Hans von Schweinichen lived during this period of transition, which was about the end of the sixteenth century; he was a Silesian nobleman of old family, groom of the bedchamber, chamberlain, and factotum of the Quixotic Duke Heinrich XI. of Liegnitz. We see the characters of both, in juxta-position in two biographies written by Schweinichen. One is the account of his own life, 'Life and Adventures of the Silesian Knight, Hans von Schweinichen, published by Buesching, three parts, 1820;' the other an extract from it, with some alterations and additions: 'The Life of Duke Heinrich XI., published in Stenzel; Script. Rer. Siles. iv.,' both, works of great value as a history of the manners of the sixteenth century. The old royal house of Silesian Piastens produced, with a few exceptions, a set of wild, wrong-headed rulers, with great pretensions and small powers. One of the most remarkable among them is Heinrich XI. von Liegnitz, the dissolute son of a worthless father. When the latter, Duke Friedrich III. was deposed by the Imperial commissioners in the year 1559, and put under arrest as a disturber of the community, the government of the principality devolved upon his son, then twenty years of age. After ten years of misrule he quarrelled with his brother Friedrich and his nobility, and in a fit of despotic humour caused the States of the duchy to be all imprisoned. Whilst the indignant members were appealing against him to the Emperor, he himself undertook an adventurous expedition through Germany, making the round of numerous courts and towns as a beggar, during which, the lack of money plunged him into one embarrassment after another, and led him into every kind of unworthy action. Meanwhile he was suspended, and his brother, who was not much better, was established as administrator. Heinrich complained querulously, undertook a new begging expedition to the German courts, and at last made his solicitations to the Emperor at Prague; he was still under the severe pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, but finally succeeded in obtaining the restoration of his duchy. Now followed fresh recklessness and open opposition to the Imperial commissary, a new deposition and strict imprisonment at Breslau. From this imprisonment he escaped and wandered about in foreign parts as a friendless adventurer; he offered his services to Queen Elizabeth of England in her war with Philip of Spain; and at last went to Poland to fight against Austria. He died suddenly at Cracow in 1586, probably of poison.