le our poor Edward II. and England with him
were in such a welter with their Spencers and their Gavestons: eight
years after Bannockburn, and four-and-twenty before Crecy. That will
date it for English readers.

Kaiser Ludwig reigned some twenty-five years more, in a busy and even
strenuous, but not a successful way. He had good windfalls, too; for
example, Brandenburg, as we shall see. He made friends; reconciled
himself to his Brother Kur-Pfalz and junior Cousinry there, settling
handsomely, and with finality, the debatable points between them.
Enemies, too, he made; especially Johann the Luxemburger, King of
Bohemia, on what ground will be seen shortly, who became at last
inveterate to a high degree. But there was one supremely sore element
in his lot: a Pope at Avignon to whom he could by no method make himself
agreeable. Pope who put him under ban, not long after that Muhldorf
victory; and kept him so; inexorable, let poor Ludwig turn as he might.
Ludwig's German Princes stood true to him; declared, in solemn Diet,
the Pope's ban to be mere spent shot, of no avail in Imperial Politics.
Ludwig went, vigorously to Italy; tried setting up a Pope of his own;
but that did not answer; nor of course tend to mollify the Holiness at
Avignon.

In fine, Ludwig had to carry this cross on his back, in a sorrowful
manner, all his days. The Pope at last, finding Johann of Bohemia in
a duly irritated state, persuaded him into setting up an
Anti-Kaiser,--Johann's second Son as Anti-Kaiser,--who, though of little
account, and called PFAFFEN-KAISER (Parsons' Kaiser) by the public,
might have brought new troubles, had that lasted. We shall see some
ultimate glimpses of it farther on.

Chapter X. -- BRANDENBURG LAPSES TO THE KAISER.

Two years before the victory at Muhldorf, a bad chance befell in
Brandenburg: the ASCANIER Line of Markgraves or Electors ended.
Magniloquent Otto with the Arrow, Otto the Short, Hermann the Tall,
all the Ottos, Hermanns and others, died by course of nature; nephew
Waldemar himself, a stirring man, died prematurely (A.D. 1319), and
left only a young cousin for successor, who died few months after:
[September, 1320 (Pauli, i. 391). Michaelis, i. 260-277.] the Line of
Albert the Bear went out in Brandenburg. They had lasted there about
two hundred years. They had not been, in late times, the successfulest
Markgraves: territories much split up among younger sons, joint
Markgraves reigning, which se