KURFURSTS.
Kaiser Ludwig died in 1347, while the False Waldemar was still busy.
We saw Karl IV., Johann of Bohemia's second son, come to the Kaisership
thereupon, Johann's eldest Nullity being omitted. This Fourth
Karl,--other three Karls are of the Charlemagne set, Karl the Bald, the
Fat, and such like, and lie under our horizon, while CHARLES FIFTH is of
a still other set, and known to everybody,--this Karl IV. is the Kaiser
who discovered the Well of KARLSBAD (Bath of Karl), known to Tourists
of this day; and made the GOLDEN BULL, which I forbid all Englishmen to
take for an agricultural Prize Animal, the thing being far other, as is
known to several.
There is little farther to be said of Karl in Reichs-History. An
unesteemed creature; who strove to make his time peaceable in this
world, by giving from the Holy Roman Empire with both hands to every
bull-beggar, or ready-payer who applied. Sad sign what the Roman Empire
had come and was coming to. The Kaiser's shield, set up aloft in the
Roncalic Plain in Barbarossa's time, intimated, and in earnest too, "Ho,
every one that has suffered wrong!"--intimates now, "Ho, every one that
can bully me, or has money in his pocket!" Unadmiring posterity has
confirmed the nickname of this Karl IV.; and calls him PFAFFEN-KAISER.
He kept mainly at Prag, ready for receipt of cash, and holding well out
of harm's way. In younger years he had been much about the French Court;
in Italy he had suffered troubles, almost assassinations; much blown to
and fro, poor light wretch, on the chaotic Winds of his Time,--steering
towards no star.
Johann, King of Bohemia, did not live to see Karl an acknowledged
Kaiser. Old Johann, blind for some time back, had perished two years
before that event;--bequeathing a Heraldic Symbol to the World's History
and to England's, if nothing more. Poor man, he had crusaded in Preussen
in a brilliant manner, being fond of fighting. He wrung Silesia,
gradually by purchase and entreaty (_pretio ac prece_), from the Polish
King; [1327-1341 (Kohler, p. 302).] joined IT firmly to Bohemia and
Germany,--unconsciously waiting for what higher destinies Silesia might
have. For Maultasche and the Tyrol he brought sad woes on Brandenburg;
and yet was unconsciously leading Brandenburg, by abstruse courses,
whither it had to go. A restless, ostentatious, far-grasping,
strong-handed man; who kept the world in a stir wherever he was. All
which has proved voiceless in the World's memory; while the casual
Shadow of a Feather he once wore has proved vocal there. World's memory
is very whimsical now and then.
Being much implicated with the King of France, who with the Pope was
his chief stay in these final Anti-Ludwig operations, Johann--in 1346,
Pfaffen-Kaiser Karl just set on foot--had led his chivalry into France,
to help against the English Edwards, who were then very intrusive there.
Johann was blind, but he had good ideas in war. At the Battle of Crecy,
24th August, 1346, he advised we know not what; but he actually fought,
though stone-blind. "Tied his bridle to that of the Knight next him; and
charged in,"--like an old blind war-horse kindling madly at the sound
of the trumpet;--and was there, by some English lance or yew, laid
low. They found him on that field of carnage (field of honor, too, in
a sort); his old blind face looking, very blindly, to the stars: on his
shield was blazoned a Plume of three ostrich-feathers with "ICH DIEN
(I serve)" written under:--with which emblem every English reader is
familiar ever since! This Editor himself, in very tender years, noticed
it on the Britannic Majesty's war-drums; and had to inquire of children
of a larger growth what the meaning might be.
That is all I had to say of King Johann and his "ICH DIEN." Of the
Luxemburg Kaisers (four in number, two sons of Karl still to come); who,
except him of the sacramental wine, with "ICH DIEN" for son, are good
for little; and deserve no memory from mankind except as they may stick,
not easily extricable, to the history of nobler men:--of them also I
could wish to be silent, but must not. Must at least explain how they
came in, as "Luxemburg Kurfursts" in Brandenburg; and how they went out,
leaving Brandenburg not annihilated, but very near it.
END OF RESUSCITATED WALDEMAR; KURFURST LUDWIG SELLS OUT.
Imaginary Waldemar being still busy in Brandenburg, it was natural for
Kaiser Karl to find him genuine, and keep up that goblin-dance round
poor Kurfurst Ludwig, the late Kaiser's son, by no means a lover of
Karl's. Considerable support was managed to be raised for Waldemar.
Kaiser Karl regularly infeoffed him as real Kurfurst, so far as
parchment could do it; and in case of his decease, says Karl's diploma
farther, the Princes of Anhalt shall succeed,--Ludwig in any case is to
be zero henceforth. War followed, or what they called war: much confused
invading, bickering and throttling, for two years to come. "Most of the
Towns declared for Waldemar, and their old Anhalt line of Margraves:"
Ludwig and the Bavarian sort are clearly not popular here. Ludwig
held out strenuously, however; would not be beaten. He had the King of
Denmark for Brother-in-law; had connections in the Reich: perhaps still
better he had the REICHS-INSIGNIA, lately his Father's, still in hand.
He stood obstinate siege from the Kaiser's people and the
Anhalters; shouted-in Denmark to help; started an Anti-Kaiser, as we
said,--temporary Anti-Kaiser Gunther of Schwartzburg, whom the reader
can forget a second time:--in brief, Ludwig contrived to bring Kaiser
Karl, and Imaginary Waldemar with his Anhalters, to a quietus and
negotiation, and to get Brandenburg cleared of them. Year 1349, they
went their ways; and that devils'-dance, which had raged five years and
more round Ludwig, was fairly got laid or lulled again.
Imaginary Waldemar, after some farther ineffectual wrigglings, retired
altogether into private life, at the Court of Dessau; and happily died
before long. Died at the Court of Dessau; the Anhalt Cousins treating
him to the last as Head Representative of Albert the Bear, and real
Prince Waldemar; for which they had their reasons. Portraits of this
False Waldemar still turn up in the German Print-shops; [In Kloss
(_Vaterlandische Gemalde,_ ii. 29), a sorry Compilation, above referred
to, without value except for the old Excerpts, &c., there is a Copy of
it.] and represent a very absurd fellow, much muffled in drapery, mouth
partially open, eyes wholly and widely so,--never yet recovered from his
astonishment at himself and things in general! How it fared with poor
Brandenburg, in these chaotic throttlings and vicissitudes, under the
Bavarian Kurfursts, we can too well imagine; and that is little to what
lies ahead for it.
However, in that same year, 1349, temporary quietus having come,
Kurfurst Ludwig, weary of the matter, gave it over to his Brother: "Have
not I an opulent Maultasche, Gorgon-Wife, susceptible to kindness, in
the Tyrol; have not I in the Reich elsewhere resources, appliances?"
thought Kurfurst Ludwig. And gave the thing over to his next Brother.
Brother whose name also is LUDWIG (as their Father's also had been,
three Ludwigs at once, for our dear Germans shine in nomenclature):
"Ludwig THE ROMAN" this new one;--the elder Brother, our acquaintance,
being Ludwig simply, distinguishable too as KURFURST Ludwig, or even as
Ludwig SENIOR at this stage of the affair. Kurfurst Ludwig, therefore,
Year 1349, washes his hands of Brandenburg while the quietus lasts;
retaining only the Electorship and Title; and goes his ways, resolving
to take his ease in Bavaria and the Tyrol thenceforth. How it fared with
him there, with his loving Gorgon and him, we will not ask farther. They
had always separate houses to fly to, in case of extremity! They held
out, better or worse, twelve years more; and Ludwig left his little Boy
still surviving him, in 1361.
SECOND, AND THEN THIRD AND LAST, OF THE BAVARIAN KURFURSTS IN
BRANDENBURG.
In Brandenburg, the new Markgraf Ludwig, who we say is called "THE
ROMAN" (LUDWIG DER ROMER, having been in Rome) to distinguish him,
continued warring with the Anarchies, fifteen years in a rather tough
manner, without much victory on either side;--made his peace with Kaiser
Karl however, delivering up the REICHS-INSIGNIA; and tried to put down
the domestic Robbers, who had got on foot, "many of them persons of
quality;" [Michaelis, i. 282.] till he also died, childless, A.D. 1365;
having been Kurfurst too, since his Brother's death, for some four
years.
Whereupon Brandenburg, Electorship and all Titles with it, came to Otto,
third son of Kaiser Ludwig, who is happily the last of these Bavarian
Electors. They were an unlucky set of Sovereigns, not hitherto without
desert; and the unlucky Country suffered much under them. By far the
unluckiest, and by far the worst, was this Otto; a dissolute, drinking,
entirely worthless Herr; under whom, for eight years, confusion went
worse confounded; as if plain chaos were coming; and Brandenburg and
Otto grew tired of each other to the last degree.
In which state of matters, A.D. 1373, Kaiser Karl offered Otto a trifle
of ready money to take himself away. Otto accepted greedily; sold
his Electorate and big Mark of Brandenburg to Kaiser Karl for an old
song,--200,000 thalers (about 30,000 pounds, and only half of it ever
paid); [Michaelis, i. 283.]--withdrew to his Schloss of Wolfstein in
Bavaria; and there, on the strength of that or other sums, "rolled deep
as possible in every sort of debauchery." And so in few years puddled
himself to death; foully ending the Bavarian set of Kurfursts. They
had lasted fifty years; with endless trouble to the Country and to
themselves; and with such mutual profit as we have seen.