There was but one small cloud on Wilhelmine's sky at this time, and this was the silence maintained by the Emperor and his advisers. Eberhard Ludwig had informed his Majesty of his marriage, craving his suzerain to ratify its legality, and permit him to raise the Countess of Urach to the rank of Duchess of Wirtemberg. He set forth that, during ten years, his former wife Johanna Elizabetha had been sterile, and therefore, as reigning Prince, he was at liberty to declare that alliance null, and for the good of his country take to wife another woman capable of bearing children. He undertook to provide for Johanna Elizabetha according to her royal position, and declared he would accord her all honours due to an ex-Duchess of Wirtemberg, viz. residence, monies, guards, privileges, titles, etc. The Duke's epistle was an astounding document enough, especially coming from a Prince whose repudiated wife had presented him with an heir, albeit that heir, the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig, was but a sickly specimen of mankind--a youth unlikely to live long enough to succeed his father or to provide successors to his House. In this imperial silence lay the opportunity of Zollern and the Catholic party, who believed that if the Emperor proved obdurate, it would be possible to obtain from Rome a decree of annulment of Johanna Elizabetha's marriage, on the pretext of State necessity. Of course, the price of this papal concession was Eberhard Ludwig's conversion to the Roman faith, and the reinstalment of Catholicism as the State religion of Wirtemberg. Zollern fully realised that Wilhelmine was playing a dangerous game; he knew that any day an imperial edict might crush her, branding her as a bigamist. The brunt would fall on _her_, for Eberhard Ludwig, as reigning Prince and valuable ally of Imperial Vienna, would escape with a reprimand. But for her an Austrian prison was on the cards, or at best perpetual exile and outlawry, which would make it difficult for any State to befriend her. He bethought him of his kinsman, Frederick I. of Prussia, an amiable monarch, and Zollern's personal friend and cousin. If Austria proved obdurate, and Rome objected to entering into a dispute with Vienna, at least Wilhelmine could find powerful protection at Berlin. Zollern wrote to his cousin of Prussia, praying him to grant the Countess of Graevenitz, Countess of Urach, a perpetual Schutzbrief, or Lettre de Sauvegarde--an official document binding the King of Prussia to protect the lady and her property, if she appealed for aid. Frederick I. granted this without ado.