HumanitiesWeb.org - History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great (Chapter IV. - Kurfurst Albert Achilles, and His Successor.) by Thomas Carlyle
History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great Chapter IV. - Kurfurst Albert Achilles, and His Successor.
by Thomas Carlyle
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 admirahle 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 he 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.
