Duchies Sentence Examples

At length the hostility of the princes was overcome, and in December 1282 Rudolph invested his sons Albert and Rudolph with the duchies of Austria and Styria at Augsburg, and so laid the foundations of the greatness of the house of Habsburg.

It then passed to the counts of La Marck and was made a duchy in 1417, being united with the neighbouring duchies of Jiilich and Berg in 1521.

Spain reconquered the duchies in the war of succession (1745); they were recovered by Austria in 1746; and Maria Theresa again surrendered them to Don Philip, infante of Spain, in 1748.

On his death in 1802 the duchies were incorporated with the French republic and his son Louis became "king of Etruria."

As in the other Saxon duchies the population is almost exclusively Protestant; in 1905, 262,243 belonged to the Lutheran confession, 4845 were Roman Catholics and 1256 Jews.

Bruno, who kept for himself the title of archduke, divided the territory into the two duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine.

Another stock, with no close allies nearer than the south of France, is found in the plain of Racconigi and Carmagnola; the mouse-colored Swiss breed occurs in the neighborhood of Milan; the Tirolese breed stretches south to Padua and Modena; and a red-coated breed named of Reggio or Friuli is familiar both in what were the duchies of Parma and Modena, and in the provinces of lJdine and Treviso.

The duchies of Spoleto in the centre, and of Benevento in the south, inserted wedge-like into the middle of the peninsula, and enclosing independent Rome, were but loosely united to the kingdom at Pavia.

The War of the Polish Succession which now disturbed Europe is only important in Italian history because the treaty of Vienna in 1738 settled the disputed affairs of the duchies Polish of Parma and Tuscany.

The former possessed the rich duchies Frecch of Milan (including Mantua) and Tuscany; while Revolu through a marriage alliance with the house of Este UoI, of Modena (the Archduke Ferdinand had married the heiress of Modena) its influence over that duchy was supreme.

Two months later Ferdinand of Naples sought for an armistice, the central duchies were easily overrun, and, early in 1797, Pope Pius VI.

In the Austrian provinces and in the duchies it carried all before it, and gained many adherents in the Legations, Rome and Naples, although in the latter regions the autonomist feeling was still strong even among the Liberals.

In August Marco Minghetti succeeded in forming a military league and a customs union between Tuscany, Romagna and the duchies, and in procuring the adoption of the Piedmontese codes; and envoys were sent to Paris to mollify Napoleon.

The king having formally accepted the voluntary annexation of the duchies, Tuscany and Romagna, appointed the prince of Carignano viceroy with Ricasoli as governor-general (22nd of March), and was immediately afterwards excommunicated by the pope.

An unworthy nephew, Carlo Caraffa, was made cardinal, and other relatives were invested with the duchies of Paliano and Montebello.

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.

They had to combat the feudal nobility, and later, the younger branches of the royal house established in the great duchies, and the main reason for the permanence of their power was, perhaps, the fact that there were few minorities among them.

Germany comprised two other duchies, Saxony and Frisia, of each of which we possess a text of law.

At the Congress of Vienna the Powers awarded to her and her son the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, in conformity with the terms of the treaty of Fontainebleau (March, 1814); in spite of the determined opposition of Louis XVIII.

Previously the several districts formally recognized were Latium, the Marittima (or sea-board) and Campagna, the patrimony of Saint Peter, the duchy of Castro, the Orvietano, the Sabina, Umbria, the Perugino, the March of Ancona, Romagna, the Bolognese, the Ferrarese, and the duchies of Benevento and of Pontecorvo.

This country, north of the Main and the first residence of the Franks, then received the name of Francia Orientalis, and became the origin of one of the duchies into which Germany was divided in the Toth century - the duchy of Franconia (Franken).

During the disastrous Swedish War of 1643-1645 Frederick was appointed generalissimo of the duchies by his father, but the laurels he won were scanty, chiefly owing to his quarrels with the Earl-Marshal Anders Bille, who commanded the Danish forces.

While the persevering policy of the Capets, which aimed at reuniting the great fiefs, duchies, countships, baronies, &c., to the domain of the crown, gradually reconstructed for their benefit a territorial sovereignty over France, the institution of the appanage periodically subtracted large portions from it.

Altenburg is the seat of the higher courts of the Saxon duchies, and possesses a cathedral and several churches, schools, a library, a gallery of pictures and a school of art, an infirmary and various learned societies.

From 1731 to 1846 it was the seat of the Danish governor of the duchies.

Otto soon showed his intention of breaking with the policy of his father, who had been content with a nominal superiority over the duchies; in 937 he punished Eberhard, duke of Franconia, for an alleged infringement of the royal authority; and in 938 deposed Eberhard, who had recently become duke of Bavaria.

Conrad and Ludolf retained their estates, but their duchies were not restored to them.

About this time the king seems to have perceived the necessity of living and ruling in closer union with the church, a change of policy due perhaps to the influence of his brother Bruno, or forced upon him when his plans for uniting the duchies with the royal house brought rebellion in their train.

In both duchies the chief industry is agriculture, which employs about 30% of the entire population.

The manufactures of the duchies, especially in the mountainous parts less favourable for agriculture, are tolerably brisk, but there is no large industrial centre in the country.

Coburg (pop. 1905, 24,289) and Gotha (36,893) are the chief towns of the duchies, to which they respectively give name; the latter is the capital of the united duchy.

His father was Christian Augustus (1673-1726), duke of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorp, bishop of Lubeck, and administrator, during the war of 1700-1721, of the duchies of Holstein-Gottorp for his nephew Charles Frederick; his mother was Albertina Frederica of BadenDurlach.

From the early days of the conquest they spread to the south, and established the duchies of Spoletum and Beneventum in the modern kingdom of Naples.

The Danish army at once dispersed and the duchy of Bremen was recovered by the Swedes, who in the early autumn swarmed over Jutland and firmly established themselves in the duchies.

In secular affairs Charles abolished the office of duke, placed counts over districts smaller than the former duchies, and supervised their government by means of missi dominici, officials responsible to himself alone.

During the crisis in Schleswig and Holstein in 1850 he endeavoured in person to aid the duchies in their struggles.

Only a few scattered territories were reserved for John Frederick's sons, although these were increased by the treaty of Naumburg in 1554, and on them were founded the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Altenburg.

John George's will made the decline of the electorate even more inevitable by detaching from it the three duchies of Saxe-Weissenfels, Saxe-Merseburg and SaxeZeitz as appanages for his younger sons.

The principle of primogeniture was not introduced until the end of the 17th century, so that the Protestant Saxon dynasty, instead of building up a single compact kingdom for itself, has split into four petty duchies, of no political influence whatever.

In 1640 his three surviving sons ruled the duchies of Weimar, Eisenach and Gotha.

In that year the Gotha line expired, and a general redistribution of the lands of the " Nexus Gothanus," as this group of duchies was called, was arranged on the 12th of November 1826.

The existing duchies are separately noticed.

When the German party in the northern duchies rose against the Danish government, Waitz hastened to place himself at the service of the provisional government.

He was sent to Berlin to represent the interests of the duchies there, and during his absence he was elected by Kiel as a delegate to the national parliament at Frankfort.

He was at once attracted into the political movement for the defence of the rights of the Elbe duchies, of which Kiel was the centre.

C. Dahlmann, he placed his historical learning at the service of the estates of SchleswigHolstein and composed the address of 1844, in which the estates protested against the claim of the king of Denmark to alter the law of succession in the duchies.

During the next two years he continued to support the cause of the duchies, and in 1850, with Carl Samwer, he published a history of the dealings of Denmark with Schleswig-Holstein, Die Herzogthiimer Schleswig-Holstein land das Kiinigreich Ddnemark seit dem Jahre 1806 (Hamburg, 1850).

A translation was published in London in the same year under the title The Policy of Denmark towards the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein.

The work was one of great political importance, and had much to do with the formation of German public opinion on the rights of the duchies in their struggle with Denmark.

This category includes German places in the Kingdom of Saxony, in the Prussian province of Saxony, in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, in the Duchies of Anhalt, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Altenburg, and Saxe-Meiningen, and in the Principalities of Reuss, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.

But in 1549 Pier Luigi was assassinated by his outraged subjects, and the emperor thereupon claimed the two duchies for his son-in-law Ottavio Farnese, Paul's grandson.

It was only with reluctance that he supported the ambitious projects of Elizabeth Farnese, queen of Spain, in Italy by guaranteeing in 1729 the succession of Don Carlos to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany.

He refused to acknowledge his victorious riyal, Rudolph of Habsburg, and urged the pope to adopt a similar attitude, while the new king claimed the Austrian duchies.

Placing Ottakar under the ban of the empire, Rudolph besieged Vienna and compelled Ottakar in November 1276 to sign a treaty by which he gave up Austria and the neighbouring duchies, retaining for himself only Bohemia and Moravia.

It embraces the duchies of Schwerin and Gtistrow, the district of Rostock, the principality of Schwerin, and the barony of Wismar, besides several small enclaves (Ahrensberg, Rosson, Tretzeband, &c.) in the adjacent territories.

When the insurrection broke out in the Elbe duchies (1848) he left the Danish service, and offered his services to the provisional government of Kiel, an offer that was not accepted.

In 1849, accordingly, he re-entered the service of Denmark, was appointed a royal chamberlain and in 1850 sent to represent the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein at the restored federal diet of Frankfort.

He now entered the service of the grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and remained at the head of the grand-ducal government until 1867, when he became plenipotentiary for the two Mecklenburg duchies in the council of the German Confederation (Bundesrat), where he distinguished himself by his successful defence of the medieval constitution of the duchies against Liberal attacks.

The early history of Hanover is merged in that of the duchy of Brunswick (q.v.), from which the duchy of Brunswick-Liineburg and its offshoots, the duchies of LUneburg-Celle and Luneburg-Calenberg have sprung.

Bismarck, the director of the policy of Prussia, was devising methods for the realization of his schemes, and it became clear after the war over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein that the smaller German states would soon be obliged to decide definitely between Austria and Prussia.

To its unification Austria was the chief obstacle; she owned Lombardo-Venetia; she controlled the three duchies, whose rulers were Austrian princes; and she upheld the autocracy of the king of Naples and that of the pope against all revolutionary movements.

The growing resources of the Silesian duchies are exemplified by the strength of the army with which Henry II., duke of Lower Silesia, broke the force of the Mongol invasion at the battle of Liegnitz (1241), and by the glamour at the court of the Minnesinger, Henry IV.

The death of his wife in August 1212 had weakened his hold on the southern duchies, and he was soon confined to the district of the lower Rhine, although supported by money from his uncle King John of England.

He had at his disposal from 19,000 to 25,000 men, and at first gained some successes; but on the 27th of August 1626 he was utterly routed by Tilly at Lutter-am-Barenberge, and in the summer of 1627 both Tilly and Wallenstein, ravaging and burning, occupied the duchies and the whole peninsula of Jutland.

The grand duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz possess jointly the Order of the Wendish Crown, founded in 1864 by the grand dukes Frederick Francis II.

The duchies of Saxe Altenburg, Saxe Coburg Gotha and Saxe Meiningen have in common the family Order of Ernest, founded in 1833 in memory of Duke Ernest the Pious of Saxe Gotha and as a revival of the Order of German Integrity (Orden der deutschen Redlichkeit) founded in 1690.

After a separation of four and a half centuries, the Palatinate, to which the duchies of Julich and Berg had been added, was thus reunited with Bavaria.

By the treaty of Luneville (February 9th, 1801) Bavaria lost the Palatinate and the duchies of Zweibrucken and Julich.

The present Prussian Rhine province was formed in 1815 out of the duchies of Cleves, Berg, Gelderland and Jiilich, the ecclesiastical principalities of Trier and Cologne, the free cities of Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and nearly a hundred small lordships and abbeys.

Agriculture is by far the most important industry in both duchies.

In 1907 the grand dukes of both duchies promised a constitution to their subjects.

The duchies had always been under a government of fetidal character, the grand dukes having the executive entirely in their hands (though acting through ministers), while the duchies shared a diet (Landtag), meeting for a short session each year, and at other times represented by a committee, and consisting of - the proprietors of knights estates (Rittergitter), known as the Ri.iterschaft, and the Landschaft or burgomasters of certain towns.

These are Franconia (Franken), which embraces the districts of Bamberg, Schweinfurt and Wurzburg on the upper Main; Swabia (Schwaben), in which is included Wtirttemberg, parts of Bavaria and Baden and Hohenzollern; the Palatinate (Pfalz), embracing Bavaria west of the Rhine and the contiguous portion of Baden; Rhineland, applied to Rhenish Prussia, Nassau, Hesse-Darmstadt and parts of Bavaria and Baden; Vogtland, the mountainous country lying in the south-west corner of the kingdom of Saxony; Lusatia (Lausitz), the eastern portion of the kingdom of Saxony and the adjacent portion of Prussia watered by the upper Spree; Thuringia (Thulingen), the country lying south of the Harz Mountains and including the Saxon duchies; East Frlesland (Ost Friesland), the country lying between the lower course of the Weser and the Ems, and Westphalia (Westfalen), the fertile plain lying north and west of the Harz Mountains and extending to the North Sea and the Dutch frontier.

The tribal dukes had all disappeared, and their duchies were split up into districts ruled by counts (q.v),whose tendencies to independence the emperor tried to check by the visits of the missi dominici.

He concentrated all his energies on the government and defence of northern and eastern Germany, leaving the southern and western districts to profit by his example, while his policy of refraining from interference in the affairs of the other duchies tended to diminish the ill-feeling which existed between the various German tribes and to bring peace to the country as a whole.

When this great king died in July 936 every land inhabited by a German population formed part of the German kingdom, and none of the duchies were at war either with him or among themselves.

Lorraine was divided into two duchies, Upper Lorraine and Lower Lorraine.

Otto gave up the practice of retaining the duchies either in his own hands or in those of relatives.

With regard to the German duchies Conrad followed the policy of Otto the Great.

Franconia was in the hands of Conrad himself; thus Saxony, Thuringia, Carinthia and Lorraine were the only duchies not completely dependent upon the king.

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.

Fredericks object in thus breaking up the two greatest duchies in his kingdom was doubtless to strengthen the imperial authority.

The country was not now divided into a few duchies which, with skilful management, might still in times of emergency Classes have been made to act together.

The age of the of the great duchies was past.

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.

All the states and cities which subscribed to the confession of Augsburg were admitted to it, and thus a large number of Protestants, including the duchies of Wurttemberg and Pomerania and the cities of Augsburg and Frankfort, secured a needful protection against the decrees of the Reichskammergeric/it, which the league again repudiated.

Thus, under Maximilian of Bavaria and Christian of Anhalt respectively the two great parties were gaining a better idea of their own needs and of each others aims and were watching vigilantly the position in the duchies of Cleves, Julich and Berg, where a dispute over the succession was impending.

His father had guaranteed the prag matic sanction, but as the conditions on which the guarantee had been granted had not been fulfilled by Charles VI., Frederick did not feel bound by it, and revived some old claims of his family on certain Silesian duchies.

Meanwhile, alarmed at this tendency, and hopeless of obtaining any general system from the federal diet, the middle states had drawn together; by a treaty signed on the 18th of January 1828 Wurttemberg and Bavaria formed a tariff union, which was joined in the following year by the Hohenzollern principalities; and on the 24th of September 1828 was formed the so-called Middle German Commercial Union (Handelsverein) between Hanover, HesseCassel, the Saxon duchies, Brunswick, Nassau, the principalities of Reuss and Schwarzburg, and the free cities of Frankfort and Bremen, the object of which was to prevent the extension of the Prussian system and, above all, any union of the northern Zollverein with that of Bavaria and WUrttemberg.

In 1848 the German party in the duchies, headed by Prince Frederick of Augustenburg, rose against the Danish government.

The provisional government of the duchies Praokfort appealed from Prussia to the German regent; and assembly.

The inhabitants of the duchies, however, continued the war.

In Germany the relations between prussia Austria and Prussia were becoming unpleasantly and the strained in the question of the admission of the Habs Austro- burg monarchy to the Zollverein, in that of the elector Italian of Hesse and his parliament, in that of the relation War, of the Elbe duchies to the crown of Denmark.

Both had signed the protocol of 1852, and both realized that, if the European powers were to be given no excuse to intervene, their attitude must be scrupulously correct; and this involved the recognition of King Christians rights in the duchies.

On the other hand, the constitution of the 13th of November had been in flat contradiction to the protocol of London, which recognized theseparate rights of the duchies; and if the two great German powers chose to make this violation of an agreement to which they had been parties a casus belli, Europe would have no right to interfere.

He saw clearly what the possession of the duchies would mean to Germany, their vast importance for the future of German sea-power; already he had a vision of the great war-harbour of Kiel and the canal connecting the Baltic and the North seas; and he was determined that these should be, if not wholly Prussian, at least wholly under Prussian control.

Austria now sought in the question of the Elbe duchies an occasion for re-establishing her influence in Germany.

Meanwhile the preparations for war had been continued, and on the 1st of June Austria flung down the gage by declaring her intention of submitting the whole question of the duchies to the federal diet and of summoning a meeting of the Holstein estates.

This was denounced by Bismarck in a circular note to the powers as a breach of the convention of Gastein and of the treaty of January 16, 1864, by which Austria and Prussia had agreed to govern the duchies in common.

In 1883 the daughter of the duke of Augustenburg, the former claimant to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, married the heir to the Prussian throne, who became William II.

After the duke had three times refused to appear before the princes, Frederick placed him under the ban, declared the duchies of Austria and Styria to be vacant, and, aided by the king of Bohemia, the duke of Bavaria and other princes, invaded the country in 1236.

He met with very slight opposition, declared the duchies to be immediately dependent upon the Empire, made Vienna an imperial city, and imposed other changes upon the constitution of Austria.

The duchies of Austria and Styria were now claimed by the emperor Frederick II.

Frederick, however, who was in Italy, harassed and afflicted, could do little to assert the imperial authority, and his enemy, Pope Innocent IV., bestowed the two duchies upon Hermann VI., margrave of Baden, whose wife, Gertrude, was a niece of the last of the Babenbergs.

Hermann was invested by the German king, William, count of Holland, but he was unable to establish his position, and law and order were quickly disappearing from the duchies.

He did something to improve the condition of the duchies by restoring order, introducing German colonists into the eastern districts, and seeking to benefit the inhabitants of the towns.

Finding some support in Austria, Rudolph questioned the title of the Bohemian king to the three duchies, and sought to recover the imperial lands which had been in the possession of the emperor Frederick II.

War was the result, and in November 1276 Ottakar submitted to Rudolph, and renounced the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia.

For some time the three duchies were administered by Rudolph in his capacity as head of the Empire, of which they formed part.

At this time the principle of primogeniture was unknown in the house of Habsburg, and for many years the duchies were ruled in common by two, or even three, members of the family.

Albert ruled the duchies alone from 1344 to 1356, and after this date his sons began to take part in the government.

He did much for the better government of the Austrian duchies.

Rostock is the seat of the supreme court for both the duchies of Mecklenburg, and is well equipped with schools, hospitals, and other institutions.

The separation from the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which were more than half German, intensified the national character; the Danes are intensely patriotic; and there is no portion of the Danish dominions except perhaps in the West Indian islands, where a Scandinavian language is not spoken.

The rising national feeling in Germany also stimulated the separatist tendencies of the of the duchies; and "Schleswig-Holsteinism," as it now began to be called, evoked in Denmark the counter-movement known as Eiderdansk-politik, i.e.

The " legitimate " heir to the duchies, under the Salic law, Duke Christian of Sonderburg-Augustenburg, accepted the decision of the London conference in consideration of the purchase by the Danish government of his estates in Schleswig.

The representatives of the duchies in the new common Rigsraad protested against it, as subversive of the Conventions of 1851 and 1852; and their attitude had the support of the German powers.

For Denmark the question was settled when, by the peace of Vienna (October 30, 1864), the duchies were irretrievably lost to her.

Both as stadtholder of the Duchies in 1526, and as viceroy of Norway in 1529, he displayed considerable administrative ability, though here too his religious intolerance greatly provoked the Catholic party.

It was with the help of the gentry of the duchies that Christian had conquered Denmark.

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.

While this siege was in progress Alboin was also engaged in other parts of Italy, and at its close he was probably master of Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany, as well as of the regions which afterwards went by the name of the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento.

This unification was completed (except for Brittany) and the frontiers enlarged by the acquisition, upon the death of Rene of Anjou in 1480, of the duchies of Anjou and Bar, and in 1481 of Maine and Provence upon the death of Charles II., count of Maine.

On the death of George William the last duke in 1675, however, Austria refused to acknowledge the validity of the treaty and annexed the duchies.

Justice is administered by two high courts (Landesgerichte), at Weimar and Eisenach respectively; the district of Neustadt falling under the jurisdiction of the Landesgericht at Gera; while the supreme court of appeal for the four Saxon duchies, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Reuss, together with portions of Prussia, is the Oberlandesgericht at Jena.

Both these rulers, by the institution of separate and almost independent duchies, attempted to introduce into Sweden a feudal system similar to that already established elsewhere in Europe; but the danger of thus weakening the realm by partition was averted, though not without violent and tragic complications.

It covered all the northern Netherlands between the Scheldt and the Ems. The bishops, in fact, as the result of grants of immunities by a succession of German kings, and notably by the Saxon and Franconian emperors, gradually became the temporal rulers of a dominion as great as the neighbouring counties and duchies.

He broke up the independence of the great southern duchies, Benevento and Spoleto.

In 1278 Ottakar invaded the Austrian duchies, now under the rule of Rudolph, but was defeated and killed at the battle of Durnkrut on the Marchfeld.

Louis seized Anjou and Bar, and two years later sought to compel the king of Sicily to exchange the two duchies for a pension.

For the history of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein see Schleswig-Holstein Question below.

The last transaction in which Palmerston engaged arose out of the attack by the Germanic Confederation, and its leading states Austria and Prussia, on the kingdom of Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

At that time it comprised the two duchies of Courland and Semgallen.

In 1423 the duchy of Jiilich fell to Adolf of Berg, and in 1437 the countship of Ravensberg was united to the duchies.

After a short period he gave up his commercial career, and in 1770 became a member of the council for the duchies of Julich and Berg, in which capacity he distinguished himself by his ability in financial affairs, and his zeal in social reform.

The succession question, to the crown of Denmark, however, was different from that in the duchies.

In the duchies the descent was confined to the male hue; and, as Frederick VII., who ascended the Danish throne in 1848, had no direct issue, the next heir to the crown of Denmark under this rule was Prince Christian of Glucksburg, afterwards kin.g; the next heir to the duchies being the duke of Augustenburg.

In 1850 an arrangement had been made to prevent the separation of the duchies from the kingdom.

While this federal execution was taking place, the duke of Augustenburg-rregardlcss of the arrangements to which he had consenteddelegated his rights in the duchies to his son, who formally claimed the succession.

Denmark, paturally unable to grapple with her powerful antagon.ists, was forced to yield, and the two duchies which were the subject of dispute were taken from her.

After the treaty of Verdun in 843 it became the centre of the East Frankish or German kingdom, and in theory remained so for a long period, and was for a time the most important of the duchies which arose on the ruins of the Carolingian empire.

In August 1864 the emperor, held back by French public opinion, which was favourable to Prussia, and by his idea of nationality, allowed Prussia and Austria to seize the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

Its boundaries were extended by the acquisition of Burgundy and the reconquest of Lusatia; disturbances of the peace became fewer and were more easily suppressed than heretofore; and three of the duchies, Bavaria, Franconia and Swabia, were made apanages of the royal house.

It comprises the old kingdoms of Galicia and Lodomeria, the duchies of Auschwitz and Zator, and the grand duchy of Cracow.

It now remained to consolidate the later successes attained by the policy of the Valoisthe acquisition of the duchies of Burgundy and Brittany; but instead there was a sudden change and that policy seemed about to be lost in dreams of recapturing the rights of the Angevins ficence.

Victor Emmanuel was obliged to recall the royal commissioners, but together with Cavour he secretly encouraged the provisional governments to resist the return of the despots, and the constituent assemblies of Tuscany, Romagna and the duchies voted for annexation to Sardinia.

Bismarck, however, once more was obliged to oppose the current of national feeling, which imperiously demanded that the German duchies should be rescued from a foreign yoke.

Moreover, he held that it would be of no advantage to Prussia to create a new German state; if Denmark were to lose the duchies, he desired that Prussia should acquire them, and to recognize the Augustenburg claims would make this impossible.

Austria continued to act with Prussia, and, after the defeat of the Danes, at the peace of Vienna the sovereignty of the duchies was surrendered to the two allies - the first step towards annexation by Prussia.

The actual cause of dispute was the disposition of the conquered duchies, for Austria now wished to put Augustenburg in as duke, a plan to which Bismarck would not assent.

On the other hand, in order to secure the complete control of North Germany, which was his immediate object, he required that the whole of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Nassau and the city of Frankfort, as well as the Elbe duchies, should be absorbed in Prussia.

To secure his position he at once entered into relation with the Normans, now firmly established in southern Italy, and later in the year the new alliance was cemented at Melfi, where Nicholas II., accompanied by Hildebrand, Cardinal Humbert and the abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, solemnly invested Robert Guiscard with the duchies of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa with the principality of Capua, in return for 'oaths of fealty and the promise of assistance in guarding the rights of the Church.

In 1537 he had concluded a treaty with Frederick III., duke of Liegnitz, which guaranteed to the Hohenzollerns the succession to the Silesian duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau in the event of the ducal family becoming extinct; this arrangement is important as the basis of the claim made by Frederick the Great on Silesia in 1740.

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.

In March 1609 the death of Duke John William left these duchies without a ruler, and by arrangement they were occupied jointly by the elector and by his principal rival, Wolfgang, son of Philip Louis, count palatine of Neuburg.

He had, moreover, a further grievance against the emperor as Leopold refused to recognize his right to the Silesian duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau, which had been left without a ruler in 1675.

Soon afterwards he received Schwiebus to compensate him for abandoning his claim on the Silesian duchies, and in a secret treaty made promises of support to Leopold.

But this solution was most unacceptable to Italian public opinion, and both the king and Cavour determined to assist the people in preventing its realization, and consequently entered into secret relations with the revolutionary governments of Tuscany, the duchies and of Romagna.

At the beginning of the 17th century the duchies became very prominent in European politics.

Moreover, by virtue of an imperial promise made in 1485 and renewed in 1 495, the elector of Saxony claimed the duchies of Julich and Berg, while the proximity of the coveted lands to the Netherlands made their fate a matter of great moment to the Dutch.

When it is remembered that at this time there was a great deal of tension between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, who were fairly evenly matched in the duchies, and that the rivalry between France and the Empire was very keen, it will be seen that the situation lacked no element of discord.

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.

In 1825 the extinction of the family ruling Saxe-Gotha made a rearrangement of the Saxon duchies necessary, and SaxeMeiningen benefited greatly by the settlement of 1826, its area being more than doubled by the receipt of 530 sq.

The various treaties of Prague, Berlin and Vienna which followed the armistice secured the annexation by Prussia of Hanover, the Elbe duchies, the electorate of Hesse, Nassau and Frankfurt, the dissolution of the existing confederation and the creation of a new North German Confederation under the hegemony of Prussia, and the payment of war indemnities to Prussia (the Austrian share being 6,000,000).

Reluctantly he assented to the policy which led to war with the combined power of Austria and Prussia, and to the separation of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg from Denmark (see Schleswig-Holstein Question).

In the former, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the attempt to crush the Polish language and spirit, the Polish element continuously increased, reinforced by immigrants from across the frontier; in the latter the Danish language more than held its own, for similar reasons, but the treaty signed on the 11111 of January 1907 between Prussia and Denmark, as to the status of the Danish optantsin the duchies, removed the worst grievance from which the province was suffering (see SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION).

Some opposition was offered to this scheme; but the perseverance of the king overcame all difficulties, and one of the most important events in European history took place on the 27th of December 1282, when Rudolph invested his sons, Rudolph and Albert, with the duchies of Austria and Styria.

The events that followed; the occupation of the duchies by Austria and Prussia, the war of 1864, gallantly fought by the Danes against overwhelming odds, and the astute diplomacy by which Bismarck succeeded in ultimately gaining for Prussia the seaboard so essential for her maritime power, are dealt with elsewhere (see Schleswig-Holstein Question).

The struggle only ceased in 1444, when the English council, in which a peace party had at last been formed, concluded a two-year truce with King Charles, which they hoped to turn into a permanent treaty, on the condition that their king should retain what he held in Normandy and Guienne, but sign away his claim to the French crown, and relinquish the few places outside the two duchies which were still in his power-terms very similar to those rejected at Arras nine years before but there was now much less to give up. To mark the reconciliation of the two powers Henry VI.

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.

Robin Hobb's three series of books set in the Six Duchies and Bingtown presents probably the most confusing picture of dragonkind ever in fantasy literature.

The LiveShip Traders trilogy, made up of Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, and Ship of Destiny, is set down the coast from the Six Duchies.