers also, joint Burggraves after their father's death, seemed to have reconciled themselves without difficulty. The elder of them was already Sigismund's brother-in-law; married to Sigismund's and Wenzel's sister--by such predestination as we saw. Burggraf Johann III was the name of this one; a stout fighter and manager for many years; much liked, and looked to, by Sigismund, as indeed were both the brothers, for that matter; always, together or in succession, a kind of right hand to Sigismund. Frederick (Friedrich), the younger Burggraf, and ultimately the survivor and inheritor (Johann having left no sons), is the famed Burggraf Friedrich VI the last and notablest of all the Burggraves--a man of distinguished importance, extrinsic and intrinsic; chief or among the very chief of German public men in his time; and memorable to Posterity, and to this history, on still other grounds! But let us not anticipate.

Sigismund, if appanaged with Brandenburg alone, and wedded to his first love, not a king's daughter, might have done tolerably well there; better than Wenzel, with the empire and Bohemia, did. But delusive Fortune threw her golden apple at Sigismund too; and he, in the wide high world, had to play strange pranks. His father-in-law died in Hungary, Sigismund's first wife his only child. Father-in-law bequeathed Hungary to Sigismund, who plunged into a strange sea thereby; got troubles without number, beatings not a few, and had even to take boat, and sail for his life down to Constantinople, at one time. In which sad adventure Burggraf Johann escorted him, and as it were tore him out by the hair of the head. These troubles and adventures lasted many years; in the course of which, Sigismund, trying all manner of friends and expedients, found in the Burggraves of Nuremberg, Johann and Friedrich, with their talents, possessions, and resources, the main or almost only sure support he got.

No end of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from this sublime Hungarian legacy. Like a remote fabulous golden fleece, which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little when conquered. Before ever setting out (1387), Sigismund saw too clearly that he would have cash to raise: an operation he had never done with, all his life afterward. He pawned Brandenburg to cousin Jobst of Mähren; got "twenty thousand Bohemian gulden"--I guess, a most slender sum, if Dryasdust would but interpret it. This was the beginning of pawnings to Brandenburg; of which when will the end be? Jobst thereby came into Brandenburg on his own right for the time, not as tutor or guardian, which he had hitherto been. Into Brandenburg; and there was no chance of repayment to get him out again.

Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself. Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown domains, winking hard at robber barons, and the like--and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (Viceregent, more like a hungry land-steward), whom nobody took the trouble of respecting. Robber castles flourished; all else decayed. No highway not unsafe; many a Turpin with sixteen quarters, and styling himself Edle Herr (noble gentleman), took to "living from the saddle": what are Hamburg pedlers made for but to be robbed?

The towns suffered much; any trade they might have had, going to wreck in this manner. Not to speak of private feuds, which abounded _ad libitum_. Neighboring potentates, Archbishop of Magdeburg and others, struck in also at discretion, as they had gradually got accustomed to do, and snapped away some convenient bit of territory, or, more legitimately, they came across to coerce, at their own hand, this or the other Edle Herr of the Turpin sort, whom there was no other way of getting at, when he carried matters quite too high. "Droves of six hundred swine"--I have seen (by reading in those old books) certain noble gentlemen, "of Putlitz," I think, driving them openly, captured by the stronger hand; and have heard the short querulous squeak of the bristly creatures: "What is the use of being a pig at all, if I am to be stolen in this way, and surreptitiously made into ham?" Pigs do continue to be bred in Brandenburg: but it is under such discouragements. Agriculture, trade, well-being and well-doing of any kind, it is not encouragement they are meeting here. Probably few countries, not even Ireland, have a worse outlook, unless help come.

Jobst came back in 1398, after eight years' absence; but no help came with Jobst. The Neumark of Brandenburg, which was brother Johann's portion, had fallen home to Sigismund, brother Johann having died; but Sigismund, far from redeeming old pawn-tickets with the Neumark, pawned the Neumark too--the second pawnage of Brandenburg. Pawned the Neumark to the Teutsch Ritters "for sixty-three thousand Hungarian gulden" (I think, about thirty thousand pounds), and gave no part of it to Jobst; had not nearly enough for himself and his Hungarian occasions.

Seeing which, and hearing such squeak of pigs surreptitiously driven, with little but discordant sights and sounds everywhere, Jobst became disgusted with the matter; and resolved to wash his hands of it, at least to have his money out of it again. Having sold what of the domains he could to persons of quality, at an uncommonly easy rate, and so pocketed what ready cash there was among them, he made over his pawn-ticket, or properly he himself repawned Brandenburg to the Saxon potentate, a speculative moneyed man, Markgraf of Meissen, "Wilhelm the Rich," so called. Pawned it to Wilhelm the Rich--sum not named; and went home to Moravia, there to wait events. This is the third Brandenburg pawning: let us hope there may be a fourth and last.

And so we have now reached that point in Brandenburg history when, if some help does not come, Brandenburg will not long be a country, but will either get dissipated in pieces and stuck to the edge of others where some government is, or else go waste again and fall to the bisons and wild bears.

Who now is Kurfürst of Brandenburg, might be a question. "I unquestionably!" Sigismund would answer, with astonishment. "Soft, your Hungarian Majesty," thinks Jobst: "till my cash is paid may it not probably be another?" This question has its interest: the Electors just now (1400) are about deposing Wenzel; must choose some better Kaiser. If they wanted another scion of the house of Luxemburg--a mature old gentleman of sixty; full of plans, plausibilities, pretensions--Jobst is their man. Jobst and Sigismund were of one mind as to Wenzel's going; at least Sigismund voted clearly so, and Jobst said nothing counter: but the Kurfürsts did not think of Jobst for successor. After some stumbling, they fixed upon Rupert Kur-Pfalz (Elector Palatine, Ruprecht von der Pfalz) as Kaiser.

Rupert of the Pfalz proved a highly respectable Kaiser; lasted for ten years (1400-10), with honor to himself and the Reich. A strong heart, strong head, but short of means. He chastised petty mutiny with vigor, could not bring down the Milanese Visconti, who had perched themselves so high on money paid to Wenzel; could not heal the schism of the Church (double or triple Pope, Rome-Avignon affair), or awaken the Reich to a sense of its old dignity and present loose condition. In the late loose times, as antiquaries remark, most members of the Empire, petty princes even and imperial towns, had been struggling to set up for themselves; and were now concerned chiefly to become sovereign in their own territories. And Schilter informs us it was about this period that most of them attained such rather unblessed consummation; Rupert of himself not able to help it, with all his willingness. The people called him "Rupert Klemm (Rupert Smith's-vise)," from his resolute ways; which nickname--given him not in hatred, but partly in satirical good-will--is itself a kind of history. From historians of the Reich he deserves honorable regretful mention.

He had for Empress a sister of Burggraf Friedrich's; which high lady, unknown to us otherwise, except by her tomb at Heidelberg, we remember for her brother's sake. Kaiser Rupert--great-grandson of that Kur-Pfalz who was Kaiser Ludwig's elder brother--is the culminating point of the Electors Palatine; the highest that Heidelberg produced. Ancestor of those famed Protestant "Palatines"; of all the Palatines or Pfalzes that reign in these late centuries. Ancestor of the present Bavarian Majesty; Kaiser Ludwig's race having died out. Ancestor of the unfortunate Winterkönig, Friedrich, King of Bohemia, who is too well known in English history--ancestor also of Charles XII of Sweden, a highly creditable fact of the kind to him. Fact indisputable: a cadet of Pfalz-Zweibrück (Deux-Ponts), direct from Rupert, went to serve in Sweden in his soldier business; distinguished himself in soldiering; had a sister of the great Gustaf Adolf to wife; and from her a renowned son, Karl Gustaf (Christiana's cousin), who succeeded as King; who again had a grandson made in his own likeness, only still more of iron in his composition. Enough now of Rupert Smith's-vise; who died in 1410, and left the Reich again vacant.

Rupert's funeral is hardly done, when, over in Preussen, far off in the Memel region, place called Tannenberg, where there is still "a church-yard to be seen," if little more, the Teutsch Ritters had, unexpectedly, a terrible defeat; consummation of their Polish miscellaneous quarrels of long standing; and the end of their high courses in this world. A ruined Teutsch Ritterdom, as good as ruined, ever henceforth. Kaiser Rupert died May 18th; and on July 15th, within two months, was fought that dreadful "Battle of Tannenburg," Poland and Polish King, with miscellany of savage Tartars and revolted Prussians, versus Teutsch Ritterdom; all in a very high mood of mutual rage; the very elements, "wild thunder, tempest and rain deluges," playing chorus to them on the occasion. Ritterdom fought lion-like, but with insufficient strategic and other wisdom, and was driven nearly distracted to see its pride tripped into the ditch by such a set. Vacant Reich could not in the least attend to it; nor can we further at present.

Jobst and Sigismund were competitors for the Kaisership; Wenzel, too, striking in with claims for reinstatement: the house of Luxemburg divided against itself. Wenzel, finding reinstatement not to be thought of, threw his weight, such as it was, into the scale of cousin Jobst. The contest was vehement, and like to be lengthy. Jobst, though he had made over his pawn-ticket, claimed to be Elector of Brandenburg; and voted for himself. The like, with still more emphasis, did Sigismund, or Burggraf Friedrich acting for him: "Sigismund, sure, is Kur-Brandenburg, though under pawn!" argued Friedrich--and, I almost guess, though that is not said, produced from his own purse, at some stage of the business, the actual money for Jobst, to close his Brandenburg pretension.

Both were elected (majority contested in this manner); and old Jobst, then above seventy, was like to have given much trouble; but happily in three months he died; and Sigismund became indisputable. In his day Jobst made much noise in the world, but did little or no good in it. He was thought "a great man," says one satirical old Chronicler; and there "was nothing great about him but the beard."

"The cause of Sigismund's success with the Electors," says Kohler, "or of his having any party among them, was the faithful and unwearied diligence which had been used for him by the above-named Burggraf Friedrich VI of Nuremberg, who took extreme pains to forward Sigismund to the Empire; pleading that Sigismund and Wenzel would be sure to agree well henceforth, and that Sigismund, having already such extensive territories (Hungary, Brandenburg, and so forth) by inheritance, would not be so exact about the Reichs-tolls and other imperial incomes. This same Friedrich also, when the election fell out doubtful, was Sigismund's best support in Germany, nay almost his right hand, through whom he did whatever was done."

Sigismund is Kaiser, then, in spite of Wenzel. King of Hungary, after unheard-of troubles and adventures, ending some years ago in a kind of peace and conquest, he has long been. King of Bohemia, too, he at last became; having survived Wenzel, who was childless. Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, and so much else: is not Sigismund now a great man? Truly the loom he weaves upon, in this world, is very large. But the weaver was of headlong, high-pacing, flimsy nature; and both warp and woof were gone dreadfully entangled!

This is the Kaiser Sigismund who held the Council of Constance; and "blushed visibly," when Huss, about to die, alluded to the letter of safe-conduct granted him, which was issuing in such fashion. Sigismund blushed; but could not conveniently mend the matter--so many matters pressing on him just now. As they perpetually did, and had done. An always-hoping, never-resting, unsuccessful, vain and empty Kaiser. Specious, speculative; given to eloquence, diplomacy, and the windy instead of the solid arts; always short of money for one thing. He roamed about, and talked eloquently; aiming high, and generally missing. Hungary and even the Reich have at length become his, but have brought small triumph in any kind; and instead of ready money, debt on debt. His Majesty has no money, and his Majesty's occasions need it more and more.

He is now (1414) holding this Council of Constance, by way of healing the Church, which is sick of three simultaneous popes and of much else. He finds the problem difficult; finds he will have to run into Spain, to persuade a refractory pope there, if eloquence can (as it cannot): all which requires money, money. At opening of the council, he "officiated as deacon"; actually did some kind of litanying "with a surplice over him," though Kaiser and King of the Romans. But this passage of his opening speech is what I recollect best of him there: "Right reverend Fathers, _date operam ut illa nefanda schisma eradicetur_," exclaims Sigismund, intent on having the Bohemian schism well dealt with--which he reckons to be of the feminine gender. To which a cardinal mildly remarking, "_Domine, schisma est generis neutrius_ (schisma is neuter, your Majesty)," Sigismund loftily replies: "_Ego sum Rex Romanus et super grammaticam_ (I am King of the Romans, and above Grammar)!" For which reason I call him in my note-books Sigismund Super Grammaticam, to distinguish him in the imbroglio of kaisers.

How Jobst's pawn-ticket was settled I never clearly heard; but can guess it was by Burggraf Friedrich's advancing the money, in the pinch above indicated, or paying it afterward to Jobst's heirs whoever they were. Thus much is certain: Burggraf Friedrich, these three years and more (ever since July 8, 1411) holds Sigismund's deed of acknowledgment "for one hundred thousand gulden lent at various times"; and has likewise got the Electorate of Brandenburg in pledge for that sum; and does himself administer the said Electorate till he be paid. This is the important news; but this is not all.

The new journey into Spain requires new money; this council itself, with such a pomp as suited Sigismund, has cost him endless money. Brandenburg, torn to ruins in the way we saw, is a sorrowful matter; and, except the title of it, as a feather in one's cap, is worth nothing to Sigismund. And he is still short of money; and will forever be. Why could not he give up Brandenburg altogether; since, instead of paying, he is still making new loans from Burggraf Friedrich; and the hope of ever paying were mere lunacy! Sigismund revolves these sad thoughts too, amid his world-wide diplomacies, and efforts to heal the Church. "Pledged for one hundred thousand gulden," sadly ruminates Sigismund; "and fifty thousand more borrowed since, by little and little; and more ever needed, especially for this grand Spanish journey!" these were his sad thoughts. "Advance me, in a round sum, two hundred and fifty thousand more," said he to Burggraf Friedrich, "two hundred and fifty thousand more, for my manifold occasions in this time--that will be four hundred thousand in whole--and take the Electorate of Brandenburg to yourself, Land, Titles, Sovereign, Electorship and all, and make me rid of it!" That was the settlement adopted, in Sigismund's apartment at Constance, on April 30, 1415; signed, sealed, and ratified--and the money paid. A very notable event in World-History; virtually completed on the day we mention.

The ceremony of investiture did not take place till two years afterward, when the Spanish journey had proved fruitless, when much else of fruitless had come and gone and Kaiser and council were probably more at leisure for such a thing. Done at length it was by Kaiser Sigismund in almost gala, with the Grandees of the Empire assisting, and august members of the council and world in general looking on; in the big square or market-place of Constance, April 17, 1417; is to be found described in Rentsch, from Nauclerus and the old news-mongers of the times. Very grand indeed: much processioning on horseback, under powerful trumpet-peals and flourishes; much stately kneeling, stately rising, stepping backward (done well, _zierlich_, on the Kurfürst's part); liberal expenditure of cloth and pomp; in short, "above one hundred thousand people looking on from roofs and windows," and Kaiser Sigismund in all his glory. He was on a high platform in the market-place, with stairs to it; the illustrious Kaiser--red as a flamingo, "with scarlet mantle and crown of gold,"--a treat to the eyes of simple mankind.

What sum of modern money, in real purchasing power, this "four hundred thousand Hungarian Gold Gulden" is, I have inquired in the likely quarters without result; and it is probable no man exactly knows. The latest existing representative of the ancient gold gulden is the ducat, worth generally a half-sovereign in English. Taking the sum at that latest rate, it amounts to two hundred thousand pounds; and the reader can use that as a note of memory for the sale-price of Brandenburg with all its lands and honors--multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring out its effective amount in current coin. Dog cheap, it must be owned, for size and capability; but in the most waste condition, full of mutiny, injustice, anarchy, and highway robbery; a purchase that might have proved dear enough to another man than Burggraf Friedrich.

But so, at any rate, moribund Brandenburg has got its Hohenzollern Kurfürst, and started on a new career it little dreamt of; and we can now, right willingly, quit Sigismund and the Reichs-History, leave Kaiser Sigismund to sink or swim at his own will henceforth. His grand feat in life, the wonder of his generation, was this same Council of Constance; which proved entirely a failure; one of the largest wind-eggs ever dropped with noise and travail in this world. Two hundred thousand human creatures, reckoned and reckoning themselves the elixir of the intellect and dignity of Europe. Two hundred thousand--nay some, counting the lower menials and numerous unfortunate females, say four hundred thousand--were got congregated into that little Swiss town; and there as an Ecumenic Council, or solemnly distilled elixir of what pious intellect and valor could be scraped together in the world, they labored with all their select might for four years' space. That was the Council of Constance. And except this transfer of Brandenburg to Friedrich of Hohenzollern, resulting from said council, in the quite reverse and involuntary way, one sees not what good result it had.

They did, indeed, burn Huss; but that could not be called a beneficial incident; that seemed to Sigismund and the council a most small and insignificant one. And it kindled Bohemia, and kindled Rhinoceros Ziska, into never-imagined flame of vengeance; brought mere disaster, disgrace, and defeat on defeat to Sigismund, and kept his hands full for the rest of his life, however small he had thought it. As for the sublime four years' deliberations and debates of this Sanhedrim of the Universe--eloquent debates, conducted, we may say, under such extent of wig as was never seen before or since--they have fallen wholly to the domain of Dryasdust; and amount, for mankind at this time, to zero plus the burning of Huss. On the whole, Burggraf Friedrich's Electorship, and the first Hohenzollern to Brandenburg, is the one good result.

Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a cool reception as Statthalter. 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.

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; rushing out from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any herd of "six hundred swine," and convoy of Lübeck 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--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?

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 forty or fifty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Böhmen"; said this and that; 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: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ill habits of long continuance.

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 Nuremberger Tand" (Nuremberg plaything--wooden image, such as they make at Nuremberg), 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;" and continued their feuds, toll-levyings, plunderings, and other contumacies.

Seeing matters come to this pass after above a year, Burggraf Friedrich gathered his Frankish men-at-arms; quietly made league with the neighboring Potentates, Thüringen and others; got some munitions, some artillery together--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 Thüringen, 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; the German Dryasdust is a dull dog, and seldom carries anything human in those big wallets of his!

Equipped in this way, Burggraf Friedrich (he was not yet Kurfürst, only coming to be) marches for the Havel Country (early days of 1414); 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?" "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 Kurfürst 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.

Quitzow being settled--for the country is in military occupation of Friedrich and his allies, and except in some stone castle a man has no chance--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.

BATTLE OF AGINCOURT

ENGLISH CONQUEST OF FRANCE

A.D. 1415-1420

JAMES GAIRDNER

King Henry V of England, son of Henry IV, was born in 1387,
and two years later was made prince of Wales. In 1401-1408
he was engaged against the Welsh rebels under Owen
Glendower, and in 1410 became captain of Calais. His
youthful period is represented--probably with much
exaggeration, to which Shakespeare, in _Henry IV_,
contributed--as full of wild and dissolute conduct, but as
king he was distinguished for his courage, ability, and
enterprise.

Henry was crowned in 1413, about seventy-five years after
the beginning of the Hundred Years' War between England and
France, which arose from the claim of Edward III to the
French throne. For some years a feud had been raging in
France between the houses of Burgundy and Orleans, the rival
parties being known as Burgundians and Armagnacs. Led by
Simonet Caboche, a butcher, adherents of the Armagnacs rose
with great fury against the Burgundians. This was in the
first year of Henry's reign, and to him and other rulers
Charles VI of France appealed in order to prevent them from
aiding the outbreak, which was soon quelled by the princes
of the blood and the University of Paris. Order in France
was restored by the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of
Burgundy withdrew to Flanders. But war between the two
factions was soon after renewed, and both sides sought the
alliance of England.

In these contentions and appeals for his interference Henry
saw an opportunity for pressing his designs to recover what
he claimed as the French inheritance of his predecessors. In
1414, as the heir of Isabella, mother of his
great-grandfather Edward, he formally demanded the crown of
France. The French princes refused to consider his claim.
Henry modified his demands, but after several months of
negotiation, with no promise of success, he prepared for
renewal of the ancient war.

The claim made by Edward III to the French crown had been questionable enough. That of Henry was certainly most unreasonable. Edward had maintained that though the Salic Law, which governed the succession in France, excluded females from the throne, it did not exclude their male descendants. On this theory Edward himself was doubtless the true heir to the French monarchy. But even admitting the claims of Edward, his rights had certainly not descended to Henry V, seeing that even in England neither he nor his father was true to the throne by lineal right. A war with France, however, was sure to be popular with his subjects, and the weakness of that country from civil discord seemed a favorable opportunity for urging the most extreme pretensions.

To give a show of fairness and moderation the English ambassadors at Paris lessened their demands more than once, and appeared willing for some time to renew negotiations after their terms had been rejected. But in the end they still insisted on a claim which in point of equity was altogether preposterous, and rejected a compromise which would have put Henry in possession of the whole of Guienne and given him the hand of the French King's daughter Catharine with a marriage portion of eight hundred thousand crowns. Meanwhile Henry was making active preparations for war, and at the same time carried on secret negotiations with the Duke of Burgundy, trusting to have him for an ally in the invasion of France.

At length, in the summer of 1415, the King had collected an army and was ready to embark at Southampton. But on the eve of his departure a conspiracy was discovered, the object of which was to dethrone the King and set aside the house of Lancaster. The conspirators were Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham, and a knight of Northumberland named Sir Thomas Grey. The Earl of Cambridge was the King's cousin-german, and had been recently raised to that dignity by Henry himself. Lord Scrope was, to all appearance, the King's most intimate friend and counsellor. The design seems to have been formed upon the model of similar projects in the preceding reign. Richard II was to be proclaimed once more, as if he had been still alive; but the real intention was to procure the crown for Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the true heir of Richard, whom Henry IV had set aside.

At the same time the Earl of March himself seems hardly to have countenanced the attempt; but the Earl of Cambridge, who had married his sister, wished, doubtless, to secure the succession for his son Richard, as the Earl of March had no children. Evidently it was the impression of some persons that the house of Lancaster was not even yet firmly seated upon the throne. Perhaps it was not even yet apparent that the young man who had so recently been a gamesome reveller was capable of ruling with a firm hand a king.