I've got the brains, you've got the looks...
1561
Elector Alexander and the Emperor Ferdinand I meet and reaffirm their commitment to the principles of the Peace of Augsburg. Alexander refuses to recant his father’s tolerance of the Calvinists, Zwinglians, and other Fanatics, though he is prevailed upon by the Lutheran Church to announce a new program of church visitations and to enforce bans on the practice of witchcraft and alchemy. He also affirms his opposition to freedom of worship for Jews, distinguishing him from his father. He intends this course of action to appease both the Catholic and Lutheran churches: his father having won his ability to flout the wishes of the Emperor and the Christian churches through the threat and exercise of force, Alexander recognized that for him to exercise the same independence would be reckless over-reaching.
Elizabeth I of England by letter invites the Brandons and their supporters to return to court in England, offering them their restored titles and lands, requiring only that Frederick Henry Brandon surrender of any claims to the crown. Alexander and his ministers mediate the discussions, and strike the compromise that Frederick Henry would subordinate any claims to the crown to Elizabeth and her heirs, but not disclaim the succession outright. Elizabeth accepts this compromise, which essentially also restores relations between England and the Electorate of Saxony, since Saxony now fully and without reservation recognizes a sovereign on the throne other than Brandon. His mother Catherine, who continues to style herself a Queen of England, decides to stay at Wittenberg. Frederick Henry Brandon, the Third Duke of Suffolk, and to his diehard supporters at the Saxon court King Frederick I of England, decides at the strong encouragement of Alexander and his ministers to return, renounce his claims to the throne against Elizabeth, and try to maneuver for the throne again as her heir. Alexander cautions Frederick Henry before he leaves that Saxony will provide no support for any plots or conspiracies against Elizabeth, and that the policy of Saxony is to support her reign.
Nevertheless, before the Duke of Suffolk leaves for England, where legally and customarily Elizabeth would be able to deny him the right to marry (and hence produce legitimate offspring capable of continuing the putative Henry IX’s line), he marries Frances Cromwell.
1562
The new Elector believes Saxony’s ambitions with respect to the projection of its military power to places like England and to the increase of its commerce is hampered by the lack of a sea-coast and deep water port. Negotiations thus begin with the imperial free city of Hamburg for building and keeping a future Saxon fleet at Hamburg, across the Elbe from the Saxon lands that were formerly Brunswick-Luneburg. Despite the huge possible profits from the deal, Hamburg is reluctant because of the risks this would create to its own independence and to its relationship with the other cities of the Hanseatic League.
Elector Alexander appoints a special council of scholars in Wittenberg to establish a set of standards to differentiate between alchemy, which is impermissible, and other fields of inquiry which can be pursued “within the laws of Enlightened Christianity” and thus not be prosecuted. The new energy in prosecuting alchemy leads to a burgeoning interest in other fields of mathematics and natural philosophy.
His father having exhausted the proceeds of the loot of Prague and the Saxon treasury besides, the Elector Alexander institutes a new austerity in spending, from which he excludes only the funding of new orchestras in Wittenberg and Dresden.
The Habsburgs near a crucial transfer of power, as Ferdinand II surrenders his titles of King of Bohemia and King of the Romans to his son, the future Emperor Maximilian II. Alexander, like many other German princes, believes Maximilian to be a secret Protestant, and that this will end the German religious conflict.
Noting that William I the Silent the Prince of Orange is a Protestant who has had success in working peaceably with the Habsburgs, Alexander approaches William about the possibility of a marriage alliance, offering William the hand of his 17 year-old sister Anna in marriage.
1563
Reading reports on the doctrines of John Calvin and hearing from his advisors that where the restrictions on usury have been lifted the result has been greatly expanded commerce, the Elector Alexander undertakes to increase his coffers not by legalizing usury outright, but by reducing the penalty for usury to a flat-sum fine payable to the Electoral treasury, provided the usurer meets several conditions: he maintains publicly accessible records of the debts owed him, he forswears breaches of the Elector’s peace to collect his debts, and steers clear of any other criminal wrong-doing. Ironically, there is no limit considered for the amount of debt, the amount of interest, or other loan terms. The fine, designed to not be a percentage so that the Saxon state is not collecting interest (and therefore violating the prohibition, functionally speaking), is nonetheless set high to restrict the exemption in the usury laws this creates to relatively few, relatively large, and relatively well-established lenders.
The Lutheran Church is scandalized by Elector Alexander’s proposal, and the church leadership openly and publicly condemns a decision of the Elector for the first time. Likewise, King Maximilian of Bohemia and his father the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand both register their disapproval. Despite this, Alexander goes ahead, and moneylenders begin crowding into Wittenberg, Dresden and Leipzig.
At the Chancellor Julius’ suggestion, the Elector himself also begins offering a few interest-free loans to encourage valuable productive industry, such as the opening of new mines in the Harz and the Erzgebirge mountains, smelters, forges, silversmiths’ shops, and the like. It quickly becomes apparent in Alexander and Julius’ scheme that the “interest” the state will receive is in fact the new tax revenue the Elector receives from the enterprises and their owners.
On the condition that Alexander accept a lengthy list of reservations protecting Hamburg’s independence as a free imperial city, stripping Saxon ground forces of any authority outside Saxon territory or Saxon ships in-harbor, and conferring privileges on Hamburg with respect to trade in Saxony, Hamburg consents to its use as the base of the Saxon navy. In the final treaty signed in Hamburg, provisions also require Alexander to pay rich sums in annual rent to Hamburg for the privilege.
William I the Silent of Orange marries the Elector's sister Anna.
1564
Maximilian becomes the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, raising the hopes of the Protestant princes that they may have won their struggle for Germany by one of their own being elevating to the imperial throne, as the rumor spreads that he is secretly a Lutheran himself.
In Wittenberg, Alexander attempts to mend relations with the Lutheran Church by endowing a program to build gymnasia in the smaller towns and hamlets of rural Saxony (with school years modified to reflect the planting and harvesting seasons), virtually insuring near-universal literacy in Saxony within a few generations, and placing it within the control of the Lutheran Church. He leaves it unsaid that the reason he is capable of such largesse is the proceeds of the state’s new policy with respect to money-lending.
Alexander also leaves unresolved the lingering question over the independence of the Lutheran Church from the Saxon state, which he has privately resolved to be absolutely unacceptable.
Especially since the Schwarmer soldiers proved their value in the Schmalkaldic War, the strategic assumption in the Saxon capital is that the good will of Europe’s various Protestant Churches is necessary to the Electorate’s safety and well-being, whether they are Lutheran or not. This leads Alexander to protest to King Charles IX of France against the repression of the French Huguenots, and to make common cause with John Casimir of Simmern in their cause, though Alexander is careful to stop short of ordering military force by the Saxons, or endorsing such actions by others, directly.
The Elector announces plans to purchase and enclose tracts of land in the Ore Mountains, around Schloss Moritzburg and near Wittenberg to serve as his private hunting preserves. His love of hunting and the outdoors, reflected in much art and decoration, signal a lifting of the deep and pervasive worry that dominated Saxon culture in the reign of the Holy Prince.
1565
Diplomats in the service of Elizabeth of England (more with England's fiscal concerns in mind than anything else) broach the issue of marriage to Alexander, only for him to politely decline, not only for the reason of Elizabeth’s previous humiliation of his father after his extensive efforts on her behalf during Mary’s reign, or even out of loyalty to his sister’s family the Brandons. Instead, he is dissuaded by the increasing unlikelihood of her bearing children or the two of them sharing family life.
For Alexander this is a disqualifier because without issue merging the Saxon and English lines a marriage alliance would be of little value to Saxony, and because he wants the Saxon line to continue through his issue. In return, he proposes to Elizabeth an idea she finds outlandish and impractical: saving the French Huguenots by resettling them in the New World in colonies governed under the Saxon and English flags. The plan would require extensive use of English shipping and Saxon financing. Elizabeth refuses outright.
Through a set of fictive entities run by merchant families closely connected to the Wettins, the Elector begins loaning capital to enterprises within Saxony, charging market rates of interest, with the goal of both increasing future revenues and spurring industry within Saxony.
Alexander announces a new plan to build expanded port facilities in the important Elbe river ports of Madgeburg, Lauenburg, and Wittenberg, all of which is necessary for Saxony to begin sending more wares and other products to Hamburg to be exported.
Hoping to increase the Wettins’ influence in southwestern Germany and to build closer ties with the Calvinists, Alexander arranges the marriage of his first cousin Eleonore to John Casimir of Simmern, the second son and heir of the Calvinist Elector of the Palatinate.
The satirist Klaus Hahn creates a sensation by writing “The True History of the Saxon Navy”, a dry send-up of the Elector’s naval project that presents itself as a serious and dense academic exercise justifying the Elector’s naval expenditures by recounting fictional and ridiculous Saxon naval triumphs since Roman times. Attempts to suppress the little book only add to its popularity.
1566
The Imperial Diet at Augsburg passes for the most part without confrontations of the bitter type that dominated previous years’ councils, as Alexander undertakes to charm Maximilian II. Alexander trades his support for Maximilian’s position that Catholic princes of the church converting to Protestantism could not take their lands with them to the Protestant church for Maximilian’s promise to respect religious tolerance within his own territories.
However, Alexander’s improving relationship with the Austrian Habsburgs is counterbalanced by the increasingly hostile tone of relations with the Spanish Habsburgs: the Elector writes to Margaret of Parma, governor of the Netherlands on behalf of Philip II of Spain, asking her to provide freedom of worship to Protestants within the Netherlands. He receives no answer at all.
The Elector founds the University of Meissen. He also begins plans, with Chancellor Julius, to construct two wide paved roads striating Saxony from east to west, designed to make the existing roads passable in all seasons and weathers and establish Saxony as the favored channel for land trade between eastern and western Europe. One road would lead from Dresden to Coburg, passing through Freiburg, Chemnitz, Schonbuch and Plauen. The other would lead from Dresden to Eisenach, passing through Meissen, Wurzen, and Leipzig. Implicit in his plan is that the Elbe River constitutes the third great highway of Saxony connecting Dresden with Wittenberg and Madgeburg.
Alexander comes to arrangements with the aged and dying ally of his father, Philip of Hesse: Alexander’s first cousin by John Frederick, Margaret, will marry Philip’s son William, in line following his father’s death to become the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, and his first cousin by Catherine, also called Catherine, to Philip’s son Philip II, who will inherit the portion of Hesse that will be called Hesse-Rheinfels. Further matches are discussed but cannot be agreed upon. Philip’s goal is to bind the Wettins to defend as many of his heirs through marriage alliances as possible, and thus secure their territories. For Alexander, it is about extending Saxon influence west and south. Wrinkles in the negotiations that are only resolved after much wrangling include Philip’s requirement from Alexander of a promise to support the nine children of his controversial morganatic marriage to Margarethe von der Saale. William and Philip’s mother is Christine of Saxony, a distant cousin through the Albertine Wettins.
In letters and conversations during the negotiations with Philip, Alexander makes plain what his pursuit of the “Hessian-Saxon double-match” means: if his father’s grand strategy rested on making Saxony great by making its territory indivisible as it is passed to future generations, Alexander’s innovation will be to allow and encourage the states around Saxony to divide themselves as much as they like, to magnify Saxony’s relative power and to force them to bind themselves to Saxony ever more tightly.
1567
Finally, a Lutheran Church Council is held to decide the question of church government. It is less a debate between different factions of the Lutheran faith than between all of them speaking as one against Alexander. In the end, a compromise is struck: Alexander is given the title he wants of Supreme Protector, and it is given to him on his oath to defend the Lutheran faith wherever it is threatened, a promise which strikes many at the court as impractical and dangerous. For their part, the Lutheran bishops are given the right to meet and vote among themselves to fill church offices. Their Councils will always be held in Wittenberg, the Elector may always attend, though never vote, and he may informally nominate candidates that he favors, although the Lutheran Council is under no obligation to accept his nominations, on the principle that it owes no allegiance to any prince to whose wishes it will conform church doctrines. Of course, all sides understand that in practice a nomination by the Elector, unless unusual in some circumstance, will be approved. Also, though the Elector cannot call or adjourn the Council officially, the fact that the Church constitution now specifies they will be held in his capital of Wittenberg gives him great influence over matters. Almost as an afterthought, the Council elects the skilled theologian Martin Chemnitz the first official Head of the Church.
The Elector Alexander in response to the French abuses of the Huguenots renounces all outstanding treaties and alliances between France and Saxony, moving the two countries closer to war. He also begins a subsidy in aid of the French Huguenots in their war against Charles IX, and increases his assistance to John Casimir, to whom he marries Eleonore, the eldest daughter of John Frederick, Duke of Saxony.
Alexander also begins planning for a new hunting lodge in the vicinity of Dresden, so that he would have his own presence in his uncle’s city adjacent to Schloss Moritzburg, which he covets. Also, work finally begins on the great new Saxon roads project.
Meeting with Duke William of Julich-Cleves-Berg, Alexander reaffirms his plans to marry William’s daughter Marie Eleonore. Before the weddings of the Elector Alexander’s first cousins to the Landgrave Philip’s sons can be solemnized, Philip dies. Those two of his four sons each inherit separate Landgraviates.
1568
The Emperor Maximilian II grants religious tolerance to his Bohemian subjects, making good on his promise to Alexander. Maximilian also requests that Saxony contribute soldiers and money to a new war with the Ottomans. Not wanting to spoil the warm relations between Saxony and the Empire and aware that a prior refusal to a similar request earned his father the Imperial Ban, Alexander responds that he is willing to send a relatively small contribution gratis, but that in exchange for the imperial city of Regensburg he would gladly send a force comprising much of the Saxon army. Maximilian II grudgingly accepts.
At the execution of Egmont and Horne in the Netherlands for their tolerance of Protestantism, Alexander orders the Saxon court to enter a period of public mourning in symbolic sympathy with the Protestants there. In an angry exchange with the Spanish ambassador that results in him being expelled from Wittenberg, Alexander threatens to reverse his father’s generous policies toward Catholics in the Saxon realms as a reprisal. At the request of his brother-in-law William I the Silent, Prince of Orange, Alexander begins financial assistance to the Dutch rebellion and allows Saxon volunteers to go fight on the Protestant side.
Alexander appoints a council of legal scholars to codify and modernize Saxon law, beginning with feudal titles, tenures and estates, followed by trade, torts, criminal law, and finally the law governing churches and ecclesiastical communities. This is because the huge increase in Saxon trade and the influx of immigrants in the years since the Schmalkaldic Wars had totally overwhelmed the Saxon courts and the existing legal customs.
In a great ceremony at Wittenberg, the Hessian Landgraves William and Philip each marry nieces of Alexander by different siblings, Margaret and Catherine. The ceremony serves as a celebration of the alliance between the Hessian and Saxon states at the core of the Schmalkaldic League. The Elector Alexander also arranges to marry his first cousin Frederick Ernest (by his uncle John Frederick the Duke of Saxony for whom Frederick Ernest is heir) to Sabine, the daughter of Duke Christopher of Wurttemburg. Alexander feels this is another alliance important to cementing Saxony’s influence in southern Germany. By the end of the year however, Christopher is dead and the marriage is of much greater importance: his successor Ludwig I is an unmarried child, and only two surviving sisters are above Sabine in line for the Wurttemburg succession.
A stage adaption of The True History of the Saxon Navy becomes the first secular stage play to achieve commercial success of its kind in Germany, inspiriting a less-than-entirely successful set of imitators. The play is then banned, only to be performed close by in neighboring principalities. Thus, when the Elector Alexander goes to inspect the first completed Saxon warships in Hamburg, he is serenaded with ditties from the play sung by the mocking residents of Hamburg.
1569
The Elector of Saxony makes a triumphal entrance into Regensburg, his newest possession. Conditional in the transfer of Regensburg is that the city’s Roman Catholic bishop, its three abbeys and the possessions thereof be untouched. His agreement to do so, and thus not completely reform Regensburg only serves to irk the Lutheran Church further. Simultaneously, a Saxon force led by Alexander’s uncle John Frederick departs for Hungary to fight on behalf of the Emperor, as promised.
Elector Alexander busies himself with a new system of law courts that would unify the administration of justice in a sprawling state that a little more than two decades previously was divided between six sovereigns or more. At the instigation of the Chancellor Julius, it becomes a requirement that all judges serving the Saxon Elector must have legal training. Noble birth will no longer be sufficient.
Fearing a crisis because of the number of judges in the country who hold office because of their places in the nobility, the Chancellor Julius founds law schools in the old imperial palace at Goslar and at Celle to train judges and lawyers in the new system.
Also at Chancellor Julius’s suggestion, Alexander lifts the privileges previously granted to the former imperial and free cities. Essentially, varying individually depending on the city, each city imperial city or free city acquired by Frederick Henry had been incorporated into the realm of the Elector under the legal fiction that it owed to the Elector those rights it had previously owed to the Emperor, so that the legal rights of the city had not changed. However, these rights frequently included exemptions from taxation, which Julius and Alexander now want to end. To some extent, all the former imperial and free cities within Saxony experience unrest, but Brunswick, Regensburg and Goslar manage to expel the Elector’s garrisons. Hamburg, though technically unaffected because it retains its sovereignty, is also alarmed.
1570
Furious, Alexander assigns Chancellor Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg, Duke of Lower Saxony, the task of putting down the tax revolt of the imperial cities. The cities are generally easily pacified, however Bavaria takes the opportunity to enter and occupy Regensburg. Most painfully to Alexander, Bavaria introduces the Counter-Reformation there, closing the city’s Lutheran churches.
English and Saxon diplomats sign treaties of maritime cooperation and support, essentially providing that the ships of neither country will be hostile to the other, will aid each other’s in times of need, and in the case of the English help train and provide technical assistance so as to create a class of Saxon naval officers, in exchange for a fee and an arrangement for mainland Saxon military assistance in Europe should England require it.
Tragedy strikes the Saxon army in Hungary when an assassin hiding in the forest by a road down which the Saxon army is marching kills the Duke John Frederick, uncle to the Elector. It is not certain who hired the perpetrator, whether it is the Ottomans, Habsburgs, or other forces. Duke John Frederick and his wife Sybille of Julich-Cleves-Berg had three daughters and a son, Frederick Ernest, still in his minority. Under the arrangement created after the First Schmalkaldic War by Frederick Henry, Frederick Ernest will inherit the entirety of his father’s lands in ducal Saxony. Though relations between the two branches of the Ernestine Wettins have been heretofore quite warm, John Frederick’s death leading an army for Alexander’s benefit causes immense ill-will in the ducal court at Dresden and calls into question Alexander’s personal prestige as the Elector.
In Wittenberg, the dimensions of the crisis are readily apparent to Alexander’s advisors, who remember the betrayal by the former Duke Maurice of the Elector Frederick Henry. To the horror of Julius and other ministers, conspiracy theories begin to spread asserting that Alexander lured John Frederick into a dangerous situation that would provide cover for his assassination, and then ordered his murder himself.
Maximilian II makes good the remainder of his promise to Alexander by granting religious tolerance to his Hungarian subjects.
