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 SENIORat 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 "THEROMAN" (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 30,000pounds, 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.
Chapter XIII.
LUXEMBURG KURFURSTS IN BRANDENBURG.
If Brandenburg suffered much under the Bavarian Kurfursts for Fifty years, it was worse, and approached to the state of worst, under the Luxemburgers, who lasted for some Forty more.
Ninety years of anarchy in all; which at length brought it to great need of help from the Fates!--Karl IV. made his eldest Boy Wenzel, still only about twelve, Elector of Brandenburg; [1373 (born 1361).] Wenzel shall be Kaiser and King of Bohemia, one day, thinks Karl;--which actually came to pass, and little to Wenzel's profit, by and by. In the mean while Karl accompanied him to Brandenburg; which country Karl liked much at the money, and indeed ever after, in his old days, he seemed rather to busy himself with it. He assembled some kind of STANDE(States) twice over; got the Country "incorporated with Bohemia"by them, and made tight and handy so far. Brandenburg shall rest from its woes, and be a silent portion of Bohemia henceforth, thinks Karl,--if the Heavens so please. Karl, a futile Kaiser, would fain have done something to "encourage trade" in Brandenburg; though one sees not what it was he did, if anything.
