"They were a powerful military order, formed during the crusades, who fought for the Holy Sepulchre in Palestine. After the siege of Acre, a charitable society for the care of the wounded and sick was organized by the people of Lübec and Bremen, which was made into an order of knighthood similar to the Templars. Only nobles were admitted to its membership, and the Grand Master lived in Jerusalem at first, then in Venice, and afterwards in Germany. After the crusades, they regarded themselves as called to convert the heathen, which benignant work they did, by first conquering the pagan territory. The order became immensely rich and powerful, holding the territory from the Oder to the Gulf of Finland, and deriving from it an immense revenue. They were constantly at war with Poland, which, with their extravagant demands upon the people, turned the nobility and the people against them. The oppressed called upon the King of Poland for assistance, and a war of twelve years followed, in which the order lost West Prussia, holding the rest by paying tribute to the conquerors. The knights were deprived of much of their power and wealth, though they still retained vast possessions. The Grand Master became a kind of spiritual potentate in Germany, and collected his revenues till 1805, when they went to the Emperor of Austria. In 1809 Napoleon abolished the order, and its territories reverted to the sovereigns in whose dominions they were located. "The nucleus of the present kingdom of Prussia was the margraviate of Brandenburg, of which Berlin is near the centre. By the extinction of the family of its ruler, it was inherited by Sigismond, Emperor of Germany, who sold it to Frederick VI., Burgrave of Nuremburg, in 1417. He was of the house of Hohenzollern, from which the present King of Prussia is descended, and with the territory the electoral dignity was conferred upon him. His successors ruled the electorate for over two hundred years, one of whom signed the protest at Spires, from which the Protestants obtained their name.