The Youth of the Great Elector

The Elector was announced. Mother and son rose and went to meet him. He had suffered for years in one foot, and for a short time in the other, so that he could not walk and had...

The sixteenth of February, 1620, was an important day for Prussia, for between three and four o'clock on the afternoon of that day, a son was born to the Electoress, Frederick W...

Baron Leuchtmar received a reply to his letter to the Electoress in which she authorized him to communicate any information to the Prince about the events connected with the war...

All golden flashes the princely crown, symbol of the highest earthly power, yet terrible, often crushing, is its burden. This was the experience of George William, Elector of Br...

The Prince received his instruction in the so-called hunting-room of the castle. It was a handsome, lofty apartment, decorated with stag antlers, deer heads, and paintings. Many...

In the vicinity of Arnheim, at Rehnen, dwelt the clever and once so beautiful Elizabeth, daughter of King James the First of England, who still called herself Queen of Bohemia a...

As has already been related, the Electoress widow Anna, mother of the reigning Elector, was invited to act as godmother at the christening of the new-born Prince. She belonged t...

Chancellor Pruckmann sat at his richly carved oak desk, finishing a letter to the Elector, who was still in Prussia, as he had just been informed by Baron Leuchtmar. The Baron,...

Weeks have passed since the events just described. Knowledge has opened a new world for the Prince. Many questions have arisen in his mind. Some of them were settled, others tro...

Chancellor Pruckmann went to the castle to seek an audience. He entered in his usual deferential manner but the Electoress had not yet returned from the apartment of her mother-...

The Prince and Leuchtmar one day took a long ride to a mill in a wooded valley about two miles away. When about a a half-mile distant from it they met a horseman. He suddenly dr...

Gustavus Adolphus shortly appeared again with his army before Berlin and trained his cannon upon it, whereupon its citizens became panic-stricken. The King well knew that there...

The progress of our narrative brings us to the neighborhood of Arnheim in Holland. On a canal, a few miles from that city, we meet a boat being towed along. It resembles a barge...

While the campaigns of Banner in Bohemia and of the heroic Bernhard von Weimar upon the Rhine were in progress, George William summoned the Electoral Prince from Holland. The co...

In the year 1626 a genealogical work was published in Berlin, containing a fine copperplate engraving of the Prince Frederick William. He was then six years of age. The attracti...

Count Schwarzenberg gave a banquet in honor of the Prince, who accepted the invitation, although he had no sympathy with the Count, because his father desired him to do so. A su...

When Gustavus Adolphus took his solemn farewell of the Swedish council he confided himself to the protection of the Almighty. His last words, "I bid you all a heartfelt farewell...

"My Prince," the Preceptor began, "there was a brief time of peace in Germany. The Count von Mansfeld and Duke Christian of Brunswick were dead; your uncle, Prince of the Palati...

It was in the morning of a beautiful spring day that the Prince and Leuchtmar rode together into the forest. They were on their way to the hunting-castle of Letzlingen, which th...

On the sixteenth of February, 1629, the Prince was nine years old. At an early hour in the morning, while it was still dark outside, he was awakened by singing. In an adjoining...

Before Leuchtmar resumed his talk on the next evening the Prince asked a question. He recalled the miller's son they had met in the woods and inquired if this was the same Walle...

Terrible news spread over Germany in November, 1632. Gustavus Adolphus, the hero, but for whom Germany would have been a second Spain, was killed at the battle of Lutzen on the...

On the same day the Prince talked with his mother about the events we have described, and at last they spoke of Schwarzenberg, whom they equally disliked. "When he entered our s...

Six months have passed since that unquiet night. The people of both cities were greatly excited during that time by some momentous events. To understand them, we must narrate so...

There had been many changes in Brandenburg. They feared the Swedes now as greatly as they had once feared the Emperor's army. The cause of this will be found in the following st...