Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/477

206 Austria. For the losses they had subsequently sustained on the left bank of the Rhine, they were amply compensated at the Diet of 1803. But the peace of Pressburg deprived them of all their possessions in favour of the German Princes, by which the Grand Priorate of the Order ceased to exist in Germany, and it was Austria alone that suffered its existence in Bohemia, with a few Commanderies in Austria, Moravia and Silesia.

The Grand Bailiwick or Commandry of Brandenburg had already, in 1319, separated from the Order, and elected a Grand Master of its own, but submitted, in 1382, to the principle of having the election of Grand Master each time sanctioned and confirmed by the Grand Prior of Germany. In this state it remained until the Reformation: that great movement joined by the greatest portion of the Knights of St. John, while the Elector of Brandenburg declared himself as the " Summus Patronus et Protector Ordinis." The Knights, however, though they had, in the peace of Westphalia, effected their release from the Order of Malta, by a ransom of 2,500 gold florins, did not entirely separate from that fraternity, but re-united themselves, on the contrary, under their Bailiff, Prince Ferdinand, brother of Frederick 1I., once more with Malta, and even paid, of their own good-will, the responsions to the Order, without being prevented from the act by Frederick who had himself proposed, in 1775, a plan for an union with the Order of Malta, provided the latter would accept the principle of tolerance then adopted by all the German Knights, and content itself with the general form of an oath which bound the Knights t6 union and mutual defence. His plan was, however, rejected.

The chief place of the Commander of Brandenburg was Sonnenburg. The Commander having sworn allegiance to the Elector (afterwards King), enjoyed the rank of first Prelate of