Sigismund, if appanaged with Brandenburg alone, and wedded to his first love, not a king's daughter, might have done tolerably well there; better than Wenzel, with the empire and Bohemia, did. But delusive Fortune threw her golden apple at Sigismund too; and he, in the wide high world, had to play strange pranks. His father-in-law died in Hungary, Sigismund's first wife his only child. Father-in-law bequeathed Hungary to Sigismund, who plunged into a strange sea thereby; got troubles without number, beatings not a few, and had even to take boat, and sail for his life down to Constantinople, at one time. In which sad adventure Burggraf Johann escorted him, and as it were tore him out by the hair of the head. These troubles and adventures lasted many years; in the course of which, Sigismund, trying all manner of friends and expedients, found in the Burggraves of Nuremberg, Johann and Friedrich, with their talents, possessions, and resources, the main or almost only sure support he got. No end of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from this sublime Hungarian legacy. Like a remote fabulous golden fleece, which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little when conquered. Before ever setting out (1387), Sigismund saw too clearly that he would have cash to raise: an operation he had never done with, all his life afterward. He pawned Brandenburg to cousin Jobst of Maehren; got "twenty thousand Bohemian gulden"--I guess, a most slender sum, if Dryasdust would but interpret it. This was the beginning of pawnings to Brandenburg; of which when will the end be? Jobst thereby came into Brandenburg on his own right for the time, not as tutor or guardian, which he had hitherto been. Into Brandenburg; and there was no chance of repayment to get him out again. Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself. Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown domains, winking hard at robber barons, and the like--and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (Viceregent, more like a hungry land-steward), whom nobody took the trouble of respecting. Robber castles flourished; all else decayed. No highway not unsafe; many a Turpin with sixteen quarters, and styling himself Edle Herr (noble gentleman), took to "living from the saddle": what are Hamburg pedlers made for but to be robbed?