Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/489

Rh ALBERT 451 Albert was married to Elizabeth, daughter of the count of Tyrol, who bore him eleven children. Four other reigning dukes of Austria bore the name of ALBERT. Of these, Albert II., surnamed the Wise, reigned from 1330 to 1358; Albert 111. from 1365 to 1390; and Albert IV., surnamed the lious, from 1390 to 1402. Albert V., surnamed &quot;The Magnanimous,&quot; born in 1397, was elected king of Germany in April 1438, and is therefore sometimes styled Albert II., the higher dignity having been previously borne only by the first of the name. Through his marriage in 1422 with Elizabeth, daughter of Sigismund, king of Bohemia and Hungary, he ultimately added the sovereignty of these dominions to his cwn, being elected king of Hungary on the death of Sigismund in 1437, and king of Bohemia in May 1438. He died at Langen- dorf on the 27th October 1439, while engaged in an ex pedition against the Turks. ALBERT I., margrave of Brandenburg, surnamed &quot; The Bear,&quot; from the heraldic emblem he assumed, born in 1106, was the son of Otto the Rich, count of Ballenstadt, by his marriage with Eilica, eldest daughter of the duke of Saxony. In 1121 he received from the Emperor Lothario the marquisate of Lusatia, to be held in fief, and he served the empire faithfully in the war with Bohemia in 1126. In the following year, from some unknown motive, the emperor conferred the duchy of Saxony, to which Albert, as son of the eldest daughter of Magnus, had the best claim, upon Henry of Bavaria, son of a younger daughter; and in 1131 Albert was deprived of Lusatia. He still remained, how ever, loyal to the empire, and received as a reward the margravate of Brandenburg in 1134. In 1136-7 he made incursions into the territory of the Wends, his troublesome neighbours on the north, and succeeded in strengthening his position. In 1 1 38 the Emperor Conrad III. conferred upon him the duchy of Saxony; but finding himself unable to maintain his rights against Henry the Lion, he betook himself in 1142 to the emperor, who restored Saxony to his rival, and allotted Swabia to him in compensation. A few years later Albert again attacked the Wends, and secured by conquest large accessions of territory, which he held as a fief of the empire. On the extinction of the house of Staden in 1150, Albert was raised to the dignity of an elector. A third expedition against the Wends, under taken in 1157, ended in their almost total extinction, and Albert caused the depopulated territory to be colonised by industrious agriculturists from the Rhine and the Nether lands, who greatly improved the face of the country. In 1158 Albert went on a crusade to the Holy Land, in com pany with his wife, returning the following year. The close of his reign was signalised by another war with Henry of Saxony (1164-8), in which Albert was unsuc cessful. Immediately on peace being concluded, he abdi cated in favour of his eldest son; and after two years spent in retirement, he died at Ballenstadt on the 18th November 1170. ALBERT, Margrave of Brandenburg and first Duke of Prussia, third son of the Margrave Friedrich of Ans- pach, was born on the 17th May 1490. Being intended for the church, he was educated by Archbishop Hermann of Cologne, and became a canon of Cologne cathedral. He seems, however, to have himself preferred a military life, as he accompanied his father in the train of the emperor on an expedition to Venice, and was present at the siege of Pavia. On the 13th Feb. 1511 he joined the Teutonic order; and a few days after, though scarcely twenty-one years old, was chosen grand master, it being expected that, as nephew of Sigismund of Poland, he would be able to seciire the privileges and immunities which the order were at the time claiming from that monarch. The refusal of Albert to swear allegiance to Sigismund led, after pro tracted negotiations, which proved fruitless, to a war with Poland in 1520. A four years truce being concluded at Thorn in 1521, Albert repaired to the diet at Nuremberg to invoke the aid of his brother German princes on behalf of his order. The diet found itself unable to render him any assistance, and at the same time he received advice from Luther which altogether changed his purpose. Em bracing the doctrines of the Reformation, he was declared Duke of Prussia, consented to hold the duchy as a fief from Poland, and took the oath of allegiance at Cracow on the 9th April 1525. At the same time he resigned the grand mastership of the order. In 1527 he married Anne Dorothea, daughter of the king of Denmark. His subse quent reign was marked by zealous efforts, amid many difficulties, to promote the welfare of his duchy. He inter ested himself especially in the advancement of learning, inviting men of letters to his court, and promoting the publication of their writings. In 1544 he founded the university of Konigsberg, in spite of great opposition, chiefly from the pope. Keen theological disputes between the professors of this university were among the many troubles of his later years. He died of the plague on the 20th of March 1568. His second wife, the Princess Anna Maria of Brunswick, who had been attacked by the same disease, survived him only a single day. ALBERT, Cardinal Archbishop of Magdeburg and Elector of Mentz, born 1489, was the youngest son of John, Elector of Brandenburg. In 1513 he was consecrated archbishop of Magdeburg, and about the same time he was chosen administrator of the diocese of Halberstadt. Next year he was raised to the still higher dignity of archbishop and elector of Mentz, and he continued to hold all three offices simultaneously. For the pallium in connection with the latter appointment the pope demanded the exorbitant sum of 30,000 ducats, but enabled the archbishop to recoup himself by granting him the privilege of selling indulgences throughout his diocese. It was his employment of the Dominican Tetzel in this service which, by calling forth Luther s famous ninety-five theses, had so important an influence on the course of the Reformation. In 1518 he was created a cardinal as a reward for his services to the Romish church. His opposition to the doctrines of Luther did not prevent many within his own diocese from accept ing the Reformation; and he found it necessary to grant religious liberty to his subjects in 1541, availing himself of the opportunity to extort from them in return for the boon the payment of his debts, which amounted to 500,000 florins. Albert was a patron of learning, and counted Erasmus among his friends. He died at Mentz on the 24th September 1545. ALBERT (PRINCE), FRANCIS CHARLES AUGUSTUS ALBERT EMMANUEL, Prince Consort of England, born at Rosenau on the 26th Aug. 1819, was the second son of the hereditary Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, by his first wife the Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. He thus be longed to the Ernestine or elder branch of the royal family of Saxony, which, on account of its adherence to the doctrines of the Reformation, had to surrender the king dom to the Albertine or younger branch, which is still in possession of it. The marriage of his parents proving an unhappy one, they separated in 1824, and the young prince never again saw his mother, who died in 1831. He was educated, along with his elder brother Ernest, under the care of Consistorial-Rath Florschiitz, who, in a memoran dum drawn up after the prince s death, speaks in the highest terms of his pupil s benevolent disposition and studious habits. At the proper age the brothers proceeded to the university of Bonn, where Herr Florschiitz still continued to exercise a general superintendence of their studies. Prince Albert devoted himself especially to the