History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 3 | Page 3

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Prepared by D.R. Thompson

Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia"

BOOK III.
THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. 1412-1718

CHAPTER I.
KURFURST FRIEDRICH I.
Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a
cool reception as Statthalter. [ "Johannistage" (24
June) "1412," he first set foot in Brandenburg, with due escort, in due
state; only Statthalter (Viceregent) as yet: Pauli, i. 594, ii. 58; Stenzel,
Geschichte des Preussischen Staats (Hamburg,
1830, 1851), i. 167-169.] He came as the representative of law and rule;
and there had been many helping themselves by a ruleless life, of late.
Industry was at a low ebb, violence was rife; plunder, disorder
everywhere; too much the habit for baronial gentlemen to "live by the
saddle," as they termed it, that is by highway robbery in modern phrase.
The Towns, harried and plundered to skin and bone, were glad to see a
Statthalter, and did homage to him with all their heart. But the
Baronage or Squirearchy of the country were of another mind. These,
in the late anarchies, had set up for a kind of kings in their own right:
they had their feuds; made war, made peace, levied tolls, transit-dues;
lived much at their own discretion in these solitary countries;--rushing
out from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any
herd of "six hundred swine," any convoy of Lubeck or Hamburg
merchant-goods, that had not contented them in passing. What were
pedlers and mechanic fellows made for, if not to be plundered when
needful? Arbitrary rule, on the part of these Noble Robber-Lords! And
then much of the Crown-Domains had gone to the chief of

them,--pawned (and the pawn-ticket lost, so to speak), or sold for what
trifle of ready money was to be had, in Jobst and Company's time. To
these gentlemen, a Statthalter coming to inquire into matters was no
welcome phenomenon. Your EDLE HERR (Noble Lord) of Putlitz,
Noble Lords of Quitzow, Rochow, Maltitz and others, supreme in their
grassy solitudes this long while, and accustomed to nothing greater
than themselves in Brandenburg, how should they obey a Statthalter?
Such was more or less the universal humor in the Squirearchy of
Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf Friedrich. But the chief
seat of contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes, above
spoken of; big Squires in the district they call the Priegnitz, in the
Country of the sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a fifty or
forty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were
"incorporated with Bohmen;" said this and that;--much disinclined to
homage; and would not do it. Stiff surly fellows, much deficient in
discernment of what is above them and what is not:--a thick-skinned set;
bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in