Making him an offer he can't refuse
1551
Frederick Henry states in letters to his chief allies—Philip of Hesse, Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg, and Frederick II, Elector Palatine—his desire to see the Schmalkaldic League evolve from a defensive union within the Holy Roman Empire towards the core of a new Protestant union of German states. Responses to Frederick Henry’s proposal range from either the direct and tactless refusal of Philip to the polite silence of Frederick II. Each of the other rulers understand that Frederick Henry’s plan is for Saxony to be the first among equals in any more centralized union of the German Protestant princes.
Frustrated in his foreign policy, Frederick Henry begins work on the fortifications of the Festung Konigstein, with the intention that his realm will be defended by two impregnable fortresses—on the western edge, the Coburg Veste, and on the east, the Festung.
The Saxon Elector begins his first literary pension to the poet Everard Schiele, author of the epic poem Leonidas, a widely admired allegory of the struggles of German Lutheranism that presents a flattering portrayal of the Elector.
The Emperor Charles V, Frederick Henry’s archenemy and the leading opponent of the German Reformation, is plunged into another war, this time in Italy against France’s King Henry II. This again provides Frederick Henry and the other Protestant princes with needed leverage to use against Charles V.
The Electress Elizabeth, widow of John I the Steadfast, mother of the Elector Frederick Henry and the last surviving child of Henry VII, dies.
1552
A scheme by Albert Alcibiades to break the former Duke Maurice out of the Coburg Veste fails when the townspeople of Coburg and the fortress's Schwarmer garrison repulse his attack on the Veste.
Negotiations between the Protestant princes and Henry II of France fall apart over Henry’s demand of territorial concessions from the Empire in return for his support against the Emperor. Frederick Henry departs the negotiations at Chambord disgusted over the suggestion that he actively aid a foreign king acquire German lands. Nonetheless, he and the other members of the Schmalkaldic League provide no assistance to Charles V either, pending the resolution of the Emperor’s abrogation of the terms of the Treaty of Prague.
Frederick Henry attends negotiations at Regensburg for a final peace in which the Imperial side is represented not by Charles V but his brother Ferdinand, the official king of Bohemia and Hungary. There, the Catholic princes of Germany express a willingness to make major concessions to ensure an end to hostilities, including the recognition of the seizure of ecclesiastical lands by the Protestant princes and some autonomy on religious affairs. These concessions are memorialized as the Treaty of Regensburg.
In another diplomatic triumph for the year, Frederick Henry and the English ambassador sign treaties betrothing the English princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and sister of the current king Edward VI, to her first cousin and Frederick Henry’s heir, the prince Alexander. If Alexander and Elizabeth marry and she bears an heir, that child—if both Elizabeth’s brother Edward and sister Mary die without issue, and depending on the state of the law of succession at that time—could conceivably rule both England and Saxony and dominate northern Europe. This arrangement surprises and displeases the Duke of Suffolk, who had understood that he was to be the sole vessel of Saxony’s dynastic ambitions in England and who was completely circumvented in the discussions. Essentially, Frederick Henry is attempting to make sure that he can influence English rulers in any number of scenarios involving the suggestion, leading to the common joke that if he had a son acceptable to her that he could marry to the Catholic Mary Tudor, he would do that too.
1553
Saxony is in mourning following the passing of both the Chancellor Spalatin and the current Electress Elizabeth, who dies in childbirth bearing what would have been the couple’s fifth child. The baby, a boy, also does not survive. As his new Chancellor Frederick Henry picks the young savant Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg, the Duke of Lower Saxony, who had proven his loyalty in helping to quash the revolt of his brothers and his immense intelligence in years since.
During his period of mourning, the Elector is forced to intervene militarily in support of his ally the Landgrave Philip of Hesse. Philip’s lands in Franconia, formerly the Bishopric of Wurzburg, is being invaded and looted by Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. In a bizarre turn of events, because Albert Alcibiades had fought on the side of France in that kingdom’s continuing war against the Emperor Charles V, Charles V had imposed the imperial ban on Albert Alcibiades. So Charles V now appoints Frederick Henry to execute the ban against Albert Alcibiades, knowing it is the only way he can put the powerful Saxon military into the field against his enemies.
At Sievershausen, the Saxon army led by Frederick Henry combined with the Hessians under Philip annihilate the forces of Albert Alcibiades. Frederick Henry and Philip pursue Albert Alcibiades to Bayreuth, where they capture him as he tries to hide in a stable. Frederick Henry notifies Charles V of his intent to hold the territories of Brandenburg-Kulmbach and the imperial city of Nuremberg, which had fallen under Albert Alcibiades’ power. Albert Alcibiades himself is killed, in what is explained to the public at large is an escape attempt.
1554
The death of England’s Protestant King Edward VI and the ensuing dynastic turmoil devastates Saxony’s foreign policy and bloodies the Wettin family itself, stripping the Electorate of its closest major ally in Europe and seriously imperiling Saxony’s dynastic plans.
On Edward VI’s death, Protestant nobles who claim to be acting on behalf of the King’s will crown his designated heir Henry Brandon King Henry IX. Anticipating a struggle for the English crown, Frederick Henry begins efforts to gather troops and move them into England to support his brother-in-law’s claim. However, before they arrive the people of London rise up on behalf of Henry VIII’s eldest surviving daughter, Mary. Henry IX flees Westminster and attempts to muster soldiers and retake the city, but the army, overwhelmingly loyal to Mary, attacks him before he can organize a sufficient force and defeats him in the Battle of Reading.
Taken in chains to the Tower of London, Henry is quickly tried and beheaded for treason. By the time the Danish ships leased by Frederick Henry at great expense to convey his forces to England to support Henry IX arrive in London, the country is solidly under Mary’s control and preparations for her coronation are under way. Henry IX’s wife Catherine, the Elector’s sister, had fled separately to France in a fishing boat with a few trusted guards, her four children and a nurse. Found by the French on the coast of Normandy, she and the children are conveyed to the Saxon fleet returning to their origin-point of Hamburg when they stop at Antwerp. The Saxon fleet also bears in its return trip some of England’s leading Protestant nobles, including many of those responsible for Henry’s unsuccessful effort to take power, such as various Seymours, Dudleys and Wyats. These include Henry’s sisters Frances and Eleanor and his nieces Jane, Catherine and Mary Grey. The sorry spectacle of their arrival at Wittenberg caused mass public mourning and hysterical expressions of grief, and ministers throughout Saxony inveigh against Mary as a vicious fratricidal and regicidal tyrant.
The Protestant princes of Germany convene at Wittenberg to plan their negotiating position for the general council planned at Augsburg the next year. Frederick Henry argues that the Protestant princes should agitate not just for the religious freedom of Lutherans but for the freedom of Zwinglians, Anabaptists and the followers of Calvin so as to build a single community among all the Reformation churches. This effort is in recognition of the Schwarmer’s efforts on his behalf in the Schmalkaldic War, and reflects Frederick Henry’s role as the leading patron of the fanatic communities among the German princes. Nevertheless, he is voted down by the Lutheran princes, who argue for maintaining the model of a state religion and the spiritual conformity of subjects to the prince.
Frederick Henry continues the war in support of both the Emperor Charles V and Prince Philip of Hesse against Wilhelm Von Grumbach, who is in the pay of France, the last remaining ally of Albert Alcibiades and an adventurer-general who had campaigned against Frederick Henry in the first Schmalkaldic War and thus earned his enmity. Von Grumbach is defeated by the Saxons in the Battle of the Main. Captured by Frederick Henry’s army, he is tried briefly, and beheaded despite his bizarre claims of magical powers and his proclamation as he is about to die that he has put a curse on Frederick Henry.
1555
The year is dominated by the Council at Augsburg, in which the Protestant and Catholic princes of the Holy Roman Empire attempt to hammer out a compromise to prevent further religious bloodshed. Though Frederick Henry once again proposes a more complete policy of religious tolerance that would embrace the possibility of multiple concurrent churches within one territory and permit the recognition of confessions of Christian faith other than Catholicism and Lutheranism, he is overruled. However, his treatise in support of these ideas, The Community of Christ in His Churches, is printed in pamphlet form and widely circulated.
In the final terms agreed upon at Augsburg, each German prince is permitted to choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism. That choice is obligatory for all those living within his country, but people who find themselves living in the territory of a prince who has chosen a faith inconsistent with their own are free to cross into the lands of their co-religionists. No German prince may wage war against any other for religious reasons. Imperial and free cities, imperial knights, and towns in ecclesiastical areas that had been practicing their own religion are given the freedom to continue practicing their customary form of worship. Finally, all ecclesiastical lands taken by the Lutheran princes as of the time of the Treaty of Regensburg are to be retained by those princes, but there would no further Catholic ecclesiastic lands would go to the Protestant princes for reason of the conversion of the Catholic ecclesiastical prince (archbishop or bishop). This last provision is accepted by the Protestant princes only reluctantly, and only after Frederick Henry gives it his support, largely as a personal gesture of princely generosity toward the Emperor Ferdinand.
The Peace of Augsburg adjourns with much good feeling among all the German princes, with all sides expressing relief that a general war of faith in Germany has been avoided.
Frederick Henry begins contemplating with the exiled English nobles at Wittenberg the future marriage of his nephew, also Frederick Henry. It is quickly decided the bride should also be English, and from the Protestant expatriate community. One choice is Frances Cromwell, on her father’s side grand-daughter of Thomas Cromwell, and on her mother’s side the niece of Henry VIII’s queen Jane Seymour. The other is Frances’ first cousin Mary Seymour, who is both the niece of Jane Seymour and the daughter of Catherine Parr, also a queen of Henry VIII. Ironically, both girls come from noble families dispossessed of their wealth by accusations of treason: Frances, by the dishonor of her grandfather Thomas, and Mary by the execution of her father Thomas. The younger Frederick Henry is 17, Frances 11, and Mary 7.
1556
While hunting with his brother in the forests near Dresden, Frederick Henry is hit in the head and knocked from his mount by a tree branch. He breaks several ribs in the fall, and spends much of the rest of his reign ailing.
Nevertheless, Frederick Henry labors intensively over his last great accomplishment, the Saxon Religious Law, which codifies and amends all his previous proclamations on religion. This is inconsistent with the Peace of Augsburg in that it permits Catholic and other forms of Protestant worship alongside the Lutheran Church, although the Lutheran Church is officially adopted for the purposes of Augsburg as the state religion. Moreover, all remaining non-religious properties of the Catholic Church of all the territories that now comprise Saxony are summarily confiscated by the state. All remaining religious properties of the Catholic Church are entrusted to the Lutheran Church. Catholic Church services may continue, and religious orders may continue to operate in a circumscribed capacity, although they must build or purchase new structures in which to practice and operate. Fanatic sects meeting the requirements of Saxon law are also permitted to practice freely. Frederick Henry even contemplates a limited freedom of worship for the Jews in Wittenberg, but finds opposition to the idea in the Lutheran leadership so intense he is forced to abandon it. Finally, the Lutheran Church is given the legal and institutional responsibility of educating the children of Saxony.
Response to the Saxon Religious Law is more muted in the other German states than anticipated. The other Protestant princes are loath to criticize their acknowledged leader and the military hero of their movement, and the Catholic princes are too glad for his unanticipated concessions to their faith in Saxony to criticize the similar concessions he makes to the non-Lutheran Protestant sects.
Following the Augsburg Settlement, Charles V abdicates his titles and realms, dividing them between his son Philip II of Spain and his brother Ferdinand I, Philip receiving Spain, its colonies in the New World, Burgundy, and the Netherlands, and Francis I receiving the title of Holy Roman Emperor in addition to his lands in Bohemia, Austria and Hungary.
Frederick Henry Brandon, who styles himself King Frederick I of England, is betrothed by the arrangement of the Elector Frederick Henry to Frances Cromwell.
1557
With the Elector’s health now in steep decline, he is forced to curb his activities at the same time he desires to make the most of his legacy. The new Electoral Palace in Wittenberg is completed at around the same time as John Frederick’s lavish additions to Schloss Moritzburg. As a final gift to his brother, the Elector Frederick Henry founds the University of Duke John Frederick in Dresden, a new and richly endowed institution. Other major projects race forward, as gymnasia are founded in Leipzig and Chemnitz. The Elector Frederick Henry also announces plans to build a large new cathedral in Wittenberg, the Electors’ Church. Space inside it is reserved for his tomb.
Frederick Henry’s only significant acts of overseas diplomacy in the year are his warning to Mary of England that any violent acts towards his son Alexander’s betrothed, the princess Elizabeth, would result in war between Saxony and England, and to her cousin Ferdinand the Holy Roman Emperor to inform him that Elizabeth’s death would likely reignite religious war on the continent. The nature of the diplomatic contacts is terse and without ordinary courtesy—reflecting the lingering rage at the death of Henry IX, and Frederick Henry makes plain that one of the courses open to him is to recognize Henry IX’s son Frederick Henry, his namesake, as the rightful king of England.
1558
Frederick Henry spends much of his remaining fortune (much of which originated from the imperial treasure looted from Prague) founding the University of Coburg, housed in the Coburg Veste overlooking the city. Gymnasia are also founded in the cities of Bayreuth, Meissen and Freiburg.
As news spreads throughout Europe of Mary of England’s increasing infirmity, the English succession becomes uncertain. Fears that Mary might kill her Protestant sister and heir, Elizabeth, or that after Mary’s death the Catholics might act to prevent Elizabeth’s becoming queen, also spread. Frederick Henry begins agitating among the German princes to organize a sea-borne force capable of preventing the overthrow of Elizabeth, who is betrothed to his son Alexander, or in the alternate situation in which Elizabeth is already dead, to install on the throne of England his nephew Frederick Henry. The idea finds almost no support at all among the German Protestants, who see no benefit to themselves in the project, and are glad to finally have a peace with Catholic Europe with their rights recognized.
Chancellor Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg, Duke of Lower Saxony appoints a commission to begin recommending improvements to the realm’s roads, and areas of rivers the dredging of which would facilitate commerce, as part of his plan to spur the mining industry and other trades. The first step in his plan is dredging the Oker River between Wolfenbuttel and the Harz mountains to make it navigable for shipments of lead and copper downstream.
1559
Mary I of England dies and Elizabeth becomes Queen, which leads to an unanticipated and abrupt foreign policy reversal for Frederick Henry when she cancels the engagement with Alexander, virtually without explanation. This also creates the sudden necessity of finding a suitable dynastic match for Alexander, as Frederick Henry begins scouring the ranks of Protestant noblewomen in Europe for a suitable future Electress.
Even though the spurning of Alexander brings the Brandon faction at court no closer to the actual throne of England, it strengthens their hand with respect to Frederick Henry and his son because they now represent the sole viable option for securing Saxon influence there. Nonetheless, most of the Protestant nobles who had fled England following the suppression of Henry IX’s rule return to lend their support to Elizabeth. Thomas Wyat the Younger leads the faction that remains at Wittenberg, intent on serving the Elector Frederick Henry, who he regards as the great defender of Protestantism in Europe.
Many of Frederick Henry’s dearest construction projects are completed over the course of the year, including the vast park at the Electoral Palace at Wittenberg, and the Universities at Coburg and Dresden.
Chancellor Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg, Duke of Lower Saxony continues to run the day-to-day business of the country. At his suggestion, Frederick Henry as one of his final acts declares the formation of a Saxon national militia—each household would have to keep a weapon to defend itself, and the men of suitable age therein participate in military training and made available to defend the state as needed.
1560
In poor health, Frederick Henry’s only accomplishment for the year is the marriage of his daughter Anna as the second wife of William I the Silent, Duke of Orange. William, while a Lutheran, is nonetheless a trusted lieutenant of the Habsburgs in the Netherlands.
Frederick Henry dies after an extended illness at the age of only fifty. The Saxon nation is despondent with mourning. The Lutheran Church gives him the posthumous title of Defender.
Elector Alexander the Merciful,1560-1610
Alexander is raised to the dignity of an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and invested with all the titles and lands of his father in a ceremony at Wittenberg attended by almost all the German princes. He retains Julius of Brunswick as Chancellor.
The most pressing business for the new Elector is the matter of a suitable marriage. Finally he settles on a match strongly championed by his aunt Sybille of Cleves to Marie Eleonore, the daughter of Duke William IV of Julich-Cleves-Berg. However, considering Marie Eleonore’s youth this engagement would delay Alexander’s marriage several years and the birth of an heir even longer, during which time his uncle John Frederick would be first in line to inherit the Electoral dignity. However, this same match would eventually place any heirs Alexander and Marie Eleonore would produce in line for the succession in Julich-Cleves-Berg.
While Alexander is still establishing himself as Elector, Saxony is rocked by the death of Philip Melanchthon, virtually universally recognized as the head of the Lutheran Church, and with whom the Saxon Electors have had a long, and in recent years stable, relationship. Melanchthon’s death opens to the door to a debate about the relationship of the Saxon state to the organization of the Lutheran Church, with Alexander seeing the matter as closely analogous to the Henrician Church of England, and the Lutheran theologians of Wittenberg understanding themselves as necessarily being answerable only to God. The matter goes unresolved.
Finally, once again at the suggestion of the Chancellor Julius, the Elector issues a tax reform that lightens the tax burden on farmers, which is also intended to win him good will and stabilize his reign.