Brandenburg Sentence Examples

Members of the family were also margraves of Brandenburg from 1323 to 1373, and kings of Sweden from 1654 to 1718.

The death without direct heirs of Duke John William in 1609 led to serious complications in which almost all the states of Europe were concerned; however, by the treaty of Xanten in 1614, Cleves passed to the elector of Brandenburg, being afterwards incorporated with the electorate by the great elector, Frederick William.

On the death of this general Descartes quitted the imperial service, and in July 1621 began a peaceful tour through Moravia, the borders of Poland, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Holstein and Friesland, from which he reappeared in February 1622 in Belgium, and betook himself directly to his father's home at Rennes in Brittany.

War broke out between the Protestant states of Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Brandenburg, with whom religion was entirely subordinated to individual aims and interests, and who were far from rising to Cromwell's great conceptions; while the Vaudois were soon subjected to fresh persecutions.

From about 1200 till 1628 it was the seat of a bishopric, which at the latter date became a secular principality, being in 1648 incorporated with Brandenburg.

It was destroyed in 1553 by Albert, margrave of Brandenburg, but has been partly restored.

In 1822 he removed to Brandenburg, and in 1828 to Crossen, near Frankfort.

The latter, corresponding substantially to the present province of West Prussia, remained subject to Poland until 1309, when it was divided between Brandenburg and the Teutonic Order.

The history of Pomerania, as distinct from that of Pomerellen, consists mainly of an almost endless succession of divisions of territory among the different lines of the ducal house, and of numerous expansions and contractions of territory through constant hostilities with the elector of Brandenburg, who claimed to be the immediate feudal superior of Pomerania, and with other neighbouring rulers.

In 1625 the whole of Pomerania became united under the sway of Duke Bogislaus XIV., and on his death without issue, in 1637, Brandenburg claimed the duchy by virtue of a compact made in 1571..

At the peace of Westphalia they claimed the duchy, in opposition to the elector of Brandenburg, and the result was that the latter was obliged to content himself with eastern Pomerania (Hinterpommern), and to see the western part (Vorpommern) awarded to Sweden.

The Order, clinging to its rights with the conservatism of an ecclesiastical corporation, still maintained its claims to East Prussia, and pressed them tenaciously even against the electors of Brandenburg themselves, when they inherited the land on the failure of Albert's descendants in 1618.

In 1678 it was captured by the elector of Brandenburg, but was restored to the Swedes in the following year; in 1713 it was desolated by the Russians; in 1715 it came into the possession of Denmark; and in 1721 it was again restored to Sweden, under whose protection it remained till 1815, when, along with the whole of Swedish Pomerania, it came into the possession of Prussia.

This category includes German places located in the Prussian provinces of East Prussia, West Prussia, Posen, Silesia, Brandenburg, and Pomerania, and places in the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Towards the end of the 15th century it passed to Brandenburg, and, in 1684, after a great conflagration which laid it in ruins, was handsomely rebuilt by the electress Dorothea.

The lordship of Schwedt was in the possession of the counts of Hohenstein from 1481 to 1609, when it passed to Brandenburg.

In 1689 it was given to Philip William, a younger son of the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William, and he and his successors called themselves margrave of BrandenburgSchwedt.

In 1548 the bishopric was seized by the elector of Brandenburg, who finally took possession of it fifty years later, and the cathedral passed to the Protestant Church, retaining its endowments till the edict of 1810, by which all former ecclesiastical possessions were assumed by the crown.

In 1371 it fell to the duchy of Cleves, and passed with it in 1609 to Brandenburg.

The attempt of the imperialists, under Joachim of Brandenburg, to retake Budapest (September 15 4 2), failed ignominiously; and in the following year Suleiman in person conducted a campaign which led to the conquest of Siklos, Gran, Szekesf ehervar and Visegrad (1544) Everywhere the churches were turned into mosques; and the greater part of Hungary, divided into twelve sanjaks, became definitively a Turkish province.

On the 1st of August 1431 a large army of crusaders, under Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg, whom Cardinal Cesarini accompanied as papal legate, crossed the Bohemian frontier; on the 14th of August it reached the town of Domazlice (Tauss); but on the arrival of the Hussite army under Prokop the crusaders immediately took to flight, almost without offering resistance.

In 1552 he was raised to the dignity of Rigsraad (councillor of state); in 1554 he successfully accomplished his first diplomatic mission, by adjusting the differences between the elector of Saxony and the margrave of Brandenburg.

About 1312 Frederick, who had become involved in a dispute with Waldemar, margrave of Brandenburg, over the possession of lower Lusatia, was taken prisoner.

With the aid of inquisitors from Rome, the evil was literally burnt out, but not before provinces, especially in the south and 1 In 1412 he pawned the twenty-four Zips towns to Poland, and, .in 1411 he pledged his margraviate of Brandenburg to the Hohenzollerns.

His Irenicum vere christianum is directed against David Pareus (1548-1622), professor primarius at Heidelberg, who in Irenicum sive de unione et synodo Evangelicorum (1614) had pleaded for a reconciliation of Lutheranism and Calvinism; his Calvinista aulopoliticus (1610) was written against the "damnable Calvinism" which was becoming prevalent in Holstein and Brandenburg.

The double election to the German throne in 141 o first brought Frederick into relation with Brandenburg.

Sigismund, anxious to obtain another vote in the electoral college, appointed Frederick to exercise the Brandenburg vote on his behalf, and it was largely through his efforts that Sigismund was chosen German king.

William summoned Brandenburg to his aid (1672) and made treaties with Austria and Spain (1673).

His chief object, the conquest of Prussia, was still unaccomplished, and a new foe arose in the elector of Brandenburg, alarmed by the ambition of the Swedish king.

Still more ominously, the elector of Brandenburg, perceiving Sweden to be in difficulties, joined the league against her and compelled Charles to accept the proffered mediation of Cromwell and Mazarin.

The alliance of Brandenburg and the Mainz electorate had already been secured, and Spain, justly fearing for the safety of her Flemish possessions, soon joined them.

Turning his attention to the east, Henry reduced various Slavonic tribes to subjection, took Brennibor, the modern Brandenburg, from the Hevelli, and secured both banks of the Elbe for Saxony.

As such it survived the introduction of the Reformation in 1542; but in 1566, on the death of Sigismund of Brandenburg (also archbishop of Madgeburg from 1552 to 1566), the last Catholic bishop, the chapter from motives of economy elected the infant Henry Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg.

The see was governed by lay bishops until 1648, when it was formally converted by the treaty of Westphalia into a secular principality for the elector of Brandenburg.

During the Thirty Years' War it was occupied alternately by the Imperialists and the Swedes, the latter of whom handed it over to Brandenburg.

In the market-place, side by side, are two houses wherein two important historical events are said to have taken place - in the "Gasthaus zum Barbarossa" Frederick Barbarossa signed the peace of Constance (1183), while in the house named "zum Hohen Hafen" the emperor Sigismund invested Frederick of Hohenzollern with the mark of Brandenburg (1417).

In 1318 it passed to the mark of Brandenburg; in 1319 to Bohemia; and in 1635, after suffering much in the Hussite and Thirty Years' wars, it came into the possession of Saxony.

Until 16 3 7, when it passed to Brandenburg, the town was generally in the possession of the dukes of Pomerania.

In 1514 the archbishopric of Mainz fell vacant again, and Albert of Brandenburg, already archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of Halberstadt, longing to add it to his possessions, was elected.

The edict of Worms was entirely in harmony with the laws of Western Christendom, and there were few among the governing classes in Germany at that time who really understood or approved Luther's fundamental ideas; nevertheless - if we except the elector of Brandenburg, George of Saxony, the dukes of Bavaria, and Charles V.'s brother Ferdinand - the princes, including the ecclesiastical rulers and the towns, commonly neglected to publish the edict, much less to enforce it.

This was signed by the elector of Saxony and his son and successor, John Frederick, by George, margrave of Brandenburg, two dukes of Luneburg, Philip of Hesse and.

In 1539 George of Saxony died, and was succeeded by his brother Henry, who also accepted the new faith, and in the same year the new elector of Brandenburg became a Protestant.

Since 1397 the office of burgrave of Nuremberg had been held by John's brother, Frederick, who in 1415 received Brandenburg from King Sigismund, and became margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I.

The subsequent history of this branch of the Hohenzollerns is identified with that of Brandenburg from 1415 to 1701, and with that of Prussia since the latter date, as in this year the elector Frederick III.

While the electorate of Brandenburg passed according to the rule of primogenirure, the Franconian possessions of the Hohenzollerns, Ansbach and Bayreuth, were given as appanages to younger sons, an arrangement which was confirmed by the dispositio Achillea of 1473.

These principalities were ruled by the sons and descendants of the elector Albert Achilles from 1486 to 1603; and, after reverting to the elector of Brandenburg, by the descendants of the elector John George from 1603 to 1791.

The university of Frankfort, founded in 1506 by Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg, was removed to Breslau in 1811, and the academical buildings are now occupied by a school.

Frankfort-on-the-Oder owes its origin and name to a settlement of Franconian merchants here, in the 13th century, on land conquered by the margrave of Brandenburg from the Wends.

In 1379 it received from King Sigismund, then margrave of Brandenburg, the right to free navigation of the Oder; and from 1368 to about 1450 it belonged to the Hanseatic League.

In the Thirty Years' War it was successively taken by Gustavus Adolphus (1631), by Wallenstein (1633), by the elector of Brandenburg (1634), and again by the Swedes, who held it from 1640 to 1644.

At the end of the latter year he returned to Brandenburg, where he was elected a member of the municipal council and in 1906 a member of the Reichstag.

The territory of Schwiebus originally belonged to the principality of Glogau, and in the 16th and 17th centuries was a bone of contention between the electors of Brandenburg and the emperors.

Its alliance with the Catholic party deprived it of its place at the head of the Protestant German states, which was now taken by Brandenburg.

In 1166 a coalition was formed against him a, Merseburg under the leadership of Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg, and Archbishop Hartwig.

Immovably entrenched behind their privileges, they rendered him only the minimum of service; but he compelled their representatives, assembled at Kassa, to recognize his daughter Maria and her affianced husband, Count Sigismund of Brandenburg, as their future king and queen by locking the gates of the city and allowing none to leave it till they had consented to his wishes (1374).

But in 1691 the Saxon representative at Berlin induced the court of Brandenburg to offer him the rectorship of St Nicholas in Berlin with the title of "Konsistorialrat."

In north German politics he interfered vigorously to protect his brotherin-law the Margrave Louis of Brandenburg against the lords of Mecklenburg and the dukes of Pomerania, with such success that the emperor, Charles IV., at the conference of Bautzen, was reconciled to the Brandenburger and allowed Valdemar an annual charge of 16,000 silver marks on the city of Lubeck (1349) Some years later Valdemar seriously thought of reviving the ancient claims of Denmark upon England, and entered into negotiations with the French king, John, who in his distress looked to this descendant of the ancient Vikings for help. A matrimonial alliance between the two crowns was even discussed, and Valdemar offered, for the huge sum of 600,000 gulden, to transport 12,000 men to England.

Valdemar's skilful diplomacy, reinforced by golden arguments, did indeed induce the dukes of Brunswick, Brandenburg and Pomerania to attack the confederates in the rear; but fortune was persistently unfriendly to the Danish king, 1 Rostock, Greifswald, Wismar and Stralsund.

Brandenburg (Leipzig, 1900-1904); and a sketch of him is given by Roger Ascham in A Report and Discourse of the Affairs and State of Germany (London, 1864-1865).

It was at first adopted and then rejected by Brunswick, the Palatinate and Brandenburg.

He has left The Game of Chess, an imitation of Vida, and Proporzec albo hold pruski (The Standard or Investiture of Prussia), where he describes the fealty done by Albert of Brandenburg to Sigismund Augustus.

It was here that a treaty over the succession to the duchy of Jiilich was made in March 1611 between Saxony and Brandenburg, and here in November 1644 the Swedes defeated the Imperialists.

He received an excellent education, became elector of Brandenburg on his father's death in January 1499, and soon afterwards married Elizabeth, daughter of John, king of Denmark.

At the conference of Leutschau in 1494 the details of the expedition were arranged between the kings of Poland and Hungary and the elector Frederick of Brandenburg, with the co-operation of Stephen, hospodar of Moldavia, who had appealed to John Albert for assistance.

In 1197, however, German jealousy of Denmark's ambitions, especially when Canute led a fleet against the pirates of Esthonia, induced Otto, margrave of Brandenburg, to invade Pomerania, while in the following year Otto, in conjunction with Duke Adolf of Holstein, wasted the dominions of the Danophil Abodrites.

For three years he was occupied in campaigns against the Wends, and by an arrangement made with Pribislaus, duke of Brandenburg, Albert secured this district when the duke died in 1150.

Taking the title margrave of Brandenburg, he pressed the warfare against the Wends, extended the area of his mark, did much for the spread of Christianity and civilization therein, and so became the founder of the margraviate of Brandenburg.

It was possibly at this time that Albert was made arch-chamberlain of the Empire, an office which afterwards gave the margraves of Brandenburg the rights of an elector.

Thus the former duchy of Westphalia and the bishoprics of Munster and Paderborn which remained in ecclesiastical hands are almost entirely Roman Catholic, while the secularized bishopric of Minden and the former counties of Ravensberg and Mark, which fell or had fallen to Brandenburg, and the Siegen district, which belonged to Nassau, are predominantly Protestant.

Brandenburg laid the foundations of her dominion in Westphalia by obtaining the counties of Mark and Ravensberg in 1614 (confirmed 1666), to which the bishopric of Minden was added by the peace of Westphalia.

He became elector of Brandenburg on his father's death in July 1535, and undertook the government of the old and middle marks, while the new mark passed to his brother John.

In domestic politics he sought to consolidate and strengthen the power of his house by treaties with neighbouring princes, and succeeded in secularizing the bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus.

He took the communion himself in both kinds, and established a new ecclesiastical organization in Brandenburg, but retained much of the ceremonial of the Church of Rome.

After the peace of Augsburg the elector mainly confined his attention to Brandenburg, where he showed a keener desire to further the principles of the Reformation.

When Frederick died in the following year, the elector's son Sigismund obtained the two sees; and on Sigismund's death in 1566 Magdeburg was secured by his nephew, Joachim Frederick, afterwards elector of Brandenburg.

During the Thirty Years' War it was captured by the Swedes in 1631, passing by the treaty of Westphalia to the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William I., who strengthened its fortifications.

After he became of age he was engaged in a long struggle with external enemies, and in 1250 was compelled to recognize the supremacy of the margrave of Brandenburg.

Andreas (1514-1559) was a physician of some repute, but through his influence with Albert of Brandenburg, last grandmaster of the Teutonic order, and first Protestant duke of Prussia, became an outstanding figure in the controversy associated with Andreas Osiander whose daughter he had married.

On the Baltic, France guaranteed the Treaty of Oliva between her old allies Sweden, Poland and Brandenburg, which preserved her influence in that quarter.

In 1303 it was purchased by the margrave of Brandenburg, and after other changes it fell in 1368 into the hands of the king of Bohemia, the emperor Charles IV., who already possessed Upper Lusatia.

In 1253 it passed to the margrave of Brandenburg, and about the same time it was divided into an eastern and a western part, Baudissin proper and Gorlitz.

It became the capital of Henry the Illustrious, margrave of Meissen, in 1270, but belonged for some time after his death, first to Wenceslaus of Bohemia, and next to the margrave of Brandenburg.

Mary was obliged to share the guardianship of her infant son with his grandmother Amelia, the widow of Frederick Henry, and with Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg; moreover, she was unpopular with the Dutch owing to her sympathies with her kinsfolk, the Stuarts, and at length public opinion having been further angered by the hospitality which she showed to her brothers, Charles II.

Fiirstenwalde is one of the oldest towns of Brandenburg.

In 1627 he was elected alderman of Magdeburg, and in 1646 mayor of that city and a magistrate of Brandenburg.

German Silesia is bounded by Brandenburg, Posen, Russian Poland, Galicia, Austrian Silesia, Moravia, Bohemia and the kingdom and province of Saxony.

The parts of lower Silesia adjoining Brandenburg, and also the district to the east of the Oder, are sandy and comparatively unproductive.

Availing himself of a testamentary union made in 1 537 between the duke of Liegnitz and the elector of Brandenburg, and of an attempt by the elector Frederick William to call it into force in spite of its annulment by Ferdinand I.

In 1657 it was taken by storm by the Swedish general Wrangel, and in 1659, after the fortress had been dismantled, it was occupied by Frederick William of Brandenburg.

His first plan was a combination against her of Saxony, Denmark and Brandenburg; but, Brandenburg failing him, he was obliged very unwillingly to admit Russia into the partnership. The tsar was to be content with Ingria and Esthonia, while Augustus was to take Livonia, nominally as a fief of Poland, but really as an hereditary possession of the Saxon house.

Thence it curves southwest, past Potsdam and Brandenburg, traversing another chain of lakes, and finally continues north-west until it joins the Elbe from the right some miles above Wittenberge after a total course of 221 m.

On the 27th of November 1597 he married Anne Catherine, a daughter of Joachim Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg.

The Order of the Black Eagle, one of the most distinguished of European orders, was founded in 1701 by the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick I., in memory of his coronation as king of Prussia.

There is a statue of Frederick William of Brandenburg.

In 1631 it became a free imperial town, but in 1647 it was subjugated by the elector of Brandenburg.

Born at Konigsberg on the 11th of July 1657, he was educated and greatly influenced by Eberhard Danckelmann, and became heir to the throne of Brandenburg through the death of his elder brother, Charles Emil, in 1674.

In 1686 Dorothea persuaded her husband to bequeath outlying portions of his lands to her four sons; and Frederick, fearing he would be poisoned, left Brandenburg determined to prevent any diminution of his inheritance.

Having become elector of Brandenburg in May 1688, he came to terms with his half-brothers and their mother.

He helped William of Orange to make his descent on England; added various places, including the principality of Neuchatel, to his lands; and exercised some influence on the course of European politics by placing his large and efficient army at the disposal of the emperor and his allies (see Brandenburg).

His constant obligations to the emperor drained Brandenburg of money which might have been employed more profitably at home, and prevented her sovereign from interfering in the politics of northern Europe.

Its history, however, was complicated by its connexion with Brandenburg, Holland and Tirol, all of which had also been left by the emperor to his sons.

All the six brothers exercised some authority in Bavaria; but three alone left issue, and of these the eldest, Louis, margrave of Brandenburg, died in 1361; and two years later was followed to the grave by his only son Meinhard, who was childless.

Aided by Albert Achilles, afterwards margrave of Brandenburg, he took the elder Louis prisoner and compelled him to abdicate in 1443.

In 1472 he founded the university of Ingolstadt, attempted to reform the monasteries, and was successful in a struggle with Albert Achilles of Brandenburg.

In 1 347 the town passed with the countship of Ravensberg to the duchy of Julich, and in 1666 to that of Brandenburg.

In 1470 Albert, who had inherited Bayreuth on the death of his brother John in 1464, became elector of Brandenburg owing to the abdication of his remaining brother, the elector Frederick II.

Having established his right to levy a tonnage on wines in the mark, he issued in February 1473 the important dispositio Achillea, which decreed that the mark of Brandenburg should descend in its entirety to the eldest son, while the younger sons should receive the Franconian possessions of the family.

After treating in vain for a marriage between one of his sons and Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, Albert handed over the government of Brandenburg to his eldest son John, and returned to his Franconian possessions.

Aided by Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, John invaded Brandenburg, and the Pomeranians seized the opportunity to revolt.

Under these circumstances Albert returned to Brandenburg in 1478, compelled the Pomeranians to own his supremacy, and after a stubborn struggle secured a part of Duke Henry's lands for his daughter in 1 4 82.

Of the Lutheran churches only that of Brandenburg seems to have kept the Palm Sunday procession for a while.

The first is bounded by Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Pomerania and Brandenburg, the second by Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Lauenburg, and the territory of the free town of Lbeck.

Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Lusatia, Saxony and the plateau of Thuringia, West Prussia, Posen and lower Silesia are also to be classed among the more arid regions of Germany, the annual rainfall being 16 to 20 in.

In the north the plant is cultivated principally in Pomerania, Brandenburg and East and West Prussia.

The chief seats of this manufacture are the RhenishdistrictsofAix-la-Chapelle, Dtiren, Eupen and Lennep, Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia and lower Lusatia, the chief centres in this group being Berlin, Cottbus, Spremberg, Sagan and Sommerfeld.

The territories of the former principality of Cleves and of the countship of Mark (comprising very nearly the basin of the Ruhr), which went to Brandenburg in 1609, must, however, be excepted.

The explanation is twofoldthe extraordinary increase (I) in their numbers in Berlin and the province of Brandenburg, and (2) in the number of conversions to the Christian faith.

In Brandenburg, Lusatia, Silesia, Posen and Saxony, where there was no strong Bronze age tradition, Hallstatt influence is very noticeable.

Otto, having profound faith in the power of the church to reconcile conquered peoples to his rule, provided for the benefit of the Danes the bishoprics of Schleswig, Ripen and Aarhus; and among those which he established for the Slays were the important bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelberg.

Henry the Proud rebelled and was declared to have forfeited his two duchies, Saxony and Bavaria, the former being given to Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg, and the latter to Leopold IV., margrave of Austria.

During this reign the work of conquering and Germanizing the Slavonic tribes east of the Elbe was seriously taken in hand under the lead of Albert the Bear and Henry the Lion, and the foundation of the margraviate of Brandenburg by Albert tended to make life and property more secure in the north-east of Germany.

While he was thus at work a similar task was being performed to the south-east of Saxony by Albert the Bear, the first margrave of Brandenburg, who, by his energetic rule was preparing this country for its great destinies.

Prussia was conquered for Christianity and civilization by the knights of the Teutonic Order, who here built up the state which was later, The in association with Brandenburg, deeply to influence Teutonic the course of history.

This was the real beginning of the electoral college whose members at this time were the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, the duke of Saxony, the duke of Bavaria, who was also count palatine of the Rhine, the margrave of Brandenburg and the king of Bohemia.

About the same time the small duchy of Saxony was divided into two duchies, those of Wittenberg and Lauenburg, the former to the south and the latter to the north of the great mark of Brandenburg, and there were similar divisions in the less important states.

About 1323 Louis had secured the mark of Brandenburg for his son Louis, and he was eager to aggrandize his family in other directions.

The result was that when he died in November 1378 he wore the crowns of the Empire, of Gei many, of Bohemia, of Lombardy and of Burgundy; he had added Lower Lusatia and parts of Silesia to Bohemia; he had secured the mark of Brandenburg for his son Wenceslaus in 1373; and he had bought part of the Upper Palatinate and territories in all parts of Germany.

In 1415 he granted, or rather sold, the mark of Brandenburg to his friend Frederick of Hohen- Brandenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, this land thus passing burg and into the hands of the family under whom it was des- the Ifohentined to develop into the kingdom of Prussia.

Perhaps the most famous of these was one between a confederation of Franconian and Swabian cities under the leadership of Nuremberg on the one side, and Albert Achilles, afterwards elector of Brandenburg, and a number of princes on the other.

This movement spelled danger to the small principalities and to the free cities, but it gave a powerful impetus to the growth of Brandenburg, of Saxony, of Bavaria and of the Palatinate, and the future of the country seemed likely to remain with the particularist and not with the national idea.

Guided by Luther and Melanchthon, the principal states and cities in which the ideas of the reformers prevailedelectoral Saxony, Brandenburg, Hesse and the Rhenish Palatinate, Strassburg, Nuremberg, Ulm and Augsburgbegan to carry out measures of church reform.

Having captured Frankfort-on-Oder and forced the hesitating elector of Brandenburg, George William, to grant him some assistThe earn- ance, Gustavus Adolphus added the Saxon army to his paignof, own, and in September 1631 he met Tilly, at the heed Gustavus of nearly the whole force of the League, at Breitenfeld, P near Leipzig,, where he gained a victory which placed North Germany entirely at his feet.

Instead of attacking the enemy with his accustomed vigour, he withdrew into Bohemia and was engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Saxon soldier and diplomatist, Hans Georg von Arnim (1581-1641); his object being doubtless to come to terms with Saxony and Brandenburg either with or without the emperors consent.

In spite of the diplomatic efforts of Sweden the treaty of Prague was accepted almost at once by the elector of Brandenburg, the duke of Wurttemberg and other princes, and also by several of the most important of the free cities.

Actually the conferences did not meet until 1645, when the elector of Brandenburg had made, and the elector of Saxony, was about to make, a truce with Sweden, these two countries being withdrawn from the ravages of the war.

Brandenburg, the centre of the Prussian kingdom, was, as we have seen, granted in the 15th century by the emperor Sigismund to Frederick, count of Hohenzollern.

In 1611 this.duchy fell by inheritance to the elector of Brandenburg, and by the treaty of Wehlau, in 1657, in.

There was no sense of national unity between the Catholics of the Rhine provinces, long submitted to the influence of liberal France, and the Lutheran squires of the mark of Brandenburg, the most stereotyped class in Europe; there was little in.

When, on the evening of the 3oth, a mob surrounded the palace, clamouring for the king to give effect to this resolution, Frederick William lost patience, ordered General Wrangel to occupy Berlin with troops, and on the 2nd of November placed Count Brandenburg, a scion of the royal house and a Prussian of the old school, at the head of a new ministry.

On the pretext that fair deliberation was impossible in the capital, the assembly was now ordered to meet in Brandenburg, while troops were concentrated near Berlin and a state of siege was proclaimed.

But the discussions in Brandenburg were no more successful than those in Berlin; and at last, on the 5th of December, the king dissolved the assembly, granted a constitution about which it had riot been consulted, and gave orders for the election of a representative chamber.

Much has also been done in Prussia, in Brandenburg, in Bavaria, in Hanover, in Wurttemberg and in Baden, and collections of authorities have been made by competent scholars, of which the Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen und angrenzender Gebiete (Halle, 1870, f 01.), which extends to forty volumes, the smaller Scrip/ores rerum Prussicarum (Leipzig, 1861-1874), and the seventy-seven volumes of the Publikationen aus den koniglichen preussischen Slaatsarchiven, veranlasst und unterstutzt durch die konigliche Archivverwaltung (Leipzig, 1878, fol.), may be cited as examples.

The counts of Wernigerode, who can be traced back to the early 12th century, were successively vassals of the margraves of Brandenburg (1268),(1268), and the archbishops of Magdeburg (1381).

Under the later Babenbergs Vienna was regarded as one of the most important of German cities, and it was computed that the duke was as rich as the archbishop of Cologne, or the margrave of Brandenburg, and was surpassed in this respect by only one German prince, the Duchy of Austria created, 1156.

In June 1672 a French army invaded the Netherlands; whereupon the elector of Brandenburg contracted an alliance with the emperor Leopold, to which Denmark was invited to accede; almost simultaneously the States-General began to negotiate for a renewal of the recently expired Dano-Dutch alliance.

He had made up his mind to assert the ancient claim of the house of Brandenburg to the three Silesian duchies, which the Austrian rulers of Bohemia had ever denied, but the Hohenzollerns had never abandoned.

Prussia was then for the first time made continuous with Brandenburg and Pomerania.

By the peace of Westphalia (1648) the archbishopric was converted into a secular duchy, to fall to Brandenburg on the death of the last administrator, which happened in 1680.

Early in the 15th century their residence was fixed at Halle, and about the same time it became the custom to select them from one of the reigning families of Germany, most often from the house of Brandenburg.

The doctrines of the reformers made their appearance in the diocese early in the 16th century, and soon Archbishop Sigismund, a son of Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, openly avowed his adherence to Lutheranism.

Though he had soon resigned all direct official connexion with the schools of Brandenburg, his real influence in Prussia was considerable, and as usual was largely exaggerated in popular estimate.

The jus episcopale which Luther afterwards claimed for the secular authorities had been practically exercised in Saxony and Brandenburg; cities and districts had framed police regulations which set aside ecclesiastical decrees about holidays and begging; the supervision of charity was passing from the hands of the church into those of laymen; and religious confraternities which did not take their guidance from the clergy were increasing.

The archbishop of Cologne, the elector of Brandenburg and his brother the archbishop of Mainz were for instant outlawry, while the elector of Saxony, who was resolved to protect Luther, had great influence with the archbishop of Trier and the Count Palatine of the Rhine.

The earlier years of his rule were troubled by a quarrel with the margrave of Brandenburg, who wished to annex Pomerania.

In 1529, however, a treaty was made which freed Pomerania from the supremacy of Brandenburg on condition that if the ducal family became extinct the duchy should revert to Brandenburg.

The town has a statue of Frederick William I., the great elector of Brandenburg.

In 1648 the bishopric was converted into a secular principality under the elector of Brandenburg.

In 1537 Frederick II., duke of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau, concluded with Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, a treaty according to which his duchy was to pass to the house of Brandenburg in the event of the extinction of his line.

It suffered greatly during the Hussite war, and still more during the Thirty Years' War, in the course of which it was besieged and captured by the elector of Brandenburg, John George (1620), fell into the hands of Wallenstein (1633), and, in the following year was burned by its commander before being surrendered to the elector of Saxony.

These tendencies both princes and lesser nobles naturally tried to thwart, and the mediate towns or Landstddte were finally brought to stricter subjection, at least in the greater principalities such as Austria and Brandenburg.

He became court preacher, counsellor of the Consistory, director of the Maison francaise, a hospice for French people, inspector of the French gymnasium and superintendent of all the French churches in Brandenburg.

At different times it was held by Pomerania, Poland, Brandenburg and Denmark, and in 1308 it fell into the hands of the Teutonic knights, under whose rule it long prospered.

In 1666 it came into the possession of Brandenburg.

As the capital of the old Uckermark it was a frequent object of dispute between Pomerania and Brandenburg until incorporated with the latter about 1480.

At the beginning of the 15th century the burggraves of Nuremberg, who had in the meantime raised themselves to the rank of princes of the Empire, were invested with the margraviate of Brandenburg, and sold their castle to the town.

Lippstadt was founded in 1168 by the lords of Lippe, the rights over one half of the town passing subsequently by purchase to the counts of the Mark, which in 1614 was incorporated with Brandenburg.

After this defeat the landgrave was induced to surrender to Charles in June by his son-in-law, Maurice, now elector of Saxony, and Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, who promised Philip that he should be pardoned, and were greatly incensed when the emperor refused to assent to this condition.

What she actually got was (1) Upper Pomerania, with the islands of Riigen and Usedom, and a strip of Lower Pomerania on the right side of the Oder, including the towns of Stettin, Garz, Damm and Gollnow, and the isle of Wollin, with the right of succession to the rest of Lower Pomerania in the case of the extinction of the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns; (2) the town of Wismar with the districts of Poel and Neukloster; (3) the secularized bishoprics of Bremen and Verden; and (4) 5,000,000 rix-dollars.

These German possessions were to be held as fiefs of the empire; and in respect thereof Sweden was to have a vote in the imperial Diet and to " direct " the Lower Saxon Circle alternately with Brandenburg.

Sweden during the minority of his only son and successor, Charles XI., a child four years old, hastened to come to terms with Sweden's numerous enemies, which now included Russia, Poland, Brandenburg and Denmark.

The Peace of Oliva (May 3, 1660), made under F rench mediation ut an end to the lon feud with P g Poland and, at the same time, ended the quarrel between Sweden on the one side, and the emperor and the elector of Brandenburg on the other.

By this peace, Sweden's possession of Livonia, and the elector of Brandenburg's sovereignty over east Prussia, were alike confirmed; and the king of Poland renounced all claim to the Swedish crown.

As regards Denmark, the Peace of Oliva signified the desertion of her three principal allies, Poland, Brandenburg and the emperor, and thus compelled her to reopen negotiations with Sweden direct.

Charles's subsequent endeavour, in stress of circumstances, to gain a friend by dividing his Polish conquests with the aspiring elector of Brandenburg was a reversal of his original policy and only resulted in the establishment on the southern confines of Sweden of a new rival almost as dangerous as Denmark, her ancient rival in the west.

In December 1677 the elector of Brandenburg captured Stettin.

At one time Cottbus formed an independent lordship of the Empire, but in 1462 it passed by the treaty of Guben to Brandenburg.

In 1697 the elector of Saxony sold his rights over Quedlinburg to the elector of Brandenburg for 240,000 thalers.

Among the most important public squares are the Opern-platz, around or near which stand the opera house, the royal library, the university and the armoury; the Gendarmenmarkt, with the royal theatre in its centre, the Schloss-platz; the Lustgarten, between the north side of the royal palace, the cathedral and the old and new museums; the Pariser-platz with the French embassy, at the Brandenburg Gate; the KBnigs-platz, with the column of Victory, the Reichstagsgebaude and the Bismarck and Moltke monuments; the Wilhelms-platz; the circular Belle-Alliance-platz, with a column commemorating the battle of Waterloo; and, in the western district, the spacious Liitzow-platz.

Of the former nineteen city gates only one remains, the Brandenburg Gate (1789-1793), an imitation of the Propylaea at Athens.

Entering the city at the Potsdam Gate, traversing a few hundred yards of the Leipziger-strasse, turning into Wilhelm-strasse, and following it to Unter den Linden, then beginning at the Brandenburg Gate and proceeding down Unter den Linden to its end, one passes, among other buildings, the following, many of them of great architectural merit - the admiralty, the ministry of commerce, the ministry of war, the ministry of public works, the palace of Prince Frederick Leopold, the palace of the imperial chancellor, the foreign office, the ministry of justice, the residences of the ministers of the interior and of public worship, the French and the Russian embassies, the arcade, the palace of the emperor William I., the university, the royal library, the opera, the armoury, the palace of the emperor Frederick III., the Schloss-briicke, the royal palace, the old and new museums and the national gallery.

From the south side of the Kiinigs-platz crossing the Tiergarten and intersecting the avenue from the Brandenburg Gate to Charlottenburg runs the broad Sieges-allee adorned by thirty-two groups of marble statuary representing famous rulers of the house of Hohenzollern, the gift of the emperor William II.

On the 1st of April 1881 Berlin was divided off from the province of Brandenburg and since forms a separate administrative district.

But the chief presidency (Oberprasidium), the Consistory, the provincial schoolboard, and the board of health of the province of Brandenburg remain tribunals of last instance to which appeals lie from Berlin.

In 1678 it was taken from Sweden by Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, but it was restored in 1679, only, however, to be ceded to Prussia in 1720 by the peace of Stockholm.

Ottakar's son, Wenceslas II., was only seven years of age at the death of his father, and Otto of Brandenburg, a nephew of Ottakar, for a time governed Bohemia as guardian of _ the young sovereign.

Having been again part of Thuringia, it fell in 1249 to Meissen, and in 1291 to Brandenburg.

Their appeal met with a response in a great part of Italy, France, Navarre, Portugal and England, and in Germany in the states subject to Wenceslas king of the Romans, the electors of Cologne and Mainz, the margrave of Brandenburg, &c. For a time the number of the fathers exceeded five hundred.

In the Schlosskirche the grave of Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg (zzo01170) has been discovered.

In 1655 the elector Frederick William of Brandenburg founded here a Protestant university, which flourished until 1802.

A long and intermittent struggle with the representatives of the emperor Louis IV., who had invested his own son Louis with the mark of Brandenburg, enabled him to gain military experience and distinction.

A victory gained by him in August 13 3 2 was mainly instrumental in freeing Pomerania for a time from the vexatious claim of Brandenburg to supremacy over the duchy, which moreover he extended by conquest.

It was surrounded by walls in 1311, about which time it came into the possession of the margrave of Brandenburg, from whom it passed to Bohemia in 1368.

His hostility towards the reformers, however, was not so extreme as that of his brother Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg; and he appears to have exerted himself in the interests of peace, although he was a member of the league of Nuremberg, which was formed in 1538 as a counterpoise to the league of Schmalkalden.

At the beginning of his reign his chief adviser was Hans Adam von Scheming (1641-1696), who counselled a union between Saxony and Brandenburg and a more independent attitude towards the emperor.

Among the Lutherans auricular confession survived the Reformation, but the general confession and absolution before communion were soon allowed by authority to serve as a substitute; in Wurttemberg as early as the 16th century, in Saxony after 1657, and in Brandenburg by decree of the elector in 1698.

Among other conspicuous buildings are the large barracks and other military establishments; the town hall; and the Brandenburg gate, in the style of a Roman triumphal arch.

In 1688 Pufendorf was called to the service of Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg.

When the war was ended by the peace of Minster in January 1648, he accepted from the elector of Brandenburg the post of governor of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg, and later also of Minden.

As early as 1665 he diverged for a short time from medical pursuits at Oxford, and was engaged as secretary to Sir Walter Vane on his mission to the Elector of Brandenburg.

Within a month after he reached London he had declined an offer of the embassy to Brandenburg, and accepted the modest office of commissioner of appeals.

This gave a new impetus to the emigration of the Huguenots, which had been going on for some years, and England, Holland and Brandenburg received numbers of thrifty and industrious French families.

Still retaining his connexion with the Moravians, he was appointed court preacher at Konigsberg in 1691 by the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick III., and here, entering upon a career of great activity, he soon became a person of influence in court circles.

Benedict Stolzenhagen, known in religion as Jacob, was born at Jiiterbogk in Brandenburg of poor peasant stock.

When the abdication of Christina of Sweden caused a quarrel between Charles Gustavus of Sweden and John Casimir of Poland, by which the emperor and the elector of Brandenburg hoped to profit, Mazarin (August 15, 1658) leagued the Rhine princes against them; while at the same time the substitution of Pope Alexander VII.

The castle, built in the 14th century, was the chief residence of the margraves of Brandenburg.

This so-called prophecy bewails the extinction of the Ascanian rulers of Brandenburg and the rise of the Hohenzollern dynasty to power; each successive ruler of the latter house down to the eleventh generation is described, the date of the extinction of the race fixed, and the restoration of the Roman Catholic Church foretold.

In the new parliament which was elected at the beginning of 1849, he sat for Brandenburg, and was one of the most frequent and most incisive speakers of what was called the Junker party.

The history of Brandenburg begins when the German king, Henry the Fowler, defeated the Havelli, or Hevelli, and took their capital, Brennibor, from which the name Brandenburg is derived.

It soon came under the rule of Gero, margrave of the Saxon east mark, who pressed the campaign against the Slays with vigour, while Otto the Great founded bishoprics at Havelberg and Brandenburg.

When Gero died in 965, his mark was divided into two parts, the northern portion, lying along both banks of the middle Elbe, being called the north or old mark, and forming the nucleus of the later margraviate of Brandenburg.

After Otto the Great died, the Sla y s regained much of their territory, Brandenburg fell again into their hands, and a succession of feeble margraves ruled only the district west of the Elbe, together with a small district east of that river.

The new margrave continued the work of Lothair, and about 1140 made a treaty with Pribislaus, the childless duke of Brandenburg, by which he was recognized as the duke's heir.

He took at once the title margrave of Brandenburg, but when Pribislaus died in 1150, a stubborn contest followed with Jazko, a relation of the late duke, which was terminated in 1157 in Albert's favour.

Albert was the real founder of Brandenburg.

When Albert died in 1170, Brandenburg fell to his eldest son, Otto I.

Many monasteries and towns were founded, among them Berlin; the work of Albert the Bear was continued, and the prosperity of Brandenburg formed a marked contrast to the disorder which prevailed elsewhere in Germany.

Brandenburg appears about this time to have fallen into three divisions - the old mark lying west of the Elbe, the middle mark between the Elbe and the Oder, and the new mark, as the newly conquered lands beyond the Oder began to be called.

John II.'s brother, Otto IV., who became elector in 1281, had passed his early years in struggles with the archbishop of Magdeburg, whose lands stretched like a wedge into the heart of Brandenburg.

In order to pay for these wars, and to meet the expenses of a splendid court, the later margraves had sold various rights to the towns and provinces of Brandenburg, and so aided the development of local government.

Brandenburg now fell into a deplorable condition, portions were seized by neighbouring princes, and the mark itself was disputed for by various claimants.

During the struggle between the families of Wittelsbach and Luxemburg, which began in 1342, there appeared in Brandenburg an old man who claimed to be the margrave Valdemar.

This step compelled Louis to make peace with Charles, who abandoned the false Valdemar, invested Louis and his step-brothers with Brandenburg, and in return was recognized as king.

Louis recovered the old mark in 1348, drove his opponent from the land, and in 1350 made a treaty with his step-brothers, Louis the younger and Otto, at Frankforton-Oder, by which Brandenburg was handed over to Louis the younger and Otto.

Louis the younger died in 1365, and when his brother Otto, who had married a daughter of Charles IV., wished to leave Brandenburg to his own family Charles began hostilities; but in 1373 an arrangement was made, and Otto, by the treaty of Fiirstenwalde, abandoned the margraviate for a sum of 500,00o gold gulden.

Under the Wittelsbach rule, the estates of the various provinces of Brandenburg had obtained the right to coin money, to build fortresses, to execute justice, and to form alliances with foreign states.

When Charles died in 1378, and Wenceslaus became German and Bohemian king, Brandenburg passed to the new king's half-brother Sigismund, then a minor, and a period of disorder ensued.

Soon after Sigismund came of age, he pledged a part of Brandenburg to his cousin Jobst, margrave of Moravia, to whom in 1388 he handed over the remainder of the electorate in return for a large sum of money, and as the money was not repaid, Jobst obtained the investiture in 1397 from King Wenceslaus.

Jobst paid very little attention to Brandenburg, and the period was used by many of the noble families to enrich themselves at the expense of the poorer and weaker towns, to plunder traders, and to carry on feuds with neighbouring princes.

During the century which preceded the advent of the Hohenzollerns in Brandenburg its internal condition had become gradually worse and worse, and had been accompanied by a considerable loss of territory.

But in the 13th century this feeling began to disappear, and Brandenburg enjoyed an independence and carried out an independent policy in a way that was not paralleled by any other German state.

This mode of colonization was especially favourable to the peasantry, who seem in Brandenburg to have retained the disposal of their persons and property at a time when villenage or serfdom was the ordinary status of their class elsewhere.

Such was the condition and extent of Brandenburg in 1411 when Frederick of Hohenzollern became the representative of King Sigismund therein.

Returning to Brandenburg as elector in 1416, the last flickers of the insurrection were extinguished; and when Frederick was invested at Constance in April 1417 his authority over the mark was undisputed.

His next difficulty was with Pomerania, which had been nominally under the suzerainty of Brandenburg since 1181.

This reverse, together with the pressure of other business, induced him to leave Brandenburg in January 1426, after handing over its government to his eldest son, John.

John never attained to they electoral dignity; for, in 1437, his father in arranging a division of his territories decided that Brandenburg should pass to his second and fourth sons, both of whom were named Frederick.

Cottbus and Peitz in Lusatia were acquired, and retained after a quarrel with George Podiebrad, king of Bohemia, and the new mark of Brandenburg was purchased from the Teutonic order in 1454.

Albert appeared in Brandenburg early in the same year, and after receiving the homage of his people took up the struggle with the Pomeranians, which he soon brought to a satisfactory conclusion; for in May 1472 he not only obtained the cession of several districts, but was recognized as the suzerain of Pomerania and as its future ruler.

Albert's most important contribution to the history of Brandenburg was the issue on the 24th of February 1473 of the Dispositio Achillea.

He then entrusted the government to his eldest son, John, and left Brandenburg.

To deal with these difficulties Albert returned to Brandenburg in 1478, and during his stay drove back the Pomeranians, and added Crossen and other parts of duke Henry's possessions to the electorate.

When Joachim undertook the government of Brandenburg he had to deal with an amount of disorder almost as great as.

He did not largely increase the area of Brandenburg, but in 1524 he acquired the county of Ruppin, and in 1529 he made a treaty at Grimnitz with George and Barnim XI., dukes of Pomerania, by which he surrendered the vexatious claim to suzerainty in return for a fresh promise of the succession in case the ducal family should become extinct.

Ignoring the Dispositio Achillea, the elector bequeathed Brandenburg to his two sons.

The bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus were secularized; their administration was entrusted to members of the elector's family; and their revenues formed a welcome addition to his impoverished exchequer.

The elector's death was followed ten days later by that of his brother, John, and as John left no sons the whole of Brandenburg, together with the districts of Beeskow and Storkow which had been added by purchase to the new mark, were united under the rule of his nephew, John George.

Born on the 11th of September 1525 this prince had served in the field under Charles V., and, disliking his father's policy and associates, had absented himself from Berlin, and mainly confined his attention to administering the secularized bishopric of Brandenburg which he had obtained in 1560.

Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands were encouraged to settle in Brandenburg, and a period of peace was beneficial to a land, the condition of which was still much inferior to that of other parts of Germany.

Since 1553 he had held the bishopric of Havelberg, since 1555 that of Lebus; he had been administrator of Magdeburg since 1566, and of Brandenburg since 1571.

An agreement with George Frederick, the childless margrave of Ansbach and Bayreuth, paved the way for an arrangement with the elector's younger brothers, who after the margrave's death in April 1603, shared his lands in Franconia, and were compensated in other ways for surrendering all claims on Brandenburg.

In Brandenburg he made concessions to the nobles at the expense of the peasantry, and admitted the right of the estates to control taxation.

Public opinion, however, in Brandenburg was too strong for him, and he was compelled to fall back upon the Lutheran Formula and the religious policy of his father.

The new elector, born on the 8th of November 1572, had married in 1594 Anna, daughter of Albert Frederick of Prussia, a union which not only strengthened the pretensions of the electors of Brandenburg to the succession in that duchy, but gave to John Sigismund a claim on the duchies of Cleves, Jiilich and Berg, and other Rhenish lands should the ruling family become extinct.

Brandenburg obtained the duchy of Cleves with the counties of Mark and Ravensberg, but as the Dutch and Spanish garrisons were not withdrawn, these lands were only nominally under the elector's rule.

Brandenburg was ravaged impartially by both parties, and in 1627 George William attacked his brother-in-law, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who was using Prussia as a base of operations for his war against Poland.

This campaign was short and inglorious for Brandenburg, and the elector was soon compelled to make peace.

The Brandenburg troops then assisted the Swedes until after the death of Gustavus in 16 3 2, and the Swedish defeat at NOrdlingen in 1634, when the elector assented to the treaty of Prague, which was made in May 1635 between the emperor Ferdinand II.

The imperialists did nothing, however, to drive the Swedes from Brandenburg, and the unfortunate land was entirely at the mercy of the enemy.

The most important facts in the internal history of Brandenburg during the 16th century were the increase in the power of the estates, owing chiefly to the continuous pecuniary needs of the electors; the gradual decline in the political importance of the towns, due mainly to intestine feuds; and the lapse of the peasantry into servitude.

When Frederick William, the " Great Elector," became ruler of Brandenburg in 16 4 0 he found the country in a very deplorable condition.

Although "' G r 'e t, the young elector spent the two first years of his reign mainly in Prussia, he was by no means forgetful of Brandenburg, and began resolutely to root out the many evils which had sprung up during the feeble rule of his father.

Having returned to Brandenburg in 1643, Frederick William remained neutral during the concluding years of the Thirty Years' War, and set to work to organize an army and to effect financial reforms. About the same time diplomatic methods freed Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg from foreign troops, but the estates of these lands gained a temporary victory when the elector attacked their privileges.

Although he was obliged to give up his claim to the western part of Pomerania in favour of Sweden, he secured the eastern part of that duchy, together with the secularized bishoprics of Halberstadt, Minden and Kammin, and other lands, the whole forming a welcome addition to the area of Brandenburg.

The increase in the prestige of Brandenburg was due chiefly to his army, which was gradually brought to a high state of efficiency.

The Landtag of Brandenburg was not cowed so easily into submission, but an increase of revenue was obtained, and the stubborn struggle which ensued in Prussia ended in a victory for the ruler.

In 1663 he assisted the imperialists in their struggle with the Turks; in 1666 the dispute over Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg was finally settled, and Brandenburg were confirmed in the possession of these lands; and in the same year a reconciliation was effected with Sweden.

In religious matters he interceded with the emperor and the diet for the Protestants, and sought, but without success, to bring about a reconciliation between Lutherans and Calvinists in Brandenburg.

Meanwhile Louis had instigated the Swedes to invade Brandenburg, which had been left to the care of John George II., prince of Anhalt-Dessau.

Hastening from Franconia to defend the electorate, Frederick William gained a complete victory over a superior number of the enemy at Fehrbellin on the 28th of June 1675, a great and glorious day for the arms of Brandenburg.

Aided by the imperialists and the Danes, he followed up this success, and cleared Brandenburg and Pomerania of the Swedes, capturing Stettin in 1677 and Stralsund in 1678, while an attack made by Sweden on Prussia was successfully repelled.

The general peace of Nijmwegen was followed by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye in June 1679 between Sweden and Brandenburg.

At his accession the greater part of his territory was occupied by strangers and devastated by war, and in European politics Brandenburg was merely an appendage of the empire.

He found Brandenburg a constitutional state, in which the legislative power was shared between the elector and the diet; he left it to his successor substantially an absolute monarchy.

Broached in 1692 this matter was brought up again in 1698 when the emperor and his ministers, faced with the prospect of a fight over the Spanish succession, were anxious to conciliate Brandenburg.

It was at length decided that the title should be taken from Prussia rather than from Brandenburg as the former country lay outside the Empire, and in return Frederick promised to assist Leopold with 8000 men.

The territorial additions to Brandenburg during this reign were few and unimportant, but the comparative wealth and prosperity enabled the elector to do a good deal for education, and to spend some money on buildings.

The subsequent history of Brandenburg is merged in that of Prussia (q.v.).

The eastern and larger portion of the duchy is enclosed by the Prussian government district of Potsdam (in the Prussian province of Brandenburg), and Magdeburg and Merseburg (belonging to the Prussian province of Saxony).

During the 11th century the greater part of Anhalt was included in the duchy of Saxony, and in the 12th century it came under the rule of Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg.

Esico's grandson, Otto the Rich, count of Ballenstedt, was the father of Albert the Bear, by whom Anhalt was united with the mark of Brandenburg.

Magdeburg, therefore, became the focus of the whole campaign of 1631; but the obstructive timidity of the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony threw insuperable obstacles in his way, and, on the very day when John George I.

By his wife, Marie Eleonora, a sister of the elector of Brandenburg, whom he married in 1620, Gustavus Adolphus had one daughter, Christina, who succeeded him on the throne of Sweden.

The most prominent of these princes were two Protestant princes, Philip Louis, count palatine of Neuburg, who was married to the duke's sister Anna, and John Sigismund, elector of Brandenburg, whose wife was the daughter of another sister.

About this time the emperor adjudged the duchies to Saxony, while the Dutch captured the fortress of Julich; but for all practical purposes victory remained with the "possessing princes," as Brandenburg and Neuburg were called, who continued to occupy and to administer the lands.

Dutch troops marched to assist the elector of Brandenburg and Spanish ones came to aid the count palatine, but through the intervention of England and France peace was made and the treaty of Xanten was signed in November 1614.

By this arrangement Brandenburg obtained Julich and Berg, the rest of the lands falling to the count palatine.

In October 1850 he had a meeting with Francis Joseph at Warsaw, at which Count Brandenburg and Prince Schwarzenberg were present.

It's pure exhilaration, like hearing the Brandenburg Concertos for the first time.

He formed a league with the primate Prazmowski and other traitors to dethrone the king; when (1670) the plot was discovered and participation in it repudiated by Louis XIV., the traitors sought the help of the elector of Brandenburg against their own justly indignant countrymen.

Afterwards in conjunction with Brandenburg and Denmark he attacked Charles XI.

Accordingly, on his return from Vienna he wedded Catherine, the daughter of the elector of Brandenburg, and still more closely allied himself with the Protestant powers, especially with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who, he hoped, would assist him to obtain the Polish crown.

In June he was at Magdeburg, Halle and Naumburg; the elector of Saxony excluded him from his dominions, but Albrecht's brother, the elector Joachim of Brandenburg, encouraged him at Berlin in the hope of sharing the spoils, and by the connivance of Duke George of Saxony he was permitted to pursue his operations within a few miles of the electoral territory at Wittenberg.

Frederick then passed some time as administrator of Brandenburg, where he restored a certain degree of order, and was formally invested with the electorate and margraviate by Sigismund at Constance on the, 8th of April 1417 (see Brandenburg).

Wollner, whom Frederick the Great had described as a "treacherous and intriguing priest," had started life as a poor tutor in the family of General von Itzenplitz, a noble of the mark of Brandenburg, had, after the general's death and to the scandal of king and nobility, married the general's daughter, and with his mother-in-law's assistance settled down on a small estate.

Invited to Berlin by Frederick William, in 1679 he became director of the laboratory and glass works of Brandenburg, and in 1688 Charles XI.

In 1695 these two branches of the family entered conjointly into an agreement with Brandenburg, which provided that, in case of the extinction of either of the Swabian branches, the remaining branch should inherit its lands; and if both branches became extinct the principalities should revert to Brandenburg.

At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he retired to Rotterdam, where he was for some years preacher at the Walloon church; in 1695 the elector of Brandenburg appointed him pastor and professor of philosophy, and later inspector of the French college at Berlin, where he enjoyed considerable reputation as a representative of Cartesianism and as a student of physics.

He took some part in the political complications of the Scandinavian kingdoms, but the early years of his reign were mainly spent in the administration of his electorate, where by stern and cruel measures he succeeded in restoring some degree of order (see Brandenburg).

The order had almost fallen into oblivion when it was revived in 1734 by the margrave George Frederick Charles as the Order of the Brandenburg Red Eagle.

His personal allegiance to Lutheranism was sound, but he liked neither the growing strength of Brandenburg nor the increasing prestige of the Palatinate; the adherence of the other branches of the Saxon ruling house to Protestantism seemed to him to suggest that the head of electoral Saxony should throw his weight into the other scale, and he was prepared to favour the advances of the Habsburgs and the Roman Catholic party.

Upper and lower Lusatia, the new mark of Brandenburg, and other outlying districts had been shorn away, and the electorate now consisted of the old mark, the middle mark with Priegnitz, Uckermark and Sternberg, a total area of not more than 10,000 sq.m.

In 1666 the great elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg, made with William, count palatine of Neuburg, a treaty of mutual succession to the duchies, providing that in case the male line of either house became extinct the other should inherit its lands.

In fact, the father of MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg, is someone who is more interested in mathematics than music.

It was at The Frauenhofer Institute in the mid-80's when Brandenburg and other technical minds were experimenting with audio compression.