Page:Edinburgh Review Volume 158.djvu/327

312 Prowe's Life of Copernicus. Oct. Knights, the Prussian bishops were, from the first, placed on the footing of temporal princes. Ermland was the largest of four Prussian dioceses erected on these terms in 1243, and Ihe only one which succeeded in preserving its independence. The Bishops of Ermland thus continued to rule a little State about the size of Lancashire as sovereign princes, though with a sovereignty limited in practice by the near neighbourhood and admitted suzerainty of the Order. Its mode of government remained unaffected by the Treaty of Thorn, save only that the paramount rights previously vested in the Grand Masters were transferred to the kings of Poland.

The political problem which presented itself for solution to Lucas Watzelrode was one which might have tasked the astuteness of a Mazarin or a Philip II. It was required of him to conciliate and hold in check three near neighbours, all mutually hostile, two of them powerful and ambitious, and the third restless and discontented. Of these the most imminently menacing was the Teutonic Order. From that once splendid and energetic body the old spirit had long ago departed. Its very existence was a standing sacrilege. Immorality and irreligion had deeply tainted the life-blood which once flowed bright with the vital spirit of ardent, austere, and chivalric devotion. Its removal or reform had become an urgent necessity ; but to speech neither of removal nor of reform would the Order itself listen. Its designs were of a widely different kind, and it seemed as if power would not be wanting for their execution. The interests and the honour of Germany were deeply involved in the maintenance of an institution which, even in its decay, was still an outwork of the German Empire, and offered a dignified provision to the lack-land scions of noble German houses. In reliance, accordingly, upon German promises of support, successive Grand Masters persistently refused the stipulated oath of fealty to Poland, and nothing less was dreamed of than the recovery of the province alienated by the disastrous Treaty of Thorn. A sullen and lowering peace was meantime a visible prelude to war, of which the first and surest victim must be the defenceless territory of Ermland.

Under these circumstances the bishop leaned upon Poland for protection against the still formidable power on the east. But by so doing he bitterly offended his neighbours on the west. Hatred of the Teutonic Order was, in all the three estates of West Prussia, being rapidly superseded by hatred of Poland. It was not that they detested their former masters lees, but that they detested their new rulers more. They did