The Great Elector
The Elector was announced. Mother and son rose and went to meet him. He
had suffered for years in one foot, and for a short time in the other,
so that he could not walk and had to be taken about in a roll-chair.
Upon the face of the broken-down man one could read the sorrowful
history of his twenty years' rule.
"My son," began the Elector, "I learn from Schwarzenberg that you have
sent back a message of the Berlinese. I understand you, my son, and
declare to you now that I would gladly listen to any suggestion from you
bearing upon the welfare of the country. It is time, my son, for you to
live here, that you may become acquainted with the hard duties of ruling
a country. Who knows whether the Almighty may not soon call me hence? I
long for the rest, for I am tired, so tired! Come here, my son, and sit
by my side, for I would speak with you from the bottom of my heart. And
you too, dearest wife, who have shared joys and sorrows with me,--there
have not been many joys,--sit at my side and be a witness to the words I
shall speak to the future ruler of this country. Give me your hands!
"My son, for more than twenty years the war has raged between Catholics
and Protestants, and there is not a country in Europe which has suffered
as much as our own possessions, Brandenburg, Prussia, and Cleves. My
son, I will look calmly back upon my life and try to speak without
prejudice. I have turned my attention from worldly to eternal matters.
Why should I seek worldly glory, I, who am so soon to stand before the
judgment seat of God? Had I had the heroic character of Gustavus
Adolphus, surely, surely things might have been different. But it would
have been difficult even for him, whose devoted courage led him to his
death, to be a soldier as well as a Brandenburg prince; for the very
things necessary to a soldier's success--a full treasury, and a great,
valiant army--would have been lacking.
"Many will say, 'Why could they not have been secured?' My son, glance
with me at my life and then decide. Difficulties were piled upon
difficulties. I could hardly move, there were so many obstacles in my
way. (Had it not been for you, dear wife, I should long ago have been
only dust and ashes. You were my stay and staff.) Almost everything
which happened to our house so weighed down my soul that it was not
possible to rise above it. I had to secure your safety and education far
away from me. You know what happened to your mother's brother. Shortly
afterwards the Emperor's ban stripped one of my father's uncles, Duke
Johann George, of his dukedom, and me and my house of all claims upon
it. Then another brother of my father, Margrave Christian Wilhelm,
administrator of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, was outlawed and driven
from his country and people. My brother, Joachim Sigismund, whom I
appointed before Schwarzenberg as Minister of Brandenburg, escaped only
by his courage from death by fire, and died at a time when he was most
needed. Then my usually excellent mother still further increased my
troubles by helping to aggravate the bitterness of the Lutherans against
the Reformers. You will agree with me, my son, that such things are not
calculated to fill the heart with fresh courage.
"Notwithstanding all this I had no intention of letting things go as
they might. I strove to create an army, but the money was not to be had,
as I have said. The acquisition of Prussia and the Cleves Rhineland
imposed tremendous burdens, and besides this, the country was burdened
with a load of debt. In a period of undisturbed peace the country might
pay its obligations in twenty or thirty years, but in a time of the
greatest exhaustion the greatest sacrifices had to be made. The
provinces were so hard to please and so penurious and reluctant to make
grants of money, that any chance of energetic action in my time was
nipped in the bud. The country continually grew poorer from year to
year. Perhaps another, standing in my relations to the provinces at the
time when there was possible hope of relief, might have acted more
resolutely than I did and have accomplished some results. I can believe
it, and yet I could not do otherwise while I, as a follower of the
Reformed religion, had almost the entire population against me.
"But suppose the Protestant cause at the very beginning of the war had
not induced the Emperor to renounce me? I sometimes ask myself this
question, my son, and surely it should often occur to you. Think about
it. The war began in Bohemia, then under the rule of my poor cousin
Frederick. He belonged to the Reformed Church. What sympathy did we show
for him? His overthrow was desired by the Lutherans and by nearly all
the people of the country. Not a finger could be raised in his behalf
without it being the signal for an uproar.
"Then came our cousin Christian of Denmark with a strong army. My son, I
knew him. I will not inveigh against him, far from it. But could I rely
upon him? I could not and dared not. 'If everything prospers,' I said to
myself, 'our nearest inheritance, the dukedom of Pomerania, will be in
danger of being swallowed up by Denmark. If everything goes badly, then
Denmark will make a good peace and will be the bitter enemy of its own
allies.' Has not Denmark treated another country in that manner? The
Dukes of Mecklenburg could sing you a song about broken faith.
"Next appears Gustavus Adolphus. He was then fighting the Poles. You
know about our rights in Prussia. We had obtained it as a fief from
Poland. Great was our danger of losing it. When Gustavus Adolphus made
peace with the Poles our circumstances were more favorable. But when he
came to Germany at the head of an army as the Emperor's enemy, I
hesitated about joining him and had many serious scruples. His army,
when he landed on the coast of Pomerania, numbered scarcely fifteen
thousand men. I said to myself, 'If my brother-in-law fails, then he
must retreat, and the experiences of his brother-in-law Frederick and
the Dukes of Mecklenburg will be repeated. The Emperor will outlaw him
and divide up the country among his favorites.'
"At last it became painful to me to see the German Empire invaded by a
stranger, and the thought of offering him assistance was intolerable.
The victorious advance of the God-fearing and trusting King at last
irresistibly appealed to me and all my apprehensions vanished. Urged
from within and without, I joined him. Now came the only time in my
regent-pilgrimage when I could breathe freely,--but, alas, only for a
short time. 'The Star of the North' aroused hopes for better times in my
breast--even more, belief in them. But the Star was extinguished all too
soon on the bloody field of Lutzen."
The Elector paused. His long talk and perhaps the recalling of so much
that was sorrowful had greatly overcome him.
"My dearest husband," said the Electoress, "this is enough of these
painful memories for to-day."
"Just a few words more, true wife, my staff and consolation in times of
trouble. You and my son are the only joys I have known, the only joys I
shall know in my dying hour."
Tears glistened in all their eyes. The Electoress stroked his emaciated
cheeks with a pale, trembling hand.
With a deep sigh he resumed: "Ah! what a mournful picture my rule from
the first to the last year calls up! Death will soon lay his hand upon
my heart, and already my grave opens to receive me. And what do I see
all about me? The country wasted by the hand of enemy and friend as no
other country in Europe has been! A churchyard of mouldering corpses!
Oh, horrible sight! And this is the legacy which I must make to my brave
and pious son! My God!" He hid his face.
* * * * * * * *
Shortly after this scene the Elector, whose gentle heart was not made
for such times of iron and who surely would have been blest by his
people in peaceful times, passed away.
In his twentieth year the Electoral Prince Frederick William took the
reins of power. His provinces were partly in the hands of the Swedes,
who had changed them into a wilderness, in which villages were traced
only by their ashes, and cities by rubbish and ruins. The dukedoms of
Cleves had been robbed by Spaniards and Dutch, who levied unheard-of
tribute and plundered them while pretending to protect them. Prussia,
which had previously been invaded by Gustavus Adolphus, still suffered
from the wounds which had been inflicted during this war. In such
desperate circumstances--his inheritance invaded by many princes; Ruler,
without possession of his own provinces; Elector, without the authority
of one; Ally, without friends,--Frederick William began his reign; and
in his early youth, at the age when errors are most likely to be made,
and when men find it difficult to rule even themselves, he furnished an
example of extraordinary wisdom and of all those virtues which fit one
to rule mankind.
Footnotes
[1]The wife of Frederick the Fifth was the daughter of King James of
England.
[2]Berlin and Coln, on either side of the River Spree, were subsequently
united into one city.
Appendix
The following is a chronological statement of the principal events in
Germany and elsewhere during the youth of the Great Elector:
1619 George William becomes Elector of Brandenburg.
1619 Frederick the Fifth elected Emperor of Bohemia.
1620 Birth of Frederick William, the Great Elector.
1620 Frederick the Fifth defeated at White Mountain and deposed.
1622 Tilly victorious at Wimpfen.
1623 Maximilian of Bavaria made Elector.
1625 Christian the Fourth of Denmark becomes Protestant leader.
1626 Tilly defeats Christian the Fourth at Lutter.
1626 Wallenstein defeats Count von Mansfeld.
1628 Siege of Stralsund.
1629 Frederick issues Restitutions Edict.
1630 Wallenstein dismissed.
1630 Gustavus Adolphus becomes Protestant leader.
1631 Tilly storms Magdeburg.
1631 Victory of Gustavus Adolphus at Breitenfeld.
1632 Death of Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen.
1634 Murder of Wallenstein.
1635 Treaty between Saxony and Frederick.
1637 Death of Ferdinand the Second.
1640 Death of George William and accession of the Great Elector.
LIFE STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
_Translated from the German by_
GEORGE P. UPTON
24 Volumes Now Ready
_Historical and Biographical_
Barbarossa
William of Orange
Maria Theresa
The Maid of Orleans
Frederick the Great
The Little Dauphin
Herman and Thusnelda
The Swiss Heroes
Marie Antoinette's Youth
The Duke of Brittany
Louise, Queen of Prussia
The Youth of the Great Elector
Emperor William First
Elizabeth, Empress of Austria
_Musical Biography_
Beethoven
Mozart
Johann Sebastian Bach
Joseph Haydn
_Legendary_
Frithjof Saga
Gudrun
The Nibelungs
William Tell
Arnold of Winkelried
Undine
Illustrated. Each 60 cents _net_
A. C. McCLURG & CO., Chicago
Transcriber's Notes
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--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.