No More Learning

'? 1572, 1608 1619
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? CHAP. xHI. ] NINTH KURFtiRST JOHANN SIGISMUND. 13
1609.
not sparing money judiciously laid-out on individuals,
arrive at some adjustment, better or worse, and got
Preussen in hand;* legal Administrator of the imbecile
Duke, as his Father had been. After which he had to
run for Brandenburg, without loss of time; great matters
being there in the wind. Nothing wrong in Branden-
burg, indeed; but the great Cleve Heritage is dropping,
has dropped; over in Cleve, an immense expectancy is
now come to the point of deciding itself.
How the Cleve Heritage dropped, and many sprang to
pick it up.
Wilhelm of Cleve, the explosive Duke, whom we
saw at Berlin and Konigsberg at the wedding of this
poor Lady now deceased, had in the marriage-contract,
as he did in all subsequent contracts and deeds of like
nature, announced a Settlement of his Estates, which
was now become of the highest moment for Johann
Sigismund. The Country at that time called Duchy of
Cleve, consisted, as we said above, not only of Cleve-
Proper, but of two other still better Duchies, Jiilich
and Berg; then of the Grafschaft (County) of Eavens-
berg, County of Mark, Lordship of -- In fact, it was
a multifarious agglomerate of many little countries,
gathered by marriage, heritage and luck, in the course
of centuries, and now united in the hand of this Duke
Wilhelm. It amounted perhaps to two Yorkshires in
extent. ** A naturally opulent Country, of fertile mead-
? 29th April 1609. Stenzel, i. 870.
? ? See Btisching: Erdbeschreibung, v. 642-784.
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? 14 THE HOHENZOM-EKNS IN BKANDENBUKG. [bOOK ni. HIT.
1(509. M,
?
ows, shipping capabilities, metalliferous bills; and, at this time, in consequence of the Dutch-Spanish War, and the multitude of Protestant refugees, it was getting filled with ingenious industries; and rising to be, what it still is, the busiest quarter of Germany. A Country lowing with kine; the hum of the flax-spindle heard in its cottages, in those old days, -- "much of the linen "called Hollands is made in Jiilich, and only bleached, "stamped and sold, by the Dutch," says Busching. A aet
Country, in our days, which is shrouded at short inter- Qevals with the due canopy of coal-smoke, and loud with sounds of the anvil and the loom. ;fet
not
This Duchy of Cleve, all this fine agglomerate of Duchies, Duke Wilhelm settled, were to be inherited in a piece, by his eldest (or indeed, as it soon proved, his only) Son and the heirs of that Son, if there were
any. Failing heirs of that only Son, then the entire
Duchy of Cleve was to go to Maria Eleanora as eldest
Daughter, now marrying to Friedrich Albert, Duke of
Prussia, and to their heirs lawfully begotten: heirs
female, if there happened to be no male. The other
Sisters, of whom there were three, were none of them
to have the least pretence to inherit Cleve or any part
of it . On the contrary, they were, in such event, of
the eldest Daughter or her heirs coming to inherit
Cleve, to have each of them a sum of ready-money
paid* by the said inheritrix of Cleve or her heirs; and
? "200,000 joldouirfeM," about 100,0001. : Pauli, vt. 542; ill. 604.
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? CHAP. xm. J NINTH KURFDRST JOHANN SIQISMUND. 15
1609.
on receiving that, were to consider their claims entirely
fulfilled, and to cease thinking of Cleve for the future.
This Settlement, by express privilege of Kaiser
Karl V. , nay of Kaiser Maximilian before him, and the
Laws of the Reich, Duke Wilhelm doubted not he was
entitled to make: and this Settlement he made; his
Lawyers writing down the terms, in their wearisome
way, perhaps six times over; and struggling by all
methods to guard against the least misunderstanding.
Cleve with all its appurtenances, Jiilich, Berg and the
rest, goes to the eldest Sister and her heirs, male or
female: If she have no heirs, male or female, then, but
not till then, the next Sister steps into her shoes in
that matter; but if she have, then, we repeat for the
sixth and last time, no Sister or Sister's Representative
has the least word to say to it, but takes her 100,000Z. ,
and ceases thinking of Cleve.
The other three Sisters were all gradually married;
-- one of them to Pfalz-Neuburg, an eminent Prince,
in the Bavarian region called the Ober-Pfalz (Upper
Palatinate), who, or at least whose eldest son, is much
worth mentioning and remembering by us here; -- and,
in all these marriage-contracts, Wilhelm and his Lawyers
expressed themselves to the like effect, and in the like
elaborate sixfold manner: so that Wilhelm and they
thought there could nowhere in the world be any doubt
about it
.
Shortly after signing the last of these marriage-con-
tracts, or perhaps it was in the course of signing them,
Duke Wilhelm had a stroke of palsy. He had, before
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? 16 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BBAHDENBTJRG. fuoOKlH.
1609.
that, gone into Papistry again, poor man. The truth
is, he had repeated strokes; and being an abrupt, ex-
plosive Herr, he at last quite yielded to palsy; and
sank slowly out of the world, in a cloud of semi-in-
sanity, which lasted almost twenty years. * Duke Wil-
helm did leave a Son, Johann Wilhelm, who succeeded
him as Duke. But this Son also proved explosive;
went half and at length wholly insane. Jesuit Priests,
and their intrigues to bring back a Protestant country
to the bosom of the Church, wrapped the poor man, all
his days, as in a burning Nessus'-Shirt; and he did
little but mischief in the world. He married, had no
children; he accused his innocent Wife, the Jesuits and
he, of infidelity. Got her judged, not properly sen-
tenced; and then strangled her, he and they, in her
bed: -- "Jacobea of Baden (1597);" a thrice-tragic
history. Then he married again; Jesuits being ex-
tremely anxious for an Orthodox heir: but again there
came no heir; there came only new blazings of the
Nessus'-Shirt. In fine, the poor man died (Spring 1609),
and made the world rid of him. Died, 25th March
1609; that is the precise date; -- about a month before
our new Elector, Johann Sigismund, got his affairs
winded-up at the Polish Court, and came galloping
home in such haste. There was pressing need of him
in the Cleve regions.
For the painful exactitude of Duke Wilhelm and
his Lawyers has profited little; and there are claimants
* Died 25th January 1592, age 76.
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? CHAP, xm. ] NINTH KDRFttEST JOHANN SIGISMUND. 17
1609.
on claimants rising for that valuable Cleve Country.
As indeed Johann Sigismund had anticipated, and been
warned from all quarters to expect. For months past,
he has had his faculties bent, with lynx-eyed attention,
on that scene of things; doubly and trebly impatient to
get Preussen soldered-up, ever since this other matter
came to the bursting point. What could be done by
the utmost vigilance of his Deputies, he had done. It
was the 25th of March when the mad Duke died: on
the 4th of April, Johann Sigismund's Deputy, attended
by a Notary to record the act, "fixed-up the Branden-
burg Arms on the Government-House of Cleve;"* on
the 5th, they did the same at Diisseldorf; on the fol-
lowing days, at Jiilich and the other Towns. But
already on the 5th, they had hardly got done at Diis-
seldorf, when there appeared -- young Wolfgang Wil-
helm, Heir-Apparent of that eminent Pfalz-Neuburg, he
in person, to put-up the Pfalz-Neuburg Arms! Pfalz-
Neuburg, who married the Second Daughter, he is
actually claiming, then; -- the whole, or part? Both
are sensible that possession is nine points in law.
Pfalz-Neuburg's claim was for the whole Duchy.
"All my serene Mother's! " cried the young Heir of
Pfalz-Neuburg: "Properly all mine! " cried he. "Is
not she nearest of kin? Second Daughter, true; but the
Daughter; not Daughter of a Daughter, as you are (as
your serene Electress is), O Durchlaucht of Branden-
burg:-- consider, besides, you are female, I am male! "
That was Pfalz-Neuburg's logic: none of the best, I
? Panll, vl. B6<<.
Oarlyle, Frederic the Great. 11. 2
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? 18 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. lB00K
think, in forensic genealogy. His tenth point was perhaps
rather weak; but he had possession, co-possession, and the
nine points good. The other Two Sisters, by their Sons or
Husbands, claimed likewise; but not the whole: "Divide
it," said they: "that surely is the real meaning of
Karl V. 's Deed of Privilege to make such a Testament.
Divide it among the Four Daughters or their represen-
tatives, and let us all have shares! "
Nor were these four claimants by any means all.
The Saxon Princes next claimed; two sets of Saxon
Princes. First the minor set, Gotha-Weimar and the
rest, the Ernestine Line so-called; representatives of
Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, who lost the Elec-
torate for religion's sake, at Miihlberg in the past cen-
tury, and from major became minor in Saxon Genealogy.
"Magnanimous Johann Friedrich," said they, "had to
wife an Aunt of the now deceased Duke of Cleve;
Wife Sibylla (Sister of the Flanders Mare), of famous
memory, our lineal Ancestress. In favour of whom her
Father, the then reigning Duke of Cleve, made a mar-
riage-contract of precisely similar import to this your
Prussian one; he, and barred all his descendants, if
contracts are to be valid. " This is the claim of the
Ernestine Line of Saxon Princes; not like to go for
much, in their present disintegrated condition.
But the Albertine Line, the present Elector of
Saxony, also claims: "Here is a Deed," said he, "exe-
cuted by Kaiser Friedrich HI. , in the year 1483,*
generations before your Kaiser Karl; Deed solemnly
? Pull, uti supra; HUbper, t. 286.
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? CHAP. xIII. ] ninth kurfOkst johann sigismond. 19
1609.
granting to Albert, junior of Sachsen, and to his heirs,
the reversion of those same Duchies, should the Male
Line happen to fail, as it was then likely to do. How
could Kaiser Max revoke his Father's deed, or Kaiser
Karl his Great-Grandfather's? Little Albert, the Albert
of the Prinzenraub, he who grew big, and fought lion-
like for his Kaiser in the Netherlands and Western
Countries; he and his have clearly the heir-ship of
Cleve by right; and we, now grown Electors, and
Seniors of Saxony, demand it of a grateful House of
Hapsburg, -- and will study to make ourselves con-
venient in return. " --
"Nay, if that is your rule, that old Laws andDeeds
are to come in bar of new, we," cry a multitude of per-
sons, -- French Dukes of Nevers, and all manner of
remote, exotic figures among them, -- "we are the real
heirs! Ravensberg, Mark, Berg, Ravenstein, this patch
and the other of that large Duchy of yours, were they
not from primeval time expressly limited to heirs-male?
Heirs-male; and we now are the nearest heirs-male of
said patches and portions; and will prove it! " -- In
short, there never was such a Lawsuit, -- so fat an
affair for the attorney species, if that had been the way
of managing it, -- as this of Cleve was likely to
prove.
The Kaiser's thoughts about it, and the World's.
What greatly complicated the affair, too, was the
interest the Kaiser took in it. The Kaiser could not
2*
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? 20 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. [BOOK m.
1609.
well brook a powerful Protestant in that country; still
less could his cousin the Spaniard. Spaniards, worn to
the ground, coercing that world-famous Dutch Revolt,
and astonished to find that they could not coerce it at
all, had resolved at this time to take breath before
trying farther. Spaniards and Dutch, after Fifty years
of such fighting as we know, have made a Twelve-years
Truce (1609): but the baffled Spaniard, panting, pale
in his futile rage and sweat, has not given-up the
matter; he is only taking breath, and will try it again.
NowCleve is his road into Holland, in such adventure;
no success possible if Cleve be not in good hands.
Brandenburg is Protestant, powerful; Brandenburg will
not do for a neighbour there.
Nor will Pfalz-Neuburg. A Protestant of Protes-
tants, this Palatine Neuburg too, -- junior branch,
possible heir in time coming, of Kur-Pfalz (Elector
Palatine) himself, in the Rhine Countries; of Kur-Pfalz,
who is acknowledged Chief Protestant; official "Presi-
dent" of the "Evangelical Union" they have lately
made among them, in these menacing times: -- Pfalz-
Neuburg too, this young "Wolfgang Wilhelm, if he do
not break off kind, might be very awkward to the
Kaiser in Cleve-Jiilich. Nay Saxony itself; for they
are all Protestants: -- unless perhaps Saxony might
become pliant, and try to make itself useful to a muni-
ficent Imperial House?
Evidently what would best suit the Kaiser and
Spaniards, were this, That no strong Power whatever
got footing in Cleve, to grow stronger by the possession
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? CHAP. Mil. ] NINTH KURFORST JOHANN SIGISMUND. 21
1609.
of such a country: -- better than best it would suit, if
he, the Kaiser, could himself get it smuggled into his
hands, and there hold it fast! Which privately was the
course resolved upon at headquarters. -- In this way
the "Succession Controversy of the Cleve Duchies" is
coming to be a very high matter; mixing itself up with
the grand Protestant-Papal Controversy, the general
armed-lawsuit of mankind in that generation. Kaiser,
Spaniard, Dutch, English, French Henri IV. and all
mortals, are getting concerned in the decision of it
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? 22 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. [BOOK m.
1609.
CHAPTER XIV.
SYMPTOMS OF A GREAT WAR COMING.
Meanwhile Brandenburg and Neuburg both hold
grip of Cleve in that manner, with a mutually menacing
inquiring expression of countenance; each grasps it (so
to speak) convulsively with the one hand, and has with
the other hand his sword by the hilt, ready to fly out.
But to understand this Brandenburg-Neuburg pheno-
menon and the then significance of the Cleve-Jttlich
Controversy, we must take the following bits of Chro-
nology along with us. For the German Empire, with
Protestant complaints, and Papist usurpations and se-
verities, was at this time all a continent of sour thick
smoke, already breaking-out into dull-red flashes here
and there, -- symptoms of the universal conflagration
of a Thirty-Years War, which followed. Symptom First
is that of Donauworth, and dates above a year back.
First Symptom; DonauwSrth, 1608.
Donauworth, a Protestant Imperial Free town, in
the Bavarian regions, had been, for some fault on the
part of the populace against a flaring Mass-procession
which had no business to be there, put under Ban of
the Empire; had been seized accordingly (December
1607), and much cuffed, and shaken about, by Duke
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? CHAP. xIv. ] A GREAT WAR COMTNG. 23
1609.
Maximilian of Bavaria, as executor of the said Ban;* --
who, what was still worse, would by no means give-up
the Town, when he had done with it; Town being
handy to him, and the man being stout and violently
Papist. Hence the "Evangelical Union" which we saw,
-- which has not taken Donauworth yet. Nor ever
will! Donauworth never was retaken; but is Bavarian
at this hour. A Town nameable in History ever since.
Not to say withal, that it is where Marlborough did
"the Lines of Schellenberg" long after: Schellenberg
("Jingle-Hill," so to render it) looks down, across the
Danube or Donau River, upon Donauworth, -- its
"Lines," and other histories, now much abolished, and
quiet under grass.
But now all Protestantism sounding everywhere, in
angry mournful tone, "Donauworth! Give up Donau-
worth! " -- and an "Evangelical Union," with moneys,
with theoretic contingents of force, being on foot for
that and the like objects; -- we can fancy what a
scramble this of Cleve-Julich was like to be; and espe-
cially what effect this duelling attitude of Brandenburg
and Neuburg had on the Protestant mind. Protestant
neighbours, Landgraf Moritz of Hessen-Cassel at their
head, intervene in tremulous haste, in the Cleve-Julich
affair: "Peace, O friends! Some bargain; peaceable
joint-possession; any temporary bargain, till we see!
Can two Protestants fall to slashing one another, in
such an aspect of the Reich and its Jesuitries? "-- And
they did agree (Dortmund, 10th May 1609), the first
? Hiobaaltf, il. IK; Buddai Itxicon. i. 8(8.
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? 24 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. [BOOKm.
1610.
of their innumerable "agreements," to some temporary
joint-possession; -- the thrice-thankful Country doing
homage to both, "with oath to the one that shall be
found genuine. " And they did endeavour to govern
jointly, and to keep the peace on those terms, though
it was not easy.
For the Kaiser had already said (or his Aulie
Council and Spanish Cousin, poor Kaiser Rodolf caring
too little about these things,* had already said), Cleve
must absolutely not go into wrong hands. For which
what safe method is there, but that the Kaiser himself
become proprietor? A Letter is yet extant, from the
Aulic Council to their Vice-Chancellor, who had been
sent to negotiate this matter with the parties; Letter to
the effect, That such result was the only good one;
that it must be achieved; "that he must devise all
"manner of quirks (alle Spitz findigkeiten auffordern sollte),"
and achieve it. ** This curious Letter of a sublime Aulic
Council, or Imperial Hof-Rath, to its Vice-Kanzler, still
exists.
And accordingly quirks did not prove undevisable
? RodolfH. (Kepler's too insolvent "Patron"), 1576-1612; then Mat-
thias, Rodolfs Brother, 1612-1619, rather tolerant to Protestants; --then
Ferdinand II. his Uncle's Son, 1619-1687, much the reverse of tolerant, by
whom mainly came the Thirty-Years War, -- were the Kaisers of this
Period.
Ferdinand III. , Son of II. (1637-1657), who finished out the Thirty-
Years War, partly by fighting of his own in young days (Battle of NBrd-
lingen his grandest feat), was Father of
Kaiser Leopold (1658-1705), -- whose Two Sons were
Kaiser Joseph (1705-1711), and Kaiser Karl VI. (1711-1740), Maria
Theresa's Father.
? ? P>>uli, Ul. 806? ,
u
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? CHAP. xIv. ] A GREAT WAR COMING. 25
1610.
on behalf of the Kaiser. "Since you cannot agree," said
the Kaiser, "and there are so many of you who claim
(we having privately stirred-up several of you to the
feat), there will be nothing for it, but the Kaiser must
put the Country under sequestration, and take possession
of it with his own troops, till a decision be arrived at,
-- which probably will not be soon! "
Second Symptom; Seizure of Jiilich by theKaiser, andSiege
and Recapture of it by the Protestant Parties, 1610.
Whereupon ''''Catholic League," to balance "Evangelical
Union. "
And the Kaiser forthwith did as he had said; sent
Archduke Leopold with troops, who forcibly took the
Castle of Jiilich; commanding all other castles and
places to surrender and sequestrate themselves, in like
fashion; threatening Brandenburg and Neuburg, in a
dreadful manner, with Reichs-Acht (Ban of the Empire),
if they presumed to show contumacy. Upon which
Brandenburg and Neuburg, ranking themselves together,
showed decided contumacy; "tore down the Kaiser's Pro-
clamation,"* having good help at their back.
And accordingly, "on the 4th of September 1610,"
after a two-months siege, they, or the Dutch, French,
and Evangelical-Union Troops bombarding along with
them, and "many English volunteers" to help, retook
Jiilich, and packed Leopold away again. ** The Dutch
? Paull, iii. 524. Emperor's Proclamation, In DUsaeldorf, 28d July
1609, -- taken down lolcmnly, 1st August 16? 09,
? ? Pauli, 111? 627,
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? 26 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG, [book HI.
1610.
and the French were especially anxious about this
Cleve business, -- poor Henri IV. was just putting
those French troops in motion towards Julich, when
Ravaillac, the distracted Devil's-Jesuit, did his stroke
upon him; so that another than Henri had to lead in
that expedition. The actual Captain at the Siege was
Prince Christian of Anhalt, by repute the first soldier
of Germany at that period: he had a horse shot under
him, the business being very hot and furious; -- he
had still worse fortune in the course of years. There
were "many English volunteers" at this Siege; English
Nation hugely interested in it, though their King would
not act except diplomatically. It was the talk of all
the then world, -- the evening song and the morning
prayer of Protestants especially, -- till it was got
ended in this manner. It deserves to rank as Symptom
Second in this business; far bigger flare of dull-red in
the universal smoke-continent, than that of Donauworth
had been. Are there no memorials left of those "English
volunteers," then? * Alas, they might get edited as
Bromley's Royal Letters are; -- and had better lie
quiet!
"Evangelical-Union," formed some two years before,
with what cause we saw, has Kur-Pfalz** at the head
of it; but its troops or operations were never of a very
forcible character. Kur-Brandenburg now joined it for-
? Tn Carlyle's Miscellanies (It. ? "Two-Hundred and Fifty Tears ago:
a Fragment about Duels") is one small scene belonging to them.
? ? Winter-Ring's Father; died 9th September 1610, few days after this
recapture of JUllch.
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? OUAP. xIv. ] A GHEAT WAR COMING. 27
1610.
mally, as did many more; Kur-Sachsen, anxious to
make himself convenient in other quarters, never would.
Add to these phenomena, the now decisive appearance
of a "Catholic Liga" (League of Catholic Princes),
which, by way of counterpoise to the "Union," had
been got-up by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria several
months ago; and which now, under the same guidance,
in these bad circumstances, took a great expansion of
figure. Duke Maximilian, "Donauwdrth Max," finding
the Evangelical Union go so very high, and his own
Kaiser like to be good for little in such business (poor
hypochondriac Kaiser Rodolf II. , more taken-up with
turning-looms and blow-pipes than with matters politi-
cal, who accordingly is swept-out of Jiilich in such
summary way), -- Donauworth Max has seen this a
necessary institution in the present aspect. But "Union"
and "League" rapidly waxed under the sound of the
Jiilich cannon, as was natural.
Kur-Sachsen, for standing so well aloof from the
Union, got from the thankful Kaiser written Titles for
these Duchies of Cleve and Jiilich; Imperial parch-
ments and infeftments of due extent; but never any
Territory in^those parts. He never offered fight for his
pretensions; and Brandenburg and Neuburg, Neuburg
especially, always answered him, "No! " with sword
half-drawn. So Kur-Sachsen faded-out again, and took
only parchments by the adventure. Practically there
was no private Competitor of moment to Brandenburg,
except this Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg; he
alone having clutched hold. -- But we hasten to Symptom
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? 28 THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. [bOOKIH.
161^
Third, which particularly concerns us, and will be in-
telligible now at last
.
Symptom Third; a Dinner-Scene at D&sseldorf, 1613:
Spaniards and Dutch shoulder arms in Cleve.
Brandenburg and Neuburg stood together against
third parties; but their joint government was apt to fall
in two, when left to itself, and the pressure of danger
withdrawn. "They governed by the Raths and St&nde
of the Country;" old methods and old official men:
each of the two had his own Vice-Regent (Statthalter)
present on the ground, who jointly presided as they
could. Jarrings were unavoidable; but how mend it?
Settle the litigated Territory itself, and end their big
lawsuit, they could not; often as they tried it, with the
whole world encouraging and urging them. * The meet-
ings they had, and the treaties and temporary bargains
they made, and kept, and could not keep, in these
and in the following years and generations, pass our
power of recording.
In 1613 the Brandenburg Statthalter was Ernst, the
? Old Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton in bis old days, remembers
how he went ambassador on this errand, -- as on many others equally
bootless; -- and writes himself "Legatus," not only "thrice to Venice,
twice to1* Ac. Ac, but also "once to Holland in the Jullers matter (scmel
in Juliacensi nejolio):" see ReliqtUw Wottmianm (London, 1672), Preface.
It was "in 1614," say the Biographies vaguely. His Despatches, are
they in the Paper-Office still? His good old Book deserves new editing,
his good old genially pious life a proper elucidation, by some faithful
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:12 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hn6m7g Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. nv. ] A GHBAT WAR COMING. 29
1618.
Elector's younger Brother; Wolfgang Wilhelm in per-
son, for his Father, or rather for himself as heir of his
Mother, represented Pfalz-Neuburg. Ernst of Branden-
burg had adopted Calvinism as his creed; a thing hate-
ful and horrible to the Lutheran mind (of which sort
was Wolfgang Wilhelm), to a degree now altogether
inconceivable. Discord arose, in consequence, between
the Statthalters, as to official appointments, sacred and
secular: "You are for promoting Calvinists! " -- "And
you, I see, are for promoting Lutherans! " -- Johann
Sigismund himself had to intervene: Wolfgang Wilhelm
and he had their meetings, friendly colloquies; the final
colloquy of which is still memorable; and issues in
Symptom Third.
We said, a strong flame of choler burnt in all these
Hohenzollerns, though they held it well down. Johann
Sigismund, an excellent man of business, knew how
essential a mild tone is: nevertheless he found, as this
colloquy went on, that human patience might at length
get too much. The scene, after some examination, is
conceivable in this wise: Place Ditsseldorf, Elector's
apartment in the Schloss there; time late in the Year
1613, Day not discoverable by me. The two sat at
dinner, after much colloquy all morning: Johann Sigis-
mund, a middle-aged, big-headed, stern-faced, honest-
looking man; hair cropped, I observe; and eyelids
slightly contracted, as if for sharper vision into matters:
Wolfgang Wilhelm, of features fallen dim to me; an
airy gentleman, well out of his teens, but, I doubt,
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:12 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd.