Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
Although at one time immensely wealthy, when he was at last taken with
an apoplectic seizure during the siege of the latter city, and carried
home to die at Mindelheim, he was a ruined man. He had spared none of
his wealth in the prosecution of expeditions in which he had been
engaged, where, as often as not, the kings and emperors on whose
behalf they were undertaken failed to pay the troops. To his credit,
Georg von Frundsberg seems to have invariably paid the men himself;
and we are told he seldom took the booty which fell to his share,
selecting only some comparatively valueless, though generally
historically interesting objects, such as flags and banners, a sword
(jewelled sometimes, it is true, but still comparatively unimportant
monetarily compared with the vast treasure he might have taken as his
share), or the helmet of a conquered challenger, preferring that his
men should be well paid by the major portion of the loot for their
bravery and endurance. In those days money advanced by nobles and
others to warring princes to carry on expeditions was generally not
recovered from the actual borrowers, but repaid by robbery of the
conquered, out of the booty seized, or by means of the ransoms paid by
distinguished prisoners. So it happened that Georg von Frundsberg,
scorning these means, was gradually ruined, for neither Charles V. nor
Maximilian saw to it that the vast sums he from time to time expended
on their behalf during their campaigns were repaid to him.
His motto, which ran, "The more opponents the greater honour," was
characteristic of himself and of his race. But with his death, and the
financial embarrassments which afflicted his heirs, owing to the heavy
mortgages on the estates which he had left behind him, with no means
of discharging the same, the Frundsbergs declined rapidly in power,
and the race came to an end in the male line on the death of his son
George (one of nine children) in 1586,[25] though there are
descendants in the female line of the Frundsbergs living at the
present time.
The castle afterwards fell into ruins, and its history may be said to
have ceased with the close of the sixteenth century. The Bavarians,
however, made use of the ruined walls for "cover" during the campaign
of 1809, when they were attacked by the forces raised by Hofer and his
comrades.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] W. A. Baillie Grohman, "Tyrol: the Land in the Mountains."
[22] The Emperor is stated to have trained and fired the first shot
himself.
[23] Mr. W. A. Baillie-Grohman.
[24] One account states that the coach itself was drawn by the four
thousand horses!
[25] Some authorities give the year as 1580.--C. H.
CHAPTER XII
THROUGH THE OBER-INNTHAL: ZIRL, ITS CHURCH, LEGENDS, AND
PAINTED HOUSES--THE MARTINSWAND AND
MAXIMILIAN--SCHARNITZ--LANDECK--BLUDENZ--BREGENZ AND ITS
LEGEND OF THE MAID
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