What then is to be done? "Armistice for four years," Sigismund was still kind enough to consent to that: "Truce for four years: try everywhere, my poor Nephew; after that, your mind will perhaps become pliant." Albert tried the Reich again: "Four years, 0 Princes, and then I must do it, or be eaten!" Reich, busy with Lutheran-Papal, Turk-Christian quarrels, merely shrugged its shoulders upon Albert. Teutschmeister did the like; everybody the like. In Heaven or Earth, then, is there no hope for me? thought Albert. And his stock of ready money--we will not speak of that!

Meanwhile Dr. Osiander of Anspach had come to him; and the pious young man was getting utterly shaken in his religion. Monkish vows, Pope, Holy Church itself, what is one to think, Herr Doctor? Albert, religious to an eminent degree, was getting deep into Protestantism. In his many journeyings, to Nurnberg, to Brandenburg, and up and down, he had been at Wittenberg too: he saw Luther in person more than once there; corresponded with Luther; in fine believed in the truth of Luther. The Culmbach Brothers were both, at least George ardently was, inclined to Protestantism, as we have seen; but Albert was foremost of the three in this course. Osiander and flights of zealous Culmbach Preachers made many converts in Preussen. In these circumstances the Four Years came to a close.

Albert, we may believe, is greatly at a loss; and deep deliberations, Culmbach, Berlin, Liegnitz, Poland all called in, are held:--a case beyond measure intricate. You have given your word; word must be kept,--and cannot, without plain hurt, or ruin even, to those that took it of you. Withdraw, therefore; fling it up!--Fling it up? A valuable article to fling up; fling it up is the last resource. Nay, in fact, to whom will you fling it up? The Prussian Ritters themselves are getting greatly divided on the point; and at last on all manner of points, Protestantism ever more spreading among them. As for the German Brethren, they and their comfortable Teutschmeister, who refused to partake in the dangerous adventure at all; are they entitled to have much to say in the settlement of it now?--

Among others, or as chief oracle of all, Luther was consulted. "What would you have me do towards reforming the Teutsch Order?" inquired Albert of his oracle. Luther's answer was, as may be guessed, emphatic. "Luther," says one reporter, "has in his Writings declared the Order to be 'a thing serviceable neither to God nor man,' and the constitution of it 'a monstrous, frightful, hermaphroditish, neither secular nor spiritual constitution.'" [C. J. Weber, Daa Ritterwessen (Stuttgard, 1837), iii. 208.] We do not know what Luther's answer to Albert was;--but can infer the purport of it: That such a Teutsch Ritterdom was not, at any rate, a thing long for this world; that white cloaks with black crosses on them would not, of themselves, profit any Ritterdom; that solemn vows and high supramundane professions, followed by such practice as was notorious, are an afflicting, not to say a damnable, spectacle on God's Earth;--that a young Herr had better marry; better have done with the wretched Babylonian Nightmare of Papistry altogether; better shake oneself awake, in God's name, and see if there are not still monitions in the eternal sky as to what it is wise to do, and wise not to do!-- This I imagine to have been, in modern language, the purport of Dr. Luther's advice to Hochmeister Albrecht on the present interesting occasion.

It is certain, Albert, before long, took this course; Uncle Sigismund and the resident Officials of the Ritterdom having made agreement to it as the one practicable course. The manner as follows: 1. Instead of Elected Hochmeister, let us be Hereditary Duke of Preussen, and pay homage for it to Uncle Sigismund in that character. 2. Such of the resident Officials of the Ritterdom as are prepared to go along with us, we will in like manner constitute permanent Feudal Proprietors of what they now possess as Life-rent, and they shall be Sub-vassals under us as Hereditary Duke. 3. In all which Uncle Sigismund and the Republic of Poland engage to maintain us against the world.

That is, in sum, the Transaction entered into, by King Sigismund I. of Poland, on the one part, and Hochmeister Albert and his Ritter Officials, such as went along with him, (which of course none could do that were not Protestant), on the other part: done at Cracow, 8th April, 1525. [Rentsch, p. 850.--Here, certified by Rentsch, Voigt and others, is a worn-out patch of Paper, which is perhaps worth printing:-- 1490, May 17, Albert is born. 1511, February 14, Hochmeister. 1519, December, King Sigismund's first hostile movements. 1520, October, German Mercenaries arrive. 1520, November, try Siege of Dantzig. 1520, November 17, give it up. 1521, April 10, Truce for Four Years. 1523, June, Albert consults Luther. 1524, November, sees Luther. 1525, April 8, Peace of Cracow, and Albert to be Duke of Prussia.] Whereby Teutsch Ritterdom, the Prussian part of it, vanished from the world; dissolving itself, and its "hermaphrodite constitution," like a kind of Male Nunnery, as so many female ones had done in those years. A Transaction giving rise to endless criticism, then and afterwards. Transaction plainly not reconcilable with the letter of the law; and liable to have logic chopped upon it to any amount, and to all lengths of time. The Teutschmeister and his German Brethren shrieked murder; the whole world, then, and for long afterwards, had much to say and argue.

To us, now that the logic-chaff is all laid long since, the question is substantial, not formal. If the Teutsch Ritterdom was actually at this time DEAD, actually stumbling about as a mere galvanized Lie beginning to be putrid,--then, sure enough, it behooved that somebody should bury it, to avoid pestilential effects in the neighborhood. Somebody or other;--first flaying the skin off, as was natural, and taking that for his trouble. All turns, in substance, on this latter question! If, again, the Ritterdom was not dead--?

And truly it struggled as hard as Partridge the Almanac- maker to rebut that fatal accusation; complained (Teutschmeister and German-Papist part of it) loudly at the Diets; got Albert and his consorts put to the Ban (GEACHTET), fiercely menaced by the Kaiser Karl V. But nothing came of all that; nothing but noise. Albert maintained his point; Kaiser Karl always found his hands full otherwise, and had nothing but stamped parchments and menaces to fire off at Albert. Teutsch Ritterdom, the Popish part of it, did enjoy its valuable bailliwicks, and very considerable rents in various quarters of Germany and Europe, having lost only Preussen; and walked about, for three centuries more, with money in its pocket, and a solemn white gown with black cross on its back,--the most opulent Social Club in existence, and an excellent place for bestowing younger sons of sixteen quarters. But it was, and continued through so many centuries, in every essential respect, a solemn Hypocrisy; a functionless merely eating Phantasm, of the nature of goblin, hungry ghost or ghoul (of which kind there are many);--till Napoleon finally ordered it to vanish; its time, even as Phantasm, being come.

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