Neither Friedrich nor Johann left other than daughters: so that the
united Heritage, Brandenburg and Culmbach both, came now to the third
Brother, Albert; who has been in Culmbath these many years already. A
tall, fiery, tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting,
who was called the "ACHILLES OF GERMANY" in his day; being then a
very blazing far-seen character, dim as he has now grown. [Born 1414;
Kurfurst, 1471-1486.] This Albert Achilles was the Third Elector;
Ancestor he of all the Brandenburg and Culmbach Hohenzollern Princes
that have since figured in the world. After him there is no break
or shift in the succession, down to the little Friedrich now
born;--Friedrich the old Grandfather, First KING, was the Twelfth
KURFURST.
We have to say, they followed generally in their Ancestors' steps, and
had success of the like kind, more or less; Hohenzollerns all of them,
by character and behavior as well as by descent. No lack of quiet
energy, of thrift, sound sense. There was likewise solid fair-play in
general, no founding of yourself on ground that will not carry;--and
there was instant, gentle but inexorable, crushing of mutiny, if it
showed itself; which, after the Second Elector, or at most the Third, it
had altogether ceased to do. Young Friedrich II., upon whom those
Berlin Burghers had tried to close their gates, till he should sign some
"Capitulation" to their mind, got from them, and not quite in ill-humor,
that name IRONTEETH:--"Not the least a Nose-of-wax, this one! No use
trying here, then!"--which, with the humor attached to it, is itself
symbolical of Friedrich and these Hohenzollern Sovereigns. Albert, his
Brother, had plenty of fighting in his time: but it was in the Nurnberg
and other distant regions; no fighting, or hardly any, needed in
Brandenburg henceforth.
With Nurnberg, and the Ex-Burggrafship there, now when a new generation
began to tug at the loose clauses of that Bargain with Friedrich I., and
all Free-Towns were going high upon their privileges, Albert had at one
time much trouble, and at length actual furious War;--other Free-Towns
countenancing and assisting Nurnberg in the affair; numerous petty
Princes, feudal Lords of the vicinity, doing the like by Albert. Twenty
years ago, all this; and it did not last, so furious was it. "Eight
victories," they count on Albert's part,--furious successful skirmishes,
call them;--in one of which, I remember, Albert plunged in alone,
his Ritters being rather shy; and laid about him hugely, hanging by
a standard he had taken, till his life was nearly beaten out. [1449
(Rentsch, p. 399).] Eight victories; and also one defeat, wherein Albert
got captured, and had to ransom himself. The captor was one Kunz of
Kauffungen, the Nurnberg hired General at the time: a man known to some
readers for his Stealing of the Saxon Princes (PRINZENRAUB, they call
it); a feat which cost Kunz his head. [Carlyle's _Miscellanies_ (London,
1869), vi. ? PRINZENRAUB.] Albert, however, prevailed in the end, as he
was apt to do; and got his Nurnbergers fixed to clauses satisfactory to
him.
In his early days he had fought against Poles, Bohemians and others, as
Imperial general. He was much concerned, all along, in those abstruse
armed-litigations of the Austrian House with its dependencies; and
diligently helped the Kaiser,--Friedrich III., rather a weakish, but
an eager and greedy Kaiser,--through most of them. That inextricable
Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish DONNYBROOK (so we may call it) which Austria
had on hand, one of Sigismund's bequests to Austria; distressingly
tumultuous Donnybrook, which goes from 1440 to 1471, fighting in a
fierce confused manner;--the Anti-Turk Hunniades, the Anti-Austrian
Corvinus, the royal Majesties George Podiebrad, Ladislaus POSTHUMUS,
Ludwig OHNE HAUT (Ludwig NO-SKIN), and other Ludwigs, Ladislauses and
Vladislauses, striking and getting struck at such a rate:--Albert was
generally what we may call chief-constable in all that; giving a knock
here and then one there, in the Kaiser's name. [Hormayr, ii. 138, 140
(? HUNYADY CORVIN); Rentsch, pp. 389-422; Michaelis, i. 304-313.] Almost
from boyhood, he had learned soldiering, which he had never afterwards
leisure to forget. Great store of fighting he had,--say half a century
of it, off and on, during the seventy and odd years he lasted in this
world. With the Donnybrook we spoke of; with the Nurnbergers; with the
Dukes of Bavaria (endless bickerings with these Dukes, Ludwig BEARDY,
Ludwig SUPERBUS, Ludwig GIBBOSUS or Hunchback, against them and about
them, on his own and the Kaiser's score); also with the French, already
clutching at Lorraine; also with Charles the Rash of Burgundy;--lastly
with the Bishop of Bamberg, who got him excommunicated and would not
bury the dead.
Kurfurst Albert's Letter on this last emergency, to his Viceregent in
Culmbach, is a famed Piece still extant (date 1481); [Rentsch, p. 409.]
and his plan in such emergency, is a simple and likely one: "Carry the
dead bodies to the Parson's house; let him see whether he will not bury
them by and by!--One must fence off the Devil by the Holy Cross,"
says Albert,--appeal to Heaven with what honest mother-wit Heaven has
vouchsafed one, means Albert. "These fellows" (the Priests), continues
he, "would fain have the temporal sword as well as the spiritual. Had
God wished there should be only one sword, he could have contrived that
as well as the two. He surely did not want for intellect _(Er war gar
ein weiser Mann),"_--want of intellect it clearly was not!--In short,
they had to bury the dead, and do reason; and Albert hustled himself
well clear of this broil, as he had done of many.
Battle enough, poor man, with steel and other weapons:--and we see
he did it with sharp insight, good forecast; now and then in a wildly
leonine or AQUILINE manner. A tall hook-nosed man, of lean, sharp,
rather taciturn aspect; nose and look are very aquiline; and there is
a cloudy sorrow in those old eyes, which seems capable of sudden
effulgence to a dangerous extent. He was a considerable, diplomatist
too: very great with the Kaiser, Old Friedrich III. (Max's father,
Charles V.'s Great-Grandfather); [How admirable Albert is, not to say
"almost divine," to the Kaiser's then Secretary, oily-mouthed AEneas
Sylvius, afterwards Pope, Rentsch can testify (pp. 401, 586);
quoting AEneas's eulogies and gossipries (_Historia Rerum Frederici
Imperatoris,_ I conclude, though no book is named). Oily diligent
AEneas, in his own young years and in Albert's prime, had of course seen
much of this "miracle" of Arms and Art,--"miracle" and "almost divine,"
so to speak.] and managed many things for him. Managed to get the
thrice-lovely Heiress of the Netherlands and Burgundy, Daughter of that
Charles the Rash, with her Seventeen Provinces, for Max, [1477]--who was
thought thereupon by everybody to be the luckiest man alive; though the
issue contradicted it before long.
Kurfurst Albert died in 1486, March 11, aged seventy-two. It was some
months after Bosworth Fight, where our Crooked Richard got his quietus
here in England and brought the Wars of the Roses to their finale:--a
little chubby Boy, the son of poor parents at Eisleben in Saxony, Martin
Luther the name of him, was looking into this abtruse Universe, with
those strange eyes of his, in what rough woollen or linsey-woolsey
short-clothes we do not know. [Born 10th November, 1483]
Albert's funeral was very grand; the Kaiser himself, and all the
Magnates of the Diet and Reich attending him from Frankfurt to his
last resting-place, many miles of road. For he died at the Diet, in
Frankfurt-on-Mayn; having fallen ill there while busy,--perhaps too busy
for that age, in the harsh spring weather,--electing Prince Maximilian
("lucky Max,") who will be Kaiser too before long, and is already deep
in ILL-luck, tragical and other to be King of the Romans. The old Kaiser
had "looked in on him at Onolzbach" (Anspach), and brought him along;
such a man could not be wanting on such an occasion. A man who "perhaps
did more for the German Empire than for the Electorate of Brandenburg,"
hint some. The Kaiser himself, Friedrich III., was now getting old;
anxious to see Max secure, and to set his house in order. A somewhat
anxious, creaky, close-fisted, ineffectual old Kaiser; [See Kohler
(_Munzbelustigungen,_ vi. 393-401; ii. 89-96, &c.) for a vivid account
of him.] distinguished by his luck in getting Max so provided for, and
bringing the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands to his House. He is
the first of the Hapsburg Kaisers who had what has since been called
the "Austrian lip"--protrusive under-jaw, with heavy lip disinclined to
shut. He got it from his Mother, and bequeathed it in a marked manner;
his posterity to this day bearing traces of it. Mother's name was
Cimburgis, a Polish Princess, "Duke of Masovia's daughter;" a lady
who had something of the MAULTASCHE in her, in character as well as
mouth.--In old Albert, the poor old Kaiser has lost his right hand; and
no doubt muses sadly as he rides in the funeral procession.
Albert is buried at Heilsbronn in Frankenland, among his
Ancestors,--burial in Brandenburg not yet common for these new
Kurfursts:--his skull, in an after-time, used to be shown there, laid on
the lid of the tomb; skull marvellous for strength, and for "having no
visible sutures," says Rentsch. Pious Brandenburg Officiality at
length put an end to that profanation, and restored the skull to its
place,--marvellous enough, with what had once dwelt in it, whether it
had sutures or not.
JOHANN THE CICERO IS FOURTH KURFURST, AND LEAVES TWO NOTABLE SONS.
Albert's eldest Son, the Fourth Kurfurst, was Johannes Cicero
(1486-1499): Johannes was his natural name, to which the epithet "Cicero
of Germany (CICERO GERMANIAE)" was added by an admiring public. He had
commonly administered the Electorate during his Father's absences; and
done it with credit to himself. He was an active man, nowise
deficient as a Governor; creditably severe on highway robbers, for one
thing,--destroys you "fifteen baronial robber-towers" at a stroke; was
also concerned in the Hungarian-Bohemian DONNYBROOK, and did that also
well. But nothing struck a discerning public like the talent he had
for speaking. Spoke "four hours at a stretch in Kaiser Max's Diets, in
elegantly flowing Latin;" with a fair share of meaning, too;--and had
bursts of parliamentary eloquence in him that were astonishing to hear.
A tall, square-headed man, of erect, cheerfully composed aspect, head
flung rather back if anything: his bursts of parliamentary eloquence,
once glorious as the day, procured him the name "Johannes CICERO;" and
that is what remains of them: for they are sunk now, irretrievable he
and they, into the belly of eternal Night; the final resting-place, I do
perceive, of much Ciceronian ware in this world. Apparently he had,
like some of his Descendants, what would now be called "distinguished
literary talents,"--insignificant to mankind and us. I find he was
likewise called DER GROSSE, "John the GREAT;" but on investigation it
proves to be mere "John the BIG," a name coming from his tall stature
and ultimate fatness of body.
For the rest, he left his family well off, connected with high
Potentates all around; and had increased his store, to a fair degree,
in his time. Besides his eldest Son who followed as Elector, by name
Joachim I., a burly gentleman of whom much is written in Books, he left
a second Son, Archbishop of Magdeburg, who in time became Archbishop
of Mainz and Cardinal of Holy Church, [Ulrich van Hutten's grand
"Panegyric" upon this Albert on his first Entrance into Mainz (9th
October, 1514),--"entrance with a retinue of 2,000 horse, mainly
furnished by the Brandenburg and Culmbach kindred," say the old
Books,--is in _Ulrichi ab Hutten Equitis Germani Opera_ (Munch's
edition; Berlin, 1821), i. 276-310.]--and by accident got to be forever
memorable in Church-History, as we shall see anon. Archbishop of Mainz
means withal KUR-MAINZ, Elector of Mainz; who is Chief of the Seven
Electors, and as it were their President or "Speaker." Albert was the
name of this one; his elder Brother, the then Kur-Brandenburg, was
called Joachim. Cardinal Albert Kur-Mainz, like his brother Joachim
Kur-Brandenburg, figures much, and blazes widely abroad, in the busy
reign of Karl V., and the inextricable Lutheran-Papal, Turk-Christian
business it had.
But the notable point in this Albert of Mainz was that of Leo X. and
the Indulgences. [Pauli, v. 496-499; Rentsch, p. 869.] Pope Leo had
permitted Albert to retain his Archbishopric of Magdeburg and other
dignities along with that of Mainz; which was an unusual favor. But the
Pope expected to be paid for it,--to have 30,000 ducats (15,000 pounds),
almost a King's ransom at that time, for the "Pallium" to Mainz;
PALLIUM, or little Bit of woollen Cloth, on sale by the Pope, without
which Mainz could not be held. Albert, with all his dignities, was
dreadfully short of money at the time. Chapter of Mainz could or
would do little or nothing, having been drained lately; Magdeburg,
Halberstadt, the like. Albert tried various shifts; tried a little
stroke of trade in relics,--gathered in the Mainz district "some
hundreds of fractional sacred bones, and three whole bodies," which he
sent to Halle for pious purchase;--but nothing came of this branch.
The 15,000 pounds remained unpaid; and Pope Leo, building St. Peter's,
"furnishing a sister's toilet," and doing worse things, was in extreme
need of it. What is to be done? "I could borrow the money from
the Fuggers of Augsburg," said the Archbishop hesitatingly; "but
then--?"--"I could help you to repay it." said his Holiness: "Could
repay the half of it,--if only we had (but they always make such clamor
about these things) an Indulgence published in Germany!"--"Well; it must
be!" answered Albert at last, agreeing to take the clamor on himself,
and to do the feat; being at his wits'-end for money. He draws out his
Full-Power, which, as first Spiritual Kurfurst, he has the privilege
to do; nominates (1516) one Tetzel for Chief Salesman, a Priest whose
hardness of face, and shiftiness of head and hand, were known to him;
and--here is one Hohenzollern that has a place in History! Poor man,
it was by accident, and from extreme tightness for money. He was by no
means a violent Churchman; he had himself inclinations towards Luther,
even of a practical sort, as the thing went on. But there was no help
for it.
Cardinal Albert, Kur-Mainz, shows himself a copious dexterous public
speaker at the Diets and elsewhere in those times; a man intent on
avoiding violent methods;--uncomfortably fat in his later years, to
judge by the Portraits. Kur-Brandenburg, Kur-Mainz (the younger now
officially even greater than the elder), these names are perpetually
turning up in the German Histories of that Reformation-Period; absent
on no great occasion; and they at length, from amid the meaningless
bead-roll of Names, wearisomely met with in such Books, emerge into
Persons for us as above.