general with himself and with the world, Albert
again drew sword; went loose at a high rate upon his Bamberg-Wurzburg
enemies, and, having raised supplies there, upon Moritz and those
Passau-Treatiers. He was beaten at last by Moritz, "Sunday, 9th July,
1553," at a place called Sievershausen in the Hanover Country, where
Moritz himself perished in the action.--Albert fled thereupon to France.
No hope in France. No luck in other small and desperate stakings of his:
the game is done. Albert returns to a Sister he had, to her Husband's
Court in Baden; a broken, bare and bankrupt man;--soon dies there,
childless, leaving the shadow of a name. [Here, chiefly from Kohler
_(Munzbelustigungen,_ iii. 414-416), is the chronology of Albert's
operations:--Seizure of Nurnberg &c., 11th May to 22d June, 1552;
Innspruck (with Treaty of Passau) follows. Then Siege of Metz, October
to December, 1552; Bamberg, Wurzburg and Nurnberg ransomed again, April,
1553; Battle of Sievershausen, 9th July, 1553. Wurzburg &c. explode
against him; Ban of the Empire, 4th May, 1554. To France thereupon;
returns, hoping to negotiate, end of 1556; dies at Pforzheim, at his
Sister's, 8th January, 1557.--See Pauli, iii. 120-138. See also Dr.
Kapp, _Erinnerungen an diejenigen Markgrafen &c._ (a reprint from
the _Archiv fur Geschichte und Alterthumskunde in Ober-Franken,_ Year
1841).]

His death brought huge troubles upon Baireuth and the Family
Possessions. So many neighbors, Bamberg, Wurzburg and the rest, were
eager for retaliation; a new Kaiser greedy for confiscating. Plassenburg
Castle was besieged, bombarded, taken by famine and burnt; much was
burnt and torn to waste. Nay, had it not been for help from Berlin, the
Family had gone to utter ruin in those parts. For this Alcibiades had,
in his turn, been Guardian to Uncle George's Son, the George Friedrich
we once spoke of, still a minor, but well known afterwards; and it was
attempted, by an eager Kaiser Ferdinand, to involve this poor youth in
his Cousin's illegalities, as if Ward and Guardian had been one person.
Baireuth which had been Alcibiades's, Anspach which was the young man's
own, nay Jagerndorf with its Appendages, were at one time all in the
clutches of the hawk,--had not help from Berlin been there. But in the
end, the Law had to be allowed its course; George Friedrich got his own
Territories back (all but some surreptitious nibblings in the Jagerndorf
quarter, to be noticed elsewhere), and