the case of her
three elder sisters, had obtained that renunciation from her.

The claims of the childless Sibylla as well as those of the Deux-Ponts
branch were not destined to be taken into serious consideration.

The real competitors were the Emperor on the one side and the Elector of
Brandenburg and the Count-Palatine of Neuburg on the other.

It is not necessary to my purpose to say a single word as to the legal
and historical rights of the controversy. Volumes upon volumes of
forgotten lore might be consulted, and they would afford exactly as much
refreshing nutriment as would the heaps of erudition hardly ten years
old, and yet as antiquated as the title-deeds of the Pharaohs, concerning
the claims to the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. The fortunate house of
Brandenburg may have been right or wrong in both disputes. It is certain
that it did not lack a more potent factor in settling the political
problems of the world in the one case any more than in the other.

But on the occasion with which we are occupied it was not on the might of
his own right hand that the Elector of Brandenburg relied. Moreover, he
was dilatory in appealing to the two great powers on whose friendship he
must depend for the establishment of his claims: the United Republic and
the King of France. James of England was on the whole inclined to believe
in the rights of Brandenburg. His ambassador, however, with more
prophetic vision than perhaps the King ever dreamt--of, expressed a fear
lest Brandenburg should grow too great and one day come to the Imperial
crown.

The States openly favoured the Elector. Henry as at first disposed
towards Neuburg, but at his request Barneveld furnished a paper on the
subject, by which the King seems to have been entirely converted to the
pretensions of Brandenburg.

But the solution of the question had but little to do with the legal
claim of any man. It was instinctively felt throughout Christendom that
the great duel between the ancient church and the spirit of the
Reformation was now to be renewed upon that narrow, debateable spot.

The Emperor at once proclaimed his right to arbitrate on the succession
and to hold the territory until decision should be made; that is to say,
till the Greek Kalends. His familiar and most tricksy spirit,
Bishop-Archduke Leopold, played at once on his fears and his resentments,
against the ever encroaching, ever menacing, Protestantism of Germany,
with which he had jus