and took up his chief residence there. [1442-1431 (Nicolari, i. 81).]

But his principal achievement in Brandenburg History is his recovery of
the Province called the Neumark to that Electorate. In the thriftless
Sigismund times, the Neumark had been pledged, had been sold; Teutsch
Ritterdom, to whose dominions it lay contiguous, had purchased it with
money down. The Teutsch Ritters were fallen moneyless enough since
then; they offered to pledge the Neumark to Friedrich, who accepted, and
advanced the sum: after a while the Teutsch Ritters, for a small
farther sum, agreed to sell Neumark. [Michaelis, i. 301.] Into which
Transaction, with its dates and circumstances, let us cast one
glance, for our behoof afterwards. The Teutsch Ritters were an opulent
domineering Body in Sigismund's early time; but they are now come well
down in Friedrich II.'s! And are coming ever lower. Sinking steadily,
or with desperate attempts to rise, which only increase the speed
downwards, ever since that fatal Tannenberg Business, 15th July, 1410.
Here is the sad progress of their descent to the bottom; divided into
three stages or periods:--

"PERIOD FIRST is of Thirty years: 1410-1440. A peace with Poland soon
followed that Defeat of Tannenberg; humiliating peace, with mulct in
money, and slightly in territory, attached to it. Which again was soon
followed by war, and ever again; each new peace more humiliating than
its foregoer. Teutsch Order is steadily sinking,--into debt, among other
things; driven to severe finance-measures (ultimately even to 'debase
its coin'), which produce irritation enough. Poland is gradually edging
itself into the territories and the interior troubles of Preussen;
prefatory to greater operations that lie ahead there.

"SECOND PERIOD, of Fourteen years. So it had gone on, from bad to worse,
till 1440; when the general population, through its Heads, the Landed
Gentry and the Towns, wearied out with fiscal and other oppressions from
its domineering Ritterdom brought now to such a pinch, began everywhere
to stir themselves into vocal complaint. Complaint emphatic enough:
'Where will you find a man that has not suffered injury in his rights,
perhaps in his person? Our friends they have invited as guests, and
under show of hospitality have murdered them. Men, for the sake of their
beautiful wives, have been thrown into the river like dogs,'--and enough
of the like sort. [Voigt, vii. 747; quoting evidently, not an ex