age,
therefore; between a man and woman of discordant views upon this topic
was not startling, although in general not considered desirable.

There were, however, especial reasons why this alliance should be
distasteful, both to Philip of Spain upon one side, and to the Landgrave
Philip of Hesse on the other. The bride was the daughter of the elector
Maurice. In that one name were concentrated nearly all the disasters,
disgrace, and disappointment of the Emperor's reign. It was Maurice who
had hunted the Emperor through the Tyrolean mountains; it was Maurice who
had compelled the peace of Passau; it was Maurice who had overthrown the
Catholic Church in Germany, it was Maurice who had frustrated Philip's
election as king of the Romans. If William of Orange must seek a wife
among the pagans, could no other bride be found for him than the daughter
of such a man?

Anna's grandfather, on the other hand, Landgrave Philip, was the
celebrated victim to the force and fraud of Charles the Fifth. He saw in
the proposed bridegroom, a youth who had been from childhood, the petted
page and confidant of the hated Emperor, to whom he owed his long
imprisonment. He saw in him too, the intimate friend and ally--for the
brooding quarrels of the state council were not yet patent to the
world--of the still more deeply detested Granvelle; the crafty priest
whose substitution of "einig" for "ewig" had inveigled him into that
terrible captivity. These considerations alone would have made him
unfriendly to the Prince, even had he not been a Catholic.

The Elector Augustus, however, uncle and guardian to the bride, was not
only well-disposed but eager for the marriage, and determined to overcome
all obstacles, including the opposition of the Landgrave, without whose
consent he was long pledged not to bestow the hand of Anna. For this
there were more than one reason. Augustus, who, in the words of one of
the most acute historical critics of our day, was "a Byzantine Emperor of
the lowest class, re-appearing in electoral hat and mantle," was not firm
in his rights to the dignity he held. He had inherited from his brother,
but his brother had dispossessed John Frederic. Maurice, when turning
against the Emperor, who had placed him in his cousin's seat, had not
thought it expedient to restore to the rightful owner the rank which he
himself owed to the violence of Charles. Those claims might be
revindicated, and Augustus be degraded in his turn, by