History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 03Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 03
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
Albert Achilles the Third Elector had, before his accession, been
Margraf of Anspach, and since his Brother the Alchemist's death, Margraf
of Baireuth too, or of the whole Principality,--"Margraf of Culmbach" we
will call it, for brevity's sake, though the bewildering old Books
have not steadily any name for it. [A certain subaltern of this express
title, "Margraf of Culmbach" (a Cadet, with some temporary appanage
there, who was once in the service of him they call the Winter-King,
and may again be transiently heard of by us here), is the altogether
Mysterious Personage who prints himself "MARQUIS DE LULENBACH" in
Bromley's _Collection of Royal Letters_ (London, 1787), pp. 52,
&c.:--one of the most curious Books on the Thirty-Years War; "edited"
with a composed stupidity, and cheerful infinitude of ignorance, which
still farther distinguish it. The BROMLEY Originals well worth a real
editing, turn out, on inquiry, to have been "sold as Autographs, and
dispersed beyond recovery, about fifty years ago."] After his accession,
Albert Achilles naturally held both Electorate and Principality during
the rest of his life. Which was an extremely rare predicament for the
two Countries, the big and the little.
No other Elector held them both, for nearly a hundred years; nor then,
except as it were for a moment. The two countries, Electorate and
Principality, Hohenzollern both, and constituting what the Hohenzollerns
had in this world, continued intimately connected; with affinity and
clientship carefully kept, up, and the lesser standing always under the
express protection and as it were COUSINSHIP of the greater. But they
had their separate Princes, Lines of Princes; and they only twice, in
the time of these Twelve Electors, came even temporarily under the
same head. And as to ultimate union, Brandenburg-Baireuth and
Brandenburg-Anspach were not incorporated with Brandenburg-Proper, and
its new fortunes, till almost our own day, namely in 1791; nor then
either to continue; having fallen to Bavaria, in the grand Congress
of Vienna, within the next five-and-twenty years. All which, with the
complexities and perplexities resulting from it here, we must, in some
brief way, endeavor to elucidate for the reader.
TWO LINES IN CULMBACH OR BAIREUTH-ANSPACH: THE GERA BOND OF 1598.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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