The Saxon name itself withdrew in the end from the old Saxony to the lands conquered from the Slave. ♦Bernhard duke of Saxony, 1180-1212.♦ On the fall of Henry the Lion, the duchy of Saxony, cut short by the grant to the archbishops of Köln, was granted to Bernhard of Ballensted, the founder of the Ascanian House. ♦Sachsen-Lauenburg.♦ Of the older Saxon land his house kept only for a while the small district north of the Elbe which kept the name of _Sachsen-Lauenburg_, and which in the end became part of the Hannover electorate. ♦1423.♦ But it was in Thuringia and the conquered Slavonic lands to the east of Thuringia that a new Saxony arose, which kept on somewhat of the European position of the Saxon name down to modern times. This new Saxony, with Wittenberg for its capital, grew, through the addition of _Thuringia_ and _Meissen_, into the Saxon Electorate which played so great a part during the three last centuries of the existence of the German kingdom. ♦Divisions and unions.♦ But in Saxony too the usual divisions took place. Lauenburg parted off; so did the smaller duchies which still keep the Saxon name. ♦1547.♦ The ducal and electoral dignities were divided, till the two, united under the famous Maurice, formed the Saxon electorate as it stood at the dissolution of the kingdom. It was in short a new state, one which had succeeded to the name, but which could in no other way be thought to represent, the Saxony whose conquest cost so many campaigns to Charles the Great. * * * * * ♦The Mark of Brandenburg.♦