Sigismund Sentence Examples

Like Louis the Great before him, Sigismund had failed to found a dynasty, but, fifteen years before his death, he had succeeded in providing his only daughter Elizabeth with a consort apparently well able to protect both her and her inheritance in the person of Albert V., duke of Austria.

The danger to Germany from the Hussites induced Frederick to ally himself with the German and Bohemian king Sigismund; and he took a leading part in the war against them, during the earlier years of which he met with considerable success.

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.

He took part in the war against the Hussites, but became estranged from Sigismund when in 1423 the king invested Frederick of Wettin, margrave of Meissen, with the vacant electoral duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.

In 1427 he sold his rights as burgrave to the town of Nuremberg, and he was a prominent member of the band of electors who sought to impose reforms upon Sigismund.

The count extended his territories both in Savoy itself and in Italy, and in 1416 was created duke by the emperor Sigismund.

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.

His descendants ruled the county, first in the male and then in the female line, until the death of the emperor Sigismund in 1437.

Through the marriage of Sigismund's daughter, Elizabeth, with the German king, Albert II., Luxemburg, which had been made a duchy in 1354, passed to the house of Habsburg, but was seized in 1443 by Philip III.

Two of the sons of Charles IV., Wenceslaus and Sigismund, succeeded in turn to the imperial throne, and one of his nephews, Jobst, margrave of Moravia, was chosen German king in opposition to Sigismund in 1410.

He and Baron Sigismund Kemeny may be considered as the two founders of high-class Magyar journalism.

During the year 1413 the arrangements for the meeting of a general council at Constance were agreed upon between Sigismund and Pope John XXIII.

It was found necessary to adjourn the sitting until the 7th of June, on which occasion the outward decencies were better observed, partly no doubt from the circumstance that Sigismund was present in person.

The sentence he expected was pronounced on the 6th of July in the presence of Sigismund and a full sitting of the council; once and again he attempted to remonstrate, but in vain, and finally he betook himself to silent prayer.

The so-called " Reformation of Sigismund," drawn up in 1438, had demanded that the celibacy of the clergy should be abandoned and their excessive wealth reduced.

The foundation of the abbey of St Maurice (Agaunum) in the Valais is usually ascribed to Sigismund of Burgundy (515).

Early in life, as one of the leaders of the Calixtine party, he defeated the Austrian troops of the German King Albert II., son-in-law and successor of King Sigismund.

In March 1490 the county of Tirol was added to his possessions through the abdication of his kinsman, Count Sigismund, and this district soon became his favourite residence.

Having made an alliance with Christian II., king of Denmark, and interfered to protect the Teutonic Order against Sigismund I., king of Poland, Maximilian was again in Italy early in 1516 fighting the French who had overrun Milan.

Ivan intervened in 1558 and quickly captured Narva, Dorpat and a dozen smaller fortresses; then, in 1560, Livonia placed herself beneath the protection of Poland, and King Sigismund II.

At Stangabro (Stanga Bridge), close by, an obelisk (1898) commemorates the battle of Stangabro (1598), when Duke Charles (Protestant) defeated the Roman Catholic Sigismund.

A circle of stones in the Iron Market of Linkoping marks the spot where Sigismund's adherents were beheaded in 1600.

His successor, Basil, tried to get himself elected grand-prince of Lithuania when the throne became vacant by the death of his brother-in-law in 1506, but the choice fell on the late prince's brother Sigismund, who was likewise elected king of Poland.

Like his predecessor, he enjoyed the protection and support of the Polish king, Sigismund III., and was strong enough to ii., compel Shuiski to abdicate; but as soon as the throne was vacant Sigismund put forward as a candidate his own son, Wladislaus.

Then Sigismund unveiled his real plan, which was to obtain the throne not for his son but for himself.

In 1429, instigated by the emperor Sigismund, whom he magnificently entertained at his court at Lutsk, Witowt revived his claim to a kingly crown, and Jagiello reluctantly consented to his cousin's coronation; but before it could be accomplished Witowt died at Troki, on the 27th of October 1430.

This expansion of mainland territory was followed in 1420 by the acquisition of Friuli after a successful war with the emperor Sigismund, thus bringing the possessions of the republic up to the Carnic and Julian Alps, their natural frontier on the north-east.

In 1420 the emperor Sigismund made the city the base for his unsuccessful attack on the Taborites; Kuttenberg was taken by Ziika, and after a temporary reconciliation of the warring parties was burned by the imperial troops in 1422, to prevent its falling again into the hands of the Taborites.

Some additamenta were subsequently introduced either by Gundobald himself or by his son Sigismund.

She had thirteen children - Frederick Henry, drgwned at sea in 1629; Charles Louis, elector palatine, whose daughter married Philip, duke of Orleans, and became the ancestress of the elder and Roman Catholic branch of the royal family of England; Elizabeth, abbess and friend of Descartes; Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, who died unmarried; Louisa, abbess; Edward, who married Anne de Gonzaga, "princesse palatine," and had children; Henrietta Maria, who married Count Sigismund Ragotzki but died childless; Philip and Charlotte, who died childless; Sophia, who married Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover, and was mother of George I.

Of the principal workers in this field we may notice Friedrich Hoffmann, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf (who detected iron by its reaction with potassium ferrocyanide, and potassium and sodium by their flame colorations), and especially Carl Scheele and Torbern Olof Bergman.

King Sigismund of Hungary barely escaped in a fishing boat; his army was cut to pieces to a man; among the prisoners taken was Jean Sans Peur, brother of the king of France.

Suleiman determined to support the claims of Zapolya's infant son, John Sigismund, and in 15 4 set out in person.

At the end of August he appeared before Budapest, the siege of which had already been raised by the defeat of the Austrians; the infant John Sigismund was carried into the sultan's camp, and the queen-mother, Isabella, was peremptorily ordered to evacuate the royal palace, though the sultan gave her a diploma in which he swore only to retain Budapest during the minority of her son.

John Sigismund was recognized as independent prince of Transylvania and of sixteen adjacent Hungarian counties, Queen Isabella to act as regent during his minority.

Suleiman kept the possessions he had won by the sword, Temesvar, Szolnok, Tata and other places in Hungary; Transylvania was assigned to John Sigismund, the Habsburg claim to interference being categorically denied; Ferdinand bound himself to pay, not only the annual tribute of 30,000 ducats, but all the arrears that had meanwhile accumulated.

Sigismund declared war on the duke of Austria, and the fathers, determined to have their will carried out, drew up in their 4th and 5th sessions (30th of March and 6th of April 1415) a set of decrees with the intention of justifying their attitude and putting the fugitive pope at their mercy.

It was in vain that Sigismund journeyed to Perpignan, and that the kings of Aragon, Castile and Navarre ceased to obey the aged pontiff.

In the Hussite wars it took the utraquist side, was occupied in 1420 by King Sigismund, but retaken the next year by the troops of Prague.

The attitude of Sigismund, king of the Romans, who sent threatening letters to Bohemia declaring.

Under the influence of his brother Sigismund, king of the Romans, King Wenceslaus endeavoured to stem the Hussite movement.

At these meetings Sigismund was violently denounced, and the people everywhere prepared for war.

The nobles, who though favourable to the Hussite cause yet supported the regent, promised to act as mediators with Sigismund; while the citizens of Prague consented to restore to the royal forces the castle of Vysehrad, which had fallen into their hands.

Sigismund, king of the Romans, had, by the death of his brother Wenceslaus without issue, acquired a claim on the Bohemian crown; though it was then, and remained till much later, doubtful whether Bohemia was an hereditary or an elective monarchy.

A firm adherent of the Church of Rome, Sigismund was successful in obtaining aid from the pope.

These articles, which contain the essence of the Hussite doctrine, were rejected by Sigismund, mainly through the influence of the papal legates, who considered them prejudicial to the authority of the Roman see.

Though Sigismund had retired from Prague, the castles of Vysehrad and Hradcany remained in possession of his troops.

The crusaders hoped to be joined in Bohemia by King Sigismund, but that prince was detained in Hungary.

Sigismund only arrived in Bohemia at the end of the year 1421.

Bohemia obtained a temporary respite when, in 1422, Prince Sigismund Korybutovic of Poland became for a short time ruler of the country.

In June of that year their forces, led by Prokop the Great - who took the command of the Taborites shortly after Zizka's death in October 1424 - and Sigismund Korybutovic, who had returned to Bohemia, signally defeated the Germans at Aussig (Usti nad Labem).

On the 5th of July 1436 the compacts were formally accepted and signed at Iglau, in Moravia, by King Sigismund, by the Hussite delegates, and by the representatives of the Roman Church.

His treatise De monetae cudendae ratione, 1526 (first printed in 1816), written by order of King Sigismund I., is an exposition of the principles on which it was proposed to reform the currency of the Prussian provinces of Poland.

In 1407 William was succeeded by his nephew Frederick, called the Warlike, who in 1423 received from the emperor Sigismund the electoral duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.

In 1431 a fresh war with Florence broke out, caused by the latter's attempt upon Lucca, and continued in consequence of the Florentines' alliance with Venice and Pope Eugenius IV., and that of the Sienese with the duke of Milan and Sigismund, king of the Romans.

During the long reign of Sigismund (1387-1437) Hungary was brought face to face with the Turkish peril in its most threatening shape, and all the efforts of the king were directed Turkish Turks crossed the Hellespont from Asia Minor and p began that career of conquest which made them the terror of Europe for the next three centuries.

Not till 1409 could Sigismund be said to be king in his own realm, yet in 1413 we find him traversing Europe in his endeavour to terminate the Great Schism, as the first step towards uniting Christendom once more against the Turk.

It argued no ordinary foresight thus to recognize that Hungary's strategy in her contest with the Turks must be strictly defensive, and the wisdom of Sigismund was justified by the disasters which almost invariably overcame the later Magyar kings whenever they ventured upon aggressive warfare with the sultans.

It met every year, sometimes twice a year, during Sigismund's reign, and was no longer, as in the days of Louis the Great, merely a consultative council, but a legislative body in partnership with the king.

At Sigismund's first diet (1397) it was declared that the king might choose his counsellors where he listed, and at the diet of 1397 he invited the free and royal towns to send their deputies to the parliament.

Sigismund, more fortunate than the Polish kings, seems to have had little trouble with his diets.

Much as he owed to them, however, Sigismund was no mere nobles' king.

In Sigismund's reign the feudal system, for the first time, became deeply rooted in Magyar soil, and it is a lamentable fact that in 15th-century Hungary it is to be seen at its very worst, especially in those wild tracts, and they were many, in which the king's writ could hardly be said to run.

Yet despite the interminable wars and rebellions which darken the history of Hungary in the reign of Sigismund, the country, on the whole, was progressing.

Between 1362 and 1450 no fewer than 4151 Magyar students frequented the university of Vienna, nearly as many went by preference to Prague, and this, too, despite the fact that there were now two universities in Hungary itself, the old foundation of Louis the Great at Pecs, and a new one established at Buda by Sigismund.

Less reprehensible, though equally self-seeking, were his dealings with the emperor, which aimed at a family alliance between the Jagiellos and the Habsburgs on the basis of a double marriage between the son and daughter of Wladislaus, Louis and Anne, and an Austrian archduke and archduchess; this was concluded by the family congress at Vienna, July 22, 1515, to which Sigismund I.

P g g the emperor Maximilian and Sigismund of Poland, might be dispensed with.

During the six following years the sultan still further improved his position, capturing, amongst many other places, Pecs, and the primatial city of Esztergom; but, in 1547, the exigencies of the Persian war induced him to sell a truce of five years to Ferdinand for £100,000, on a uti possidetis basis, Ferdinand holding thirty-five counties (including Croatia and Slavonia) for which he was to pay an annual tribute of £60,000; John Sigismund retaining Transylvania and sixteen adjacent counties with the title of prince, while the rest of the land, comprising most of the central counties, was annexed to the Turkish empire.

Yet, in the following year, the whole of the property of the Catholic Church there was diverted to secular uses, and the Calvinists were simultaneously banished, though they regained complete tolerance in 1564, a privilege at the same time extended to the Unitarians, who were now very influential at court and converted Prince John Sigismund to their views.

To these we may add the gifted but unfortunate Sigismund Czak6, Lewis Dobsa, Joseph Szigeti, Ignatius Nagy, Joseph Szenvey (a translator from Schiller), Joseph Gaal, Charles Hugo, Lawrence Toth (the Magyarizer of the School for Scandal), Emeric Vahot, Alois Degre (equally famous as a novelist), Stephen Toldy and Lewis Doczi, author of the popular prize drama Csok (The Kiss).

Probably the foremost among them is Sigismund Justh, who died prematurely in the midst of his painful attempt at reconciling French " realistic " modes of thought with what he conceived to be Magyar simplicity (A puszta konyve, " The Book of the Puszta," prairie of Hungary; A Peitz legenddja, " The Legend of Money "; Gdnyo Julcsa, " Juliet Ganyo "; Fuimus).

Luther for his part did not stop at the suggestion, but in order to facilitate the change made special efforts to spread his teaching among the Prussians, while Albert's brother, George, prince of Ansbach, laid the scheme before Sigismund of Poland.

After some delay the king assented to it provided that Prussia were held as a Polish fief; and after this arrangement had been confirmed by a treaty made at Cracow, Albert was invested with the duchy by Sigismund for himself and his heirs on the 10th of February 1525.

The duke was consequently obliged to consent to a condemnation of the teaching of Osiander, and the climax came in 1566 when the estates appealed to Sigismund II., king of Poland, who sent a commission to Konigsberg.

In 1406 it fell under the sway of Cabrino Fondulo, who received with great festivities both the emperor Sigismund and Pope John XXIII., the latter on his way to the council at Constance; he, however, handed it over to Filippo Maria Visconti in 1419.

In 1747 Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, director of the physical classes in the Academy of Sciences, Berlin, discovered the existence of common sugar in beetroot and in numerous other fleshy roots which grow in temperate regions.

At Agaunum (St Maurice in the Valais) a monastery was founded by the Burgundian king Sigismund, in 515, in which the perpetual office was kept up; but it is doubtful whether this had any connexion with the Eastern Acoemeti.

In the prosecution of this enterprise Frederick spent large sums of money, for which he received various places in Bohemia and elsewhere in pledge from Sigismund, who further rewarded him in January 1423 with the vacant electoral duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg; and Frederick's formal investiture followed at Ofen on the 1st of August 1425.

From1610-1618he was a prisoner in the hands of the Polish king, Sigismund III., whom he refused to acknowledge as tsar of Muscovy on being sent on an embassy to the Polish camp in 1610.

Of the emperor's children two, Prince Sigismund (1864-1866) and Prince Waldemar (1869-1879), died in childhood.

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).

The treachery of King Sigismund is undeniable, and was indeed admitted by the king himself.

Early in the 12th century Burkhard, a younger son of Frederick I., secured the county of Hohenberg, and this district remained in the possession of the Hohenzollerns until the death of Count Sigismund in 1486.

His elder son, John III., who had married Margaret, a daughter of the emperor Charles IV., was frequently in the company of his brothers-in-law, the German kings Wenceslaus and Sigismund.

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.

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.

A new era in the history of Saxony dates from 1423, the year when the emperor Sigismund bestowed the vacant electoral duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg upon Frederick, margrave of Meissen.

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).

At Iglau, on the 5th of July 1436, the treaty was made with the Hussites, by which the emperor Sigismund was acknowledged king of Bohemia.

That building is of course of much later date, but it seems certain that when (c. 513-516) Sigismund, son of King Gundibald, built a stone church on the site, it took the place of an earlier wooden church, constructed on Roman foundations, all three layers being clearly visible at the present day.

This offer was refused both by the bishop and by the citizens, while in 1420 the emperor Sigismund declared that he alone was the suzerain of the city, and forbade any one to attack it or harm it in any fashion.

In these endeavours they were materially assisted by the emperor Sigismund, who was also king of Hungary.

Sigismund, in 1422, even went so far as to propose a partition of Poland between Hungary, the empire and the Silesian princes, a scheme which foundered upon Sigismund's impecuniosity and the reluctance of the Magyars to injure the Poles.

He successfully thwarted all the schemes of the emperor Sigismund, by adroitly supporting the revolutionary party in Bohemia.

The Polish king was always ready enough to support the Czechs against Sigismund; but the necessity of justifying his own orthodoxy (which the Knights were for ever impugning) at Rome and in the face of Europe prevented him from accepting the crown of St Wenceslaus from the hands of heretics.

Fortunately for the integrity of the Polish state the premature death of Alexander in 1506 brought upon the throne his capable brother Sigismund, the fifth son of Casimir IV., whose long reign of gismundl., forty-two years was salutary, and would have been so 6-1548.

Eminently practical, Sigismund recognized that the first need of Poland was a standing army.

In consequence of this law the great lords were compelled to put forces in the field proportioned to their enormous fortunes, and Sigismund was able in 1529 to raise 300 foot and 3200 horse from the province of Podolia alone.

Oddly enough the selfish prudence of Sigismund's rapacious consort, Queen Bona, did more for the national defence than the Polish state could do.

The most important political event during the reign of Sigismund was the collapse of the ancient Hungarian monarchy at Mohacs in 1526.

Sigismund, on the other hand, favoured Ferdinand of Austria.

More than once, indeed, Sigismund was seriously compromised by the diplomatic vagaries of Hieronymus Laski, who entered the service of Zapolya (since 1529 the protege of the sultan), and greatly alarmed both the emperor and the pope by his disturbing philo-Turk proclivities.

It was owing to Laski's intrigues that the new hospodar of Moldavia, Petrylo, after doing homage to the Porte, intervened in the struggle as the foe of both Ferdinand and Sigismund, and besieged the Grand Hetman of the Crown, Jan Tarnowski, in Obertyn, where, however, the Moldavians (August 22, 1531) sustained a crushing defeat, and Petrylo was slain.

Nevertheless, so anxious was Sigismund to avoid a collision with the Turks, that he forbade the victorious Tarnowski to cross the Moldavian frontier, and sent a letter of explanation to Constantinople.

On the death of John Zapolya, the Austro-Polish alliance was still further cemented by the marriage of Sigismund's son and heir, Sigismund Augustus, with the archduchess Elizabeth.

In the reign of Sigismund was effected the incorporation of the duchy of Masovia with the Polish crown, after an independent existence of five hundred years.

The four and twenty years of Sigismund II.'s reign was a critical period of Polish history.

Nevertheless, the extremely severe penal edicts issued during the reign of Sigismund I., though seldom applied, seem to point to the fact that heresy was spreading widely throughout the country.

Calvinism, indeed, rather recommended itself to the Poles as being of non-German origin, and Calvin actually dedicated his Commentary on the Mass to the young krolewicz (or crown prince) Sigismund Augustus, from whom protestantism, erroneously enough, expected much in the future.

We hear of crowded Calvinist conventicles in Little Poland from 1545 onwards, and Calvinism continued to spread throughout the kingdom during the latter years of Sigismund I.

It was not so generally known that Sigismund II.

Such was the situation when Sigismund II.

At the diet of 1565 Sigismund went still farther.

After an anarchic period of suspense, lasting from 1546 to 1561, during which Sweden secured Esthonia, while Ivan the Terrible fearlessly ravaged Livonia, in the hope of making it valueless to any other potentate, Sigismund II., to whom both the grand-master and the archbishop had appealed more than once for protection, at length intervened decisively.

But the diet, with almost incredible short-sightedness, refused to waste a penny on an undertaking which, they argued, concerned only Lithuania, and it was not as king of Poland, but as grand-duke of Lithuania, and with purely Lithuanian troops, that Sigismund, in 1561, occupied Livonia.

The apathy of Poland in such a vital matter as the Livonian question must have convinced so statesmanlike a prince as Sigismund II.

Then Sigismund executed his master stroke.

No decision, however, could be come to as to the successor of the childless king, partly because of the multiplicity of candidates, partly because of Austrian intrigue, and this, the most momentous question of all, was still unsettled when Sigismund II.

Deputies from the towns took part in the election of John Albert (1492), and the burgesses of Cracow, the most enlightened economists in the kingdom, supplied Sigismund I.

Again and again the nobility attempted to exclude the deputies of Cracow from the diet, in spite of a severe edict issued by Sigismund I.

During Sigismund's reign, moreover, the Crown recovered many of the prerogatives of which it had been deprived during the reign of his feeble predecessor, Alexander, who, to say nothing of the curtailments of the prerogative, had been forced to accept the statute nihil novi (1505) which gave the sejm and the senate an equal voice with the Crown in all executive matters.

The Vasa period of Polish history which began with the election of Sigismund, son of John III., king of Sweden, was the Sigis- epoch of last and lost chances.

On the 7th of March 1606 Sigismund summoned a diet for the express purpose of introducing the principle of decision by majority in the diet, whereupon Zebrzydowski summoned a counter-confederation to Stenczyn in Little Poland, whose first act was to open negotiations with the prince of Transylvania, Stephen Bocskay, with the view of hiring mercenaries from him for further operations.

Only the clergy, naturally conservative, still clung to the king, and Sigismund III., who was no coward, at once proceeded to Cracow to overawe the rokoszanie, or insurrectionists, by his proximity, and take the necessary measures for his own protection.

In 1575, and again in 1587, it was put up for public auction, when the Hungarian Bathory and the Swede Sigismund respectively gained the prize.

Returning to Poland, he became in 1564 secretary to Sigismund Augustus.

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.

A florid Jesuitical style of oratory became very popular in the time of Sigismund III., not without rhetorical power, but frequently becoming tawdry.

Mecherzynski, in his "History of Eloquence in Poland" (Historya wymowy w Polsce), especially praises his two funeral sermons on the burial of Anna Jagiellonka, widow of Stephen Batory, and Anna of Austria, first wife of Sigismund III.

Mickiewicz and Slowacki were both more or less mystics, but even more we may assign this characteristic to Sigismund Krasinski, who was born in 1812 at Paris, and died there in 1859.

A compromise was arranged by Sigismund, who had been crowned emperor at Rome on the 31st of May 1433, by which the pope recalled the bull of dissolution, and, reserving the rights of the Holy See, acknowledged the council as ecumenical (15th of December 1 433).

In the course of 1496 John Albert with great difficulty collected an army of 80,000 men in Poland, but the crusade was deflected from its proper course by the sudden invasion of Galicia by the hospodar, who apparently - for the whole subject is still very obscure - had been misled by reports from Hungary that John Albert was bent upon placing his younger brother Sigismund on the throne of Moldavia.

In February 1437 the pope desired the emperor Sigismund to send Payne to be tried for heresy at Basel.

In 1532 he led a contingent of the imperial army on a campaign against the Turks; and soon afterwards, having lost his first wife, married Hedwig, daughter of Sigismund I., king of Poland.

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.

Here a council had been formally opened in January by the papal party, a bull of the previous year having promptly taken advantage of the death of the Emperor Sigismund by ordering the removal of the council of Basel to Ferrara; and one of the first acts of the assemblage at Ferrara had been to excommunicate the remnant at Basel.

Of the principal secular buildings, the royal castle (Zamek Krolowsk), a huge building, begun in the 13th century, and successively enlarged by Casimir the Great and by Sigismund I.

But the Austrian court and Sigismund's own mother, Queen Bona, seem to have been behind the movement, and so violent was the agitation at Sigismund's first diet (31st of October 1548) that the deputies threatened to renounce their allegiance unless the king instantly repudiated Barbara.

The death of Barbara, five days after her coronation (7th of December 1550), under very distressing circumstances which led to an unproven suspicion that she had been poisoned by Queen Bona,.compelled Sigismund to contract a third purely political union with the Austrian archduchess Catherine, the sister of Sigismund's first wife Elizabeth, who had died within a twelvemonth of her marriage with him, while he was still only crown prince.

The third bride was sickly and unsympathetic, and from her Sigismund soon lost all hope of progeny, to his despair, for being the last male of the Jagiellos in the direct line, the dynasty was threatened with extinction.

Had he not been so good a Catholic Sigismund might well have imitated the example of Henry VIII.

Not till Queen Catherine's death on the 28th of February 1572 were Sigismund's hands free, but he followed her to the grave less than six months afterwards.

Sigismund's reign was a period of internal turmoil and external expansion.

A far less imposing figure than his father, the elegant and refined Sigismund II.

The merit of this crowning achievement belongs to Sigismund alone; but for him it would have been impossible.

All eyes were consequently turned to the energetic German king, Sigismund, who was inspired by the best motives, and who succeeded in surmounting the formidable obstacles which barred the way to an ecumenical council.

It was mainly due to Sigismund's indefatigable and magnificent activity, that the council of Constance met and was so numerously attended.

Since John's most immediate need was now protection and assistance against his terrible opponent Ladislaus, he sent, towards the close of August 1413, Cardinals Chalant and Francesco Zabarella, together with the celebrated Greek Manuel Chrysoloras, to King Sigismund, and commissioned them to determine the time and place of the forthcoming council.

So soon as he realized the true position of affairs he attempted to break up the council by his flight to Schaffhausen (March 20-21, 1415) - a project in which he would doubtless have succeeded but for the sagacity and energy of Sigismund.

At the beginning, indeed, a reconciliation between the pope and council was effected by Sigismund who, on the 31st of May 1 433, was crowned emperor at Rome.

At the outbreak of this conflict in 1420 they gave ready support to their king Sigismund against the Bohemian rebels, whom they regarded as dangerous to their German nationality, but by this act they exposed themselves to a series of invasions (1425-1435) by which the country was severely devastated.

On his election, Sigismund promised to maintain a fleet in the Baltic, to fortify the eastern frontier against the Tatars, and not to visit Sweden without the consent of the Polish diet.

Sixteen days later were signed the articles of Kalmar regulating the future relations between Poland and Sweden, when in process of time Sigismund should succeed his father as king of Sweden.

During Sigismund's absence from Sweden that realm was to be ruled by seven Swedes, six to be elected by the king and one by Duke Charles, his Protestant uncle.

The Poles proved even more difficult to satisfy than was anticipated; but finally a compromise was come to whereby the territorial settlement was postponed till after the death of John III.; and Sigismund was duly crowned at Cracow on the 27th of December 1587.

Sigismund's position as king of Poland was extraordinarily difficult.

Sigismund's difficulties were also increased by his political views which he brought with him from Sweden cut and dried, and which were diametrically opposed to those of the omnipotent chancellor.

Yet, impracticable as it may have been, Sigismund's system of foreign policy as compared with Zamoyski's was, at any rate, clear and definite.

Thus Sigismund's views were those of a statesman who clearly recognizes present evils and would remedy them.

The first three-andtwenty years of Sigismund's reign is the record of an almost constant struggle between Zamoyski and the king, in which the two opponents were so evenly matched that they did little more than counterpoise each other.

In 1592 Sigismund married the Austrian archduchess Anne, and the same year a reconciliation was patched up between the king and the chancellor to enable the former to secure possession of his Swedish throne vacant by the death of his father John III.

Four years later (July 1598) Sigismund was forced to fight for his native crown by the usurpation of his uncle, aided by the Protestant party in Sweden.

Sigismund's success in Sweden was regarded as only the beginning of greater triumphs.

After fruitless negotiations with his uncle, Sigismund advanced with his army from Kalmar, but was defeated by the duke at Stangebro on the 25th of September.

Three days later, by the compact of Linkoping, Sigismund agreed to submit all the points in dispute between himself and his uncle to a riksdag at Stockholm; but immediately afterwards took ship for Danzig, after secretly protesting to the two papal prothonotaries who accompanied him that the Linkoping agreement had been extorted from him, and was therefore invalid.

In 1602 Sigismund wedded Constantia, the sister of his deceased first wife, an event which strengthened the hands of the Austrian party at court and still further depressed the chancellor.

At the diet of 1605 Sigismund and his partisans endeavoured so far to reform the Polish constitution as to substitute a decision by a plurality of votes for unanimity in the diet.

Insurrection and rebellion triumphed everywhere, and all that Sigismund could do was to minimize the mischief as much as possible by his moderation and courage.

At the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War Sigismund prudently leagued with the emperor to counterpoise the united efforts of the Turks and the Protestants.

Sigismund died very suddenly in his 66th year, leaving two sons, Wladislaus and John Casimir, who succeeded him in rotation.

Sigismund was the only one of the six sons of Casimir IV.

Into the midst of this region of banditti Sigismund came as a sort of grand justiciar, a sworn enemy of every sort of disorder.

The reorganization of the mint alone increased the royal revenue by 210,000 gulden a year and enabled Sigismund to pay the expenses of his earlier wars.

In foreign affairs Sigismund was largely guided by the Laskis (Adam, Jan and Hieronymus), Jan Tarnowski and others, most of whom he selected himself.

On Barbara's death three years later without male offspring, Sigismund (in April 1518) gave his hand to Bona Sforza, a kinswoman of the emperor and granddaughter of the king of Aragon, who came to him with a dowry of 200,000 ducats and the promise of an inheritance from her mother of half a million more which she never got.

Bona's grace and beauty speedily fascinated Sigismund, and contemporary satirists ridiculed him for playing the part of Jove to her Juno.

The first twenty years of Sigismund's reign were marked by exceptional vigour.

Sigismund was never absolutely at peace.

Their constant aim was to shake off Polish suzerainty, and in 1520-21 their menacing attitude compelled Sigismund to take up arms against them.

The secularization of Prussia was opposed by the more religious of Sigismund's counsellors, and the king certainly exposed himself to considerable odium in the Catholic world; but taking all the circumstances into consideration, it was perhaps the shortest way out of a situation bristling with difficulties.

Personally a devout Catholic and opposed in principle to the spread of sectarianism in Poland, Sigismund was nevertheless too wise and just to permit the persecution of non-Catholics;' and in Lithuania, where a fanatical Catholic minority of magnates dominated the senate, he resolutely upheld the rights of his Orthodox subjects.

By his tact, equity, and Christian charity, Sigismund endeared himself even to those who differed most from him, as witness the readiness of the Lithuanians to elect his infant son grand-duke of Lithuania in 1522, and to crown him in 1529.

After his sixtieth year there was a visible decline in the energy and capacity of Sigismund.

Sigismund died on the 1st of April 1548.

By Bona he had five children - one son, Sigismund Augustus, who succeeded him, and four daughters, Isabella, who married John Zapolya, prince of Transylvania, Sophia, who married the duke of Brunswick, Catherine, who as the wife of John III.

William, a loyal servant of the emperor Sigismund, died in 1435, leaving an only son, Adolf, who died five years later; and Ernest, distinguished for his bodily strength, died in 1438.

The third brother, Albert, who had been educated for the church, joined his brother in 1465, and when Sigismund abdicated two years later became sole ruler in spite of the claims of his two younger brothers.

After passing some time at the court of the emperor Sigismund, he took part in the war against the Hussites, and afterwards distinguished himself whilst assisting the German king, Albert II., against the Poles.

In 1457 he arranged a marriage between his eldest son John, and Margaret, daughter of William III., landgrave of Thuringia, who inherited the claims upon Hungary and Bohemia of her mother, a granddaughter of the emperor Sigismund.

He assisted the German king, Sigismund, in his campaigns against the Hussites, and in 1422 married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sigismund, who designated him as his successor.

In 1413 he went to Germany on an embassy to the emperor Sigismund, the object of which was to fix a place for the assembling of a general council.

Jobst, however, died in January 141 I, and in the succeeding July Sigismund, having come to terms with Wenceslaus, was again elected king and was generally recognized.

Unfortunately the council of Constance, which met mainly through the efforts of Sigismund in 1414, marred its labors by the judicial murders of John Huss and of Jerome of Prague.

This act greatly incensed the Bohemians, who broke into revolt in 1419, and a new and fiercer outbui-st occurred in 1420 when Sigismund, who had succeeded his brother Wenceslaus as king of Bohemia in the preceding August, announced his intention of crushing the Hussites.

The continual poverty which hindered the successful prosecution of the war against the Hussites, and which at times placer Sigismund in the undignified position of having to force himsel, as an unwelcome guest upon princes and cities, had, however, one good result.

Sigismund, on his part, tried to enforcer peace upon the country by forming leagues of the cities, but to no purpose; in fact all his plans for reform came to nothing.

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.

Basil also took advantage of the difficult position of Sigismund of Poland to capture Smolensk, the great eastern fortress of Poland (1512), chiefly through the aid of the rebel Lithuanian, Prince Michael Glinsky, who provided him with artillery and engineers from western Europe.

The loss of Smolensk was the first serious injury inflicted by Muscovy on Poland and only the exigencies of Sigismund compelled him to acquiesce in its surrender (1522).

Albert married Elizabeth, daughter of Sigismund, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and on the death of his father-in-law assumed these two crowns.

The Tirolese soon grew weary of his government, and, in 1446, Sigismund was declared of age.

In the same year he made an arrangement with his kinsman, Sigismund of Tirol, by which he brought this county under his rule, and when the emperor Frederick died in 1493, Maximilian united the whole of the Austrian lands under his sway.

Ernest was succeeded in 1424 by his sons, Frederick and Albert, and Frederick in 1439 by his son, Sigismund, and these three princes were reigning when King Albert II.

Frederick, who succeeded Albert as German king, and was soon crowned emperor as Frederick III., acted as guardian for Sigismund of Tirol, who was a minor, and also became regent of Austria in consequence of the Regency of the infancy of Ladislaus.

By the death of the archduke Sigismund in 1665 he not only gained Tirol, but a considerable sum of money, which he used to buy back the Silesian principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor, pledged by Ferdinand III.

In 1423 it was pledged by King Sigismund to the elector Frederick of Meissen, who occupied it with a Saxon garrison.

The heir to the throne was John's eldest son, Sigismund, already king of Poland and a devoted Catholic. The fear lest Sigismund might re-catholicize the land alarmed the Protestant majority in Sweden, and Charles came forward as their champion, and also as the defender of the Vasa dynasty against foreign interference.

He had steadily to oppose Sigismund's reactionary tendencies; he had also to curb the nobility, which he did with cruel rigour.

Technically Charles was, without doubt, guilty of high treason, and the considerable minority of all classes which adhered to Sigismund on his landing in Sweden in 1598 indisputably behaved like loyal subjects.

But Sigismund was both an alien and a heretic to the majority of the Swedish nation, and his formal deposition by the Riksdag in 1599 was, in effect, a natural vindication and legitimation of Charles's position.

The portraits of the emperors Charles the Great and Sigismund (1512), in their present state at any rate, can hardly be recognized as being by the master's hand.

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.

A successful diplomacy detached the emperor Sigismund from France, and by the Treaty of Canterbury paved the way to end the schism in the Church.

In the Urnerspiel the name of the bailiff's servant who guarded the hat on the pole is given as Heintz VOgely, and we know that Friedrich VOgeli was the name of one of the chief military officers of Peter von Hagenbach, who from 1469 to 1474 administered for Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, the lands (Alsace, &c.) pledged to him by Sigismund of Habsburg.

For a moment it seemed possible that the Vasa family might occupy the throne of Ivan the Terrible; but Sigismund III.

Among the former it appears to have become a sort of ex officio title of the Byzantine vicegerents of Italy, the exarchs of Ravenna; among the barbarian chiefs who were thus dignified were Odoacer, Theodoric, Sigismund of Burgundy, Clovis, and even in later days princes of Bulgaria, the Saracens, and the West Saxons.

Soon afterwards his dispute with the archduke Sigismund in his own diocese was brought to a point by his claiming certain dues of the bishopric, which the temporal prince had appropriated.

Arnold was recognized as duke in 1424 by the emperor Sigismund, but in the following year the emperor revoked his decision and bestowed the duchy upon Adolf of Berg.

In 1416, however, owing to the pressure brought to bear by the Hansa, by the emperor Sigismund and by Eric, king of Denmark, there was a restoration.

Louis was the soul of all hostile coalitions, especially urging on the Swiss and Sigismund of Austria, who ruled Tirol and Alsace.

He was protected by the valiant Stephen Bathory, and the first act of the pious Sigismund III., on ascending the Polish throne, was to make Skarga his court preacher, an office he held for twenty-four years (1588-1611).

In 1831 he succeeded Johan Sigismund Misting (1789-1843), as minister of finance.

They include many particulars of what purports to be the history of the royal houses, not only of the Gautar and the Danes, but also of the Swedes, the continental Angles, the Ostrogoths, the Frisians and the Heathobeards, besides references to matters of unlocalized heroic story such as the exploits of Sigismund.

In 1410 Jerome, who had incurred the hostility of the archbishop of Prague by his speeches in favour of Wycliffe's teaching, went to Ofen, where King Sigismund of Hungary resided, and, though a layman, preached before the king denouncing strongly the rapacity and immorality of the clergy.

Sigismund shortly afterwards received a letter from the archbishop of Prague containing accusations against Jerome.

Wladislaus's first official act was to march against the Muscovites, who had declared war against Poland immediately after the death of Sigismund, and were besieging Smolensk, the key of Poland's eastern frontier.

For some years after this humiliation, Wladislaus became indifferent to affairs and sank into a sort of apathy; but the birth of his son Sigismund (by his first wife, Cecilia Renata of Austria, in 1640) gave him fresh hopes, and he began with renewed energy to labour for the dynasty as well as for the nation.

In 1421 the Hussites were defeated here by King Sigismund and the Saxons, and in 1426 besieged the town in vain.

That Sigismund, now the lawful king of Sweden, should regard the summoning of Civil War.

Sigismund fled from Sweden, never to return, and on the 19th of March 1600 the Riksdag of Linkoping proclaimed the duke king Proclama- under the title of Charles IX.

Sigismund and his posterity were declared to have forfeited the Swedish crown which was to pass to the heirs male of Charles.

Duke Sigismund, the fruit of this union, was brought up by his mother in the Catholic religion, and, on the 19th of August 1587, he was elected king of Poland.

Sixteen days later the Articles of Kalmar, signed by John and Sigismund, regulated the future relations between the two countries when, in process of time, Sigismund should succeed his father as king of Sweden.

Sweden was also to enjoy her religion, subject to such changes as a general council might make; but neither pope nor council was to claim or exercise the right of releasing Sigismund from his obligations to his Swedish subjects.

During Sigismund's absence from Sweden that realm was to be ruled by seven Swedes, six elected by the king and one by his uncle Duke Charles of Sudermania, the leader of the Swedish Protestants.

Its present designation was bestowed upon it in memory of Bari in Italy (where she was born) by Bona Sforza, the consort of Sigismund I.

The conversion of the elector John Sigismund in 1613 to the Reformed (Calvinist) faith was hotly resented by the Berliners and led to bloody riots in the city.

The Luxemburg dynasty henceforth ruled over Bohemia up to the time of its extinction at the death of Sigismund (1437).

Huss was tried before the council of Constance, to which he had proceeded with a letter of safe conduct given by Wenceslas's brother Sigismund, king of the Romans.

After the closing of the council in 1418, Sigismund, who - Wenceslas being childless - was heir to the Bohemian throne, sent a letter to his brother, which was practically a manifesto addressed to the Bohemian people.

Finally a temporary truce was concluded, and, early in the following year, Sigismund, who now claimed the Bohemian crown as successor of his brother, arrived at Kutna Hora (Kuttenberg).

An attempt of Sigismund to relieve the besieged garrison of the Vysehrad fortress on the outskirts of Prague also failed, as he was again entirely defeated at the battle of the Vysehrad (November I, 1420).

At a meeting of the diet at Caslav (June 1, 1421) Sigismund was deposed.

In 1422 Sigismund again invaded Bohemia, but was decisively defeated by Lizka at Nemecky Brod (Deutschbrod).

The Polish prince, Sigismund Korybutovic, now arrived in Bohemia, and was recognized as regent by the large majority of the inhabitants; but through the influence of the papal see he was recalled by the rulers of Poland after a stay of only a few months.

The Germans, however, influenced by Sigismund, determined to make a last attempt to subdue Bohemia by armed force.

The victory of the moderate party paved the way to a reconciliation with Sigismund and the Church of Rome.

The Bohemians recognized Sigismund as their sovereign, but obtained considerable concessions with regard to religious pacts."

After the Compacts had been formally recognized at Iglau in Moravia, Sigismund proceeded to Prague and was accepted as king.

According to the instructions of Vladislav, Sigismund, king of Poland, and the emperor Maximilian I.

King Sigismund of Poland, the dukes Louis and William of Bavaria, several other German princes, as well as several Bohemian noblemen, of whom Leo of Rozmital was the most important, were also candidates.

Sigismund II., king of Poland, took Riga in 1547, and in 1558 the Russians burned its suburbs and many ships in the river.

His title as duke of Lorraine was confirmed by his suzerain, the Emperor Sigismund, at Basel in 1434.

In 1413, after the overthrow of Ladislaus by the emperor Sigismund, Hrvoje was banished; but a large octagonal tower, the Torre d'Harvoye, still bears his name.

In April 1416 Humphrey received the emperor Sigismund at Dover and, according to a 16th-century story, did not let him land till he had disclaimed all title to imperial authority in England.

It received many privileges from the Hungarian kings, especially from the emperor Sigismund, and its strategic situation made it an important fortress.

Sigismund held Imperial diets in the town.

Especially interesting is Moltke's attitude towards the two distinguished statesmen who played the leading parts during the reign of Frederick V., Johan Sigismund Schulin and the elder Bernstorff.

A Walachian contingent, apparently Mircea's, aided the Servian tsar Lazar in his vain endeavour to resist the Turks at Kossovo (1389); later he allied himself with his former enemy Sigismund of Hungary against the Turkish sultan Bayezid I., who inflicted a crushing defeat on the allied armies at Nikopolis in 1396.

Michael followed up these " Walachian Vespers " by an actual invasion of Turkish territory, and, aided by Sigismund Bathory, succeeded in carrying by assault Rustchuk, Silistria and other places on the right bank of the lower Danube.

In 1599, on the abdication of Sigismund Bfithory in Transylvania, Michael, in league with the imperialist forces, and in connivance with the Saxon burghers, attacked and of Tran- defeated his successor Andreas Bathory near Hermannstadt, and, seizing himself the reins of government, secured his proclamation as prince of Transylvania.

In conjunction with Basta he defeated the superior Transylvanian forces at Goroslo, expelling Sigismund Bfithory, who had again aspired to the crown, and taking one hundred and fifty flags and forty-five cannon.

Michael's wife Florika and his son Nicholas were carried off into Tatar captivity, and erban or Sherban, of the Bassaraba family, was raised to the voivodeship of Walachia by imperialist influences, while Sigismund resumed the government of Transylvania.

The overlordship over the country was, however, contested by the king of Poland, and their rival claims were a continual source of dispute between the two kingdoms. In 1412 a remarkable agreement was arrived at between Sigismund, in his quality of king of Hungary, and King Ladislaus II.

The English deputation lent their aid to Sigismund at the council of Constance, when Christendom was at last reunited under a single head, though all the reforms which were to have accompanied the reunion were postponed, and ultimately avoided altogether, by the restored papacy.

In 1564 David was elected by the Calvinists as "bishop of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania," and appointed court preacher to John Sigismund, prince of Transylvania.

John Sigismund, adopting his court-preacher's views, issued (1568) an edict of religious liberty at the Torda Diet, which allowed David (retaining his existing title) to transfer his episcopate from the Calvinists to the anti-Trinitarians, Kolozsvar being evacuated by all but his followers.

In 1571, John Sigismund was succeeded by Stephen Bathory, a Catholic, and trouble began.

The first despot after Kossovo was Tsar Lazar's eldest son " Stephen the Tall," who was an intimate friend of Sigismund IV., king of Hungary and emperor of the Germans.

Since he could not dismember the kingdom of France, his only course was to reconstitute the ancient kingdom of Lotharingia; while the conquest of the principality of Liege and of the duchy of Gelderland, and the temporary occupation of Alsace, pledged to him by Sigismund of Austria, made him greedy for Germany.

First came the reconciliation, in his despite, of those irreconcilables, the Swiss and Sigismund of Austria; and then the union of both with the duke of Lorraine, who was also disturbed at the duke of Burgundys ambition.

In 1469 the archduke of Austria, Sigismund, had sold him the county of Ferrette, and the landgraviate of Alsace and some other towns, reserving to himself the right to repurchase.

He embroiled himself successively with Sigismund of Austria, to whom he refused to restore his possessions in Alsace for the stipulated sum; with the Swiss, who supported the free towns of Alsace in their revolt against the tyranny of the ducal governor, Peter von Hagenbach (who was condemned and executed by the rebels in May 1474); and finally, with Rene of Lorraine, with whom he disputed the succession of Lorraine, the possession of which had united the two principal portions of Charles's territories - Flanders and the duchy and county of Burgundy.

After a careful education beneath the eye of an excellent mother and subsequently at the palace of Matthew Drzewicki, bishop of Przemysl, he occupied a conspicuous position at court in the reigns of John Albert, Alexander and Sigismund I.

Heartily attached to King Sigismund I.

He was mainly instrumental, after the death of Sigismund II., in remodelling the Polish constitution and procuring the election of Henry of Valois.

But though he was offered the title of prince, with the Golden Fleece and 200,000 ducats, he steadily opposed the Austrian faction, even at the imminent risk of a civil war; and on the 19th of August procured the election of Sigismund of Sweden, whose mother was Catherine Jagiellonica.

Each had his own plan for coping with the difficulties of the situation; but while Zamoyski regarded the Habsburgs with suspicion, Sigismund III.

The ill-will between the king and the chancellor reached an acute stage when Sigismund appointed an opponent of Zamoyski vice-chancellor, and made other ministerial changes which limited his authority; though ultimately, with the aid of his partisans and the adoption of such desperate expedients as the summoning of a confederation to annul the royal decrees in 1592, Zamoyski recovered his full authority.

Polish historians, dazzled by his genius and valour, are apt to overlook his quasi-treasonable conduct and blame Sigismund III.

The obvious danger of such a course caused no small anxiety in the principality, and the diet of Torda even went so far as to demand a fresh coronation oath from Sigismund, and, on his refusal to render it, threatened him with deposition.

Sigismund, king of the Romans, not only extorted, it is said, a sum of 50,000 florins from the pontiff in his extremity, but insisted upon his summoning the council at Constance (December 9).

It was in vain that, on the death of Ladislaus, which took place unexpectedly (August 6, 1414), John was inspired with the idea of breaking his compact with Sigismund and returning to Rome, at the same time appealing to Louis of Anjou.

He had to take a solemn oath to abdicate if his two rivals would do the same, and this concession, which was not very sincere, gained him for the last time the honour of seeing Sigismund prostrate at his feet (March 2, 1415).

Having added largely to his patrimonial possessions he became very powerful, and in 1416 the German king Sigismund erected Savoy into a duchy; after this elevation Amadeus added Piedmont to his dominions.

While still a youth, he entered the service of King Sigismund, who appreciated his qualities and borrowed money from him; he accompanied that monarch to Frankfort in his quest for the imperial crown in 1410; took part in the Hussite War in 1420, and in 1437 drove the Turks from Semendria.

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.

Sigismund had also obtained the new mark on the death of his brother John in 1396, but sold this in 1402 to the Teutonic order.

When in 1410 Sigismund and Jobst were rivals for the German throne, Sigismund, anxious to obtain another vote in the electoral college, declared the bargain with Jobst void, and empowered Frederick VI.

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

The revival of this claim by the elector provoked an invasion of the mark by an army of Pomeranians with their allies in 1420, when Frederick inflicted a severe defeat upon them at Angermiinde; but in 1424 a temporary coolness between the elector and the emperor Sigismund led to a renewal of the attack which Frederick was unable to repulse.

Of more immediate consequence was an arrangement made in 1569 with the representatives of Joachim's kinsman, Albert Frederick, duke of Prussia, after which the elector obtained the joint investiture of the duchy of Prussia from Sigismund II., king of Poland, and was assured of the succession if the duke's family became extinct.

He married Catherine, daughter of John, margrave of Brandenburg-Ciistrin, and when he died, on the 18th of July 1608, was succeeded by his eldest son John Sigismund.

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 1609, John Sigismund had joined the Evangelical Union, probably to win support in the Rhineland, and the same consideration was doubtless one reason why, in 1613, he forsook the Lutheran doctrines of his family, and became an adherent of the reformed, or Calvinist, faith.

Over the Cleves-Jiilich succession, John Sigismund had incurred heavy expenses, and the public debt had again mounted up. He was thus obliged to seek aid from the estates, and in return for grants to make concessions to the nobles.

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.

Another source of trouble was the attitude of the emperor Sigismund, who, not content with protecting by his presence and as far as possible directing the deliberations of the "Universal Church," followed on more than one occasion a policy of violence and threats, a policy all the more irritating since, weary of his previously assumed role of peacemaker between the Christian powers, he had abruptly allied himself with the king of England, and adopted an extremely hostile attitude towards the king of France.

The vast army of crusaders, with which were Sigismund and many German princes, and which consisted of adventurers attracted by the hope of pillage from all parts of Europe, arrived before Prague on the 30th of June and immediately began the siege of the city, which had, however, soon to be abandoned (see Z12KA, John).

Sigismund attempted to relieve the fortress, but was decisively defeated by the Hussites on the ist of November near the village of Pankrac. The castles of Vysehrad and Hradcany now capitulated, and shortly afterwards almost all Bohemia fell into the hands of the Hussites.

Again, his inaction during those memorable twelve years (1401-1413) when the Turkish empire, after the collapse at Angora (1402), seemed about to be swallowed up by " the great wolf " Tamerlane, was due entirely to the malice of the Holy See, which, enraged at his endeavours to maintain the independence of the Magyar church against papal aggression (the diet of 1404, on Sigismund's initiative, had declared bulls bestowing Magyar benefices on foreigners, without the royal consent, pernicious and illegal), saddled him with a fresh rebellion and two wars with Venice, resulting ultimately in the total loss of Dalmatia (c. 1430).

Yet even now Sigismund, at the head of his Magyars, thrice (1422-1424, 1426-1427, and 1430-1431) encountered the Turks, not ingloriously, in the open field, till, recognizing that Hungary must thenceforth rely entirely on her own resources in any future struggle with Islam, he elaborately fortified the whole southern frontier, and converted the little fort of Nandorfehervar, later Belgrade, at the junction of the Danube and Save, into an enormous first-class fortress, which proved strong enough to repel all the attacks of the Turks for more than a century.

In Transylvania the princes of the Bathory family (1571-1604) were ardent disciples of the Jesuit fathers, and Sigismund Bathory in particular persecuted fiercely, his fury being especially directed against the queer judaizing sect known as the Sabbatarians, whose tenets were adopted by the Szeklers, the most savage of " the three nations " of Transylvania, many thousands of whom were, after a bloody struggle, forced to emigrate.

In December, Frederick, grand master of the Teutonic Order, died, and Albert, joining the order, was chosen as his successor early in 1511 in the hope that his relationship to Sigismund I., king of Poland, would facilitate a settlement of the disputes over east Prussia, which had been held by the order under Polish suzerainty since 1466.

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).

Sigismund himself gave it as his opinion that it had been clearly proved by many witnesses that the accused had taught many pernicious heresies, and that even should he recant he ought never to be allowed to preach or teach again or to return to Bohemia, but that should he refuse recantation there was no remedy but the stake.

In 1440 Aleman obtained the support of the emperor Sigismund and of the duke of Milan to his views, and proclaiming the deposition of Pope Eugenius IV., placed the tiara upon the head of Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy (henceforward known as antipope Felix V.).

Benedict XIII., who had on his part tried to call together a council at Perpignan, was by this time recognized hardly anywhere but in his native land, in Scotland, and in the estates of the countship of Armagnac. He remained none the less full of energy and of illusions, repulsed the overtures of Sigismund, king of the Romans, who had come to Perpignan to persuade him to abdicate, and, abandoned by nearly all his adherents, he took refuge in the impregnable castle of Peniscola, on a rock dominating the Mediterranean (1415).

In 1526 the male line of the ancient dynasty became extinct, and on the 26th of August Sigismund received the homage of the Masovians at Warsaw, the capital of the duchy and ere long of the whole kingdom.

Throughout this perilous transitional period Sigismund's was the hand which successfully steered the ship of state amidst all the whirlpools that constantly threatened to engulf it.

Among the many difficulties which beset the question, not the least obvious was the length of time during which the Church must remain without a ruler, if - as Sigismund and the German nation demanded - the papal election were deferred till the completion of the internal reforms. The result was decided by the policy of the cardinals, who since May 1417 had openly devoted their whole energies to the acceleration of that election; and union was preserved by means of a compromise arranged by Bishop Henry of Winchester, the uncle of the English king.

Sigismund never saw Sweden again, but he persistently refused to abandon his claims or recognise the new Swedish government; and this unfortunate obstinacy was to involve Poland in a whole series of unprofitable wars with Sweden.

Sigismund Heller wrote three cantos on the wanderings of Ahasuerus, while Hans Andersen made of him an " Angel of Doubt."

Sigismund's obstinate insistence upon his right to the Swedish crown was the one impediment to the conclusion of a war which the Polish Diet heartily detested and very successfully impeded.

Early in the nth century Sigmund or Sigismund Bresterson, whose family had flourished in the southern islands but had been almost exterminated by See Hans von Post, "Om FarOarnes uppkomst," Geologiska Foreningens i Stockholm FOrhandlingar, vol.

Purples must be kept away from reds, but group well with any whites; some of the best for color are Everestianum, Album elegans, Fastuosum, Cyaneum, Countess of Normanton, Caractacus, and Sigismund Rucker.