Charles, the hereditary duke of Brunswick, son to the duke who had so gallantly fallen at Quatrebras, was under the guardianship of the king of England. A constitution was bestowed in 1820 upon this petty territory, which was governed by the minister, Von Schmidt-Phiseldek. The youthful duke took the reins of government in his nineteenth year. Of a rash and violent disposition and misled by evil associates, he imagined that he had been too long restricted from assuming the government, accused his well-deserving minister of having attempted to prolong his minority, posted handbills for his apprehension as a common delinquent, denied all his good offices, and subverted the constitution. He was surrounded by base intriguers in the person of Bosse, the councillor of state, formerly the servile tool of Napoleon's despotism, of Frike, the Aulic councillor, "whose pliant quill was equal to any task when injustice had to be glossed over," of the adventurer, Klindworth, and of Bitter, the head of the chancery, who conducted the financial speculations. Frike, in contempt of justice, tore up the judgment passed by the court of justice in favor of the venerable Herr von Sierstorff, whom he had accused of high treason. Herr von Cramm, by whom Frike was, in the name of the Estates, accused of this misdemeanor before the federative assembly, was banished, a surgeon, who attended him, was put upon his defence, and an accoucheur, named Grimm, who had basely refused to attend upon Cramm's wife, was presented with a hundred dollars. Häberlin, the novelist, who had been justly condemned to twenty years' imprisonment with hard labor for his civil misdemeanors, was, on the other hand, liberated for publishing something in the duke's favor. Bitter conducted himself with the most open profligacy, sold all the demesnes, appropriated the sum destined for the redemption of the public debt, and at the same time levied the heavy imposts with unrelenting severity. The federative assembly passed judgment against the duke solely in reference to his attacks upon the king of England. [Footnote 1: The king bitterly reproached his brother Henry, to whom he said, "You have accused me to my peasantry."--_Pfister History of the Constitution of Würtemberg._] [Footnote 2: Pfister mentions in his History of the Constitution of Wurtemberg that merely in the superior bailiwick of Heidenheim the game duties amounted, in 1814, to twenty thousand florins, and five thousand two hundred and ninety-three acres of taxed ground lay uncultivated on account of the damage done by the game, and that in March, 1815, one bailiwick was obliged to furnish twenty-one thousand five hundred and eighty-four men and three thousand two hundred and thirty-seven horses for a single hunt.]