The displeasure of his proud house now broke out. The recognition was denied. Such a marriage was considered by the Court altogether monstrous, but it was always doubtful whether the decisions of feudal law were competent to declare this marriage invalid. Therefore the Dukes of Saxony met together in 1717, and decided that all unequal unions in their house were to be considered as only morganatic, and the children were never to be allowed the rights of succession.[48] Anthony Ulrich remained firm. He solicited the Imperial court, and strove unweariedly against the council of the country, who took advantage of this quarrel to diminish the revenues of the Duke. But his nature was not easily bent. When in 1722, the last feudal tenant of Altenstein, one Hund von Wenckheim lay dying, and the commissaries of the government were standing by the death-bed to take possession of the vacant fief, Anthony Ulrich rode suddenly into the court of the castle, and in spite of the protest of the councillors, who were also his servants, entered the chamber of the dying man, sang with him the evening song and the penitential hymn, and passed the night, armed with pistols and other weapons, in the castle. As soon as the vassal had closed his eyes, he entered the room, and according to the old usage took possession of the vacant fief, and seating himself in a red velvet arm-chair, said: "I hereby take possession of my third share, without prejudice to the two-thirds of my brothers." He then called in his attendants as witnesses, and according to the prescribed usage, struck his hand forcibly on the table, so that a jug upset, symbolical of the movable property, and caused a chip to be cut out of the door of the chamber of death, and of the dining-room. After this he swore into his service all who had not fled; he then rode out, cut splinters from the oak wood, and bits of turf from the meadows, as further tokens of having taken possession, and went back to Meiningen. But when he returned to the castle, he found the gates closed and guarded by grenadiers, and all his threats and protestations were of no avail. He afterwards wished to take his wife and children to one of his own possessions, and lead a peaceable life at home. But such was not his happy lot. His brothers obtained a decision from the Imperial high court of judicature, according to which he was not to take his wife and children into the country of his fathers, and if he should venture to do so, he was never to usurp for them the title of princes. He now however went himself to Vienna and so worked there, with the help of large sums of money, and through the medium of his military acquaintances--the Spanish minister, the Marquis of Perlas was his supporter--that the Emperor Charles VI. raised his wife Philippine to the dignity of Princess of the holy Roman Empire, and her sons and daughters to be dukes and duchesses of Saxony, with all the privileges and rights, _i.e._ those of the succession.