of the Duke and the partition of his
possessions.

The principal officers of the Swabian League were the Duke of Bavaria,
whose object was to procure satisfaction for the ill treatment of his
sister Sabina, Ulerich's wife--the knights of the Huttens to revenge
the supposed murder of the cousin of their ancestor--Dieterich von Spaet
and his companions to wash out the disgrace of family insult in
Wuertemberg's misfortunes--and to these were added the authorities of
the towns and boroughs, who desired to recover Reutlingen again from
the occupation of Duke Ulerich's troops. They headed the pompous entry
into Ulm we have described in the foregoing pages, and arrived on the
same day from Augsburg, where they had assembled. War was therefore now
inevitable, for it was not to be supposed that they would propose terms
of peace to the Duke, after having proceeded thus far.

But of a much more peaceable and cheerful cast were the ideas of Albert
von Sturmfeder, that "courteous, polite cavalier," who had so highly
awaken Marie's curiosity, and whose unexpected appearance had coloured
the cheeks of Bertha with so deep a red. He scarcely knew himself how
he came to take part in this campaign; for though he was acquainted
with the use of arms, yet he had not been trained to them. Sprung from
a poor but not obscure family of Franconia, he became an orphan at an
early age, and was brought up by his father's brother. A learned
education began even in those days to be considered an ornament to the
nobility, and his uncle, therefore, chose the path of literature for
him. It is not mentioned whether he made much progress in learning in
the university of Tuebingen, then in its infancy; thus much, however, is
known, that he took a warmer interest in the daughter of the knight of
Lichtenstein, who lived with her aunt in that town of the Muses, than
in the lectures of the most celebrated doctors. It is also related that
she resisted with pertinacious determination the different attacks
with which many a young student assailed her heart. But although all
kinds of man[oe]uvres to conquer a hard heart were well understood in
those days, (for the youth of ancient Tuebingen had, perhaps, studied
their Ovid better than those of the present), neither nocturnal
love-complaints, nor yet furious encounters between rivals to gain
possession of her, could soften the maiden's apparent obduracy. One
only succeeded in winning this heart, and that one was A