Brunswick. His eldest son, John, was the founder of the House of Lunenburgh.

He was

Albert, called the Great, the son of Otho the Young, succeeded his father in 1252. twice married, first to Eliza of Brabant, and afterwards to Adelaide of Montfort. This prince conquered Wolfenbuttel, and having taken Gerard, Archbishop of Mentz, and Conrad, Count of Eberstein, prisoners, barbarously commanded the latter to be hung up by the feet. He is nevertheless said to have been a valiant prince; and died of a wound received in a battle which he fought against the Marquis of Misnia.

He was succeeded by his three sons, who divided his dominions. Henry founded the house of Grubenhagen; William, that of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel; and Albert the eldest, surnamed the Fat, who was the next duke of Brunswick-Lunenburgh. This prince married Richsa of Mecklenburgh, by whom he had five sons, Magnus the Elder, Otho the Liberal, the friend of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, Albert Bishop of Halberstadt, Henry Bishop of Hildesheim, and Ernest surnamed the Rich, founder of the House of Gottingen. Otho governed, jointly with his brothers Magnus and Ernest, who, when he died in 1334, divided their dominions. Magnus the Elder acquired Landberg, Sangerhausen, and Petersberg, by his marriage with Sophia of Brandenburg. Albert, though a bishop, was a celebrated warrior, and became involved in great difficulties through a league formed against him by the other princes of the empire. To Magnus the Elder succeeded Magnus, called Torquatus, from his wearing a silver chain round his neck. He disputed the succession of Lunenburgh with Albert duke of Saxony; and being put to the ban of the empire, proved victorious, but was afterwards slain in a single combat, by Otho, Count of Schauenburgh.

By his wife Catharine of Brandenburgh, he left four sons; Frederick, afterwards emperor, who was murdered in 1400; Otho, Archbishop of Bremen; Henry, first duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttle; and Bernard his successor, who acquired the county of Homberg: he married Margaret of Saxony, united the city of Ultzer to Lunenburgh, and engaged in many ruinous wars with the Moravian Margraves.

After his death, in 1434, Frederick the Just succeeded conjointly with Otho the Lame; he yielded the government to Bernard, his eldest son: but the young prince dying in 1464, he was succeeded by his brother Otho the Magnanimous, who married Anne of Nassau, and died in 1471, leaving two sons, Henry Junior, and William, who died a minor. This prince was universally beloved for his bravery, and inflexible justice in punishing bands of robbers, from which he cleared his country.

Upon Otho's death, his father Frederick the Religious was compelled to resume the government, and was a blessing to his country, till he died, in 1478, when his grandson, Henry Junior, became the ward of his mother; who, although she had, after the death of Otho the Magnanimous, married Philip, Count of Cortzen Elnbogen, returned to Zell upon the death of her father-in-law, and became regent for the young prince, Henry Junior; who, when he came of age, engaged in several wars, particularly in conjunction with John, bishop of Hildesheim, against his two cousins, Henry Senior, and Eric I. Duke of Calenberg, over whom they obtained a complete victory, near the town of Peine, in the year 1519; in which Eric and the Bishop of Minden, together with William the brother of Henry of Brunswick, were taken prisoners. The Emperor Charles V. interposed, and commanded that all hostilities should cease, and

that the noble prisoners should be set at liberty; but the conquerors absolutely refused to comply with the Emperor's mandate. This refusal provoked Charles to proscribe them: in consequence of which, Henry Junior divided his possessions among his children; and, by voluntarily resigning the government, preserved the duchy from the rapacious designs of his opponents, who were not authorized, by the laws of the Empire, to carry the severe sentence upon the father, into execution against the sons, who had not incurred the displeasure of the Emperor.

He died at Paris in 1532, leaving three daughters and five sons; the fourth of which, Ernest the Pious, of Zell, ultimately succeeded to the dukedom: he declared himself in favour of the Reformation, and recommended the Lutheran doctrine to his people, without the least attempt to compel them to assent, for, being himself convinced by reason, he thought it his duty to publish those arguments which determined his opinion, that every one of his subjects might have the same opportunity of examining the weak foundation upon which the pretensions of the Romish church. were built. His candour and moderation had the desired effect, and men began to examine into the rise and progress of the Romish ecclesiastical monarchy; a liberty from which they had before been precluded. Reason soon prevailed, and Ernest, with great satisfaction, saw the greatest part of his subjects profess themselves Lutherans. In consequence of this, the Pope procured a motion to be made, in the diet held at Spires, in 1529, to put the ban of the empire, which had been declared against Luther, into execution, and also to include in it all who had adopted his religious principles. His Holiness, however, however, completely failed: for Ernest, with many other members of the Empire, protested against this extension of the ban,

and opposed it with such vigour and intrepidity, that the Emperor was afraid, though perfectly willing, to gratify the vindictive Pontiff and his bigoted adherents. At the famous diet held at Augsburg, in 1530, Ernest and the other princes of the Empire, who were then first called Protestants, from their famous protest against the extension of the ban, appeared, and delivered in an account of their faith; which so completely exposed the corruption of the Romish See, and the dreadful perversion of the doctrines of the Gospel, by its adherents, that it became impossible for the opposing parties to join in the intended accommodation. After the diet was closed, finding the Romish party intended to have recourse to force, the Protestants found it necessary to unite their forces, and entered into the alliance, or League of Smalcald, which was of so extensive a nature, that they became firmly united, as one people, against their insidious enemies; this confederacy was to last for five years, and when that time had elapsed, it was prudently renewed for ten more. Ernest was the soul of this union, and stands first among the foremost of those illustrious Reformers, to whose instrumentality the Protestant states of Europe owe their happy emancipation from the bondage and tyranny of papal Rome. This pious and magnanimous prince died Jan. 11, 1546; leaving, by his wife Sophia of Mecklenburg, four sons and six daughters.

He was succeeded by his eldest son Francis; upon whose decease, in 1560, Henry II. having been slain in battle seven years before, the two survivors, Henry and William, reigned jointly for ten years, with remarkable unanimity; at the end of that time, the former resigned his share of the sovereignty to his brother William, who reigned alone over Lunenburgh, for twenty-three years after the resignation of Henry. The zeal of this prince for

the cause of the Reformation, in which his undaunted father had acquired so much real glory, induced him to compose and publish a creed, which he entitled Corpus Doctrinæ Lunenburgicum, to which it was necessary for every candidate for holy orders, in his dominions, to subscribe. He made considerable additions to his patrimonial possessions, and acquired the character of a pious, just, and pacific prince. By Dorothy, daughter of Christian III. of Denmark, he had seven sons and eight daughters. Margaret, the sixth of which, married John Cassimir, Duke of Saxe-Cobourg. His seven sons nobly resolved not to degrade the dignity of their ancient family, by partitioning their inheritance, as was the common custom in Germany, and agreed that the eldest should first take possession of the duchy, and enjoy it during life, and that at his death it should descend to the next eldest surviving brother. They also determined, that, to preserve harmony among themselves, and to prevent competition among their respective heirs, only one should marry. For this last advantage, they cast lots, and the lot fell upon the sixth son, George. These painful restrictions were adhered to by each of the amiable brothers, with a firmness and punctuality which excited the applause and commanded the admiration of all Europe.

Ernest, the eldest, enjoyed the dukedom twentynine years, and died in 1611. Christian, the second son, succeeded to Lunenburgh upon the death of Ernest, and annexed to his other possessions the duchy of Grubenhagen, which was adjudged to belong to him by the Emperor. This brave prince, though an experienced commander, was often defeated, through the insubordination of his own officers; and, in a battle near Floriac, when he was marching to the relief of Bergen-op-Zoom, then besieged by the Marquis Spinola, he lost his left arm, and afterwards wore a silver one in its