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Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980

THE LAND OF TECK

AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS

ILLUSTRATED. Demy 8vo

CORNISH CHARACTERS

ILLUSTRATED. Demy 8vo

ETC. ETC.

HER MAJESTY QUEEN MARY

(Princess Victoria Mary of Teck).

From a painting by Angdi, reproduced by the permission ofH.S.H. The Duke of Teck.

<<*

THE

LAND OF TECK

AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
BY S. BARING-GOULD, M. A.

WITH 5 PLATES IN COLOUR AND
48 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS TO-
GETHER WITH A MAP ffl £8 <&

Uns 1st in alten Maren Wunders viel gesait
Von Helden, werth der Ehren, von grosser Kiihnheit ;
Von Freuden und Hochgezeiten, von Weinen und von Klagen,
Von Kuhner Recken Streiten mogt Ihr nun Wudder horen sagen.

Der Nibelungen Noth,

?' *. **r

$}••*

LONDON : JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXI

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

PREFACE

THE Swabian Alb, the cradle of many
great families that have made an im-
perishable name in history, is very little
visited by English tourists ; yet it is
full of interest. It does not present scenery of
stupendous majesty, but, for all that, scenery that
is delightful. It is not always the large that is
most beautiful. Hermia the " puppet " is as
lovable as Helena the " maypole." For richness
of vegetation the valleys of the north-west of the
Alb are unsurpassed. The red-tiled, timber-and-
plaster villages are always picturesque, the monu-
ments of architecture and sculpture are admir-
able, the geology especially interesting, and the
botany varied. I have confined myself to a very
small part of the Alb, the ancient Duchy of Teck
and its immediate surroundings, as being the
portion from which the family derives its title,
and especially dear to English hearts for having
given us our present Queen. But the land of

Preface

Hohenzollern, the cradle of the German Imperial
family, has been included.

A chapter has also been added on the history
of the royal and ducal family of Wiirtemberg
and Teck from the beginning to the present time,
so as, in a brief space, to give the ancestry of

Her Majesty the Queen.

S. B.-G.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE SWABIAN ALB . . . . . i

II. KlRCHHEIM UNDER TECK l6

III. TECK ... 4I

IV. THE LENNINGER THAL 64

V. THE NEIDLINGER THAL 79

VI. HOHENSTAUFEN 94

VII. GMUND . .133

VIII. THE FILS THAL i53

IX. URACH . jgo

X. REUTLINGEN 205

XL HOHENZOLLERN 229

XII. ON THE PEDIGREE OF HER GRACIOUS MAJESTY

THE QUEEN 260

INDEX . 323

ILLUSTRATIONS

HER MAJESTY QUEEN MARY (PRINCESS VICTORIA MARY OF

TECK). (In Colour) . . . Frontispiece

From a painting by Angeli. Reproduced by permission of H.S.H. the

Duke of Teck. FACING PAGE

KlRCHHEIM UNTER TECK . . . . l6

Reproduced from a painting by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

TOMB OF THE DUKES OF TECK, OWEN . . . . 20

KlRCHHEIM . . . . . , . 22

CHURCH, KIRCHHEIM . . . ... 24

CARL EUGENE HERZOG VON WURTEMBERG UNO TECK. b. 1728.

d. 1793 • • .... 32

From a painting in the possession of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

PRINCESS HENRIETTA OF NASSAU- WEILBURG, WHO MARRIED

DUKE LUDWIG OF WURTEMBERG, 1797. b. 1770. d. 1857 . 38

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

ALEXANDER DUKE OF WURTEMBERG AS A BOY. b. 1800. d. 1885 40
TECK . . . . . ... 42

Reproduced from a painting by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

EBERHARD II, DUKE OF WURTEMBERG, 1496-1498, DEPOSED.

d. 1504 . . 44

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

OWEN UNDER TECK . . . ... 64

OBER LENNINGEN . . . ... 70

ABOVE GUTENBERG . . 74

REUSSENSTEIN . . . ... 88

HOHENSTAUFEN . . . ... 94

RECHBERG . . . . ... 128

TURM-GASSE, GMUND . . . ... 134

HOLY CROSS CHURCH, GMUND . . ... 142

S. SALVATOR, GMUND • .... 148

GEISLINGF.V . . . ... 154

Illustrations

FACING PAGE

CHURCH, GEISLINGEN . . . ... 164

IN THE EYBACH THAL, NEAR GEISLINGEN . . . 166

WlESENTEIG . . . . ... i;6

OLD URACH . . . . ... 178

HOHEN NEUFFEN . . . . . 180

DUKE ULRICH, 1498-1550 . . . . . 182

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

DUKE EBERHARD wi' THE BEARD . . . 194

Statue at Stuttgart.

THE GREAT FIRE AT REUTLINGEN, 1726 . . 208

From a contemporary print.

REUTLINGEN . . . . ... 210

HOHENZOLLERN . . . . ... 230

A PIECE OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN STAINED GLASS . 234
The arms quartered are : — I, Wiirtemberg ; 2, Teck ; 3, The

Imperial Banner ; 4, Montbeliard.
Reproduced by permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

H.S.H. THE IST DUKE OF TECK. (In Colour) . . . 260

From a crayon drawing by Swinton. Reproduced by permission ot
Her Majesty Queen Mary.

Two PIECES OF OLD POTTERY CONTAINING THE ARMS OF TECK. 262
The arms quartered are : — (i) Teck ; (2) The Imperial Banner ;
(3) Montbeliard ; (4) Heidenheim, on scutcheon of pre-
tence those of Wiirtemberg.
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

DUKE JOHN FREDERICK, b. 1582. d. 1628 . ... 272

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

DUKE EBERHARD III, 1628-1674 . . ... 276

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

PRINCESS ELIZABETH WILHELMINA LOUISE OF WURTEMBERG,

M. FRANCIS, GRAND-DUKE OF AUSTRIA, 1788. d. 1790 . 280

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

MAGDALENA SIBYLLA, WIFE OF DUKE WILLIAM LUDWIG.

m. 1673. d. 1712 . . . ... 282

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

KARL HERTZOG VON WURTEMBERG . ... 282

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

THE QUEEN OF WURTEMBERG (PRINCESS PAULINE OF WURTEM-
BERG). (In Colour) . .... 284
Reproduced from a painting by permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

DUKE WILLIAM LUDWIG (1674-1677) . ... 286

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

Illustrations

FACING PAGE

DUKE EBERHARD LUDWIG (1697-1733) . . . 288

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

MARIE FEODOROWNA, WIFE OF CZAR PAUL I (Princess Dorothea,
daughter of Frederick Eugene Duke of Wiirtemberg and Mont-
beliard). b. 1759. d. 1828 . . . 290

From a painting by Roslen le Svedois in the possession of H.S.H. the
Duke of Teck.

CHARLOTTE MATILDA, PRINCESS ROYAL, QUEEN OF WURTEM-
BERG. Daughter of George III of Great Britain and Ireland.
b. 1766. d. 1828 . . . ... 292

From a painting by Sir William Beechey. Reproduced by the permission
of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

LUDWIG DUKE OF WURTEMBERG. b. 1756. d. 1817' . . 294

From a miniature. Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke
of Teck.

DUKE ALEXANDER OF WURTEMBERG, FATHER OF FRANCIS, DUKE

OF TECK, 1805-1885 . . . ... 294

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

COUNTESS CLAUDINE RHEDEY, AFTERWARDS COUNTESS HOHEN-

STEIN. (In Colour) . . . ... 296

After a painting by Daffinger. Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H.
the Duke of Teck.

DUKE ALEXANDER OF WURTEMBERG. b. 1804. d. 1885 . . 296

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

H.S.H. FRANCIS, DUKE OF TECK. b. 1837. d. 1900 . . 298

From a painting by Henry Weigall, jun. Reproduced by the permission of
H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

H.S.H. PRINCESS CLAUDINE OF TECK, DAUGHTER OF PRINCE

ALEXANDER, b. 1836 . . ... 298

From a painting by Sidney Hodges. Reproduced by permission of H.S.H.
the Duke of Teck.

H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF TECK (PRINCESS MARY ADELAIDE).

(In Colour) . . . . ... 300

From a painting by Winterhalter. Reproduced by permission of H.S.H.
the Duke of Teck.

H.R.H. PRINCESS MARY ADELAIDE, DUCHESS OF TECK . . 302

From a painting by Henry Weigall, jun. Reproduced by the permission of
H.S.H. the Duke of Teck.

H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF TECK AND PRINCE ALEXANDER . . 304

H.S.H. THE DUKE OF TECK . . . . . 306

From a painting by Lazlo. Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the
Duke of Teck.

MAP OF THE SWABIAN ALB . . . at end of volume

THE LAND OF TECK

AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

THE LAND OF TECK

CHAPTER I

THE SWABIAN ALB
**

A3ILVER belt, connected by a thread
with the Swiss and French Jura,
expands at Schaffhausen, runs north-
east— parallel for some way with the
Neckar and bounded on the south by the
Danube — into Wiirtemberg, and then turning
northward in Bavaria constitutes there the
Franconian Jura. Its expansion in Wiirtem-
berg is the Swabian Alb. It is composed of
Jurassic limestone, and presents to the eyes of
those approaching from the Neckar a white wall,
broken by gaps through which rivers stream,
and with curious conical fore-posts, each crowned
by a castle or the remains of one. Its length in
Swabia is one hundred miles, and it is twenty-five
miles broad. Although from the plain it bears
a saw-like contour, it is actually a plateau tilted
up from the Danube, and presenting at its ragged
edge to the north-west its greatest elevation,
which is over 3000 feet,
u

The Land of Teck

Although this plateau is one in its constitution,
it falls into compartments, as it is traversed by
streams ; some of which discharge into the Danube
and thus carry their waters into the Black Sea;
whereas others decant into the Neckar, which flows
into the Rhine, and on into the German Ocean.
What is more, is that in the same depression,
at its highest level, arise sources that elect to
flow in opposite directions. It follows, therefore,
that this great plateau is divided into sections,
and through the valleys constituted by perverse
streams aiming differently highways have run
from time immemorial, and in these latter days
railways have been carried.

The Jura limestone is sedimentary, and was
all deposited in the deep sea. It consists of
several beds, and forms the topmost series, the
cap of the Alb.1 Below the upper white beds is
the oolite, also a Jurassic formation, but it is
brown or reddish brown, being here strongly
impregnated with iron. This is made up of small
round calcareous particles, which formerly were
mistaken for fossilised fishes' roe. Beneath the
oolite, lying as a mat at a bedside, at the foot
of the Alb cliffs, but actually underlying them,
is the dark lias crowded with remains of shells

1 For a thorough study of the geology of the Alb, an admir-
able work is that of Dr. Th. Engel : Die Schwabenalb und ihr
geologischer Aufbau. (Tubingen, Verlag d. Schwabischen Alb-
vereins. 2 marks.)

The Swabian Alb

and of saurians; the fat of these latter has so
saturated the mud in which they perished that it
yields a mineral oil.

To the south-east, towards the Danube, the
Alb is not so lofty as at its north-west face, and
the valleys that debouch on that river are less
picturesque, on the whole, than those that look
towards the Neckar. These latter are exception-
ally beautiful. Everywhere the white, or grey,
or tawny crags rise above a sea of foliage, mainly
beech, that clothes the slopes. The rich valley
bottoms are filled with orchards of cherry, plum
and apple trees. The villages are prosperous in
the valleys, and nearly every one has its factory,
which, though not conducive to beauty, con-
tributes to the well-being of the people.

On the tableland, a notable feature is the
white stones laboriously collected and employed
by the peasants to enclose their fields. The
surface was at one time strewn with them, and
these walls represent the toil of centuries, that
has succeeded in transforming a desert into
fertile corn-land. In addition to the fields given
up to cereals, there are sheep pastures, and the
lowland farmers send their flocks up to them in
summer. Various portions of the Alb receive
particular names, as the Albuch, the Kaiser-, and
the Rechgebirge ; but the main portion, the
Rauhe Alb, comprises two-thirds of the whole,
and is that part of Wiirtemberg which is least

The Land of Teck

known. Visitors seek the towns on the Neckar,
and whisk through the Fils Thai and Lone Thai
to Ulm, but few explore the upper valleys, least
of all the plateau. The very name of the Rauhe
Alb is deterrent; it is a "rough" Alb, where
rough weather may be expected to buffet the
visitor ; wild though not bold scenery may be
encountered ; possibly the name of Heidenheim
may make him suppose a rude heathenism may
linger there. But — visit any one of the towns
below on a market day in autumn, see the laden
wains piled up with golden corn, and learn that
the rough Alb is a treasure-house of cereals.

As the clay lies far beneath the limestone, and
the latter is porous and full of faults, every drop
of rain that falls is sucked in, unless artificially
caught and conducted to cisterns and clay-lined
pools, and the water escapes below only where
it encounters impervious beds. So full of caves
and subterranean watercourses is the Alb that,
not infrequently, the crust suddenly gives way
and reveals a funnel-like abyss. On 5 December,
1680, during bitter winter weather, such an
event occurred, and an eye-witness describes how
steam rose out of the chasm, and he could hear
below the rush of an invisible river. Moreover,
the maps show portions of the surface pock-
marked with circular depressions. Caverns con-
taining many halls, stalactites and stalagmites,
subterranean lakes and streams, are numerous.

The Swabian Alb

Some have been the haunts of extinct animals,
some of early man, and some have been the
refuges of the inhabitants in historic times,
when the flood of war rolled over the country.

A writer on the Alb says of the native, " He
lives usually in a one-storey house, thatched
with straw in old-fashioned simplicity. Em-
phatically has the Alb-dweller through two thou-
sand years resisted all intermixture with foreign
elements. Rough land, hard soil, dearth of water,
have been the reason why no conquerors have
cared to settle there. If one can speak of the
Suevic race as still surviving pure and unadul-
terated, it is here. Here one sees the flaxen-
headed children with blue eyes and dolichoceph-
alic skulls. Old German costume and manner
prevail here above anywhere else in Swabia.
Here on Palm Sunday old and young gather the
twigs of catkins ; here on Ascension Day the
wreaths of pink milkwort are woven and hung
up to ward off the lightning ; here at Easter the
eggs are sought that the hare has laid, and at
Pentecost the Whitsun clown is rigged up; here
the may is set up on May Day, and the horse-
shoe is nailed to the stable door to keep the evil
spirits away. The position of the Bauer (peasant-
farmer) is supreme, the title is held in high honour,
and is conferred only on the man who owns
at least four horses. He who possesses but three
is a Soldner (a hireling), one on a lower stage is a

The Land of Teck

Half-Soldner, then comes a Quarter-Soldner, then
the cowherd, and so on. All life revolves about
the farm. The year of the Albler is spent in
ploughing, sowing, reaping, thrashing ; and his
mind is engaged but rarely on anything save the
change of crops, the fallow land, the cattle, the
manure, and the price of corn."

It was perhaps natural that, although water is an
essential of life, the peasant should have opposed
the artificial conveyance of it to the plateau.
When it is known that his drinking-water — for
family or cattle — was supplied by the drip of his
decaying thatch, the drainage of the stables
and cow-stalls was allowed to percolate into
his reservoirs, and when these rude receptacles
failed in time of drought, he had to fetch water
from the spring far below in the valley — it might
be assumed, as a matter of course, that he would
have hailed a proposal to bring a supply of pure
water to his door. But not so. In 1866, a coun-
cillor, Ehmann of Stuttgart, recommended that
by means of a high-pressure engine the fluid from
below should be forced on to the plateau above,
then the Alblers were up in arms and strongly
opposed the carrying out of the proposal. Then
the king was constrained to interfere and override
their resistance, and insist that the experiment
should be made in three places, Justingen,
Mystetten, and Hausen. On 17 February, 1871,
fresh water poured in a sparkling jet out of the

The Swabian Alb

iron pipes in the midst of these three villages,
to the amazement of the people. At first they
shrank from drinking it — it was not straw-
coloured like that in their tanks ; it was tasteless
and had not a smack of the cowshed about it,
and it did not possess the familiar odour of the
cesspool.

At length, falteringly, they were induced to try
it, and finally even to prefer it. In due course
other villages petitioned to have water brought
to them also; and with the pure water supply
typhoid and other fevers diminished on the
Alb.

The water falling on the plateau, as already
said, flows out in springs at the base of the cliffs.
One of the finest of these sources is the Blautopf
(Bluepot) of Blaubeuren. This is a pool in a deep
basin that runs in under the rock, the colour is
an intense blue. Chemical analysis has not
revealed any substance in the water that can
explain the phenomenon. In fact the stream
that flows from it retains its colour till it mingles
with the Danube ; nor, indeed, does it wholly
lose it then, but flows down for some distance in
a blue streak in the turbid waters of this river.
The Bluepot is about one hundred and thirty feet
in diameter, and its extreme depth is seventy-one
feet in the middle. Usually the surface is glassy ;
but after a storm on the Alb, or a rapid thaw,
several upward columns of somewhat clouded

The Land of Teck

water are seen to form bells on the surface.
When the water is thus rising it gives forth a
sound like the boiling of a kettle. So confident
are the people that it is a bottomless pit, and
that the water is in actual ebullition, that they
assert that the lead dropped in at the end of a
plumb-line is melted below. From the heights
magnificent prospects are obtained : to the north,
the plain and hilly land of Wiirtemberg ; to the
west, the dark profile of the Black Forest ; and to
the south the gleaming chain of the Swiss Alps.

The climate of the Uplands is rigorous. Winter
reigns there for from five to six months, and
the summer comes in with a bound, without an
intervening spring. Scarcely a month passes
without the stove being lighted in the dwelling-
room in the morning. Autumn also comes on
with equal abruptness. The plateau has a some-
what monotonous appearance ; and it is in the
valleys that beauty and variety will be found,
where the meadows are lush and the russet-roofed,
timber-and-plaster houses are sunk in a bed of
foliage — in May an efflorescence of pink and white.
The visitor is hardly likely to make excursions
over the elevated tableland. The beautiful scenery
is to be found in the valleys, and it will be but
here and there that he will ascend a height to
obtain a distant prospect, or to cut across a
saddle from one valley to another.

One of the peculiar features of the Alb is the

The Swabian Alb

series of outstanding cones along the margin,
each crowned with the ruins of a castle, forming
a chain of fortresses, dynastic strongholds. These
conical hills have been formed by water, in the
manner indicated below.

In the Kaiser and Rechberg continuation of
the Alb these cones are planted on high ground

FORMATION OF OUTLYING CONES.
(After Dr. Engel.)

— Stuifen, Rechberg, Hohenstaufen ; for this por-
tion of the plateau has been denuded of its
upper crust, which remains only as caps to these
heights.

From a geological point of view, one of the
interesting features of the Alb is the evidence it
presents of volcanic action. The crust in more
than a hundred places has been perforated by
intrusive columns of lava. There are three
especial centres of activity. The first is at the
south-west of the Alb, in, the Hohgau, a plain

The Land of Teck

lying between the western arm of the Lake of
Constance, the Rhine at Schaffhausen, and the
Danube at Tuttlingen, where there are fifteen
conical masses of igneous matter, of which the
highest is the Hohentwiel (2253 ft.) consisting of
clink stone or phonolite. The second outbreak

GEOLOGIC SECTION. THE BLACK VEINS ARE VOLCANIC DYKES.
(After Dr. Engel.)

is thirty-three miles north-east of the first, in the
midst of the Alb, and extends from fifteen to
eighteen miles, with Urach as the centre, and
this seems to have been the principal seat of
volcanic activity, furnishing thirty domes of basalt
forming a disjointed ring. Some of these are on
the plateau, some on the north-west slope. The
third irruption is thirty-three miles north of
Urach, between Bopfingen and Nordlingen, but
this is insignificant compared with the others.

The flora of the Alb is rich — it comprises all
the usual plants that love the limestone, but it has
also some that are special to it. One of the most

The Swabian Alb

favoured spots for a botanist is the Rosenstein
by Heubach.1

The original population of the Alb lived, as
Tacitus tells us was usual among the Germans,
in pits sunk in the soil, covered over with dung to
keep the inmates warm. A number of these pit-
dwellings have been found on the Alb, with
traces about them of enclosures. The graves of
these people have also been discovered under
mounds or cairns. They lived apart in solitary
farm homesteads, as again Tacitus assures us
was general.

Then came the Romans, who ran highways
straight as a bowline through the country, and
established forts and markets at intervals. The
Limes trans-rhenanus was a boundary wall
thrown up by Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, and
Probus, which was carried from the Rhine at Linz
to Ratisbon on the Danube, a distance of three
hundred and fifty miles, and took in the Alb.
On the south side was the civilized world, north
of it barbarism. It was customary for the Romans
to transport bodies of people from one country to
another and plant them on the confines of the
land under their control, and so here near the
Alb some such settlements were effected, mainly
of Gauls.

1 There is an excellent book on the botany of the Alb by Dr.
R. Tradmann: Das Pftanzenleben der Schwabischen Alb, 2 vols.,
with coloured plates. (Tubingen, Verlag d. Schwab. Albvereins.
9 marks.)

The Land of Teck

With the break up of the Roman Empire, the
Alemanni passed over the wall and occupied the
Swabian land to the Alps. We can tell what were
their settlements by the termination ingen, the
dative plural of ing attached to a personal
name ; the followers and clansmen of an Ingolf
founded Ingolfingen, those of Geisl settled at
Geislingen. A chieftain settled down in a certain
chosen spot and called it after his name. Lands
were granted by him to offshoots of the clan,
which formed separate settlements, and these were
designated after him who planted himself in a
subsidiary hamlet, with the termination heim
after his name. Kirchheim is not necessarily
the Church-home, but the plantation of a Christian
who had as his baptismal name Cyriacus. In 960
the place was called Chiriheim.

In 496, the Alemanni were defeated and sub-
jected by the Franks. Vast numbers of graves
of the Alemanni have been found. They settled
in close villages, and buried their dead in rows
underground, without grave mounds above them.
Their plantations were very often near the old
Roman roads, sometimes among the ruins of
Roman stations. Although nominally subject to
the Franks, yet the Alemanni retained their own
laws, and were governed by their own dukes,
of whom the names of several are recorded, but
we do not know whether the title and authority
were hereditary. In 746, Carloman, eldest son of

The Swabian Alb

Charles Martel, Mayor of the Palace, resolving
on the destruction of Alemannic independence,
treacherously summoned the principal nobles of
Swabia to meet him at Cannstadt. There he
surrounded them with his Prankish soldiers and
massacred several thousand of them. Stung by
his conscience, Carloman retired - to a monastery
in Italy, and died the following year. In 748,
an Alemannic duke, Lantfried II, rose against
the Prankish overlordship, but was defeated,
deposed, and died in 751. And with him ceased
the Alemannic dukedom for a long period.

Then followed the counts of Swabia, nominated
by the Prankish kings. Charlemagne in 771
married Hildegard, the sister of the Swabian
Count Gerold, of the ancient ducal family. She
was but thirteen when he married her, and bore
him nine children, four sons and five daughters ;
of the sons Ludwig the Pious succeeded his father.
Hildegard was greatly loved for her piety and
charity to the poor and sick. She died in 783,
at the age of twenty-six, and her monument
bore a Latin inscription descriptive of her beauty,
intellectual gifts, and kindly nature. After the
death of her successor Fastrada, Charlemagne
again married a Swabian, Liutgard, who died
early in 800 without issue.

In 917 Swabia was again a duchy, and the
first duke was Burkhardt, son of Burkhardt,
Margrave of Upper Alemannia. There were in

The Land of Teck

succession fifteen dukes, the last of whom was
Rudolf, who was set up by Pope Gregory VII
against his legitimate king, Henry V. This Henry
had been instigated by the Pope to rebel against
his father Henry IV, whom Gregory had excom-
municated. But when Henry came to the throne
the' Pope found that the son, whom he had encour-
aged to revolt against his natural father, was not in
the least degree disposed to be humble and submis-
sive to his spiritual father. He let Gregory under-
stand that he would have none of his interference
beyond the Alps, and bade him mind his own
affairs. The Pope in fury excommunicated him,
and released all his subjects from their allegiance.
He went further, and set up Rudolf of Swabia
as opposition king. At the same time he ventured
on a prophecy that the same year the false king
should perish. A battle was fought on the
Elster on 15 October, 1080, in which Rudolf was
wounded in the groin and had his right hand
cut off. Holding up his bleeding stump, Rudolf
turned to the bishops who surrounded him and
said, " Consider this hand, with which I took
oath of allegiance to Henry my king. Now I
quit realm and life. You who persuaded me to
rebellion look well to it, whether you have done
right." He died the same night. All Germany
recognised this as the judgment of God. And
now rises to the foremost place the great dynasty
of the Hohenstaufen, that gave to Germany her

The Swabian Alb

grandest emperors and kings. It began with
Frederick of Biiren, whom Henry IV had invested
with the dukedom of Swabia. About this family
I shall have more to say in the sequel.

The following are useful guides to the Alb : —

Frolich (H.): Die Schwabische Alb. (Stuttgart, Levy and
Muller, 1872. i mark 50.)

Wais (Julius) : Alb fuhrer. (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlags Gesell-
schaft, 3rd ed., 1908. 3 marks.) This has maps, but it is
essentially for pedestrians, and the former is the more useful
book generally.

There was another, a capital book, used extensively by
Frolich, Vogt (Fr.): Die Schwabische Alp (Stuttgart, J. B.
Metzler, 1854); but this is antiquated and now quite out of
print.

Schwab (Gustav): Die Schwabische Albt 2nd ed., enlarged by
Dr. G. Paulus. (Stuttgart, 1878.)

Hochstetter (L. F.): Die Tech u. seine Umgebung. (Kirch-
heim u. T., 1864;)

CHAPTER II

KIRCHHEIM UNDER TECK

KIRCHHEIM is a pleasant, industrial
town of 8193 inhabitants. To say it
is industrial is to say what is common
of every town, village and hamlet in
Germany. It has its factory chimneys, so has
every village in the Alb — so has not every village
in England. And the Swabian factories, as other
factories throughout Germany, are pouring their
goods into England, whilst English operatives
look on with hands in their pockets and bemoan
that they have no work — the foreigners have taken
it from them. Kirchheim commands a view of
the Alb, with the tower of Teck rising in the
centre of the prospect ; and it was the capital
of the duchy.

And now something about that duchy. In
the old pagan days of the Alemanni the ducal
residence was at Limburg, near Weilheim. The
story told by an old writer in 1535 is that
there existed a tradition that the chieftain who
lived in Teck was a determined pagan ; but
Rumelius, the Alemannic duke, was a Christian ;
and a great battle was fought in the Fils valley,

Kirchheim under Teck

in which the Alemanni were victorious, whereupon
the chieftain of Teck was constrained to submit to
baptism, and required to erect a church in the
sacred grove of Lindenheim that had been con-
secrated to the gods. A noble lime tree at the
point where the roads diverge to Dettingen and
Nabern is pointed out as the last representative
of the sacred grove — at all events, a seedling.
Moreover, so said the legend, Christians settled
about the church, and those who stubbornly re-
mained pagans occupied the further bank of the
river, to this da}/ designated the Heidenschaft.

Teck was not originally a duchy, but a county
pertaining to the Zahringen family that had
possessions in Switzerland and in Baden. It
traced back to a Berthold, Duke of Swabia in
700 ; but the first historical ancestor known was
a Berthold of Zahringen, Duke of Carinthia, and
Margrave of Verona, in 1050. He had been a
friend and supporter of the Emperor Henry IV,
but, misled by papal intrigue, he turned against
him, and died insane in his castle at Limburg in
1078, after seeing his possessions ravaged and
his strongholds given over to the flames by his
offended sovereign. Besides Teck, the dukes
owned many fortresses in the Lenninger Thai,
in Kirchheim, and in the Fils Thai. In fact, all
the surrounding castles, bristling on every pro-
jecting crag, were held in fief from the dukes :
Sperbereck, Wielandstein, Sulzburg, Schlossberg,
c 17

The Land of Teck

Mansberg, Bohl, Lichteneck, Randeck, Hahnen-
kamm, Diepoldsburg and Wiesensteig, and the
Fils valley down to Geislingen.

Berthold had two sons : Berthold II, Duke of
Zahringen and Teck, and Hermann, Margrave of
Verona, who founded the still flourishing House
of Baden. Berthold II succeeded to Zahringen
and Teck, and had a grandson, Berthold III.
At this period the possessions of the Zahringers
extended from the middle of the present Grand-
duchy of Baden to the Great S. Bernard. Adal-
bert II had two sons, Conrad I and Berthold.
This latter, when quite young, was appointed to
the bishopric of Strasburg. He was a worthy,
large-hearted prelate, but warlike. Possibly he
could not help himself. The German bishops had
wide possessions, and on these the secular princes
encroached. In the Middle Ages not even a
bishop, if slapped on one cheek, turned the other
to his adversary, but doubled his fist and hit back
again. Berthold was engaged during three years
in war with the Count of Pfirt, and did not give
over till he had brought his opponent to his knees.

The grandsons of Conrad I divided their in-
heritance. The eldest, Hermann, took one half
of the Castle of Teck and its belongings and one
half of the town of Kirchheim. His branch
withered, and sold its share of Teck and Kirch-
heim to the Duke of Austria in 1303, and Austria
pawned this half to Wiirtemberg in 1325. Con-

Kirchheim under Teck

ceive a castle with commanders in it pertaining
to two powers, and a town divided between two
potentates. What elements for strife were there !
In 1329, on the death of the Emperor Rudolf
of Hapsburg, when the Electors met to choose a
successor, Conrad of Teck is said to have been
elected emperor, but died immediately, not with-
out suspicions of poison. And since then the
eagle's head as crest has been girt about with a
crown. But no contemporary historian mentions
this election.

The story is told of Elizabeth, Duchess of Teck,
the wife of Duke Lutzmann, who lived in the first
half of the fourteenth century, that it had been
prophesied to her as a girl that she would die by
lightning. In order to defeat this prophecy she
had recourse to one necromancer after another,
but all in vain, till a " wandering scholar " gave
her a charm that she was to recite whenever a
storm came on, when it would infallibly dissipate
the clouds and protect her. Accordingly, when-
ever thunderclouds appeared in the sky she re-
peated the charm, and always with conspicuous
success — the black vapours parted overhead and
sailed away to explode elsewhere. In Teck, or
any other castle that stood high, she had a waiting-
woman on the look out to warn her should danger
approach. However, one day, when she was in
the castle of Wasseneck, of which now not a stone
remains on another, the woman saw a little silvery

The Land of Teck

cloud sail over the blue ; but it was so small,
and looked so innocuous, that she did not deem
it necessary to caution her mistress. As the
cloudlet came over the castle the Duchess chanced
to go to the window, when suddenly the lightning
flashed and in an instant she was a corpse, charred
to a cinder; she was buried in the church of
the Augustinian Monastery at Oberndorf, that
is now turned into a gun factory.

The declension of the family was rapid. Frede-
rick IV, in 1381, disposed of his share of Teck
and Kirchheim to the possessor of the other
half, and two years later pawned the rest of his
possessions to the Count of Wiirtemberg. He
was so embarrassed that Leopold of Austria had
to send round the hat for him, and Frederick of
Bavaria and Eberhard of Wiirtemberg dropped
in their contributions. Ulrich, his son, was given
a position under the Emperor Sigismund to keep
him afloat. He died in Italy in 1432, and was
succeeded in the title by his brother, Ludwig IX,
who had become a monk and had been appointed
to the barren honour of the patriarchate of Aqui-
leja. His time was taken up in fighting with the
Venetian Republic, which refused to allow him
to enter his see. He was appointed papal proto-
notary to the Council of Basle, where he died
of the plague in 1439, and was buried there
in the Charterhouse with shield, helmet and
sword, and as the body was lowered into the

Kirchheim under Teck

vault his coat of arms was broken over it, as the
last of the ancient Dukes of Teck. His sister
Irmgard had, however, married Veit, Count of
Rechberg, and carried the blood of the ancient
Swabian ducal house into that family.

In the meantime the Wiirtemberg house had
entered into the place of headship ,of the Swabian
race, had acquired vast possessions in the land,
and was waxing strong and influential. It owned
Teck since the purchase in 1381. In 1493 the
Emperor Maximilian I accorded the title and
arms of the Dukes of Teck to the Duke of Wiirtem-
berg. Thenceforth they were Dukes of Teck and
of Wiirtemberg, and on the arms, quartered with
the three stags' horns sable on a field or, are the
lozenges or and sable of Teck. An alteration was,
however, made with regard to the crest. In place
of the crowned eagle's head was assumed that of a
dog. But the family of Wiirtemberg has entered on
another inheritance of historic importance — that
of the Hohenstaufen, Dukes of Swabia — and now
bears the Hohenstaufen three lions passant, im-
paled with the coat of Wiirtemberg.

The bones of the first dynasty lie at Owen,
under the castle. Thirteen of the first ducal house,
male and female, were buried there, some in the
parish church, others in the church of S. Peter,
which has been pulled down. In 1579 *ne tomb
in the parish church was opened by Duke Ludwig
of Wiirtemberg. It was quite plain save that on

The Land of Teck

the huge covering slab were the arms, helmet, and
crest of Teck. Within nothing was found save a
Frankfort coin, some crumbling wood of a coffin,
silk that had once covered it, and four skulls and
the bones of three persons only. One of the
skulls had a hole in it as big as a hen's egg.1 The
bones showed that they had belonged to men
tall and well built. The Duke had the tomb
closed again, and on it the inscription cut :
" Sub hoc saxo illustrissimorum Alemannorum
ducum de Teck ossa recondita sunt et sepulta."
The bones of those in the church destroyed at the
Reformation have not been recovered.

Duke Frederick of Wiirtemberg was created
king by Napoleon, and thenceforth was accounted
first King of Wiirtemberg, and wrote himself
Frederick I. It is to be regretted that the title
of the kingdom of Swabia was not taken in place
of that of a small and ruinous castle.

Kirchheim has suffered severely from fire. In
1690 it was burnt down — the castle and the
church being alone left — every house was re-
duced to ashes. Happily the good folk rebuilt
their dwellings on the old lines, with high-pitched
tiled roofs and the gables toward the street, so
that there is not the lack of picturesqueness that
might have been expected from the period of
rebuilding ; and the Rathhaus is a delightful

1 This was probably the head of Conrad III, who was assassinated
at Munich in 1348.

KIRCHHEIM

Kirchheim under Teck

structure of timber and plaster, surmounted by
a tower and bulbous cap. The castle is not
beautiful — very much the reverse — surrounded
by a moat full of stagnant water, a breeding-place
for mosquitoes. The church was built in 1268,
but the tower is bad ; the old one was pulled
down to repair the walls of the , town, and that
which replaces it is characterless. For the fortifi-
cation of Kirchheim, in 1539, not only was the
parish church tower demolished, but also the
whole church of S. Calixtus at Weilheim, as well
as two churches in Kirchheim, one in Otlingen,
and another in Dettingen. There was plenty of
excellent building stone hard by, but it saved
a little trouble — that of squaring blocks — to use
such as had been already shaped. In the Alb
it would seem to have been a prevailing custom
from the date of the Reformation to pull down
both churches, monasteries, and castles whenever
a little building stone was wanted. Thus the
historic Hohenstaufen was levelled with the dust,
to serve as a quarry for Duke Christopher, in 1562,
when he desired to build a castle at Goppingen ;
and Duke Charles must needs destroy Hohen
Urach, the ancestral seat of his race, and draw
the stones over the Alb to Grafeneck to build
there a trumpery Versailles and an opera house
in 1760. The opera house was only for his court,
not to instil a love of music and the drama into
the minds of the rude Alblers, and it has since

The Land of Teck

been in its turn demolished. It is this passion
for destroying, out of a poor economy, that has
robbed the Alb of nearly all its ancient castles,
and many a town of its churches and defensive
towers. In the Lenninger Thai were thirteen castles
occupied by feudal tenants of Teck. Hardly any
now show above their foundation stones.

The parish church of Kirchheim belongs to the
late Gothic period, when Perpendicular flourished
in England, Flamboyant in France, and the
Broken Twig style in Germany. Of all three —
Gothic in decadence — the last is supremely the
best. It is delightful in the play of imagination
it allowed. In Middle Pointed, the compass was
supreme ; in German late Gothic, the mind of
man. Moreover, Middle Pointed, that lasted from
1300 to 1375, was an importation from France.
The finest specimen is Cologne Cathedral, and
that has been supposed to have been inspired by
Amiens. But the Third Pointed in Germany is
purely national ; it lasted from 1375 to 1525.
Capitals were often omitted from the pillars,
these latter, as bundles of reeds spread and inter-
laced in the vaulting, forming a complete network
of ribs ; the flowing tracery in windows it fre-
quently snapped off, leaving broken ends, and
avoiding thereby the somewhat nauseating undu-
lations of lines that is found in French Flamboyant
tracery. Mouldings interpenetrate each other, in
a manner hardly justifiable, but having a quaint-

CHURCH, KIRCHHEIM

Kirchheim under Teck

ness of its own. Sometimes, as at Ulm, there are
pillars that resemble trunks of trees with the
boughs cut off, leaving the stumps. The foliage
is superb, far surpassing the achievements of the
former period, and infinitely richer than the poor
withered leafage of our Perpendicular work.

The church of Kirchheim was only completed
in 1576, after that it had been robbed of its
tower. The fire of 1690 damaged the nave, but
the beautiful choir, with its net-vaulting, was un-
injured. The stone Communion Table, as is usual
in Evangelical churches, is in the nave, and is
surrounded with ironwork as a cage ; the date is
1780. The font, as is also customary in Pro-
testant churches, is in front of the Table. The
place of the high altar is occupied by a radiating
stove, and the choir is converted into a receptacle
for grave-stones. In it are two paintings of the
Swabian school on gold grounds, brought from
the cemetery chapel when that was pulled down.
The church is locked at all times save during the
two hours of service on Sunday, and the sacristan
has to be hunted up to obtain admission. At Reut-
lingen for a fee of twopence one receives a ticket
of admission to the church. All these sacred build-
ings that have fallen into Protestant hands look
and smell like disused drawing-rooms. In Lutheran
churches the old furniture remains untouched,
but is fusty and worm-eaten. In Zwinglian
and Calvinist churches everything pertaining to

The Land of Teck

Catholic times has been removed and destroyed.
Unhappily a wave of iconoclasm passed over
Swabia before Lutheranism became the estab-
lished religion. Most of the Evangelical churches
in Swabia have been restored, whitewashed and
varnished. In Wurtemberg Lutheranism was for
three centuries the accepted religion, but since
King William III of Prussia devised his scheme
for the union of Lutheranism and Calvinism his
fusion has been accepted in Wurtemberg, as it
has also in Baden.

In 1839 tne King of Prussia abolished the
name of Protestant Church, and out of the amal-
gam produced a so-called Evangelical Church,
without any definite doctrine and with a liturgy
of his own composition. The union into one
creedless church was not effected in the spirit of
Paul, but in that of Gallio. There could exist no
controversy on dogma when nothing was taught.
It was not on the platform of definite belief that the
union was effected, but in the vacuity of common
negation. No new doctrine was imported into
the teaching of the Church ; her dogmas were
simply extracted from her, and laid aside, as
cooks draw woodcock and serve its entrails apart
on toast.

In 896 there existed a convent in Kirchheim,
and in 1235 Conrad of Teck gave to it an en-
dowment. In 1376 it contained seventy nuns.
Ulrich the Well-beloved, Count of Wurtemberg,

Kirchheim under Teck

had two sons, Eberhard and Henry. In 1476 the
young Eberhard with a party of his followers
burst into the convent, demanded food and wine,
and cleared the refectory for a dance. The
sisters, will they, nil they— probably the former-
were called out to dance, and no refusal was taken.
Soon they were whisking round in their white
woollen habits, rosaries and black scapulas fly-
ing ; and the Reverend Mother sitting in the
corner held her hands before her face, but peeped
between the fingers. Eberhard's father heard of
this, and wrote to him : " You were recently
at Kirchheim and had a dance in the convent
two hours before midnight, to the great offence
of God and the scandal of all sober men. More-
over, your lads invade the convent at night . . .
as if the sinful conduct of you and your fellows
were not enough, you brought in your brother as
well, and there ensued such dancing and such an
uproar that it made the house as one of disrepute."
Ten years later, when his father was dead,
Count Eberhard, being distressed for money
through his extravagance, appeared in Kirch-
heim again before the convent ; on this occasion
not to lead out the nuns in dance, but to exact
of them a considerable sum of money. They
kept the doors fast against him this time, and
refused to pay the contribution. He sat down
under the walls, laid siege to the house, and hoped
to starve the sisters into submission. An account

The Land of Teck

of what took place was written by a nun, a con-
temporary, in the convent : "A hundred men
in armour of the company of Count Eberhard
the Younger kept watch daily about the convent
to cut off all communication with those outside.
The poor women held out bravely and prudently
as heroes. They ate their bread, covered with
blue mould, as though it were holy. Pious folk
contrived surreptitiously to smuggle some food
within the walls. Count Eberhard wi' the Beard
(cousin of Eberhard the Younger) sent a waggon
laden with bread, dried fish, and eggs, attended
by so large and well-armed a force that the be-
sieger was unable to prevent its introduction into
the convent. However, as soon as the convoy
had withdrawn the blockade became closer than
before." The elder Eberhard promised assist-
ance, but he was in a difficult position and shrank
from attacking his cousin. " The nuns," continues
the contemporary, " placed all their confidence in
God ; whereas the theologian, Holzinger (coun-
sellor to the younger Count), scoffed and declared
that God knew and cared nothing about their
sufferings. They still retained some amount of
victuals, but lacked, above all, wood in the bitter
winter weather. Then the women cut down the
old tree stumps, broke up the summer-house of
the convent for fuel, and would have hewn down
the great lime tree, but used their choir -stalls
first, and had the siege lasted much longer would

Kirchheim under Teck

have heated their stoves with the church pic-
tures. Their victuals were at last nearly expended,
and the nuns were meditating flight to Weil, when
happily arrived the hour of their relief. During
the night of Saturday, 9 February, the women
heard an uproar in the town. All the sisters fled
to the refectory. In the infirmary lay the sick
eighty-year-old Magdalena von Lichteneck and
another old nun. The gates of the convent were
burst in, and then the nuns hasted to carry all
their little goods, in the utmost alarm, into the
cold choir of the church. A dilatory sister came
to the door and screamed/ Let me in, the convent
is full of men ! ' But when they attempted to
open the door for her, the men thrust in as well ;
and now ensued a vigorous tussle between the
women and the men. Thrice did the latter
break open the door, and thrice did the sisters
succeed in forcing them out, and finally they
succeeded in bolting it. The men shouted, * Open !
we will do you no harm/ Conrad Thumb called
to them that they had come to rescue them. But
the women believed that these fellows belonged to
the company of Eberhard the Younger. Between
two and three o'clock Conrad Thumb succeeded in
cutting through the bolt with his sword, and then
he forced his way in, brandishing his sword and
shouting, ' Come out ! Come out ! ' for he sup-
posed the nuns had been attacked by the enemy.
He found them all on their knees before the

The Land of Teck

altar, pictures and crucifixes in their hands. The
chaplain had placed the Host on the altar. Pray-
ing and singing, the poor women expected im-
mediate death, but some of the young nuns
entreated for life. What a surprise was theirs
when they found that these intruders were actu-
ally their deliverers. The revulsion from fear
to joy was almost too much for the women.
Eberhard wi' the Beard himself appeared at the
hour of vespers and explained to the nuns that
he was come to their assistance, and he praised
their courage. Then he informed the Prioress
that Kirchheim was in his hands, and that no
blood had or would be shed. The warm, cordial
words, which on Monday morning after Mass he
addressed to the nuns, just as if he were a cleric,
a learned father of their Order, let the nuns
have an insight into the noble heart and the
pious spirit of their sovereign. In parting he
promised to send them shortly his wife, and the
nuns might try to make a religieuse of her." In
fact, on 19 February the Countess Barbara of
Mantua arrived and gave the poor half-starved
nuns a right royal banquet. Before Eberhard the
Elder at the head of a force of 4000 men, his scape-
grace cousin had deemed it prudent to decamp.

On the death of Duke Eberhard, this younger
Eberhard was acknowledged as his successor, and
in May, 1496, was invested with the duchies
of Wiirtemberg and Teck. He was then aged

Kirchheim under Teck

forty-nine ; but he had learned nothing by past
experience. With some men experience is like
the lantern in the tail of a glow-worm — it illu-
mines the wreckage in their rear, but casts no
light on the way before their eyes. He continued
in his violence and defiance of the rights of the
people. At a Diet held at Stuttgart on 25 March,
1498, he was required to observe the Constitution
as established by Eberhard wi' the Beard. De-
serted by all, he fled from Kirchheim on All-Fools1
Day, 1498, carrying off with him such plate and
treasures as he could amass, and was then for-
mally deposed.

The convent was dissolved in 1559, an<^ was
converted into a granary and store-house for
fruit for the Duke. In the year 1626 there was
famine, and Duke John Frederick sent orders to
his steward to dispose of its contents to the poor
at a nominal price. The fellow, however, did not
obey, and refused to sell. Then a thunderstorm
broke over Kirchheim, and lightning fell on the
corn store-house, set it on fire, and as the steward
was escaping a tile from the roof fell on his head
and killed him. The chapel of the convent, that
contained some tombs of the family of the Dukes of
Teck, was consumed with the rest of the building.1

1 Those buried there were Dukes Conrad, Frederick, Sigismund,
and Hermann of Teck and their duchesses. Also Barbara of Mantua,
widow of Duke Eberhard wi' the Beard. In 1818, when the ground
where stood the chapel was being turned into asparagus beds, numer-
ous grave slabs were found, but no examination and identification
were made.

The Land of Teck

Towards the close of the seventeenth century,
when the persecution of witches was in full swing,
a boy of six years old in Kirchheim was brought
before the magistrates to testify against his own
mother. He belonged to a family that had
already suffered for the cause of witchcraft. His
grandparents had been horribly lacerated with
iron hooks, and finally decapitated on this charge
in 1619. A fellow-scholar declared that the little
lad had told him that his mother and he every
night rode up the chimney on the back of a black
dog to the Three Lime Trees, where a swarthy
man blew a horn and rode about on a goat, and
the assembly danced with cats as their partners,
or galloped round astride on fire-irons. The poor
little fellow was hard pressed to admit that he
had said as much ; but he denied so stoutly and
so persistently that the judges were reluctantly
obliged to dismiss the case. The child's resolu-
tion and courage saved his mother from a cruel
death.

In the church is buried Francisca, who died in
1810, the wife of Duke Charles Eugene. Charles
Eugene was, like his father, Charles Alexander, a
Catholic, and he had married Elizabeth Frederica,
daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Bay-
reuth. She died in 1780. There was a beautiful
girl, Francisca, daughter of a poor baron with a
large family — William von Bernardin. She was
born in 1748, and had been married very young

CARL EUGENE HERZOG VON WURTEMBERG AND TECK.

BORN 1728, DIED 1793
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

Kirchheim under Teck

'seventeen) to the rich, ugly, and stupid Baron
Frederick von Lentrum. Duke Charles saw her
in 1770 at Pforzheim, where the nobility had
assembled to meet him on his way through. He
was twenty years older than she. Struck with
her face, he at once appointed Herr von Lentrum
his marshal, and, whilst the husband was exe-
cuting a commission given him, Duke Charles
took the lady into his carriage and drove off with
her to Ludwigsburg. To cut off all reclamation
of his wife on the part of the baron, the Duke
induced a subservient consistory to dissolve the
marriage. Duke Charles had galloped through
the pleasures of life ; now only was he arrested
by a master passion and reined in to a sober trot.
For a while Francisca was accorded the modest
title of "Friend," but after the death of the
Duchess the Duke resolved on marrying the lady.
The Emperor Joseph II, at his request, created
her Countess of Hohenheim. The Houses of
Assembly of Wiirtemberg were willing to agree
to the Duke's proposal, and promised him a
yearly subvention of fifty thousand gulden, so
afraid were they lest he should marry a Catholic
princess. The Pope, indeed, demurred to his
contracting an alliance with a divorced Protestant,
but with the distribution of some bakshish this
difficulty was removed, and in 1785 Charles was
able to announce to his Estates that he was
married to the Countess. She was not only
P 33

The Land of Teck

beautiful, but also clever enough to maintain her
ascendancy over her husband, and although she
used her influence to enrich her family, she exer-
cised it largely for the good of the land, and in
restraining the Duke from acts of violence or in-
discretion. She had no issue by him. He died
in 1793, and she survived him nineteen years,
residing in the castle at Kirchheim. She wit-
nessed the eventful years of Napoleon's career
unroll before her, and died in 1812, precisely as
his star began to wane.

In the church is also the monument of Conrad
Widerhold and his wife. He died in 1667, a brave
man, who defended Hohentwiel during the Thirty
Years' War against the Imperialists. He spent
the remainder of his days as Governor of Kirch-
heim. His epitaph runs thus : —

The Commandant of Hohentwiel,
As firm as rock, as true as steel,
The prince's shield, the foeman's dread,
To poor he alms distributed.
A hero, Christian, good and bold,
Here slumbers Conrad Widerhold.
This tomb as well, the poor remains
Of Anna Irmgard Burkhartsch retains,
From Delmenhorst her stock she drew,
Of faith substantial, virtue true.
May God preserve the worthy twain,
And blessings on their ashes rain.

During the Thirty Years' War Kirchheim saw
its citizens reduced from 3170 to 1079 ; of private

Kirchheim under Teck

houses 1533 had been destroyed. The vineyards
lay neglected, and the corn-fields were untilled.
In remembrance of this terrible time, at sun-
set till long after the bells tolled, the people
prayed, " From Turks and Swedes, Good Lord,
deliver us ! " The Turks were the Croats in the
Imperial service, and the Swedes served on the
Protestant side. There was not a pin of differ-
ence between them. Each ravaged and robbed
and maltreated the unhappy people indiscrimi-
nately.

Kirchheim owed much to Widerhold. Ap-
pointed Governor by the Duke, he and his wife
lived in the castle during the winter, but spent
the summer in the country. There was no money
in the treasury, in the houses were few men, and
such as were there were work-shy. The pro-
tracted war had taken out of them energy and
hope. Troops of vagabonds roved about the
country, begging and stealing. Widerhold in-
stituted a police. The tramps were held up and
compelled to work. Children attracted the special
attention of the worthy pair. They were them-
selves childless. The orphans left by the ravages
of the war were collected by Widerhold and
placed out in respectable families. Some he em-
ployed in his own fields and gardens or household.
He reopened the schools, that had been long closed,
appointed teachers, visited them repeatedly, and
rewarded the best scholars. His activity was

The Land of Teck

exerted in every direction, and he was warmly
seconded by his wife. She possessed an eagle eye
and a sharp tongue. From a lofty window she
watched the workmen — builders on their scaffolds,
tillers of the soil, needlewomen sitting before
their doors — and, if they exhibited the least
slackness, downstairs she came and gave them
the lash of her tongue. Under Widerhold
Kirchheim presented a new aspect. As was
said in the country : —

Houses he builded for townsmen and farmers,
Stout and substantial, lasting for ever,
Churches and schools, barns also and stables ;
Gardens he stocked too, wells he provided,
Inns he established, storehouses also,
Watermills, windmills, everything needed.

Verily a noble life, and Widerhold has left a
memory ever green.

The Woolstaplers' Hall was formerly the resi-
dence of a noble family, but was purchased in the
sixteenth century by Duke Frederick. At this
time arrived an alchemist from Zurich, named
Neuscheler ; he appeared in Stuttgart with a
trumpeter blowing before him, and proclaiming
that Neuscheler could cure all diseases, expel
devils, lay spirits, and transmute base metals
into gold. The son of Duke Frederick had been
bitten by a dog, and hydrophobia was feared.
Neuscheler was called in, and the youth recovered.
Then the Duke was lured on to try the powers

Kirchheim under Teck

of the rogue in alchemy. He paid the man
20,000 gulden as wage, sent him to the house
that is now the Wool-hall, and bade him there set
up his workshop. A furnace was erected, the
bellows set in motion, and metals dissolved. He
was to begin with the transmutation of lead into
silver, and then proceed to change copper into
gold. True enough, silver was produced in the
crucible, but it had been introduced by means of
a tube, unobserved.

When Duke Frederick went to Italy he sent a
trusty servant to Kirchheim to be in attendance
on the alchemist. On his return he inquired how
much silver and gold had been made. The servant
said that, so far as he could learn, nothing had
been effected. The Duke ordered the " Freihof "
(the hall) to be surrounded to prevent the escape
of the swindler, and to retain him for punishment.
Neuscheler hid all his valuables in a cask in the
cellar. Next day he was imprisoned, and his
trial was begun. The rogue was condemned to
death, and was hanged at Stuttgart on the iron
gallows there erected, from which later swung
Suss Oppenheim in his cage. Seventy years
afterwards the cask was found, and on being
opened disclosed the sum of 20,000 gulden in
silver and gold.

Undeterred by experience, Duke Frederick,
two years after the execution of Neuscheler, em-
ployed a couple of brothers on the same business,

The Land of Teck

and lodged them also in the Freihof. Not only
so, but he granted them 20,000 gulden and the
castle and village of Neidlingen. Furnaces were
established at both places, but with as little result
as before. Both of these charlatans were arrested,
their savings, amounting to 300,000 gulden, con-
fiscated, and, after having been barbarously tor-
tured, both were swung from the iron gallows.

The castle at Kirchheim was erected in or
about 1530 by Duke Ulrich, who pulled down an
earlier building to erect the present uninteresting
residence. When the plague raged in Stuttgart,
in 1594, the Duke transferred hither his court.
It is smothered in trees, the garden is dank and
overgrown, and the moat smells. Here princes
have been born, dukes have died, and princesses
have been married.

It was occupied from 1811 to 1857 by the
Duchess Henriette, daughter of Prince Charles of
Nassau- Weilburg, and widow of Duke Ludwig.
She lost her husband early, and retired, with four
daughters and a son, to the castle of Kirchheim,
that was assigned to her as a residence. One of
her daughters, Pauline, became the wife of King
William I. The son, Alexander, a general in the
Austrian service, born 9 September, 1804, mar-
ried Claudine, Countess von Rhedey, of a Hun-
garian family. She was created Countess of
Hohenstein by diploma dated Vienna, 16 May,
1835. Our late King Edward VII had a marble

PRINCESS HENRIETTA OF NASSAU-WEILBURG, WHO MARRIED DUKE
LUDWIG OF WURTEMBERG, 1797-

BORN 1770, DIED 1857
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke oj Teck

Kirchheim under Teck

tablet with an inscription in Hungarian and
English affixed to her monument.

The Duchess Henriette made herself greatly
beloved in Kirchheim. She founded an institu-
tion for the education and establishment in life
of waifs and strays, and another for the care of
the poor and sick. She was wont to walk about
the little town with small ceremony, everywhere
showing kindnesses. Once she saw a poor man
from the country hobbling in the mud with sole-
less shoes. She immediately took him into the
nearest cobbler's shop and provided him with a
pair of new boots. It was a pretty sight to see
her at Christmas with a basket full of toys going
to her school, or to the homes of the very
poor, distributing little presents to the children.
She died on 2 January, 1857, at the age of
seventy-seven, deeply regretted in Kirchheim, and
was buried at Stuttgart.

An interesting sight at Kirchheim is the annual
wool market, held during the six days from
21 June to 27 June, when waggons piled up with
fleeces arrive, and are ranged, forming a woollen
wall, along the street. On top of each sits a
stolid peasant, with expressionless face, waiting
with apparent indifference for Heaven to send a
purchaser. But when the purchaser does arrive
his face becomes animated, as he haggles over
the price with the dealer. In the land these
bauers are designated " Sheeps' -heads." At the

The Land of Teck

opening of the fair a sermon is preached in the
church by the pastor.

It is interesting also to observe on a market
day the peasants, male and female, from the Alb.
The old style of costume has almost wholly dis-
appeared, but the type of face remains, with its
unchangeable stolidity.

Formerly the men wore three-cornered hats,
dark blue jackets and scarlet vests adorned with
silver buttons, leather breeches, and tall boots.
The girls had black bodices and skirts, white
stockings, a kerchief of many colours, and a
hood adorned with ribbons that hung down the
back. But all this is a thing of the past. Now-
adays the worst style of ready-made garment from
the towns has displaced the beautiful old costume.
One is disposed to think that man reverses the
Darwinian theory, and that he labours to revert
to the ape.

A damsel came to a photographer in Kirchheim
from one of the Alb villages to have her portrait
taken, to send to her sweetheart, then doing duty
in the army, at Ludwigsburg. " Shall I take
your bust, Fraulein ? " asked the artist. " Yes —
please — but throw in a bit of head as well."

Reproduced by the permission of H. S. H. the Duke of Teck

CHAPTER III

TECK

A LEI SURELY branch railway from
Kirchheim saunters up the Lenninger
Thai as far as Ober Lenningen, ringing
a bell as it proceeds, to wake up any
persons who may be taking a nap on the road,
so that they may step out of its way. It ascends
the river Lauter, a confluent of the Neckar ; and
passes Dettingen under Teck, with a storks' nest
on the nave roof of the church.

Owen is the name of the town under the domi-
nating heights of Teck, and whence the remains
of that castle may be most conveniently visited.
Owen has nothing Welsh about it. The ow is
pronounced as in the English cow, and the name
should be Auen, signifying meadows. It was
at one time a walled town, with gates and towers,
two churches and a chapel. Now it has neither
walls nor gates, and but a single church. In the
church of S. Mary and that of S. Peter were the
hereditary burial places of the Dukes of Teck.
Thirteen of that family were laid there — an
unlucky number — and only, as already said, do the
bones of four remain under their tumulary stone.

The Land of Teck

As a cathedral town is a hotbed of Dissent and
Radicalism, so Owen, pertaining to Teck and with
the castle of the dukes commanding it, was per-
sistently and perversely hostile, and threw in its
lot with the Swabian Bund. This Confederation
comprised the Free Imperial cities of Swabia,
Ulm, Gmiind, Esslingen, Reutlingen, etc. As
the disturbance of traffic by the petty robber-
knights was grown intolerable, and as the great
nobles were perpetually interfering with the rights
of the towns, and endeavouring to curtail their
privileges, they combined for mutual protection,
and whenever a castle became a nest of plunderers,
proceeded against it, took and burnt it, and ac-
commodated the knight and his followers with
halters and tree branches. When the greater
nobles were troublesome they declared war against
them. Twice did the Bund succeed in driving
the counts and dukes of Wurtemberg into exile,
and destroying their strongholds. The power of
the Emperor was gone. The popes had succeeded
in destroying the great House of Saxony, they
destroyed next the still more powerful House of
Hohenstaufen, and the power, as Menzel says,
" was scattered among the princes and cities of
the Empire. The princes possessed but mediocre
authority ; they had no ambition beyond the con-
centration of their petty states, and the attainment
of individual independence. Equally indifferent
to the downfall of the Hohenstaufen and to the

Teck

creation of the mock sovereigns placed over them
by the Pope, they merely sought the advancement
of their petty interests by the usurpation of every
prerogative hitherto enjoyed by the Crown within
their states. Not satisfied with releasing them-
selves from their allegiance to their sovereign,
they also strove to crush civil liberty by carrying
on a disastrous warfare against the cities, in
which they were warmly supported by the Pope,
whom they had assisted in exterminating the
Imperial house."

Berthold IV, Duke of Teck, was an adherent
of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. He con-
cluded an agreement with him, whereby he was
to receive Western Burgundy and Provence in
feoff from the Emperor, in return for a body of
five hundred fully armed horsemen and fifty
crossbowmen he undertook to supply and maintain
in the service of the Redbeard. As a pledge of
fulfilment Berthold surrendered the Castle of
Teck, in 1152, to the Emperor. But he was woe-
fully disappointed in his expectations ; for Fred-
erick married Beatrix, the heiress of Provence,
and kept her territories for himself. He in-
demnified Berthold for his disappointment by a
grant of East Burgundy. The Duke remained
loyal notwithstanding. He was the founder of
the present reigning family in Baden.

Ludwig I, Duke of Teck, was a cautious man.
He lived at a time of anarchy, when papal

The Land of Teck

puppet emperors were set up in opposition to the
legitimate Hohenstaufen Kaiser. So as not to com-
mit himself by the recognition of either, he was
wont to date his diplomas, " regnante domino
Jesu Christo." He looked serenely on at the
rival parties, devouring each other like the
Kilkenny cats, from his eyrie at Teck, and smiled
complacently to himself that he was able to keep
out of the turmoil. He managed to restrain his
four sons from taking part in the Civil War, and
his wife and daughters as well from interference.
They were doubtless keen politicians.

Duke Ludwig III was loyal to his namesake,
King Ludwig, and treated with indifference the
excommunication hurled at the King by John
XXII. In 1331, when the Emperor and the Duke
appeared at Landshut, the monks declined to
hold divine service, because of the interdict laid
on the land by the Pope. " Very well, then/*
said Duke Ludwig, " take the consequences."
He lit a torch, stalked into the monastery, and
threatened to fire it unless they immediately
took their places in the choir and sang the service
as though no interdict had been served, and before
the Emperor, as though he were not under ban.
They submitted.

Count Eberhard I of Wiirtemberg with fifteen
nobles entered into league against the Emperor
Rudolf of Hapsburg in 1286 ; but the Emperor
had on his side the Duke of Teck and the support

EBERHARD II, DUKE OF WURTEMBERG

1496-1498, DEPOSED. D. 1504
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

Teck

of the cities. The Count was defeated in battle,
and again in the following year. Rudolf died
in 1291, and Eberhard took the side of Adolfus
of Nassau as candidate for the throne against
Albert, son of the late Emperor. But he deserted
him in 1297, and went over to the party of his
rival ; for which he was well paid. However when
Albert began to reclaim castles and lands and
feoffs that had been annexed unwarrantably
during the years of anarchy, Eberhard abandoned
him and, bribed by a large sum of money, sup-
ported the claim of the Bohemian Wenceslas.

On i May, 1308, King Albert was assassinated,
and Henry VII, of Luxemburg, ascended the
vacant throne. He called Eberhard to task for
his violences, his oppression of the subjects of the
empire, and his interference with the liberties
of the free cities. Eberhard defied him, and
was placed under the ban of the empire. Henry
summoned the Bund to execute the sentence
against him. They sprang to arms, took from
the Count castle after castle, feoff after feoff. The
Duke of Teck, the Counts of Tubingen, Zollern,
Helfenstein, and the Margrave of Baden sided
with the King and the cities. Eberhard, friendless
and abandoned by all, fled from place to place.
Out of eighty fortresses but two castles and two
walled towns acknowledged him. But all at once
the aspect of affairs changed. In September,
1313, news reached Germany that Henry had

The Land of Teck

died in Italy. At once Eberhard took the field
and won back all that he had lost. The cities,
stupefied by the loss of the King, and having no
head, offered but a feeble resistance.

In the contest for the throne waged between
Ludwig the Bavarian and Frederick of Austria,
he took the side of the latter, but after the battle
of Miihldorf, went over to Ludwig, seeing that
his was the winning side. His grandson, Eberhard
the Quarrelsome, further extended his territories,
and administered to the Bund a crushing defeat
at Dofnngen on 25 August, 1388.

The part played by Eberhard the Illustrious,
as well as by his father Ulrich the Founder, had
been neither loyal nor honourable. They had
sought their private interests at the expense of
the realm, the welfare of the people, and the
liberties of the cities. But we must not measure
their conduct by the strict scale of right. The
very foundations of common morality were out
of course; the popes, as the vicegerents of God,
had released subjects from their allegiance, taught
men to break their solemn vows, sons to rebel
against their fathers, and had winked at assassi-
nation. Small wonder if laymen could see no
course clear before them save that of self-
interest, and had come to regard vows, loyalty,
and duty as empty words.

In 1519 the Swabian Bund was again in arms,
and again against a Wiirtemberg prince, Duke

Teck

Ulrich, who was also Lord of Teck. The little
town of Owen, though not a free city, threw in its
lot with the Bund, although a catapult from the
walls of Teck could throw a stone into the midst
of the town. Duke Ulrich sent a body of men
from Kirchheim to reduce the insolent little
place. It closed its gates against them, and when
they attempted to escalade the walls found them
manned by the women of Owen armed with
pitchforks. As a soldier's head was protruded
above the battlements, it was caught between the
prongs of the hayfork that served as a catchpole ;
the soldier for a moment was suspended dangling
in the air and then dropped at the foot of the
walls. After having lost two men with broken
necks and others with fractured arms and legs,
the troops of Duke Ulrich resolved on retreat.
Thereupon the gate was thrown open and out
swarmed the men and women of Owen, brandish-
ing flails and hayforks, and the troopers incon-
tinently took to their heels and did not tarry till
they reached Kirchheim, where they attributed
their discomfiture not to the prongs of the forks, but
to the tongues of the women. Nearly, if not quite,
all the inhabitants of Owen are peasants. Before
every house is a dung-heap, and a look down the
High Street exhibits a perspective on each side of
tall iron pumps, for discharging the drainage of
the dung-heaps — collected in underground tanks —
into barrels that will convey the precious liquid to

The Land of Teck

the meadows. The arms of Owen are a sable O
on a field argent. Its walls and towers have
been levelled with the dust, all military ardour
is subdued, if not annihilated, by the prevailing
eagerness for manure.

The church, which is beside the Lauter in the
suburb, has a Romanesque nave with lofty tiled
roof, above which is planted a wheel horizontally
to sustain a storks' nest, and has a tall apsidal
choir rebuilt in 1385, with windows of the purest
Middle Pointed style. Internally this choir is
empty, save for grave-stones and the tomb of the
Dukes of Teck already described. Against the east
wall above it is an early winged altar picture of
the Swabian school, representing the Descent from
the Cross, and on the wings, Saints, Oswald of
Northumbria — how comes he en cette galere ? —
Barbara, Bartholomew, and Lucy ; all on a gold
ground. The vaulting of the choir is of stone.
The keystones bear : (i) The arms of Wurtem-
berg, three stags' -horns ; and those of Teck, the
lozenges. (2) The Imperial banner, and the fish
dos a dos, of Montbeliard. (3) Those of Kirchheim,
a broach and a stags'-horn, (4) The O of Owen.
The nave has a flat ceiling. As is usual in Evan-
gelical churches, the Communion Table is of
stone in the nave below the step into the chancel.
The Teck tombstone, turned wrongly north and
south, occupies the place of the high altar.

In the chancel are two curious paintings. One

Teck

of these represents the town of Owen in the back-
ground, and was painted, in 1542, in memory of
the plague which decimated the place in that year.
It was renovated in 1675, and again in 1893.
Beneath it are the words : " Father Abraham, send
Lazarus to dip his finger in water that he may
cool my tongue/* In the foreground is the Lady
Bountiful of Teck distributing alms to cripples.
A little in the rear is a man in bed under
an enormous Federdeck, looking wistfully on,
desiring to partake in the bounty, but hesitat-
ing out of decorum to leave his bed and approach
the lady, as he is not invested in a nightshirt.
The other painting is of the seventeenth cen-
tury, and represents the Castle of Teck. It
was restored in 1806 ; and is the prototype of
many pictures of the castle in its former state.
But it is a fraud. The artist simply reproduced
the picture of Owen in its fortifications, and
planted it on a mountain- top. That it is not
Teck is obvious, for it is clearly Owen elevated
on high. And it is also impossible to reconcile
it with the existing foundations and plan of the
castle on the height.

A tragic incident once occurred in the church.
After the battle of Nordlingen, 1634, the Evan-
gelical preacher Wolflin took refuge in the church
from the Spanish soldiers who were plundering
the town. A soldier entered and found him
reading the Bible. He ran him through with his

3 49

The Land of Teck

sword, that also pierced the book and stained it
with his blood at the words (2 Tim. iv. 7) : :< I
have fought a good fight ; I have finished my
course."

Teck probably derives its name from the fact
that it is a corner, or projecting angle of the Alb ;
the hill on which it stands is called the Eckberg.
Some will have it that Teck is derived from a
Celtic or other pre-German word ; but the simple
derivation is quite expressive of its position.
The ascent is either from Owen, or, if preferred,
from Dettingen by the rounded basaltic hill of
the Hohe Bol. The castle stands 1200 feet above
the river bed. At one time it must have been
extensive. The bases of round towers remain
built into the limestone precipice, and it may be
observed that the rock has been artificially
smoothed of all projections to obviate an attempt
at an escalade. The court enclosed within the
walls measures 140 paces by 50. It is entered
from the north ; within the court were a chapel
and the Herrenhaus, or Residence, this latter
of timber and plaster on a basis of stone. Both
have disappeared. The height is now crowned
by a small tower, a restaurant, and a shelter-
house in case of visitors being overtaken by rain.

The following account of Teck is from the
pen of Martin Crusius, professor of Greek and
Latin at Tubingen at the end of the sixteenth
qentury : —

5°

Teck

" The mountain of Teck is as high as the highest
Alp— (point of the Alb). It is seen from afar, and
from east and south seems to cling to the Alb,
and therefore not to accord a very secure situation
for a fortress. But when one has climbed to it,
one perceives that it is cut off from the Alb by
a broad and deep valley, so that a cannon ball
discharged thence could hardly reach it, and
certainly could not harm it. This mountain is
accordingly like an island, or a completely insu-
lated mountain in the open plain. Moreover, it
does not look to be as high as it actually is, till
one is close upon it, on account of the dependent
hills, the Greater and Lesser Bols. These lower
hillocks cause the circumference to be about eight
miles. The valley and the plain are very fertile
in ploughed land, meadows, vineyards, and forests.
In and about it are many little towns, villages
and castles. To the south is the Lenninger Thai,
across which it is said that one seated on a calf
of one year old came with a bound. He was a
warlock who had said, ' What think you of this
for a leap of a one-year's calf ? Is it enough ? '
Hence the proverb, ' Let me make a jump like
that of a one-year-old calf/

' Through the valley flows a clear stream, called
the Lauter. Good trout are caught in it. Beneath
the mountain of Teck lies the town of Owen
in a very cheerful position. The Lauter flows
through it. It was the noblest town of the

The Land of Teck

duchy of Teck, and in it are many old houses,
in which lived the gentlemen of the Court of the
Dukes of Teck, but are now occupied by ordinary
burghers. The tomb of these princes is in the
choir of the parish church. The tombstone is
not remarkable except for its size, and it rests on
four smaller stones, beneath which is the vault.
On the slab nothing is sculptured save the coat
of arms of Teck surmounted by the crowned head
of an eagle. . . . Certainly the mountain of
Teck is very remarkable. On top it is level, and
wide enough to support sixty head of cattle that
belong to our prince, which pasture there, as it
bears much and good grass. The soil is black and
it is supposed that, if tilled, it would bear a
plentiful crop. Here to the east is a spring of
pure water, that issues from the rock in three
places. Schenz has related that in 1565, when
the stone tank was repaired, and which is four
square, 20 feet by 10 feet, the water was the depth
of a man ; this he saw himself. It is a singular
fact that, on so high a mountain separated from
all others, so much water should rise as to supply
sixty head of cattle and more. A man, aged a
hundred, and other old persons have declared
that in the year 1540, which was one of drought,
and the Lauter ran so shallow that any country-
man in his boots could wade across it, this spring
on the Teckberg gave forth as much water as
before."

Teck

As already said, the Teck Castle and Duchy
belonged originally to the Zahringen family. In
1152, Berthold of Zahringen pawned it to the
Emperor Frederick I, but recovered it four years
later. In 1519, on 3 April, whilst the garrison
was holding parley with the officers of the Swabian
Bund, it was treacherously captured by the soldiers
of the Confederates swarming over the wall and
taking the commandant in rear.

On 3 May, 1525, the castle was burnt by
the peasants. Matern Feuerbach was the com-
mander of the Wiirtemberg peasants, and he had
entered and occupied Kirchheim. He was a
man of moderation ; what the peasants demanded
were their just rights, and protection against
the intolerable exactions of the petty nobles.
Duke Ulrich of Wiirtemberg, who was an exile
from his land, driven from it by the Swabian
Bund and the Kaiser, was intriguing with them,
and Feuerbach had received a letter from him on
i May. He issued strict orders that the Castle of
Teck, being the possession of the Duke, should not
be molested, that only three pieces of ordnance
should be taken from it. But his captain, Henry
Metzger, against his commands set fire to it. In
J557 the chapel was still standing adorned with
paintings, and in 1661 Widerhold maintained
in it a small garrison. In 1736 Duke Charles
Alexander determined on repairing and refortify-
ing the castle, but died before his purpose was

The Land of Teck

carried into effect. In 1741 the guard-house was
pulled down.

It is unhappily the case that in the Alb district
the castles resemble stumps of teeth broken down
to the gums. There are none of the tall towers
that form so picturesque a feature in the Rhenish
castles. The reason is that these had a mere
basement or lower storey of stonework, and that
the whole superstructure was of timber and
plaster. Nothing can have been more delightful
to the eye than one of these castles when complete ;
nothing more disappointing when reduced to a
basement. In fact, splendid timber— beams of
oak of great thickness and length— abounded,
lime was to be had for the burning ; so that the
natural conditions encouraged this sort of struc-
ture. But the poor fragments of castles that
remain no more resemble the castles in their
integrity than would the lower part of a man cut
off at the knees give one a pleasing conception of
the entire man.

The view from Teck is very extensive. To the
south or south-west is seen the richly wooded
and smiling Lenninger Thai. The Hohenneufen
is visible with its stump of castle, the Rossberg and
the Achalm. To the north-east is visible Hohen-
staufen, like a cup turned upside down on a table ;
the still higher Stuifen and the Rechberg with
its pilgrimage chapel. Far and wide there are
villages snuggling among orchards and walnut

Teck

trees, their red roofs in every shade from scarlet
to nut-brown.

In the face of the cliff, surmounted by the ruins
of Teck, is a black spot. It is a cave that runs
about fifty feet into the rock. It is called the
Sibyllenloch, and was, so it is said, at one time
occupied by Sibylla, the mother of three sons,
ever at feud with one another, who built three
castles on the Wielandstein above Ober Lennin-
gen. The strife among them became so intolerable
that she left them and settled in this cavern,
deprived of all her goods by her unnatural sons.
Popular tradition, however, will have it that
she carried off with her a vast treasure, which
she buried in the recesses of the cave. During
the Thirty Years' War the Swedish soldiers
dug therein in quest of the treasure, but found
naught, and since then many peasants have
searched there with pick or spade with like
result. Recently another exploration has been
made, and the soil has given up, not gold and
precious stones, but the bones of the cave bear
and cave lion of prehistoric times. The peasantry
have confounded Sibylla with the old goddess
Freya, who drove through the clouds in a car
drawn by wild cats, and they say that Sibylla
thus travelled from her retreat in a golden chariot
to Dettingen. The track of her wheels may still
be seen. It is a remarkable fact, and fact it is,
that in spring when the corn is sprouting two

The Land of Teck

lines, that are parallel, go from Teck to Dettingen
through the fields, distinguishable by the vigorous
growth of the corn, and in autumn by its early
ripening there. The explanation of the pheno-
menon is still to seek.

Crusius, in his description of Teck, speaks
somewhat vaguely of a one-year-old calf that
leaped across the Lenninger Thai. The story
in its completeness is given by Hermann von
Sachsenheim in his rhymed romance " Morin,"
in 1453. A count of Wurtemberg desired in all
haste to send a message from Urach to the Em-
peror Charles IV, at Prague. Then an old woman
smeared a calf at Urach with a magic salve and
seated her husband on it, and in one night it
carried him to Prague, having cleared the valley
at a bound. She had strictly forbidden the man
to speak during the ride. However, on his way
back, as the calf made the same leap, he ex-
claimed, "What think you of this for a bound
of a one-year-old calf ? " Whereupon the calf
vanished.

If Sibylla — a noble lady — occupied a cave
under Teck, so also did a poor woman take up
her quarters in another under the Yellow Rock,
a crag of the same mountain. The entrance is
narrow; it has a hole that admits light into the
interior, and another that served as chimney.
Here for some years lived a woman named Verena
Beutlin, who was the mistress of a married

Teck

peasant in Beuren. She bore him two sons in the
cave. When she needed his presence she hung
out a bit of red cloth, but the people of Owen
paid no attention to this, supposing it to be a rag
caught in the bushes and fluttering in the wind.
Nor did they know that it was smoke that issued
from her cave, they regarded it as vapour clinging
to the mountain - side. Only after some years
was her presence discovered by the children
being observed playing about before the rock.
The place was visited, the cave entered, and found
to be well furnished with all that was needful.
Then ensued an outcry. Verena had to conduct
her children to the church to be baptized, one
old enough to walk at her side holding her hand.
After that she was burnt alive as a witch who had
charmed the peasant away from his wife and
home. As to the bauer himself, it was considered
sufficient punishment to send him home to his
shrewish wife. This was in the sixteenth century.
Crusius casually mentions the incident, but does
not say that Verena was burnt.

On the main mass of the Alb, connected with
Teck by a saddle or col, stood Diepoldsburg, but
it has now almost disappeared. In the castle
that occupied this place Bishop Solomon of
Constance was confined by the Exchequer lord,
Erchanger, in 914. The story is this : In the days
of the Emperor Conrad I, there sat on the episcopal
throne of Constance, Bishop Solomon, learned,

The Land of Teck

pious, of blameless morals, and one of the ablest
men of his day. He was of noble birth, and of
majestic carriage, and with a singularly hand-
some face. We know a good deal about the private
life of Solomon before he became bishop, from the
"Life of Notker the Stammerer," author of the
antiphon, "In the midst of life we are in death;
of whom may we seek for succour but of Thee,
O Lord, etc." It is one of the most delightful
of mediaeval biographies, and was compiled by
Eckhardt, dean of S. Gall, in 1220, from existing
material.

The Swabians had become impatient at the
abolition of their dukedom ; and an ineffectual
rising had taken place in 910, under Burkhard,
the Margrave in upper Alemannia, who as a de-
scendant of the ancient dukes claimed to be
recognised as Duke of Swabia. But he was
defeated and killed in 911, and his son Burkhard
was driven into banishment. The Exchequer
lord, or Palatine Erchanger, had a brother Berch-
told, who assisted Erchanger in his government.
The brothers were united in their resentment
against the encroachments of the clergy, and
especially of Bishop Solomon, who, however pious
he might be, was an ambitious and avaricious
man. The hatred of the two was deepened by
their own revenues being curtailed by the king,
who made over certain privileges and fiscal
rights to the grasping prelate. It was true

Teck

that Solomon occasionally visited an abbess
whom he had loved as a youth, when she was
a girl in her father's castle, and this the brothers
laid hold of as a crying scandal. The friends of
Solomon, however, pointed out that both were
elderly persons and old friends, and that no cause
for scandal existed if they did renew ancient
acquaintanceship .

Solomon stood high in the favour of Kings
Arnulf and Conrad I. The latter so greatly
esteemed him that he not only conferred on him
several estates in Swabia, but also appointed
him to six abbeys. Already, under Arnulf, the
brothers had ventured on an attack upon the
pluralist prelate, and they would have met with
severe punishment but for the intervention of
their enemy. They then swore no longer to do
injury to the Bishop and his estates. Moreover,
at an assembly at Ulm in 912, a reconciliation
was effected, and this was strengthened by
Conrad marrying Kunigund, the sister of Er-
changer and Berchtold.

However, the spark of resentment glowed under
the ashes of a feigned peace, and the brothers
allowed their nephew, Liutfried, to insult Solomon
to his face. The Bishop retaliated in a very
undignified manner, by dressing up a cowherd
in armour and despatching him as a messenger
to the brothers in their castle of Diepoldsburg.
These received the man with courtesy as a knight,

* <$

rtUfi

The Land of Teck

invited him to their table, and dismissed him
with a largess. The Bishop published the affair,
and made great mock of the Swabian lords —
descendants of dukes as they pretended — hob-
nobbing with a cowherd.

The Palatine flew to arms, and the nephew, a
hot-blooded youth, was especially zealous in
ravaging the estates of the Church of Constance.
The prelate was not slow to retaliate. He stormed
the castle of Berchtold, captured him, and threw
him into prison in Hohentwiel. The hostility
was fanned to fury when the Emperor presented
Solomon with the Castle of Stammheim in Thurgau,
which was the ancestral home of the brothers held
in feoff from the Crown.

At an accidental meeting of the Bishop and
Erchanger, when the former complained of the
violence committed by the Palatine, Liutfried,
the nephew, drew his sword, and with the words,
" Does this monk, the most crazy of the brood,
brag and demand satisfaction after all his acts
of rapacity ? And, uncle, you endure it ! " he
would have cut Solomon down had not Erchanger
restrained him. The attendants now came to
blows, but the party of the Bishop was defeated,
and he himself taken and conveyed to Diepolds-
burg, where Erchanger committed him to the
custody of his wife Bertha, to be kept secure.
This was in 914. Bertha treated the prelate with
the utmost respect and kindness. How long he

Teck

was kept in prison we are not told, nor how he
escaped ; whether Bertha allowed him to leave,
or whether Erchanger released him, being alarmed
at the approach of Conrad, we do not know.
The King managed to get hold of the person of the
Palatine, and he exiled him. But now the fire of
revolt broke out throughout Swabia. All the
discontented assembled around Berchtold, Erch-
anger's brother, who had obtained the mastery
of Hohentwiel, and the young Burkhard, son of
the Pretender slain in 911, returned out of banish-
ment and gathered forces about him. The King
laid siege to Hohentwiel, but receiving news that
the Saxon duke had invaded Franconia, hastily
broke up his camp and went north (915). No
sooner was he gone than the exiled Erchanger
returned and proclaimed himself Duke of Swabia.
Berchtold and Burkhard joined forces with him.
In a battle fought near Stockach, the Confederates
defeated the troops of the King and the Bishop.
Then Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria, joined them.

Deserted by the nobles and princes, who de-
sired above all things the weakening of the
central authority, Conrad could not hope to
make way against the widespread revolt. As
soon as he was secure against the Saxon duke,
he summoned all the bishops in the land to a
synod at Hohenaltheim for the autumn of 916.
The Pope sent his legate, Bishop Peter of Ortona,
that he might assist " to root out all the hellish

The Land of Teck

seeds of strife that had sprung up in the land,
and appease the bitterness and wickedness of
unworthy men " — odd words for a Pope to use,
whose successors for centuries would be engaged
in sowing broadcast in Germany these very
seeds of bitterness and rebellion. A message
was sent to Erchanger, Berchtold, and Arnulf,
inviting them to attend the synod and lay their
complaints before it, with promise of safe conduct.
Erchanger and his brother accepted the promise
and answered the summons. He relied on the word
of the King, that King being his own brother-in-
law. But he was as cruelly undeceived as was later
John Huss at Constance. The bishops, with Hatto,
Archbishop of Mayence, at their head, declared
that the promise of the Emperor did not hold good
with one who was excommunicate, and they
unanimously sentenced him and Arnulf, who
had not appeared, and Liutfried to be imprisoned
for life within the walls of a monastery. But
Conrad was not satisfied that such turbulent
spirits should remain in a cloister, and on 21
January, 917, Erchanger, Berchtold, and their
nephew Liutfried were executed with the sword.
Thus ended the second Swabian noble who
aimed for the ducal title. The conduct of the
King was treacherous and false, and the old
chroniclers who mention the affair reproach him
for it. What is more, this bloody act did not
succeed. That against which he strove was the

Teck

restoration of the duchy of Swabia, and, in the
very same year in which the crime was committed,
unanimously the Swabian princes elected Burk-
hard, Burkhard's son, who had raised the standard
of revolt along with Erchanger, to be Duke of
Swabia. The King dared not oppose the will of the
people, and yielded. Thus the year 917 marks
the revival of the duchy one hundred and seven-
teen years after its suppression by Pepin.

The botanist will find a good many plants to
interest him about Teck. In April, the blue
Scilla bifolia, and the small-leaved Lungwort
with its purple and pink flowers (Pulmonaria
angustifolia) ; in April and May, the White
Coltsfoot (Tussilago alba), the Mountain Alice
(Alyssum montanum) ; in May and June, the
Purple Gromwell (Lithospermum purpureo cceru-
leum), the Lunaria rediviva, the Spring Gentian
(Gentiana verna} ; in June and July, the Burnet-
leaved Rose (Rosa spinosissima), Yellow Meadow-
rue (Thalictrum flavum) and aquilegi folium, the
Broomrape (Orobanche minor), Coronilla montana,
the beautiful Pyramidal Orchis (Orchis pyrami-
dalis) ; in July and August, the Yellow Gentian
(Gentiana lutea) and the Yellow Foxglove (Digitalis
luted).

CHAPTER IV

THE LENNINGER THAL

WE are wont, we Englishmen, to grumble
at Red-tapeism ; but with us this
does not go beyond Government
offices. In Germany it is every-
where. I had an instance of it between Ober
Lenningen and Owen. I had asked at the former
place for a third-class ticket to Owen, and had
stepped into a third-class carriage. On these
branch lines nearly every one travels fourth. I
counted twelve compartments fourth, nine third,
and three second; there was no first-class com-
partment. Before reaching the next station — in
fact, a mile from Ober Lenningen — the inspector
came round. " Hah ! you have a fourth-class ticket,
and are in a third-class compartment. The fine is
six marks." I explained, and offered at once to
pass into an inferior carriage or pay the difference.
' ' That will not do. You have infringed the law and
must pay six marks." " I get out at Owen, and
will explain matters to the station-master." I
did so. " The fine is six marks," said this latter
peremptorily. " But," said I, "I demanded a
third-class ticket, and was given one for which I

OWEN UNDER TECK

The Lenninger Thai

had not asked. This was an oversight of the
clerk." " You should have examined your ticket."
The train was delayed five minutes whilst the
matter was threshed out on the platform, the
travellers craning their necks out of the windows
of their respective carriages, looking on and
listening with lively interest. At last, reluctantly,
the station-master yielded. I must pay the
difference. " What is it ? " " One penny (ten
pfennige)."

The foreigner complains of, or at least remarks
on, the stiffness of the English traveller. He sits
in his compartment of the railway carriage, in
his place at table d'hote, mute, like a figure of
stone. It is not altogether his own fault that he
acquires a reputation for taciturnity and rigidity ;
it is due to his difficulty in speaking the language
of the country in which he is travelling, and to his
fear of making himself ridiculous by lapsing into
some fault. And as the travelling Englishman
does not talk, not being fluent in a foreign
language, the foreigner comes to England to learn
our tongue so as to be able to facilitate the move-
ments of the British traveller. It is really mar-
vellous how the travelling Englishman gets on at
all — how, for instance, he discovers on what
platform he is to stand for his particular train,
what to order out of a menu brought to him
written in the current German hand. If it were
not for the waiter and official who have learned

F 65

The Land of Teck

our language he would be careering to Stuttgart
when he wanted to go to Hanover, or ordering a
succession of soups as they stand on the card
when he is craving for something solid.

Below the Diepoldsburg, buried in trees, are
the remains of Der Rauber ; this is supposed to
have been built by the youngest of the quarrel-
some brothers of Wielandstein, whom his two
elder brothers thrust out of the tower he had
built for himself on one of the prongs of rock
within a bowshot of their castles. And from the
Rauber, constructed out of the ruins of Diepolds-
burg, as he could no longer worry his brothers,
he worried his mother in the Sibyllenloch. The
Rauber acquired an unpleasant notoriety at a
later period.

Once upon a time, the Count of Calw stole a
horse from the Herr von Enzingen. This latter
crept secretly into the stables of the Count, got
hold of his horse, seated himself firmly on its
back, and sought to gallop out at the gateway.
But the Count of Calw perceived him, blew his
horn, and bade the portcullis be lowered and the
drawbridge raised. Undauntedly rode Enzingen
at the wall of the parapet of the castle terrace,
shouting, "Ross, wag's !" (My horse, venture
it!). The gallant steed leaped, and was dashed
to pieces below ; but the rider escaped un-
hurt. Thenceforth the descendants of Herr von
Enzingen bore the surname of Rosswags. The

The Lenninger Thai

Count of Calw attacked the castle of Enzingen
and destroyed it, so the Rosswagers retired to
the Hasenberg by Stuttgart, where they defiantly
built for themselves a castle. The family became
notorious as one of freebooters. In 1287 the
Emperor Rudolf of Hapsburg destroyed the
robber nests in Swabia, and at the same time com-
mitted the castle of the Rosswagers to the flames.
The family then retired to the Lenninger Thai.
At this juncture the lord of Sulzburg, the ruins
of which stand on a low hill above Unter Lennin-
gen, was impecunious and wanted to sell his land.
A Rosswager bought it. But although he osten-
tatiously occupied the Sulzburg, he filled the
Rauber with lawless men. He had not been long
there before the highways between the great
towns ceased to be safe for travellers. Ross-
wager and his merry men took care not to commit
any depredations in their immediate neighbour-
hood. They rode far afield, and for fifty years
carried on their course of plunder, unsuspected.
His horses were shod with shoes reversed ; mer-
chant waggons were arrested and all the wares
taken from them ; the pedlar was relieved of his
pack: the abbot of his purse. The citizens of
Gmiind, Niirtingen, Reutlingen, and Esslingen
suffered most ; those of Kirchheim were un-
molested near at home. At last suspicion was
raised, and the Gmiinders sent a large force to
the Rauber, completely buried in beech woods,

The Land of Teck

which was Ross wager's store-house. This was
taken whilst the gang were away, the walls de-
molished, and the stored-up spoil removed. From
Sulzburg they took the wife and two sons of the
freebooter.

On the return of the robber-knight he learned
what had happened. He hastened after the
Gmiinders, and was sent back with a bloody
cockscomb. Some weeks later he appeared under
the walls of Gmiind in a suppliant attitude, and
implored to be allowed to settle in the town as a
citizen with his aged wife and children. He
undertook to live an orderly life and to assist
the townsmen in military affairs. His request
was granted, he took up his abode there, and
was known as Ross wager, Noble of Rauber. He
entered the service of the town and became
captain of the guard. He was buried under the
wall of the church of S. John at Gmiind.

One of his sons, a hunchback, was a student,
and early in life became town scrivener, and
after many years chief magistrate. The other
son, a proud, vigorous man, could not endure to
be under obedience to the burghers, threw up
his appointment with the guard and departed,
having taken oath never to harm any Gmiinders
or their goods.

Four-and-twenty years elapsed, when a sturdy
man with grey hair was brought in chains to
Gmiind. He had been captured in the Schur-

The Lenninger Thai

wald, where for years he had lived as a highway
robber. He stoutly refused to give his name,
and on 6 August, 1399, he was brought out into
the market-place, his right hand was chopped off,
and he was then hung. Not till he was dead was
it discovered, by a tattoo mark in red on his
right arm, that he was a Rosswager, and that his
own brother had been his judge and had sentenced
him. This brother was so overcome by what had
happened that he sank into depression, and died
in the following year on the day of the Feast of the
Assumption. His monument was in the church of
the Dominicans, which was desecrated and turned
into a barrack when the convent was suppressed.
The stone bore the arms of the Rosswagers, a
horseman leaping his steed over a wall. Below,
a naked man was represented, with his armour
scattered about. The inscription ran : " Here,
after long suffering, lies the praiseworthy Enzing ;
he was weak in body but strong in spirit ; the
last of the race of the Rosswagers. His lot it was
to pronounce death-sentence on his own brother,
whose life had been spent in robbery. This noble-
man so grieved over what had befallen him, that
a year later he bowed his head to a peaceful end.
His name in full was John Anthony Max von
Rauber. He was guiltless of any wrongdoing.
Wherefore this monument has been erected to
him by the free citizens of Gmiind, and these
lines have been composed by his friend Xavier

The Land of Teck

Hamerstadter, monk, in the year 1400, and in
the month of May."

The Sulzburg, as already said, stands on a
little hill above the village of Unter Lenningen,
and is in somewhat better condition than most
of the castles in this valley. The gateway and
keep remain, but the peasants have picked out
the squared stones for the construction of pig-
styes and cow-sheds. Like the Diepoldsburg and
all others here about it, this was held by minis-
trales of the Dukes of Teck. The Diepoldsburg
is mentioned as early as 1210 ; in 1297 it belonged
to Teck. Sulzburg fell to Wiirtemberg in the
fourteenth century, and was occupied by the
family of Speth till that died out in 1640.

On leaving the station at Ober Lenningen
one faces a large, clean paper factory with
garden and fountain before it. It is a factory
of European fame, and, I was informed, sent much
of its product to England. Although the popula-
tion of the village is only 875, it possesses a draw-
ing school. High hills and abrupt limestone
precipices are on each side of the valley ; con-
spicuous are the spires of Wielandstein, with
the scanty remains of the three castles of
the contentious brothers. In 1532 they belonged
to the family of Schilling, who sold them to the
village, which proceeded at once to pull them
down.

A curious feature on the opposite side of the

OBER LENNIXGEN

The Lenninger Thai

valley is the Conradsfels, a bare needle of trap.
Everywhere else one of these volcanic dykes is
surrounded by the lime rock through which it
was forced, and just shows itself at the surface,
but here its casing has given way and exposed
the dyke itself.

The church is of the twelfth century, nave and
side aisles, with clerestory windows ; the piers
of the nave have very rude capitals. According
to an inscription above the west door, the church
was repaired in 1326. The late Gothic choir with
apse, and with a vaulting that is intricate, and
the bold tower with its saddle roof, date from
1495. Carved choir stalls are in the chancel, the
work of George Fieglin of Blaubeuren, 1513. A
little girl of seven is given a monument with
four shields with coats of arms, the heraldic bear-
ings of this mite.

Ober Lenningen is the present terminus of the
line, and thence one must drive or walk to the
head of the valley at Gutenberg, a distance of
four miles. A good deal of the sensitive, wild
balsam grows here (Impatiens noli-me-tangere), that
spits at you spitefully if you touch it. Actually
the seed-vessel curls up its valves spirally at the
slightest touch, jerking its contents into the face
of him who bends over it. On the way is passed,
on the right, a gloomy valley, in which lies the
village of Schlattstall, the poorest hamlet in the
district, so closed in by mountains that the sun

The Land of Teck

is not seen from Martinmas (n November) to
Candlemas (2 February). It derives its name
from the rushes that abound in the swampy
bottom. Slate is the old German for reed, and the
latter part of the name stands for thai. The Black
Lauter flows through this glen, receiving as one
of its tributaries a stream that issues from the
Goldloch. Usually the water rushes out with so
full a current that it is not easy to enter the cave.
Many years ago an old shepherd was feeding
his flock on the slopes of the Urach valley. One
day he noticed a small hole in the rock. He
crept in and reached a great hall, but as he had
no candle went no further. Next day, however,
he provided himself with a light, traversed the
hall, and reached an underground lake. Above,
glowering at him through its moon-like eyes, was
a great bird ; and he was so frightened that he
fled and never had courage to return. However,
he informed a miller's man of what he had seen,
and this fellow penetrated the cave. Regardless
of the mysterious bird, he crept round the lake,
and after an hour's march reached a second hall,
the walls of which shone like pure gold. But as
he was without hammer and chisel he was unable
to carry any off. On the following day he re-
visited the cave and cut out a bar of gold.
He could hear distinctly the clapper of the
Schlattstall mill, so that he believed that the
water flowed out in that direction, and he en-

The Lenninger Thai

deavoured to make his way from the cave
through the aperture now called the Goldloch,
but failed. So he returned by the way he
came. In his home at Seeburg he was no
longer content, and he left, taking his bar of
gold with him, and was heard of no more.
Before leaving he had confided his secret to
another miller's man, and this fellow ventured
into the cave, but was so frightened by the bird
with the big eyes that he fled, became ill, and
died without telling where was the entrance.
But it is well known that the golden hall is to be
reached through the Goldloch, by which the sub-
terranean lake discharges its waters. Many have
tried to penetrate to it by this way, but hitherto
without success. There was once a castle in this
dismal valley, occupied by the family of Schwenz-
lin, feoffees under Teck. The castle is gone, but
the family is still represented, and lives in Stutt-
gart.

Gutenberg is the last village — once a walled
town — in the Lenninger Thai, whence radiate
short valleys like fingers. The road here ascends
to the plateau by many a loop for six miles. A
postboy coming from Blaubeuren over the Alb
cracks his whip at the verge of the plateau, the
publican of the Lion at Gutenberg puts out
his head and draws it in again to order his wife
to break the egg-shells for an omelette, and to
put on the leathery beef to make a bouillon and

The Land of Teck

bouilli, and by the time the carriage has reached
the bottom dinner is ready.

There is not much to be seen in the village
itself. The church is a modern erection in bad
Gothic ; but the scenery around is delightful.
At the upper end of the place, on a height, stood
the Castle of Hohen Gutenberg, which was wrecked
by an earthquake in 1348, but was speedily re-
built. A branch of the Teck family occupied it,
and called themselves Herren von Gutenberg.
To the right of the castle rises the Heiligenberg,
once dedicated to Wuotan, the Odin of the North-
men, who has given his name to Gutenberg, and
gave a lasting sanctity to the height on which he
was worshipped. In early Christian times her-
mits lived on the hill, and finally Franciscans
built a convent there. It was destroyed at the
Reformation, and the stones were rolled down to
be employed in building a parsonage for the
Evangelical preacher.

During the Thirty Years' War the site was
employed as a burial ground, as there was no
room in the churchyard for all who died. The
soldiers had introduced an infectious fever, and
all the inhabitants except seven and the sexton
succumbed. The ass of the latter daily trudged
up to the convent height laden with a corpse,
slung across its back. The grave-digger eyed the
survivors with resentment. Why could not they
follow the rest and leave Gutenberg to him ?

The Lenninger Thai

Formerly there were two blue lakes above
the town, not extensive, but picturesque, over-
hung by the white limestone crags ; but they
were drained away in the eighteenth century.
There was a castle hard by, Sperbereck (Hawks'
Corner), the seat of a family holding the feoff
under Teck, but scarce a trace of it remains — castle
gone, family gone, only the hawks remain. As I
have said elsewhere, there were thirteen castles
dependent on Teck in this valley, and but enough
of them now remains to build a Bierhalle.

High aloft, on top of a precipice, glimmer the
white walls and glow the red roofs of Krebstein,
a high-placed hamlet. The first lesson there im-
pressed by a mother on her infants is not to look
down upon the people of Gutenberg, lest they
should lose their heads and fall.

In 1889 the pastor Gussmann discovered a
cavern in the neighbourhood. It does not give
much difficulty to find a cave in the Alb; caves
are as numerous and as easily picked out as holes
in a neighbour's coat. But this one is considered
the finest in the Alb, not having had its stalactites
and stalagmites wantonly mutilated. The en-
trance grotto had always been open. Herr Guss-
mann had an examination to pass, and wanted
quiet ; so, as the weather was warm, he packed
up his books, took some food with him, and
naturally some beer, and retired to the cave
for a few weeks. But a man cannot study all

The Land of Teck

day — theology least of all — without wishing to
stretch his legs and exercise his arms. When
Herr Gussmann's brain got thick over moot points
of theology, he took a pick and pecked at the
interior of the rocky chamber — and lo ! he dis-
covered that he was at the entrance to a veritable
palace of gnomes. The exploration of the floor
has revealed relics of the rhinoceros, the urochs,
the cave bear, and actually of an ape.

In Gutenberg the first potatoes in the Alb were
grown. Some tubers had been sent to a miller's wife
in 1760. She planted them in her garden. In due
course they produced lilac flowers, then berries,
green at first, later purple. They were not large, but
might be luscious. She tasted one and speedily spit
it out. Clearly they needed cooking. So she called
her friends and her neighbours together to taste the
new American berries. They were served up piping
hot. No one could eat them, and the hostess
angrily ordered her man to pull up the plants,
throw them on a heap, and burn them along
with the weeds and rubbish. The pile smoked,
and the potatoes, when baked, burst, exposing
a rich, floury meal. The man sniffed, ventured
to taste, and rushed into the house with his mouth
full and overflowing with it, to show that by
accident he had discovered how to treat potatoes.

From Gutenberg a visit may be made to the
Heiden Graben. A tract of plateau, over six
miles long and four broad, that is attached to

The Lenninger Thai

the main mass of the Alb by a neck a mile across,
tas had the neck cut through so as to insulate
lis portion of tableland to serve as a place of
;fuge in war time for the population, along with
teir flocks and herds. It is indubitably earlier
than the Roman Conquest, but the conquerors
>f the world saw the importance of the position
id made use of it.

A ravine runs up from the valley of the Lauter,
and another from the opposite side, down which
flows the Elsach to Urach. Between these a deep
cutting has been made through the rock, and a
high bank thrown up to the north of it. As the
portion of the elevated plain thus insulated is
bounded on all sides by precipitous rocks or by
steep slopes, it furnished an impregnable oppidum.
To this the natives removed their wives and
children and cattle, and only the wall needed
watching and defending. The plateau yielded
pasture, but was deficient in water. The Alb
dwellers, however, must always have managed
to live upon the minimum. There may, however,
have been hollows giving access to underground
streams ; and, indeed, one such does exist — the
Falkenstein Hohle.

Throughout the Alb there are other such
places of refuge, for it lends itself to the purpose.
The peasants, devoid of historic perspective, call
these Swedish forts or Frenchmen's embankments,
as though they dated from the Thirty Years1 or

The Land of Teck

from the European War. Sometimes a hill-top
has been fortified in a similar manner by a ring-
wall, and many of the mediaeval castles occupy
the sites of prehistoric fortifications. Such is
the Ipf, near Bopfmgen ; but these could never
have held out for any length of time ; whereas
that near Gutenberg would support a consider-
able population for many months.

From Dettingen to Gutenberg the Lenninger
Thai is one great orchard of cherry trees. A
miller who died in 1795 taught the people to
crush the kernels for the extraction thence of an
inflammable oil, and this was employed in their
lamps till the introduction of American petroleum.
Twice in the year the Thai is in its highest beauty.
When the cherry trees are in flower the valley is
a creek of white, flushed pink here and there with
apple blossom. It is in its bridal attire and
modesty.

Then ensues the period of fertility. And, just
as a woman becomes dressy when her youthful
charms have faded, so does the Lenninger Thai
before winter sets in array itself in gorgeous
colours : the cherry leaves turn carmine, the
maple gamboge, the oak and the beech all shades
of copper ; the pines are dark green.

" What a display of colour ! " I exclaimed to
my driver one sunny day at Michaelmas.

" True, indeed," was his reply. " Our moun-
tains are fossil rainbows."

CHAPTER V

THE NEIDLINGER THAL

A DUMBER of rivers converge at Kirch-
heim, so that on the map the streams
seem to radiate from the town like
the spokes of a fan. Next to the
Lauter, that waters the Lenninger Thai, is the
Lindach, that flows through the Neidlinger valley.
The town upon it is Weilheim-an-der-Teck, domi-
nated by the conical basaltic hill of Limburg,
which was formerly surmounted by a castle, the
ancient seat of the dukes, and which rises 700
feet above the town. Weilheim is five miles south-
east of Kirchheim, and is reached by a branch line.
In a crescent about the town on the south rise, at
some distance, the Teck, the Breitenstein, Erken-
burg, Bosler, and the Aichelberg. Of the town
walls, gates, and towers nothing remains. They
have been pulled down. Even the castle of the
Count of Aichelberg, that had degenerated into
an inn, was demolished as late as 1895. One
wonders when this craze for destroying all pictu-
resque features and memorials of the past will
come to an end.
The church was founded in 1089 by Berchtold,

The Land of Teck

Duke of Zahringen, but was burnt down in 1461,
and rebuilt, under the auspices of the famous
architect Peter of Coblenz, between 1489 and
1527. The rich net- vaulting of the porch is
noticeable. It dates from 1495-1517. In 1765
the top of the tower that was gabled was altered
to suit the taste of the time. It was heightened
forty-six feet, and surmounted with a cupola
that sustains in turn an octagonal lantern crowned
by a smaller cupola. In the choir are sixteen
life-sized paintings representing the Princes of
Wiirtemberg, from Duke Eberhard wi' the Beard
to the late King William. This is how chancels
here are treated. It is the same at Stuttgart ;
they are converted into mausoleums, given over
to the dead in effigy, if not in person. After
the Reformation they would seem to have been
regarded as otherwise useless. What is most
remarkable in the church is the profusion of
fresco decoration, begun in 1499, carried on in
Renaissance times, and finished in the rococo
period of flourish and shell-work. Over the
chancel arch is a Last Judgment. On the north
wall, a Holy Family and the Mysteries of the
Rosary are of artistic merit.

There was a monastery of Benedictines here,
founded by Duke Berchtold ; but there were, as
in the Lenninger valley, also thirteen castles, occu-
pied by petty tyrants whom even the Duke could
not restrain from molesting the brothers. He

The Neidlinger Thai

accordingly transferred it to S. Peter's, in the
Black Forest, on high ground in a bleak situation,
where there is now a church in the most out-
rageous rococo style of that debased period,
crowded by figures of dukes and saints, curling
their arms, contorting their legs, twisting their
backs, and screwing their heads on one side, as if
the dukes and saints were posturing to make them-
selves look like Merry-Andrews, and all ablaze in
tinsel and gold. In Weilheim only a prior, with
five brethren, was left ; and when the Reforma-
tion was introduced they departed to the mother
house in the Schwarzwald.

The Zahringen family is very ancient. How
and why it came to the Alb from the Breisgau
in the Rhine valley is not clear. It had its head-
quarters in the Limburg. Berchtold I, Count of
Zahringen and Duke of Carinthia, lived there.
He turned traitor to Henry IV. He had been
created Duke of Swabia by Henry III, but on
the death of that emperor his widow Agnes, who
was regent during the minority of her son, trans-
ferred the title to the Hohenstaufen Frederick.
This wounded his pride ; and later he occupied
all the passes of the Alps to keep open com-
munication between the Pope and the discontented
in the empire, whom the pontiff was urging to
revolt. Because the bishops of Coire, Lausanne,
Sion, and Basle were loyal to the Crown he
ravaged these sees with relentless ferocity. But

G Si

The Land of Teck

he was defeated in a battle at Veltheim by Count
Cuno of Oettingen, and retired to the Limburg,
where he went mad with vexation at his humilia-
tion and self-reproach for his disloyalty, and died
in 1077.

His great-grandson, Adalbert I, became first
Duke of Teck in 1187. The elder branch, repre-
sented by a series of Berchtolds or Bertholds to
the fifth, died out in the male line in 1218, when
the Count of Aichelberg, who died in 1270,
married Anna, daughter of Duke Conrad of
Teck, and received Limburg and Weilheim as
her dower. A century later they passed to
Wiirtemberg. Limburg is really Lintburg, the
Lindentree castle, just as the river is Lintach,
the Lindentree stream ; but the popular tradition
is that the hill was the habitation of a dragon,
that was slain by a knight of Erkenburg. The
bones of huge extinct saurians in the lias gave
occasion here to a fable about a dragon. The
castle crumbled away, and in its place in 1535
stood a chapel dedicated to S. Michael ; it was
intact in 1650, but since then its stones have
been carried off for profane purposes. The Count
of Aichelberg did not reside in Limburg, but in a
mansion in the town ; it was more lively there,
though Weilheim cannot have afforded much
social entertainment ; in 1733 it numbered within
its walls but forty citizen families.

It may not be amiss here to give the legendary

The Neidlinger Thai

story of the origin of the Zahringers. I need
hardly say that it is destitute of historic basis.
The cradle of the family was at Zahringen, near
Freiburg, in Breisgau, where their ruined castle
still stands. There lived on the skirts of the
Black Forest a collier. He heaped earth and
stone over the wood he was reducing to char-
coal, and one day found among the ashes a
mass of silver. He repeated the experiment
till he had obtained a vast accumulation of the
precious metal. Now it fell out that a German
king and kaiser was driven from his throne and
took refuge on the range of mountains rising out
of the valley of the Rhine, since called the Kaiser-
stuhl. Thence he issued a proclamation that he
would give his daughter in marriage to the man
who would help him to recover his throne. Then
the collier put panniers on an ass, filled them
with silver, and presented himself before the
king. He poured out the treasure at his feet, and
assured him that he could supply him with the
precious metal to an unlimited amount. The
emperor accepted the offer, gave him his daughter
to wife, and created him Duke of Zahringen.

There is no story that hangs in the memory of
the people without some origin in fact. Now, the
source of this tale is as follows : In the Schwarz-
wald are veins of silver, which were the great
source of the revenue of the Zahringers; with
this silver they were able to assist the Emperor

The Land of Teck

Henry VI, whom they favoured ; and because of
their wealth, through mines, they assumed as
their crest a miner or a collier with a ball of
silver in his hand. Out of this crest the story
was hatched. No Zahringer married an emperor's
daughter.

From Weilheim a road corkscrews up past
Hepsisau to the top of the Alb, to the Randecker
Maar, the only perfect crater on the Alb, the
structure of which can be studied.

Originally the surface of white Jura limestone

extended to the Vosges, and even beyond. Then

came the sinking of the crust of the earth between

Basle and Mayence, forming the Rhine valley, and

the plateau was fractured and splintered in every

part. If the enamel of a tooth be pierced, the

soft core speedily decays and the entire tooth

collapses. It was so with the enamel of white

Jura. It overlay soft oolite, and when cracked

and broken up rapid erosion took place. After a

time all save a few fragments remained over the

wide stretch between the Vosges and the Alb.

But that it did exist there anciently admits of

no doubt. At Scharnhausen, some twenty miles

away from the present steep edge of the Alb, is

an outburst of volcanic matter that contains

angular masses of the Jurassic limestone through

which it passed. Little by little that wall of

white has retreated. Just as the Falls of Niagara

are slowly but surely breaking away the lip over

The Neidlinger Thai

which the water plunges, so has the crust of lime-
stone given way in past ages, and is still shrinking
back. There are a hundred and thirty volcanic
vents. But they were only embryo volcanoes.
The force of the explosion exhausted itself when
the lava reached the surface, and about the rising
column of liquefied stone was a splutter of ash
and a broth of semi-fluid matter containing half-
chewed lumps of granite, schist, and sandstone,
athwart which beds the rising lava had forced its
way. Very often this froth of mumbled stone and
igneous matter has been washed away, leaving
the basalt or clinkstone behind. Sometimes it
remains, burying the hardened column ; if cleared
away, this latter is surely found below.

Now, the Randecker Maar was a crater neatly
formed about a vent, a ring 4500 feet in diameter,
and, like the craters in the Eifel and in Auvergne,
was converted into a lake in late Miocene days,
its banks clothed in rich vegetation, when the
climate was that of the Canary Isles. As the
enamel of the Upper Jura yielded, through the
giving way of the softer subjacent beds, a valley
of erosion ate its way up to the lake, tapped that,
and the water deserted the crater to pour down
the newly formed ravine as the Zipfelbach. How-
ever, the crater has been left, and not it alone, but
also the remains of the leaves shed into the placid
tarn, the trees that fell in and were water-logged,
and the relics of the fauna harboured by the woods.

The Land of Teck

The Schopfloch, above Gutenberg, met with a
different fate. That also was a crater ; it also
contained a lake, but no opportunity was given
to the water to escape, and it gradually filled up
with sphagnum and weed of all sorts, till it be-
came one great peat bed. The same process is
going on in the Meerfelder Maar, in the Eifel.
' At Hepsisau may be noticed the process of
retreat of the broken face of the Alb. There falls
of the rock occur frequently, as water sinking
through the upper limestone reaches the lower
beds and dissolves them, undermining the crust,
or else because they are corroded by wind and

Six miles from Weilheim, up the Neidlinger
valley, is the village from which it takes its name.
Here the bold crags were formerly surmounted
by five castles. Widerhold was granted the
manor of Neidlingen, and in the castle he spent
his summers. This building has shared the fate of
many another. It was demolished in 1825.
structure was quadrangular, enclosing a court-
yard ; at each angle was a tower, and i : was
entered by a drawbridge. This was originally the
residence of a feudal tenant of the Dukes of Teck.

North-east of Neidlingen the Erkenberg rises
high above the adjoining mountains, standing by
itself. On the summit are some fragments of a
castle, occupied once by the Zahringen. From
them it passed to the Counts of Aichelberg. A

The Neidlinger Thai

ravine leads to a fall of forty-five feet, very pretty
" when there is water in it to fall," as a peasant
said. The rocks here become very bold. One,
the Heimenstein, was supposed to be the abode
of a giant. There is a cave that runs through it,
and which can be entered from the rear and leads
to the abrupt face of the crag. This cave has
served as a refuge in time of war. Several families
of Neidlingen hid in it along with their goods
from the violence of the Swedes. Though nomi-
nally allies and friendly, they pillaged unscru-
pulously, and to this day nurses sing to the
children : —

The Swede in the land
Upon all lays his hand,
The window panes breaks
The lead from them takes,
Bullets to make.
All things will take.

In the year 1796, after defeat by the French,
many of the Austrian soldiers concealed them-
selves in this cave.

Opposite to the Heimenstein is Reussenstein,
perhaps the most picturesque ruin of the Northern
Alb. On three sides the crag falls away precipi-
tously; on the fourth side is a deep artificial
moat. The square tower occupies the eastern-
most angel of the fortress. The residential por-
tion was of three storeys, mostly of timber and
plaster, and that has gone. A curious feature

The Land of Teck

was that the only entrance into the castle was
through a doorway forty feet up, and this could
only be reached from an outbuilding on the
further side of the moat by a drawbridge, but
this outbuilding has disappeared. Sixty years
ago access to the interior was obtained by a hole
dug through the walls for twenty-five feet and by
crawling. Since then a more convenient mode of
entrance has been made. The outer structures
probably comprised stables and stalls for cattle,
and an inclined way by which the inhabitants of
the castle could mount to the level of the draw-
bridge. This ruin was originally the cradle of the
family of Reuss of Reussenstein, whose coat was
a white bear standing up on his hind legs on a red
field. The castle came early to Wiirtemberg, and
was granted by Count Eberhard to a Hans von
Lichtenstein in 1390, who married his daughter ;
then it passed to the Count of Helfenstein. The
commandant cowardly surrendered the castle to
the insurgent peasants in 1525, without striking
a blow in its defence.

According to the popular legend, the giant
Heim took it into his head that he would build
a castle on the rock opposite his abode. But,
being clumsy and unskilled, as soon as he piled
up the walls they tumbled down. So he laid
himself down on the Beuren rock and shouted for
masons, and his voice rang through all Swabia.
As he promised large rewards to those who

REUSSENSTEIN

The Neidlinger Thai

should build him a castle, masons came to him in
abundance ; he elected one as chief builder with
apprentices under him, and assured the man a
bag of gold when Reussenstein was completed.

So the masons worked and the giant looked
on, till at length the master-builder came to him
to say that the work was accomplished. But Heim
noticed that one nail outside had not been knocked
home, and he refused to pay till that was done.
The apprentices looked; the projecting nail was
by the topmost window, and none would venture
forth to hammer it in. Then a young workman
approached the master-mason, who was despairing
of the reward, and offered to do the job if the
master would give him his daughter in marriage.

The agreement was made, and the youth crept
out of the window. A frightful abyss was below,
and he looked for a projection on which he
might plant his toe, and another to which
he could cling with his left hand whilst he
struck the nail. But there were none. Then
Heim, the giant, pitied the young apprentice, and,
taking him by the scruff of his neck between
finger and thumb, held him in place till he could
hammer in the nail. That accomplished, the
giant paid the wage, bade the master give his
daughter to the 'prentice boy, and made over to
the youth the castle to be his residence all the
days of his life. And that was the origin of the
castle and of the family von Reussenstein.

The Land of Teck

A sad episode in the history of this ruined mass
is that the Count of Helfenstein in the sixteenth
century shut up in it twenty poor old women,
accused of witchcraft, and brought them forth
in batches to burn them alive in the market-
place of Wiesensteig. In 1704 the Helfenstein
estates were annexed by Wiirtemberg.

Aichelberg is north of Weilheim. The hill on
which the castle stood is of basalt. The race of the
Counts of Aichelberg goes back into cloudland.
They were loyal to the Hohenstaufen. In or about
1243 an Egino von Aichelberg married Agnes,
daughter and heiress of Conrad, Duke of Teck. Ac-
cording to tradition, — Gustav Schwab has written
a ballad on the subject— a Count of Aichelberg,
with his retinue, was riding forth one day when
a poor old woman in rags cried to him, " My son !
My dear son ! God bless thee ! " The Count
reined in his steed. " My good woman," said he,
" my mother died shortly after I was born."
" True," she replied ; " but I fostered thee, thou
didst rest in my bosom, and I have sung thee
to sleep and nourished thee at my breast."
The Count swung himself from his horse and
kissed the old woman as tears came into his eyes.
" Look round, dear mother mine," said he. " All
this land about shall be thine for ever." And
the stately House of Aichelberg came to an end.
The castle was destroyed by the peasants in 1525 ;
but the peasant descendants of the foster-mother

The Neidlinger Thai

live on, and the cottage of her who nourished the
Count is still standing. The peasant, like the
poor, is ever with us.

Under the Aichelberg stands the village of Zell.
Here and in some of the neighbouring villages a
sort of popular court of judgment sits on quarrel-
some couples. When it becomes known that in a
cottage or farm husband and wife are on bad
terms, and become mutually abusive, the young
men assemble at night around it, cracking whips,
and then making a horrible din by roaring and
bellowing into pitchers, which are afterwards
dashed to pieces and the fragments strewn about
the door.

The lias beds here are peculiarly coloured, being
burnt red; they are also fragile. This is due to a
conflagration in 1650. So profuse was the number
of wading and swimming monsters in the lias period
that their fat saturated the mud in which they
were embedded. The beds are so bituminous
that when struck by a hammer they emit an un-
pleasant odour, and are accordingly called stink-
stone. Moreover, the slate burns as coal. Some
soldiers encamping near Zell allowed their bivouac
fires to smoulder and ignite the oily rock on which
they were placed. It was a long time before the
fire exhausted itself ; smoke issued from fissures,
and petroleum dripped from the heated beds.
Now all the bitumen is gone, and the belemnites
have been burnt white. Again, during the

The Land of Teck

Napoleonic wars the rock caught fire, and ob-
stinately resisted being extinguished.

The Posidonian beds of Boll derive their name
from a tiny shell, Posidonia Bwnnii, that exists
in countless myriads in the stone. It might be
taken for a diminutive bivalve, but this it is not ;
it pertained to a single- valved creature. Another,
a bivalve, Moceramus dubius, also is found as
numerous ; in fact, the roads are metalled with
lumps of lias — every lump is a mausoleum. Was
it waste of life that thus made the very earth
we tread on, the stones we built with, the lime
that cements them together, the grave of count-
less beings ? A thousand lives, happy in their
way, extinguished to make one lump that the
steam-roller crushes into the road.

Gigantic water-lizards, the remains of which
are found about Boll and furnish the finest
examples in museums, may be seen here lying in
their beds, so numerous that the quarrymen
can calculate on finding one at intervals occa-
sionally so perfect that even the impression of
their skin remains. Together with the saurians
are fossil sea-lilies, pencrinites, that had long
stalks waving in the water, and sustaining blossoms
a foot across. Who saw these beautiful floral
specimens in their glory ? Was beauty, as well
as life, wasted ? Now, turned to stone, they
have a coating of pyrites, glittering as gold, and
are perfect to the smallest fibre. In the same

The Neidlinger Thai

way, of the saurians not a bone is lost, not one
out of place, showing that flora and fauna throve
in very still water, a waveless lagoon, or a quiet
bight of the sea, brackish with inflowing fresh
water. That land was not far off is certain, as
embedded in the petrified slime are found twigs
of conifers, and the bodies of flying lizards, ptero-
dactyls.

The lower beds of the Posidonian formation
furnish black slate that is much used, along with
a white slate from the Upper Jura ; this also a
fresh-water deposit of marl from the Dolomite,
for facing houses, fancifully arranged in patterns ;
also for roofs ; but the former is dingy, and looks
like sticking-plaster. The sulphuretted hydrogen
springs that occur in the Alb valleys all rise out
of the lias, even though they make their way
athwart the brown oolite that is superposed.

CHAPTER VI

HOHENSTAUFEN

ONE pouring wet day I started in a
post-omnibus from Gmiind over the Alb
to meet the train at Siissen. We were
three in the small wooden box on
wheels drawn by one horse — myself, a friend, and
a typical German student in spectacles. At
Sassdorf, where the horse paused to take breath
and envelop itself in a cloud of steam, a stout
peasantess of middle age, also drenched and
steaming, and laden with a basket charged
with plucked poultry, got in, and squeezed the
student into a corner, so that the rain her gar-
ments had absorbed dripped on to him. A smile
of satisfaction broke out on his face. ' Ach ! "
he exclaimed, " Jetzt fehlt es nicht an Liebe "
(Now we do not lack love). But it was love-in-a-
mist.

The road strains upward, continually upward,
till it reaches the highest point, where is the vil-
lage of Rechberg, whence Hohenstaufen can be
reached on foot, or in a conveyance obtainable
at the inn. But, on the whole, I think that the
best way of visiting Hohenstaufen is to start from

Hohenstaufen

Goppingen, two hours distant from Stuttgart on
the main line to Ulm.

Goppingen has suffered thrice from fires; the
timber-and-plaster houses of the Swabian towns
are peculiarly liable to them. Nothing ancient
was spared in the last outbreak save the church
and the castle. The last fire took place in 1782,
when five hundred houses were laid in ashes. A
curious circumstance is connected with this con-
flagration. Twin sisters lived at the time in the
house of one of the principal merchants of the
town. The same night both dreamt that fire
broke out and consumed the whole of Goppingen
whilst the inhabitants were in the church. Next
morning they related their dream, but were
laughed at. However, they determined not to
go to church. Actually, during divine service,
lightning struck a house and set it on fire ; as
there was a strong wind, and lack of water, the
flames spread rapidly. The sisters insisted that
the house should be cleared of all its contents ;
but as the conflagration was in a remote part of
the town, the merchant's wife, who was at home,
protested that there was no need to do so. The
sisters, however, persisted, and against her wishes
cleared the premises of all the furniture, wares,
and everything of value. The master of the
house was absent. When he returned, he found
that his dwelling was in ashes, but that all his
goods were safe. In return for what the sisters

The Land of Teck

had done he made them a present which pro-
vided for them during life.

The royal castle was erected in 1562 by Duke
Christopher, and, as already said, for the purpose
he pulled down the Castle of Hohenstaufen. The
House of Wiirtemberg rose on the ruins of that
Imperial line, and the building of its castle out
of the ruins of Hohenstaufen was significant of
the manner in which it had entered on the head-
ship of the Swabian race after the extinction of
the other illustrious family. It is a three-storeyed
structure with corner towers, and is surrounded
by a moat. In it is a wondrous winding stair-
case of stone called the Traubenschnecke (the
grape snail). It resembles a twisted vine hung
with grape clusters, and preyed on by snails and
creeping creatures. At the entrance of the tower
that contains it are two lions supposed to be of
Greek sculpture, and these and two windows came
from Hohenstaufen.

The Sauerbrunnen is a spring of effervescing
water much used by the inhabitants. It is quite
wholesome and agreeable to the taste. Duke
Christopher supposed that it had cured him of
the effects of poison administered to him in Italy,
but what he suffered from was probably only low
fever that was expelled by the bracing air of
the Alb. The spring was formerly supposed
have the most marvellous effects. "In 1492 a
certain citizen of Ueberlingen, named Peter

Hohenstaufen

Breimolder, had inside him such a host of voracious
worms so that in two and a half years he devoured
520 bushels of corn. He was entirely cleared of
his trouble by the use of this water."

It did not, however, heal Count Eberhard the
Mild, according to Crusius, who tells the follow-
ing story, which he had, he assures us, on the very
best authority. You shall have it in his own
words : —

" Eberhard when nearly sixty years old was
out of health, but not, to all appearance, in any
danger of death. In order to restore himself he
came to the bath at Goppingen, and felt himself
much better and quite lively from the use of it.
Then said his physician to him one day : * Gra-
cious, sir ! set your house in order and care for
your soul, for within five hours you will be done
for.' The Count replied : ' Nonsense, I neither
feel myself, nor can you see in me, any tokens of
approaching death. Moreover, it has been fore-
told to me that there is a woman here in Gop-
pingen who will die the same hour as myself, and,
as I understand, she is in rude health/ The
doctor instituted inquiries, and announced to the
Count that she was actually dying and the last
Sacraments were being administered to her.
' Pshaw ! ' said the Count, ' there was another
token given me that I should not die till a certain
tree (which he then described) should fall. I sat
under it yesterday, and it had put forth fresh
H 97

A -Sleff- — ,l' ' 1

f ?

The Land of Teck

leaves/ The physician replied : ' That tree has
fallen to-day. Send a servant, and see whether
I do not speak the truth.' Then the Count knew
that death was really at hand ; he prepared him-
self and died " (16 May, 1417)- He lies in the
church at Stuttgart.

As already intimated, the portion of the Alb
north of the Fils and between that and the
Rems differs from the rest. The upper, protect-

SECTION OF HOHENSTAUFEN.

ing crust of white Jura limestone has been re-
moved, and the lower beds, soft and easily cor-
roded, have become exposed, so that this part
has given way and has been ploughed by torrents
and become undulating, with only the high cones
of Stuifen, Rechberg, and Hohenstaufen rising
above it. These points have kept their caps on
and defied erosion.

Hohenstaufen is 1977 feet high, and its struc-
ture is geologically peculiar. The exposed and
fretted portion of this part of the Alb is the Brown
Jurassic formation, or oolite. Above this, form-

Hohenstaufen

ing the cone, come the hard white beds in three
horizontal layers. But near the bottom is a pro-
jection, called the Spielberg, below the brown
oolite, and consisting of the highest stratum of
white Jura. How it came there is difficult to
explain, and, in fact, is an unsolved problem.
This projection, in the heyday of the Hohen-
staufen House, was the place for sports, tilting,
I and archery, of the inhabitants of the castle.

To appreciate the interest that Hohenstaufen
possesses, and the hold it has on German imagi-
nation, it is necessary, very briefly, to give the
glorious and yet tragic history of that splendid
dynasty. And we will begin with its cradle, that
has happily been preserved intact, whereas its
princely castle has been levelled with the dust.

Near Wascherbeuren, on high ground easily
reached from Lorch, is a little castle on a mound
above a pretty wooded glen, through which courses
a sparkling stream that dances down to join the
Rems between banks dense in June with large
pink geraniums and tufts of blue veronica. The
mound has been isolated by a moat from the
nearest high ground, and on it has been built a
rectangular enclosure of sandstone, every block
of which retains in the centre the hole into which
the crook was wedged by means of which it was
heaved out of the quarry. In the walls, that are
about thirty feet high, is not a single window,
no opening at all except the entrance doorway

DOORWAYS. WASCHKRSCHLOSSCHEN.

Hohenstaufen

that was reached formerly by a drawbridge. The
building is, roughly speaking, seventy-five feet
square, and no trace of a tower remains ; appa-

WASCHERSCHLOSSCHEN.

rently there never was one. On passing within,
a courtyard is entered, with a timber-and-plaster
structure occupying the side opposite the en-
trance, and rising one storey above the walls.

101

The Land of Teck

This is of the fifteenth or early sixteenth century,
and replaces a similar Herrenhaus burnt in 1377.
Then the walls were not broken down : only the
easily combustible dwelling part of the castle
was destroyed. When left by the destroyers it
must have resembled a large village pound for
stray cattle. It is quite a small place, now
smothered in trees, and the Herrenhaus converted
into a granary and fruit store. The timber- work
is very interesting, and will repay a study. From
the upper storey a door and steps give access to
the top of the walls.

From the windows, to the south-east, is seen
rising in all its majesty the cone of Hohenstaufen
with a green cape about its top like the fur worn
by coachmen in winter. The intermediate ground
dips and rises, and is well timbered.

This little castle, Wascherschlosschen, was the
ancestral seat of Frederick von Biiren, i.e. Bur en-
burg, the original name of the fort. Many a time
assuredly did he look forth on the height of Staufen
and think what a site it was for a castle, but a site
for a bigger man than himself. He died an old
man in 1094, it is supposed ; and if so, then he
saw his dream realised, for his son Frederick was
created Duke of Swabia by the Emperor Henry IV
in 1079, and he set to work to build the castle on
the height which gave a name to the race that is
immortal in history. One can imagine, as I did,
standing on the wall, the old knight of Biiren

102

Hohenstaufen

looking towards the conical mountain on which
was rising a stately castle, to be the residence
of his son — and that son married to the Emperor's

TIMBER FRAMING. WASCHERSCHLOSSCHEN.

daughter. The aged knight's heart must have
swelled with pride. Little dreamt he of the
tragic end that awaited the dynasty and the final
extinction of his race.

Frederick I of Staufen had served Henry IV
103

The Land of Teck

so loyally and well, in defiance of papal curses
and excommunications, in prosperity and adver-
sity, that the Emperor gladly gave him his
daughter Agnes to wife, and created him Duke
of Swabia and of the Alemanni. In this stormy
period, when duke was ranged against duke,
bishop against bishop, abbot against abbot, and
king against king, Frederick had no easy time.
His position was disputed by Berthold of Rhein-
felden and by Berthold of Zahringen who, having
large possessions in Swabia, considered himself
entitled to be duke instead of the son of a petty
knight in a box of a castle that would not hold
a dozen fighting men. Another competitor was
Duke Welf IV of Bavaria. However, in 1094 a
reconciliation was effected, and for a brief period
the land had rest.

At the close of the year 1104 Henry, son of the
Emperor, was stirred up by Paschal II and the
clergy to revolt against his father, who had been
excommunicated. The young Henry had solemnly
sworn fealty to the old king, and had vowed
never to encourage revolt. But in defiance of
his oath, supported by the papacy, he took up
arms in this unnatural conflict, which was still
raging when Frederick I died. In 1108 Frederick
had founded the Abbey of Lorch, to be the burial
place of his family. There is a fresco against one
of the piers in the nave of the church of Lorch,
representing him and his wife Agnes as founders,

104

Hohenstaufen

kneeling and sustaining the church with their
hands. Agnes died in 1143.

Frederick I was succeeded by his two sons,
Frederick II, who received Hohenstaufen, and
Conrad, who took as his share the Franconian
estates that had been granted to his father. Both
brothers were loyal to Henry V, as their father
had been to Henry IV. Frederick became his
inseparable companion and adviser ; and it was
in part due to him that Henry, who had begun
so ill as a rebel against his father, when he him-
self became king, proved a just and humane
ruler. Almost invariably those whom the popes
set up as their tools to effect their own political
ends turned against them so soon as they had
achieved their own selfish advancement. Henry V
also was excommunicated, his subjects released
from their allegiance and encouraged to rebel
against him. Henry was, however, still faith-
fully supported by Frederick of Swabia and Conrad
of Franconia. After the death of Henry, in 1125,
when Frederick of Swabia might reasonably have
expected to be elected, by the machinations of the
Archbishop of Mayence he was passed over, and
the crown offered to Lothair of Saxony, disposed
to be a humble servant of the Pope. Indeed, he
went to Italy to settle the controversy between
two rival claimants to the Chair of S. Peter,
Innocent II and Anacletus II ; and in return for
his support Innocent crowned him Emperor and

105

The Land of Teck

gave him in feoff the patrimony bequeathed by
the Countess Mathilda. In commemoration of
his submission and investiture, a painting was set
up in the Vatican representing him cringing at
the feet of Innocent, with the inscription be-
neath : —

Rex venit ante fores jurans prius urbis honores
Post homo fit papae, recipit quo dante coronam.

That is : " The King comes before the gates, and
first swears to maintain the rights of the city.
Then is he made liege-man of the Pope, and from
his hand receives the crown."

Lothair attempted to crush the haughty Hohen-
staufen family. He devastated their territories
in Swabia and Franconia, and brought them to
submission. Lothair died in 1138, whereupon
Conrad was elected King. At once Duke Welf VI
of Bavaria flew to arms, but was routed in a
battle at Weinsberg, 20 October, 1139. It was
then that, according to tradition, Conrad sum-
moned the town to surrender, and because of its
stubborn resistance proclaimed his intention of
putting all the male citizens to the sword, but
suffered the women to come forth unharmed and
to carry away with them what they most prized.
They issued from the gates, each carrying on her
back a husband, a lover, or a brother. On which
Burger wrote a ballad : —

106

Hohenstaufen

The monarch gave a merry ball
To please the Weinsberg women,

The trumpets peal, the fiddles squall,
All dance, and all went swimming,

The burgermaster's frau, I trow,

The besom-maker's wife also. •

Now tell me where this Weinsberg lives

A sturdy town in troth, sir,
Brimful of true and trusty wives

And wenches, bless them both, sir.
I ween when it comes in my head
To marry, I'll in Weinsberg wed.

Although Conrad had been elected instead of
his elder brother, no token of jealousy was seen
in the latter. They were a loyal race, these
Hohenstaufeners, always desiring above all things
the welfare of their country. Frederick II, " the
One-eyed/' died in 1147, and his brother,
King Conrad, in 1152. Frederick III, son of
Frederick II, was at once elected to the throne,
and he became, in history and legend, the famous
Frederick Barbarossa. He was a man of middle
height compactly built, with a fresh complexion,
red hair and beard, very white teeth, delicately
formed hands, and had a cheerful countenance,
that always wore a smile. He was severely just,
occasionally harsh, with a strength of character
that subjugated alike the temporal and ecclesias-
tical princes of Germany and held them in whole-
some awe. He ruled Germany for forty years,
and raised her to a pitch of power such as she had

107

The Land of Teck

never before reached, and which caused alarm
to the papacy, that sought in every way to bring
confusion and weakness into the land, so as to
distract the attention of the Emperor from the
affairs of Italy. Frederick, the darling of the
people, the dreaded of competitors, perished in
his seventieth year in a small river in Pisidia on
his way to the East. The people would not be-
lieve that he was dead, and long expected his
return to fight for his nation and kingdom in the
hour of supreme necessity. He is usually sup-
posed to be sleeping in the Kyffhauser Berg in
Thuringia, but the Swabians held that he was
tarrying in the hill under his castle. He sits there,
in his imperial robes with a crown on his head, on
an ivory throne before a stone table, and his red
beard has grown till it has grown through the slab.
The entrance to his cave gapes on Easter Day.
Through this entrance shepherds and cowboys are
said to have penetrated to his subterranean hall.
Then the Red-Beard wakes and asks : " Do the
ravens still fly about the rock overhead ? "
" They do." " Then must I sleep another hun-
dred years."

Barbarossa had successfully made what he
deemed a master-stroke of policy, but it was one
that led to the ruin of his house. He had obtained
the hand of Constantia, heiress to the kingdom
of Sicily, for his son and heir, Henry. Henry VI
was but five-and-twenty when he was elected

108

Hohenstaufen

King in 1190. Of a weakly physique, with
thin, pale face, and of but medium height, he
possessed a commanding spirit. And his broad
forehead proclaimed intellectual power. He had
been a Minnesinger, and in tender lays sang the
love of fair maids, as though to him that were
better than to gain a king's crown. But he turned
his poetic fancy into a more serious course, and
sang of the creation of the world. He dearly
loved hunting and hawking, and when he became
King abandoned all pleasures save that, and de-
voted himself with energy and persistence to his
great aim — the realising of the idea of empire
over Italy and Germany, and even beyond their
confines.

He soon provoked the jealousy of the Pope, by
holding the patrimony of S. Peter as his own by right
of kingship, and not as a feoff from the papacy,
and by granting portions of it to his followers.
Ambition was his solitary passion ; what he
lacked in military ability and experience he made
up for by political sagacity. He was severe and
remorseless against those who stood in his way,
and he had no pity for treachery and rebellion.
The lawless knights and barons had to yield and
restrain their hands from violence, and in pro-
portion as they hated and feared him, so did the
people generally believe in him and love him.
After hunting near Messina he drank a bowl of
cold water, and died, in 1197, closing a brief reign

109

The Land of Teck

of seven years, leaving as his heir an only son,
Frederick, aged three ; and was succeeded as
King by his brother Philip, Duke of Swabia, an
amiable and accomplished prince. Philip mar-
ried Irene, who in Germany was known as Mary,
daughter of Isaac Angelo, Emperor of the East.
She had been sent to Palermo to become the wife
of Roger, son of Tancred ; but he died before
the nuptials, and Philip had seen her there, a
forlorn, gentle princess, and had pitied her. Pity
ripened into love, and she became his wife. His
had been a strange career. Destined for the
Church, he had been appointed Dean of Aix,
and then elected to the bishopric of Wurzburg
at the age of fifteen — he was aged thirteen when
dean — then had given up his ideas of the Church,
and had become Duke of Spoleto in 1195, ap-
pointed by his brother ; next, in 1196, Duke of
Swabia, and to Hohenstaufen he brought his
beautiful wife. He was a handsome man, gentle
and courteous, and the young couple were de-
votedly attached to each other. He also incurred
the papal anathema. In 1208 he was assassinated
by Otto of Wittelsbach, and Irene fled to Hohen-
staufen, where in the same year, a few months
later, she died of a broken heart. She was buried
at Lorch. Here, when the bones of the Hohen-
staufeners were moved to a new vault, her ring
was found, and is still preserved. It is of gold
with the I.H.S. in the midst ; on one side the

Hohenstaufen

instruments of the Passion, on the other the Virgin
and Child in cloisonne enamel. Copies of it have
been made, and are sold in the church of Lorch
to visitors.

On the death of Philip, the papal candidate,
the Guelf, Otto IV, was elected and the young
son of Henry VI passed over. Otto was crowned
Emperor at Rome in 1209, but at once turned
against his supporter, Innocent III, who, in re-
taliation, excommunicated him and called on the
German princes to break their oath of allegiance,
and elect instead his new protege, Frederick,
son of Henry VI, then aged seventeen, and King
of Sicily. He calculated on the gratitude of the
boy, and believed that he could control his
policy. In accordance with the wish of the Pope,
who desired to see the German sovereigns — who
were also kings of Italy — expend their energies
and resources, and perhaps lose their lives in
crusade, he undertook to bear the cross against
the infidels. As he delayed putting his promise
into execution, this gave the Pope a handle against
him. In fact, he could not leave Germany and
Italy, teeming with discontent and ready for
rebellion, and suffer the realm to fall into
anarchy. The Pope, who had become an im-
placable foe, used this as an excuse for excom-
municating him, and when he did undertake the
Crusade it was whilst he was still under the ban of
the Church, and against the express commands of

The Land of Teck

Gregory IX. With disgust, the Pope saw that
Frederick, in his unblessed Crusade, had achieved
what none of those that had received papal
benediction had been able to do. Frederick had
recaptured Jerusalem and obtained the liberation
of Christian captives. He died in 1250. The news
was received with indecent exultation by the
Pope. " Let the heavens rejoice, and let the
earth be glad." If the death by poison of the
sons of Frederick — Conrad and Henry — was
not instigated by the Pope, it was so op-
portune that suspicion was aroused that he had
at least connived at it. The murder was un-
doubtedly committed by the papal faction, the
Pope and the Guelfs being alone interested in
the extermination of the House of Hohenstaufen.
As an opponent to the German Imperial House,
Charles of Anjou, a sullen, cold-blooded prince,
so cruel that he was regarded with horror by his
devout brother, S. Louis, was offered the king-
dom of Sicily by the Pope, who claimed to be
able to give away kingdoms and to dethrone
princes. Charles was the papal tool in Italy, and
William of Holland, a despicable creature, was
set up at papal instigation in Germany. Conradin,
the last of the Hohenstaufen, fell by the sword
on a scaffold at Naples, having been betrayed
into the hands of Charles of Anjou by a
Frangipani for lands and a sum of money.
Conradin was not yet sixteen years old. What

112

Hohenstaufen

followed shall be told in the words of Dean
Milman : —

. " Christendom heard with horror that the
royal brother of S. Louis, that the champion of
the Church, after a mock trial, by the sentence
of one judge, after an unanswerable pleading by
Guido de Suzaria, a famous jurist, had condemned
the last heir of the Swabian House — a rival king,
who had fought gallantly for his hereditary
throne — to be executed as a felon and a rebel on
a public scaffold. So little did Conradin dread
his fate that when his doom was announced he
was playing chess with Frederick of Austria.
' Slave,' said Conradin to Robert of Bari, who
read the fatal sentence, * do you dare to condemn
as a criminal the son and heir of kings ? Knows
not your master that he is my equal, not my
judge ? ' He added, * I am a mortal, and must
die ; yet ask the kings of the earth if a prince be
criminal for seeking to win back the heritage of
his ancestors. But, if there be no pardon for me,
at least, spare my faithful companions ; or, if they
must die, strike me first, that I may not behold
their death/ They died devoutly, nobly. Every
circumstance aggravated the abhorrence — it was
said that Robert of Flanders, the brother of
Charles, struck dead the judge who presumed to
read the iniquitous sentence. When Conradin
knelt, with uplifted hands, awaiting the blow of
the executioner, he uttered these last words : ' O
i 113

The Land of Teck

my mother! how deep will be thy sorrow at the
news of this day ! ' Even the followers of Charles
could hardly restrain their pity and indignation.
With Conradin died his young and valiant friend,
Frederick of Austria, the two Lancias, two of the
noble House of Donaticcio of Pisa."

The Pope himself was accused of having coun-
selled the atrocious act. Whether he did or not
is uncertain. One thing is sure — that not by
lifting a finger, not by a single word, did he
interfere to save the life of the gallant boy. On
29 October, 1268, the head of Conradin fell on
the scaffold ; on 29 November following Clement
was called to his account. How the Italians
rose in 1282, and in the massacre called the
Sicilian Vespers slaughtered the French whom
the Pope had set over them to tyrannise and
insult them, is matter of history too well known
to be dwelt on here.

With the death of Conradin the papacy rejoiced
to see the extinction of that splendidly endowed
race which had opposed its exactions and had fear-
lessly maintained the independence of the Crown.
No Hohenstaufener had stooped to the degrada-
tion of Canossa. The only remaining legitimate
representative of the family was Margaret,
daughter of Frederick II by Elizabeth, daughter
of King John of England. She was married to
Albert the Debauchee, Margrave of Meissen. A
plan to murder her was formed by her hus-

114

Hohenstaufen

band, who lived in open sin with Cunegund of
Eisenberg. She was forewarned in time and fled.
Before flying she visited her little sons, Frederick,
Henry, and Diezmann ; and in parting with the
eldest, in passionate grief pressed his cheek so hard
with her teeth as to scar it, and thenceforth he was
known as Frederick with the Bitten Cheek. She re-
paired to Frankfort, where she was hospitably re-
ceived, and remained there till her death in 1270.

To the east of Gmiind, near the railway, is the
little chapel of Beiswang (Bite-cheek), said to
have been founded by Margaret in her native
land, in commemoration of that night of sorrow,
when she parted with her children, whom she
was to see no more.

Who can fail to look at that rock of Hohen-
staufen without the past unrolling before him as
a picture ? On the Spielberg the unfortunate
Conradin exercised himself with crossbow ; here
the ladies danced on summer evenings upon the
sward. At the foot of the hill is the little church
where the Red-Beard knelt. On yon height pined
the bereaved Greek widow, " a rose without a
thorn, a dove without gall," as the chronicler
says of her. In the hour of deepest depression of
Germany Kerner wrote : —

This ancient rock at darkling eve

Uprears all mossy, barren, dead.
The ravens wheel and hoarsely croak

About its grey and blasted head.
"5

The Land of Teek

But when the flaring moon looks out,

And glint the stars in sky serene,
The rock is lit with spectral lights,

And phantom forms on it are seen.

And harp and horn are heard to ring
By listeners, from the walls on high,

They hear the tramp of chargers' hoofs
As Barbarossa thunders by.

And Philip and Irene meek,

Move midst the ruins, hand in hand.

A bird is warbling wistful strains
Of distant sunny Grecian land.

And Conradin of noble mien

Is dimly seen in yonder bower,
A lily bursting into bloom,

But cut off as it dawns to flower.

The red cock in the vale below

Announces that the day is near,
The ancient mountain bold upstands,

The phantom figures disappear.

And where they stood are only thorns,
And briars chafed by wind and rains,

How like that solitary rock,
Alas ! our Fatherland remains !

The church at the foot of the hill is still there ;
the doorway through which Barbarossa passed
is walled up, with the inscription above it, " Hie
transibat Caesar. " His portrait is painted against
the wall, but is not ancient ; it dates from 1723,
and was restored in 1814. At the sides are the
arms of Hohenstaufen and of the empire. The

116

Hohenstaufen

old church is damp and has been abandoned, and
one new and ugly has been erected in the village
for use.

To the south-west of the hill is the elevation
already alluded to, the Spielberg, where the
knights practised warlike exercises, and the ladies
danced. On the summit are the scanty remains of
the castle. In the church of S. John, at Gmiind, is
a painting that represents the old castle before it
was demolished. It shows us the north-east of
it with three towers rising out of the walls, and
two larger towers within. The principal resi-
dence was on the west side, and here also was a
tower. The picture shows us what the castle
was before it was burnt by the peasants on
29 April, 1525. Crusius gives us an account of
its destruction from an eye-witness.

The garrison consisted of but thirty-two men,
and they were badly equipped. The commandant
was absent, and at the head was his cousin, a
man named Reuss. The peasants who came
against it were not from the neighbourhood, nor
was their number great ; but, arriving in the
dusk of evening, they spread out and seemed to
be more than they really were. For a while an
attempt at defence was made ; the men and the
maid-servants in the castle threw down stones and
poured boiling water on the peasants, as they had
either no guns or no powder. The peasants, on the
other hand, had brought up cannon. As the

117

The Land of Teck

hearts of the besieged failed them, they threw the
keys over the wall and fled by a postern. The
peasants entered and flung all who had not escaped
down the rocks and from the towers, and then
set fire to the castle. The eye-witness declared
that if the garrison had held out with a little
determination, Hohenstaufen might have been
saved. The inhabitants of the village and district
of Hohenstaufen had nothing to complain of, and
the destruction of the castle was no work of theirs,
but of the Wiirtemberg horde. The inhabitants
of the place were all freemen and freeholders ;
they had their own court of justice and paid no
dues to the lord, only they were expected to
keep the roads in repair, and in case of war to
rally about the banner of their feudal seigneur.
This condition of freedom was the more remark-
able as the peasants elsewhere suffered from in-
tolerable oppression. The abbey of Adelberg, for
instance, had its serfs, and no man among them
could marry without paying a fee of a bar of
salt ; and no girl without furnishing the monas-
tery with a frying-pan sufficiently capacious for
her to fill it when sitting down therein : "So
gross dass sie mit dem Hintern drein sitzen kann
oder mag." On a death, the abbot exacted one-
third of the possessions of the deceased.

What was bitterly resented by the peasants was
the introduction of Roman law in place of the
ancient customary law. Moreover, both the

118

Hohenstaufen

secular and the ecclesiastical princes treated them
as dirt beneath their feet, and disregarded even
time-honoured privileges. They complained of
the tithe, of the corvee, and of the heriot, the
right of their feudal lord to take the best horse
or best ox or cow of a farmer when the latter
died. The exclusive right of the feudal lord to
hunt, to kill birds, to fish, and to the timber in
the woods was a grievance. Still greater was the
exasperation against the arbitrary arrest and
imprisonment of a serf, and his being capriciously
subjected to torture and death. There had been
several risings among the peasants, but none
general and wide-extended till the autumn of
1524. Only in Bavaria, where feudal servitude
had been abolished, was there no material for a
conflagration, and there no serious outbreak took
place. In Wiirtemberg it was otherwise ; so also
in the Black Forest and on the shores of the Lake
of Constance, in the Tauber and Rottenburg dis-
tricts, and in Wiirzburg and Anspach. In Wiir-
temberg the peasants under Matern Feuerbach
in April, 1525, numbered 8000 men ; they had
possessed themselves of cannon, and went from
place to place, burning the castles of the nobles
and laying the towns under contribution. Duke
Ulrich, who had been driven out of his lands
by the Confederacy and the forces of Charles V,
was in correspondence with them, hoping by their
aid to recover his territories.

119

The Land of Teck

Wascherschlosschen, the cradle of the Hohen-
staufen, stands half-way between the proud
height on which rose the castle, the symbol of
their greatness, and Lorch, their grave. The
abbey of Lorch was founded by Duke Frederick I
and his wife Agnes in 1108 out of a castle that
he possessed on the hill, and he placed in it twelve
Benedictine monks. The ascent to the abbey is
through a pleasant wood of beech and pines, and
leads to the walls that surround the monastery
as a fortress ; some difference in the structure
leads to the supposition that one portion per-
tains to the original castle. Outside the entrance
gate is the Staufenlinde, an ancient lime tree
thought to have been planted by the founder,
and which has outlived his family by more
than six centuries. Its head has long ago
been destroyed by storm ; the principal bough
was broken off in a gale, i November, 1755,
at the same hour in which Lisbon was wrecked
by earthquake. In October, 1870, it lost two
more branches, one of which fell on a horse
drawing a cart, and killed it. The waggoner
happily escaped. Again, in 1879, it lost two more
boughs. The sole remaining limb is stayed up on
crutches, itself as broad in girt as many an ancient
tree. A board warns visitors not to tarry be-
neath it, as dangerous. Hard by is the Zollern
lime tree, planted in 1871 in commemoration of
the refounding of the German Empire. Floreatt

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Hohenstaufen

The area within the walls is occupied by the
abbey church, monastic buildings, and more
recent structures. Of the domestic part of
the abbey, a portion of the cloisters remains with
star vaulting ; the tracery of the windows has
been broken away ; also the refectory and the
dormitory above. In the former are fresco
paintings, somewhat restored of late, represent-
ing scenes of the Passion. A number of relics are
preserved here — a romanesque capital from the
first church, that has been employed as a grave-
stone, and on it cut : " Uxori carissimae. Me
nunc torquet amor, tibi tristis cura recessit.
Obiit den. IV. Jul. MDCCC " (To the beloved
wife. My lot henceforth is the torture of Love.
From you sad care is removed, and the date).
It was the headstone to the wife of one Carl
August Buhler, who died at the age of thirty-
nine. Another tombstone is to a Margaret
Schmidt, her canting arms a hammer and horse-
shoe. Our English Smiths adopt rampant lions
and lilies. In the abbot's dormitory the wooden
panelling is painted with allegorical subjects of
the " Pigtail " period, 1710-1780, with inscrip-
tions. A boy is holding a dancing bear by a cord
passed through its nose : " Thus an undisciplined
people may be held in control by law." A hawk
is preying on a dove, and an archer has just dis-
charged an arrow that transfixes the throat of
the hawk. At the same time an assassin leaps

121

The Land of Teck

on the archer to stab him : " Whilst the tyrant
rejoices in shedding innocent blood, Nemesis
attends him/' A dog is howling at the moon,
and a Catholic priest is hobnobbing with a Sultan
and a Rabbi. This is a post-Reformation paint-
ing, and the inscription indicates that the good
folk of Lorch did not relish the change forced
on them. '* The impious people resist the pious
doctrines of Christ. But He that dwelleth on
high laugheth them to scorn."

The church is now used merely as a show place,
and the high altar is converted into a shop-
counter on which are the Visitors' Book, and
photographs and copies of Irene's ring for sale.
Towering above it is a crucifix carved by the elder
George Syrlin of Ulm in 1440, who sculptured
the magnificent choir stalls in the minster of his
native town. He has left there representations of
himself and his wife ; one of his son is at Blau-
beuren, with the inscription : "In the year of
God 1493, were these choir stalls carved by
George Syrlin of Ulm, a very skilful master in
this art." There he also sculptured a superb
altarpiece, that is the treasure of the church, the
finest in Swabia. The story goes that when it
was completed the monks asked him if he thought
he could surpass it. Confident in his ability, he
said that he could. Whereupon, fearing lest he
should be got hold of by some other monastery
to do a masterpiece for it, they blinded him and

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Hohenstaufen

kept him concealed in the abbey. Only at night
was he let abroad. But, blind though he was, he
carved this likeness of himself — representing a
sad, broken, and blind man.

Much the same story is told of the clock of
Strasburg, of the Roslyn pillar, and of many
another artistic achievement, and it may be dis-
missed as an idle tale. The elder George Syrlin
died in 1474, and his son, of the same name and
profession, died in 1493, and it is possible enough
that his death shortly after having achieved this
splendid work helped to originate the story. The
same younger Syrlin carved the kneeling pew of
Duke Eberhard at Urach, and the stone fountain
there in the square ; the choir stalls also at
Geislingen, which shall be mentioned in the
sequel.

The church of Lorch consists of a nave in
plain romanesque style, dating from about 1200.
The piers supporting round arches are plain,
without mouldings and without capitals. The
side aisles have round-headed windows, but in
that to the south a Middle Pointed window has
been inserted. The west end is formed by a
transept, the southern arm is surmounted b}^ a
tower ; that to the north is of the fifteenth
century. There is a transept before the choir.
The Lombardic piers to it have, unhappily, had
their interesting capitals recut. Choir and tran-
septs and crossing are vaulted and are Middle

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The Land of Teck

Pointed. It was intended to erect a central
tower over the crossing, but this was never done.

Against the piers in the nave are life-size
paintings in fresco of the Hohenstaufens, from
Duke Frederick and his wife Agnes to Conradin.
They are of no value as portraits. Painted
originally in or about 1531, they were badly
daubed over at the beginning of the eighteenth
century by an ignorant artist who altered the
costume, and again repainted in 1871 by the
artist Pelgram, who modernised the faces.

In the midst of the nave is a tomb on which
are sculptured the Hohenstaufen arms with the
inscription : " Da gloriam Deo. Anno Domini
MCII jar ward diss closter gestift. Hie lit be-
graben herzog Friedrich von Swaben. Er und syn
kind diess closter stifter sind, sin nachkimling
ligent och hie by. Got in alien gnadig sy. Ge-
macht in 1475."

Under this, and in the choir and elsewhere, lie
many members of the great family of the founder.
He himself, the first Duke of Swabia, of the fresh
creation (b. 1050, d. 1105), and his wife Agnes
(d. 1143), daughter of the Emperor Henry IV,
two brothers of the founder, and four sons of
Conrad III, who died in 1152 ; Rumhold and
Frederick, sons of King Philip ; Duke Conrad of
Swabia (d. 1196) ; Irene, the Greek princess
(d. 1208) ; Beatrix, daughter of Irene, who
d. 1212, shortly after her marriage to the Em-

124

Hohenstaufen

peror Otto IV ; two sons of Frederick I ; Beatrix,
daughter of the Emperor Conrad ; Henry, King
of the Romans, son of Conrad III (d. 1150) ; and
Duke Conrad of Bavaria, the brother of Judith,
wife of Frederick II.

In the year 1475 the graves of the Hohen-
staufen in the nave were opened, the skulls and
bones collected and placed in a sarcophagus, and
the tombstone erected over it. Those in the
choir, in which some of the heads were found
with the hair still in a state of preservation, were
left otherwise undisturbed. Verily as one paces
the floor one has underfoot the dust of a right
royal House.

In the north transept are the monuments
of the Wollwarth family, ten splendid full-length
statues of knights in armour, dating from 1472 to
1522, and showing what a noble school of figure
sculpture existed at this period in Swabia, pre-
paring us for the monuments in Urach and in
Stuttgart. We had no artists in England ap-
proaching these Swabians, and at the same period
the figure sculpture in France lacked the vigour
of these. Possibly the poverty of our English
figure carving was due to our not possessing a
stone that lent itself to being dealt with like the
red sandstone of Germany — easy to cut, and
hardening in the air.

The first statue on the north side is that of
Ulrich von Wollwarth. In his right hand he

125

The Land of Teck

holds the arms of the family, a crescent argent on
a golden field — bad heraldry. The story goes
that this knight lost his way when hunting, and
was found half devoured by wolves, with a toad
and a lizard in his paunch, whilst a serpent was
coiled about the body.

The fourth, that of Renwart I (d. 1492), bears
no inscription. One did exist, in gilt letters.
When the peasants sacked the abbey and murdered
the abbot, thinking that these letters were of
pure gold, they scooped them out with their
poignards. In the south transept are the tombs
of the Schechinger family, of very trifling artistic
value. A modern tablet, very poor in style, the
sort of thing turned out in scores by our ecclesi-
astical tailors and furnishers, has been erected to
Irene.

Five steps lead from the nave to the crossing,
nine to the high altar, and four more to the
retrochoir. The reason for this elevation is that
the cloister was formerly carried under the apse.
The choir, which is apsidal, is in the pure Geo-
metrical style of the fourteenth century. The
abbey was formerly supplied with water from a
well carried down to the level of the Rems. Now
fresh water is conducted to a fountain in the
court from a height by an iron pipe. From the
platform one looks up the fertile valley to the
Rechberg, which towers above it, with a pilgrimage
chapel on the top.

126

Hohenstaufen

In the village of Lorch is a good Gothic
church with apse. The graveyard wall rests on
Roman substructures ; it was a castellum. The
Limes Romanus came hither with a bend, and
then, describing an angle, went on. This wall,
begun by Hadrian (117-137) and completed by
Probus (277-282), divided Rhaetia from Upper
Germany. It has been traced throughout its
whole course, and its camps and towers identified.
The peasantry have their own way of accounting
for it. The Devil once asked the Almighty to
grant him a territory where he might take his
ease, and not be pestered by Michael and his
angels, by priests and monks. His petition was
granted, and he was allowed as much land as he
could mark out between sunrise and sunset. Ac-
cordingly, he transformed a set of devils into
swine, and set them rooting in a direct line at
intervals. But the sun went down before he
could close up the gaps, and in a rage he destroyed
the entire work. Hence the dyke goes by the
name of the Devil's or the Swine's Wall.

Some notice must be taken of Rechberg, that
is near Hohenstaufen in one way, distant in
another ; for though but four and a half miles
apart as the crow flies, it is widely removed in
religion, as Rechberg is Catholic, whereas Hohen-
staufen is Protestant. On the summit is a pil-
grimage chapel, 2318 feet. There was formerly
a hermitage with a wooden oratory on the top

127

The Land of Teck

of the mountain ; the present church of stone
was erected in the seventeenth century. The
climb to the chapel is somewhat arduous, but
the good priest who lives by it supplies refresh-
ments, and is delighted to welcome a visitor and
have a chat. The view from the top is magnifi-
cent ; it comprises in the near foreground the
lonely Stuifen, on which no castle was ever built,
Hohenstaufen, and then all the Alb away to the
conical Achalm above Reutlingen. If the weather
be clear, in the distance gleam the snowy crests
of the Vorarlberg mountains. Nevertheless, a
man cannot live on distant prospects, and life
in the little parsonage on the top of the sugar-
loaf would be dull indeed were it not that the
chapel there is parish church to the village below.
Not only have the parishioners to scramble up
for their devotions, but also to carry up their
dead, who are laid in the graveyard at the
summit.

On a spur of Hohen Rechberg is the castle, the
gap between — artificial — now spanned by a stone
bridge. It is mainly ruinous, having been struck
by lightning and set on fire in midwinter, 6 Janu-
ary, 1865. It is interesting as being still in the
possession of the same family that has owned it
from a grey antiquity, before the introduction
of Christianity into Swabia. According to legend,
Saints Gall and Columbanus came to preach the
gospel in Rhaetia. At this time there lived on

12$

Hohenstaufen

the Rechberg three brothers, each of whom bore
on his shield the blazon of a red lion ; and like
their overlord, the Prince of Teck, they perse-
cuted the Christians and offered them in sacrifice
to Wuotan, either hanging them or precipitating
them down the cliffs. To put an end to this the
Christian Duke of the Alemanni marched against
the lord of Teck and his assembled army of pagans
and defeated them as told under Kirchheim. The
brothers of Rechberg were constrained to be
baptised, and to pledge themselves no longer to
hang and throw down precipices such as were
believers. Ce qui nous saute aux yeux in this
story is that heraldic bearings were unknown
before the tenth century at earliest. However,
the family of Rechberg carry as their arms two
red lions with their tails twisted, and call them-
selves Rechberg und Rothenlowen. It is now a
countly family, and the principal residence is at
Donzdorf, near Siissen; another castle is at
Weissenstein. It has possessions in Bavaria as
well as in Wiirtemberg. Historically, the first
Rechberg known was Ulrich, in 1179, a loyal
follower of Frederick I, and afterwards of King
Philip. He died in 1202. A Wilhelm von Rech-
berg lived at the court of the Duke of Bavaria
in 1489. A papal legate brought a sentence of
excommunication launched by the Pope against
the Duke.

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The Land of Teck

The blood boiled in each Rechberg vein,
"This must not unavenged remain,"

He cried, "as I'm a sinner."
He crushed the brief the Pontiff wrote
And rammed it down the Italian's throat,

With— "There, digest your dinner."

For this he was excommunicated, as well as his
master. But the day when papal curses were
seriously regarded was over, and Rechberg treated
the ban with placid indifference.

They were a daring set, these Rechbergs.
According to a popular story, a Rechberg slapped
Satan himself in the face with his glove for having
addressed him with unbecoming familiarity. The
family divided into two branches : one " On the
Mountain," the other "Under the Mountain."
One of the former, Veit I, married Irmgard of
Teck, heiress of Mindelheim, and died in 1416.
The family possesses an hereditary ghost, the
Rechberg Klopfer, who knocks at the door or
wainscoting to announce the impending death of
one of the race. Ulrich II was married to Anna
von Wenningen. They were deeply attached to
each other. When absent from home he wrote
letters to his wife, and these he attached to the
collar of a faithful dog, which he despatched to
convey tidings of him to the lady. When she
had read the epistle she sent the hound back
again. But in 1496 for a long period neither
husband nor letter arrived, and, full of distress,
Anna was kneeling in the castle chapel one day

130

Hohenstaufen

when she was disturbed in her prayers by re-
current taps at the door. At last, irritated by the
noise, she exclaimed, "Go on with your tapping,
if you will, to the Last Day ! " As it still con-
tinued, and prayer became impossible owing to
the distraction, she sprang to her feet and opened
the door to find the dog without — but no letter.
In fact, Ulrich was dead. Before the destruction
of the castle by fire there was a carved wooden
representation in it of the dog with a letter-bag
attached to the collar.

To the present day the people of Rechberg
believe that at certain times a light is seen " like
a burning oven " on Hohenstaufen, and that then
a blue flame travels at first slowly, then fast,
along the Aas — the ridge that connects the
two — mounts the height of Hohen Rechberg,
remains flickering there for a while, and then
returns to Hohenstaufen, where it disappears as
the morning bell rings. Crusius seems to allude
to it, but, according to him, there were three
blue flames, and when they were seen Rechberg
was safe from being struck by lightning.

The castle escaped the fate that befell Hohen-
staufen and Teck ; the peasants in 1525 were
unable to take it. It stood out for Count Ulrich
of Wiirtemberg when he was at feud with the
free cities. The Gmlinders sent a large body of
men against the castle. They cut down and set
fire to all the woods about it, but could make no

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The Land of Teck

impression on the stronghold itself. As they were
returning Ulrich von Rechberg sallied out, fell on
the rearguard, killed fifty-four of the citizens,
and took sixty-five prisoners. Rechberg was a
virgin castle till the year 1554, when Duke Chris-
topher sent troops against it, having been offended
at some high-handed act of Ulrich of Rechberg.
He and his wife, who was a Wollwarth, were in
the castle, but unable to hold it, as the Wiirtem-
bergers had ascended Hohen Rechberg and could
command it with their cannon. Then, says
Crusius, " The noble lady led her son by the hand
and held the keys in the other, and offered them
to the enemy, and with tears pleaded for mercy. "
The Duke was content to place a garrison in the
castle. It was not till the following year that
the Rechbergs recovered full possession.

132

CHAPTER VII

GMUND

IN the quaint old town of Schwabisch Gmiind
one is carried back in thought to the Middle
Ages. It has lost its walls, but has retained
its towers. Out of twelve churches it once
possessed ten remain, and two of these are of
extraordinary interest. The old timber-and-plaster
houses project over the street, roofed with tiles
the colour of sere oak leaves, and only here and
there does a modern pretentious structure spoil
the harmony. Gmiind is to the eye what a sym-
phony of Beethoven is to the ear ; but these
discordant shop or villa residences are like the
braying of a horn that is out of tune, or a patch
of aniline magenta let into a superb old Persian
carpet of harmonious dyes. Gmiind has been a
place for the making of jewellery, gold and silver
ware for many centuries. In 1186, when Henry —
afterwards Henry VI — married Constantia, heiress
of Sicily, the Swabian town sent him the signifi-
cant wedding present of a silver filagree cradle
of Gmiind manufacture, and in that was rocked
Frederick II.

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The Land of Teck

Gmiind has been a nursery of art. To it be-
longed the family of Arler. Master Henry Arler,
in 1351, began the Heiligkreuz church, next to
Ulm minster the finest in Swabia, which is rich
indeed in glorious churches. His son, Peter,
built the cathedral of Prague, the Bartholomeus
Church in Kollin-on-the-Elbe, and the church of
Kiittenberg in Bohemia. Another son, John,
was the architect, about 1360, of the cathedrals
of Basle, and Freiburg in Breisgau with its won-
derful pierced spire like stone lace. A second
Henry designed Milan Cathedral ; but the carry-
ing out of his plans was taken from him and
given to Italians to finish, and what he designed
in massive splendour was completed in gimcrack,
sugar-candy work. His, however, is the noble
interior. He worked between 1391 and 1392.
Another of the family was Michael. The bust
of Peter Arler is in the church at Prague — a
beautiful, grave face ; but that of the second
Henry Arler might well have been that of a Roman
gladiator. It is in Milan Cathedral.

The family of Baldung also pertained to
Gmiind. Johan Baldung, a pupil of Albert
Diirer, was a noted painter and copper-plate en-
graver. His greatest work was the high altar-
piece at Freiburg in Breisgau, completed in 1516.
In the Holy Cross Church at Gmiind is a carved
wood altarpiece, winged and painted, of beautiful
execution, representing S. Sebaldus and his legend,

134

TURM-GASSE, GMUND

Gmiind

perhaps by Baldung, certainly by a disciple of
Diirer.

Gmiind produced sculptors as well. Jacob
Woller was he who wrought the beautiful re-
cumbent figures of the counts and dukes of
Wiirtemberg in the choir at Tubingen. The fine
Wollwarth monuments at Lorch were unquestion-

CARVING, S. JOHN'S, GMiiND.

ably produced at Gmiind. Erhard Barg was
employed as sculptor at Freiburg in Breisgau.
Kaspar Vogt (d. 1644) " was the most famous
architect and sculptor of Gmiind in the seven-
teenth century." There is an art school at
Gmiind, and artistic metal-work is turned out by
it, but, to my mind, on wrong lines. If, instead
of adopting the wavy, seaweed designs of which

135

The Land of Teck

we have grown heartily weary, the artists were
to go to the masterly work of their predecessors
in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance for in-
spiration, they would do better.

The oldest church is that of S. John, standing
in the centre of the town. It dates from the end
of the twelfth century, and, if tradition may be
trusted, was the kernel out of which the city grew.
The Duchess Agnes was passionately fond of
the chase, and one day pursued the hart through
the forest that then covered the valley where
now stands Gmiind. Heated by the exercise, she
pulled off her glove that she might wipe her face,
and in so doing plucked off as well her wedding
ring. Not till the party had seated themselves to
partake of a meal under the greenwood tree did she
notice her loss. In distress, she made her retinue
throughout the afternoon retrace their steps,
searching for the ring, but in vain. In the even-
ing, sorrowfully she returned to Hohenstaufen,
and ordered that the search should be continued
on the morrow. That also proved fruitless.
Weeks passed, when a young huntsman with his
crossbow brought down a stag — and lo ! on one
of its tines was fixed the golden hoop. The young
man was liberally rewarded, and the Duchess
built the church of S. John on the spot where the
ring had been recovered. It is a curious church,
earlier in character than would have been one
built about the same date in France or England.

136

Gmiind

There is a profusion of carving about it at the
eaves and over the west front and on the tower :
the huntsman and the hounds, the flying stag,
are portrayed right across the facade. Animals
are coiled up as if asleep in the splays of the

WINDOWS, ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, GMUND.

windows, or else are crouching as if about to
leap. And the splays are external, and not, as in
England, invariably internal. The sculptured
figures of the Virgin and Child and of the Cruci-
fixion are archaic. Puzzle figures of interlaced
work, such as is familiar in Celtic decoration,
appear here, and are supposed by the people to

137

The Land of Teck

represent the cake that the Duchess took with
her to eat under the trees on that memorable
hunt. Within, in the choir, is an oil-painting of
the sixteenth century, representing the story of
the origin of the church.

Unhappily, S. John's has undergone "restora-
tion," and a pretty mess has been made of it. A fine
apsidal choir had been added in the fifteenth cen-
tury, and in the west end were three windows of the
same period, the central of four lights, those at the
side of two. The side aisles also had been heightened.
Now, the wreckers have pulled down the beautiful
lantern-like choir, and its place has been supplied
by a fancy Lombardic apse. Such an apse may
be interesting as an antiquity, but it is not beau-
tiful— and that the added choir was. The western
windows have been destroyed, and a wheel win-
dow, out of character, substituted for that of the
four lights, which was graceful. The whole
structure has been so tinkered that in a few
years, when the stone has mellowed, it will not
be possible to distinguish the new from the old,
except by the banalite of the execution. On the
north side of the church is the tower, the Schwin-
delthurm, octagonal and capped with a stone
spire. The base is of the same date as the church,
but the upper portion of the tower is later. It
has not been mauled about by restorers as much
as the unfortunate church itself.

The modern stained glass is bad. This is the

138

Gmiind

more to be regretted as some German artists can
do excellent work in glass. No French stained
glass is tolerable ; there are in it degrees of bad-
ness, that is all. Munich started with sheer abomi-
nations of windows. There are specimens in the
south aisle of Cologne Cathedral. Compare these
atrocities with the lovely old glass in the north
aisle. One or two Munich artists have happily
become heartily ashamed of its old work, and
can now produce windows excellent in colour and
design.

In the new west wheel are represented S. Cecilia,
King David, S. Gregory the Great, S. Ambrose, and
the " Fiddler of Gmiind," the Wahrzeichen of the
town. I have already, in another book,1 given an
account of the Wahrzeichen (distinctive tokens —
we have no corresponding word in English) of
German towns ; it must suffice here to say briefly
that when apprentices travelled from place to
place it did not suffice for them to produce letters
of recommendation and papers of legitimation.
These might be stolen and used fraudulently.
Accordingly, they were questioned as to the
" tokens " of the cities whence they hailed.
Thus, the Wahrzeichen of Tubingen is a man
broken on a wheel, worked into an aisle window
of the principal church ; that of Reutlingen an
owl with its tongue out between two pilloried

1 Family Names and their History. Seeley and Co. 1910.
139

The Land of Teck

women ; that of Aalen the spy, about which more
presently ; and that of Gmiind the fiddler.

In the Herrgottsruh-Chapel outside the town,
near the cemetery, was at one time a figure of
S. Liberada, or Kummernis, a crowned crucifix
in a long gown. It was a very early representa-
tion of the Saviour " reigning from the tree/' at
a time when men shrank from a realistic repre-
sentation. But when these came in, and the
figure, naked on the cross, became general, the
clothed crucifixes were misunderstood, and it was
said that they represented a daughter of a King
of Spain. The father wanted her to marry a
Portuguese prince, but she objected and prayed
for deliverance ; whereupon a beard and mous-
tache and whiskers sprouted vigorously. So
angry was the father that he had her crucified.
There were plenty of these figures in Mediaeval
Europe. There is one to this day in the chapel
of Henry VII, at Westminster.

One day a needy, travelling fiddler came to
Gmiind, and entering the chapel, knelt before
the image and performed a strain on his instru-
ment. The saint was so pleased that she kicked
off one of her golden shoes towards him. The
minstrel took this to a goldsmith in the town,
who recognised it, had the man arrested, and he
was tried for theft and sacrilege. No one believed
his story, and he was conducted to the place of
execution to be hanged. On the way to the gallows

140

Gmiind

he passed the chapel, and implored to be suffered
to enter and once more fiddle to S. Kummernis.
His request was granted, and, to the amazement
of all, the figure kicked off towards him her
second golden shoe.

Since that hour in Gmiind are welcome

Fiddlers, e'er a main delight,
Come who may, to fiddles ringing

Dance the Gmiinders day and night.

Kerner composed a ballad on the story, but
altered Kummernis into Saint Cecilia. There was
a picture in the chapel representing the story ;
it is now in the museum in the Technical School.
The original image was given to Kerner, the
clergy being glad to be rid of it, as S. Kummernis
has acquired the credit of being able to rid
wives of objectionable husbands ; and after every
domestic ruffle in Gmiind or the neighbourhood
there was to be seen a stream of women with
flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes walking to the
Herrgottsruh - Capelle, to invoke the assistance
of the saint against their husbands. According
to Canon Sepp, of Munich, the saint is simply a
Christianised Bearded Aphrodite. The chapel
where stood this crucifix is deserving of notice,
for it was built in 1622, with windows, etc., in
Gothic style, but with a dome or lantern as a
newly introduced classic feature.

The church of the Holy Cross was begun in
141

•'•''i

The Land of Teck

1351, and completed in 1410. There had been
two romanesque towers, one on each side, and
it was purposed in 1497 to bore through them—
as has been done with the Norman towers at
Exeter — so as to give to the church the shape
of the rood. But the supports proved inadequate,
and both collapsed on Good Friday in that year.
The church is now towerless. It consists of a
nave with side aisles of equal height under one
enormous roof, and all are richly vaulted. The
choir is surrounded with radiating chapels be-
tween the buttresses. The richly moulded arcades
and the vaulting ribs spring from plain round
pillars, and this incongruity is perhaps an im-
perfection. But the design or purpose of the
architect is clear enough — by means of these plain
pillars to provide an effect of repose such as
might have failed had they been elaborately
moulded. Nevertheless, the contrast between the
intricacy of the vaulting and the delicacy of the
mouldings of the arches with these blank pillars
is displeasing.

There is much in this beautiful church to
engage attention. Against the north wall, on a
bracket, is the armour of Rauchbein, the burgo-
master, who defended the town against the
Smalkald League. The altarpiece representing a
Jesse-tree is much thought of, but, although the
details are good, it is clumsy — perhaps unavoidably
so on account of the subject. It is, however,

142

HOLY CROSS CHURCH, GMUND

Gmiind

vastly inferior to that of S. Sebaldus, already
mentioned. Near the sacristy door is a dainty
stone erection of spire and pinnacles sustaining
a crucifix, that is very beautiful. The five en-
trance porches deserve notice for their sculpture.
In the main entrance on the south is a beggar
man, carved in stone, holding out his hat for
coppers ; a slit in the crown lets the coin through
into a box. The predominating feature of this
church is its perfection of proportion. The struc-
ture used as a bell tower stands apart from the
church and is a pyramid of roof. It probably
formed a part of the royal residence when the
Emperor visited Gmiind, which was a free Imperial
city till united to Wiirtemberg in 1803.

I have mentioned that the Spy of Aalen was its
wahrzeichen, I will therefore tell the story here,
as it is connected with Gmiind. Aalen is the eastern-
most of the towns pertaining to the Alb. It also
was a free Imperial city, but a very little one.
And small cities, like small men and small dogs,
think a great deal of themselves and give them-
selves airs. Little Aalen, in a ruffle of self-
consequence, had given great offence to the
Emperor — we are not informed which — and the
Kaiser marched with an army to chastise it, and
arrived at Gmiind.

The citizens of Aalen now realised that they
had, to use a vulgar expression, " put their foot
in it," and they deputed the most trusted of

'43

The Land of Teck

their town council to go to Gmiind and spy out
the condition of affairs in the Imperial army —
what was its number, how it was armed and
marshalled, and in what temper was the Emperor.
Accordingly, the spy proceeded to Gmiind, and
with the utmost confidence and self-complacency
entered the camp of the Imperialists; he was
traversing the lines when hands were laid on his
shoulders and he was marched up to the Kaiser
to be questioned. " Sire ! " said he, " I am a
citizen of Aalen, a high, well-born Stadtsrath ;
and I am deputed by the city to spy out the
number of forces being brought against it, their
disposition, the names of the commanders, the
weight of ordnance, and so on — but, above all,
I was to spy out Your Majesty's temper.'- The
Kaiser and his retinue burst out laughing.
" Sire," said the spy, " I shall return to Aalen
and inform my fellow-citizens that you are in
the best of humours, and quite disposed to pass
over any little fault we may have committed."
" Certainly," said the Emperor, laughing. " I
cannot do better than be friends with such in-
telligent people." In commemoration of this
incident a memorial was established at Aalen.
The portrait of the spy was affixed to the town
clock on the Townhall, and was so contrived that
with the swing of the pendulum the head should
turn about and execute grimaces.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the

144

Gmiind

Emperor Napoleon, on his way to Ulm, passed
through Aalen and spent the night at the Post
Hotel. Next morning, when he had breakfasted,
he went to the window to see his troops paraded,
when he found them in broken order, laughing and
pointing and talking. In towering indignation,
he tried to open the casement, and in so doing
broke a pane of glass. The pane is shown to this
day. Then he bounced down the steps into the
square to reprimand his soldiery. But one of
the orderlies ventured to draw His Majesty's
observation to the spy on the city clock, and
Napoleon laughed with the rest.

To return to Gmiind. At the time of the Re-
formation some preachers came to the town to
upset the faith of the citizens ; but the town council
would have none of them, and in token of their
uncompromising adherence to the Catholic Church,
till 1802 the city fathers attended council meet-
ings rosary in hand. Gmiind is still a Catholic
town, and very zealous. The Evangelicals have
been given the use of the Church of S. Augustine,
built in 1758 in the " Pigtail " style. It is adorned
with stucco and fresco according to the taste of
the period, and with a large oil-painting represent-
ing S. Augustine confounding heretics.

In 1546 the army of the Smalkald League ap-
proached the town. It was at Heidenheim, and
sent delegates to Gmiind, imperiously demand-
ing the confiscation of all Church property, the
^ us

The Land of Teck

dissolution of the religious houses, and the pay-
ment of a contribution of 20,000 gold pieces.
The citizens refused. The army of the League
then surrounded the place, threw up earthworks,
and bombarded it. After 130 discharges of heavy
artillery, and the walls had given way, a parley
was held, when an arrangement was effected. To
save the town from the horrors of a sack, it con-
sented to pay 7000 gulden. However, in spite
of the agreement, the petty officers plundered
the house of the burgomaster and extorted fur-
ther contributions from the citizens by threats
of firing their houses.

During the Thirty Years' War the faithful city
had much to endure from soldiers quartered in
it, friend as well as foe; contributions levied;
famine and pestilence. An inscription in the
cemetery runs : —

1st das nicht eine harte Flag l

Sieben und siebzig in einem Grab. 1637.

A most interesting structure in the town is
the Corn House of 1507, a wonderful mass of
woodwork, the huge beams notched and grooved
into each other ingeniously, and the pegs holding
the timbers together standing out an inch or two,
not sawn off smooth with the surface, as is usual

1 Is not that a severe trial, to have to bury seventy-seven
bodies in one grave ?

146

Gmiind

in English and all modern work, and the more
effective accordingly.

A little way out of the town, across the rail-
way, and on the right bank of the Rems, a mass
of Keuper sandstone projects from the hill; this
has been utilised for a calvary and a couple of
chapels excavated in the rock. The ascent is by
a series of stations ; the figures in the chapels are
life-size, and of no artistic merit, with one ex-
ception— Christ, fallen under the cross, lies with
face downwards, and the left hand extended on
the pavement. There is much feeling in this
figure. When I was there a child had picked a
little bunch of forget-me-nots and had laid it
on the outspread hand. At the summit is Christ
on the Cross, a good figure, between the Thieves.
Hard by is a rockwork chapel adorned with shells
in rococo style, and containing groups of figures :
S. Hubert admiring the miraculous stag with the
crucifix between its horns ; S. Roch lying under
a staircase ; S. Jerome beating his bare body
with a stone, the bruises and wounds and blood
very marked ; and S. Mary Magdalene, with the
pot of ointment at her side, adoring a crucifix.

A little further we come to the rock that has
been scooped out into a lower and an upper
chapel. It is not known when these were first
made, but probably in the Middle Ages were the
resort of hermits. When Duke John Frederick
of Wiirtemberg lay before Gmiind with his troops

147

The Land of Teck

the churches around were all plundered and
mutilated, and the crucifixes became targets to
be fired at by the soldiery. Then the Salvator
Church, as this assemblage of chapels and calvary
is called, was wrecked. It speedily fell into neglect,
and became a refuge for thieves and highway
robbers, when fires blackened the vaults. After
they had been driven away, it became a playground
for children. But in 1654 the altars were recon-
secrated, and from that time the Salvator Church
became an object of resort. It has gone through
much alteration, and it is not possible to say
what was its original condition. The lower chapel
is the most ancient ; it has round-headed open-
ings on to the terrace before the rock. Here a
pulpit, cut out of the living stone, projects, and
there is a Moses Spring, a trickle of water received
into a basin below. The tower for bells, built on to
the rock, dates from about the year 1620. A visit
to the lower cave was indulgenced so late as 1896
by Leo XIII. Any one saying there five Pater-
nosters and as many times Gloria Patri, etc., will
acquire plenary indulgence for seven years, appli-
cable to any to whom the person who has per-
formed this act chooses to apply it, alive or dead.
If the Pope could grant me an indulgence of two
minutes' relief from toothache, I might believe
that there was something in this outrageous
undertaking. The lower chapel consists of two
aisles, the rock above being sustained by three

148

S. SALVATOR, GMUND

Gmiind

piers. Outside, the rude face of the rock has been
carved in various places : there are a vine, the
Ark, and in a hole an owl peeping forth.

The upper chapel consists of two parts ; the
outer contains a life-size image of Christ, crowned,
riding into Jerusalem on an ass, the whole on wheels.
This is the Palm Esel, and formerly it was wont to be
dragged about the town on the eve and on Palm
Sunday, the clergy preceding it, the Guild of the
Butchers following, and the butchers' children
sitting under the belly of the ass. The reason
why preference was given to the butchers is that
when the Swedes were in the town they carried
off the Palm Esel. The butchers, in great wrath,
seized their cleavers, burst out of the tower, and
recaptured the cherished figure.

A pleasant excursion from Gmiind may be
made to Heubach, a little town at the roots of
the Rosenstein. It is a place that has its story
written in characters that he who runs may read
in its streets and square. Here is a poor hovel
of timber with a broken-backed, tiled roof ; next
to it is a smug burgher's block of a house, built
last century, when everything built was ugly ;
then the projecting gable and ribbed face of a
mediaeval house, each storey leaning a little beyond
that below ; then the broad, unpretentious, hard
facade of a factory ; and, lastly, a pert little villa,
as vulgar as a villa can be made. The church
has suffered cruelly under the hands of the " re-

149

The Land of Teck

storer," who has removed the romanesque win-
dows to substitute some of his own design. In
it are suspended the helmet, breastplate, lance,
and banner of the last Lord of Rosenstein. His
boots, spurs, and gloves were there as well, but
they have been carried off.

The Rosenstein that rises above the town is a
white mass of limestone, crowned by the ruins
of a castle with the blue sky gleaming through
the windows. When complete, the castle must
have been extensive. Crusius says that, except
in situation, it resembled the ducal castle of
Tubingen. If so, it is no great loss. Higher up,
on another rock, stood a watch-tower. The story
goes that in the time of Kaiser Rudolf the fortress
was occupied by robber-knights, so he sent troops
to reduce it. The situation, however, rendered it
impregnable. Nevertheless, if the castle was so,
the heart of the lady of Rosenstein was not. The
captain remembered that she was an old flame
of his — old, yes, but he trusted she would not
acknowledge the lapse of years,. He sent her a
billet-doux expressive of his undying affection and
his unfading remembrance of her charms. It was
the old story of the fox and the crow again. The
lady took his protestations as current coin, re-
plied to his letters, gulped down all the nonsense
he wrote, and finally consented to open a postern
gate and admit him at night, on condition that
he came alone. The signal was to be a handker-

150

Gmiind

chief waved from a window. At the appointed
hour the gate was unbarred, and in crept the
captain, his squire following, holding the tail of
his tabard, followed by the groom of the stables
clutching the end of the squire's skirt, followed
by the corporal who gripped the waistband of
the groom, followed by the serjeant, followed by
all the privates in order of seniority, one clinging
to another ; and so the castle was taken. Ever
since, a pale woman is to be seen on moonlight
nights at one of the broken windows, looking
down over Heubach and waving a white kerchief
to the lover who never comes. Alas ! how many
a poor woman thus ineffectually signals.

According to another legend, it was to Rosen-
stein that Satan carried the Saviour to show
Him all the kingdoms of the world and the
glory of them — to wit, four dozen petty feudal
castles with villages of poor serfs cringing at
their feet, before each house a dung-heap and a
pump : Rechberg, Lauterburg, Neresheim, Floch-
berg, Baldern, Kapfen — but the ink will run out
before I have named them all. Peasants visited
the impression of a foot in the rock, and used
the water that lodged in it as a cure for sore
eyes. To put a term to this, Duke Frederick
Charles had gunpowder rammed into the rock,
and blew it to pieces. According to Pistorius,
then governor at Heubach, the reputed footprint
" was nothing more than the erosion caused by

The Land of Teck

rainwater in a natural and accidentally formed
hollow." But superstition is not killed by gun-
powder, and it came to be believed that, at one
stride, Christ had stepped across the valley and
planted His other foot on the Scheuelberg, and
had left its impress there as well.

A walk over the plateau from Lauterburg to
Bartholomae leads to the very curious Wenthal,
a waterless valley full of fantastically shaped
masses of Dolomitic limestone that have been
weathered into shapes to which names have been
given, as the Sphinx, the Seal, the Hippopotamus,
the Woman of Wenthal, etc. They are not to be
compared with the bewildering Montpelier le Vieux
of the Gausses in Aveyron, nor with the eccentric
rocks of Moureze in Herault, but they are curious.
Nothing must be expected here on a gigantic
scale, but I am not convinced that size is essential
to beauty. The rock is so soft that it can be
broken and bruised with the fingers, and much
of the decomposed dust or sand from it is carted
away.

At Lauterburg was a castle of the Wollwarths',
whose monuments fill one with admiration at
Lorch. It was burnt in the Peasants' War, and
the existing castle was erected in 1594, but was
again burnt in 1732.

152

CHAPTER VIII

THE FILS THAL

river Fils possesses the feminine
quality of heading in one direction
when it purposes to run in the oppo-
site. Its source is but two and a half
miles distant from that of an affluent of itself,
the Lindach, that flows into the Lauter at Kirch-
heim. All its upper valley pertained to the
duchy of Teck. It flows north-east to Geis-
lingen, the watershed between the Danube and
the Rhine, then changes its course and turns
north-west at an acute angle. From Geislingen
to Goppingen it winds through a broad valley,
with the Kaiser mountains on its right, rising to
Hohenstaufen. The Fils occupies in its upper
course a furrow that cuts through the Alb and
separates from it, on the north, a long and lofty
ridge pierced by many a valley, down which
flow little rivers ; whereas on the other side
there is almost no drainage.

The railway from Stuttgart to Ulm reaches
Geislingen and then climbs the Steig — to scram-
ble over the watershed, through cuttings in the
limestone, that afford a geologist instructive

153

The Land of Teck

lessons. The old town, Altenstadt, lies further
down, and is conspicuously modern. There is
not an old building in it ; whereas the new town,
Geislingen, is as conspicuously ancient. It is
built on the Rohrach, that enters the Fils at
Altenstadt. As a centre for excursions in the Alb
district it cannot be surpassed. Lofty and bare
grey rocks, rising out of the beech woods that
clothe the slopes, form a delightful frame to this
old town. It has lost its walls, its twenty towers
and four gates ; but it retains a beautiful church,
built in 1424, and a wonderful high-pitched,
seven-storey structure — now an armee-depot — of
timber and plaster on a stone basis, each storey
projecting on oak corbels above that below, and
the roof broken by dormer windows. More than
that, the citizens have had the good taste when
they rebuilt their houses to follow the ancient
tradition and gable them towards the street.

The name signifies that it was the settlement
of a Geisel or Gisela. It is not mentioned before
1215 ; m 1281 it is described as an oppidum, in 1289
as a civitas. It owed its prosperity to the Counts
of Helfenstein, who had a castle on the rocks
high overhead, of which now barely a trace re-
mains. The Helfensteins bore on their coat an
elephant ; but the name has another origin. A
Helfenstein is a rock with a crevice running
athwart it, through which people crawled to re-
lieve themselves of maladies, women to obtain

154

GEISLINGEN

The Fils Thai

easy accouchements and those suspected of crimes
to establish their innocence.

In the Icelandic Elder Edda, in the "Lay of
Fiolsvith," is asked : " Tell me, Fiolsvith, that I
will ask thee and I desire to know, what that
height is called on which I see a resplendent
maiden stand ? " And the reply is : " Hyfiaberg
is it called, and long has it been a solace to
the bowed down and sorrowful. Every woman
becomes healthy, though she have a year's
disease, if she can ascend it." These helping
stones are not uncommon in Germany. There
is a Helfenstein in the Ziller Thai, one in
the Fichtel Gebirge, one called the Klausner-
hohle, near Tolz, through which children are
made to creep so as to become strong. There
were helping stones in the Holy Land, their
name Eben-ezer (i Sam. vii. 12). In Devonshire
children suffering from the thrush are passed
under a bramble growing in an arch into the
ground. Under Ripon minster is S. Wilfred's
Needle, through which women crawl.

The genealogy of the Counts of Helfenstein
goes back to Rudolf I of Sigmaringen (1135-1147) ;
but the first to settle on the crag above Geislingen
was Ulrich I (1207-1251). Ulrich IV, who died
in 1326, married Agnes of Wurtemberg. Frede-
rick I (d. 1438) sold Helfenstein to the city of
Ulm in 1396 ; and the citizens of that good town
pulled the castle down to its foundations in 1552.

155

The Land of Teck

The Helfensteiners were, like almost all other
Swabian magnates, loyal to the House of Hohen-
staufen. Count Ludwig accompanied Barbarossa
in 1189 on his crusade. When the " White
Company " lost heart over the difficulties of the
way and their losses, the Count revived their
confidence by assuring them that he had seen in
vision the Blessed Virgin and S. George, who had
assured him that the expedition would be success-
ful. He offered, if any doubted his word, to
submit to the ordeal of bearing red-hot irons.
But as he was generally believed to be truthful,
and was of such high birth and position, his
assurance was accepted without his being sub-
jected to the test. No doubt, in his heated imagi-
nation he had dreamed that he had seen and heard
this, and had no intention to deceive. His brother
Gottfried, Bishop of Wiirzburg, and Chancellor to
Barbarossa, was also in the crusade, and he buried
the bones of the Emperor at Antioch. He was
himself carried off there by sickness in 1190.

One of the Helfensteins, Catharine, became
wife of Count Ulrich IV of Wurtemberg, and so
carried the blood of this ancient House into the
line of princes now flourishing. But the Helfen-
steins, although rising to great power and splen-
dour, rapidly declined. They parted with one
estate after another, till all that was left them was
Wiesensteig, the upper portion of the valley, that
had once pertained to Teck ; and they took up

156

The Fils Thai

their residence at Hiltenburg. Frederick sold Hel-
fenstein and Geislingen to save this last portion
of their broadlands. Yet, with a little judgment,
they might have recovered. The toll on the
main road was so considerable an asset that a
peasant said to Count Frederick : " Sir ! if you sat
a whole year in Helfenstein, and every day
chucked a ha'penny out of the window, you would
still have enough to pull through out of the toll."

But the greatest disaster to the family was due
to a marriage with Maria, daughter of Duke
Stephen of Bosnia. She had an Oriental love of
splendour, and no conception of the value of
money ; and the citizens of Ulm were ever ready
to advance her loans at an usurious interest.
At last the representative of the family entered
into the service of the Counts of Wiirtemberg for
an annual wage.

The end of Count Helfrich of Helfenstein, on
Easter Monday, 1525, was tragic. He had been ap-
pointed Governor of the Castle of Weinsberg, and
was married to a daughter of the Emperor Maxi-
milian. The peasants were in full revolt, and a large
body marched against Weinsberg. A private
message warned the Count of his danger, but he
despised these country clowns, and trusted in the
strong walls of the town. The leader of the peasants
was the publican Rohrbach, commonly called
Jaklein. A woman treacherously opened a gate,
and the mob of armed peasants poured in. It was

157

The Land of Teck

Easter Day, and the Count and his knights were in
church when tidings reached him that the town
was in the hands of the insurgents and escape to
the castle was cut off. Many of the nobles and
knights were cut down. The Count of Helf en-
stein and thirteen knights and their squires were
bound and given a mock trial. The Countess
threw herself on her knees before Jaklein, held
up her child, and implored him to spare the life
of her husband. But neither her tears nor her
beauty moved the hard hearts. The peasants
thrust her back with their pikes and wounded
" the little lordling." She offered 30,000 gulden
for the life of the Count, but Jaklein answered :
" If you were to promise two tons of gold, he
should still die." At their commander's order the
peasants formed a street with their pikes raised.
Count Helfrich was sentenced to run the gauntlet.
Melchior Nonnenmacher, a piper, who had for-
merly been in the service of the Count, stepped
forward, snatched his cap from his head, put it
on, and said scoffingly : " You have worn that
long enough. Now it is my turn to be a count.
Often have I played for you to dance, now I will
pipe to you as you dance to death/' Then he
strutted before his former master, playing a lively
tune till he reached the terrible range of men
prepared to slay. Count Helfrich was thrust for-
ward ; at the third stride he was struck down and
was stabbed in a thousand places by the peasants.

158

The Fils Thai

Jaklein appropriated to himself the armour of
the fallen man, and standing before the Countess
asked : " Woman, what do you think of me
now ? " She turned away, and was at once fallen
upon and stripped of her ornaments and her
gown. Then she and her little boy were placed
on a dung-cart and sent to Heilbron, the peasants
shouting after her : " You came here in a gilded
coach, and you leave in a manure waggon."

Terrible and barbarous was the retribution
taken for this act. A battle was fought on 12 May
near Boblingen, and 3000 peasants were killed.
Melchior Nonnenmacher fled and hid himself in
a pigeon-house, but was betrayed by a boy.
Jaklein also was captured. The commander of
the forces sent against the peasants was the
Truchsess of Waldburg, appointed by the Swabian
Bund. He was a man without pity, without
common humanity. Both Captain Jaklein and
the piper Nonnenmacher were sentenced to the
same death. Each was attached by a chain to a
willow, so that it was possible to get two strides
from the trunk. Then a pile of faggots was
reared in a ring around and was ignited. The
poor wretches ran about in agony within the fiery
hoop. Drums beat to drown their cries. Thus
by slow torture were they roasted to death. The
Truchsess was not satisfied with this act of re-
tribution. By his orders Weinsberg was burnt
to the ground.

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The Land of Teck

The child of the murdered Count died, and the
race was continued by his brother, Ulrich XI.
The last male issue was Count Rudolf V, who
died in 1627. He left three daughters, co-heiresses,
each of whom received one-third of the remain-
ing property of Wiesensteig. One sister carried
her share by marriage into the family of Fiirsten-
berg, the others sold theirs to Bavaria. In 1806
the seigneurie passed to Wiirtemberg.

The toll has been mentioned above, that was
levied on those passing along the high road from
Ulm to the north of the Alb, or vice versa. In
the high street of Geislingen is the picturesque
toll-house, as delightful as the armoury already
spoken of.

The Reformation was forced on the people of
Geislingen by the city of Ulm in 1531. There
was a convent in the town, the sisters of which
could not commit a religious somersault. They
were obliged to buy permission, at a gulden
each, to be allowed to walk to the neighbouring
village of Eybach to attend Mass on Sundays
and Holy Days. At last their patience or their
purses could hold out no longer, and they re-
treated to Wiesensteig. The governor of the
castle likewise refused to give up his faith, and
was dismissed his post.

The maxim, Cujus regio, efus religio, is very
remarkably exemplified in the Alb. Here, in
Geislingen, because the town of Ulm, its master,

160

The Fils Thai

would have it so, all the inhabitants were re-
quired, as was Clovis, " Bow thy head, Sicam-
brian ; adore what thou hast burned ; burn
what thou hast adored." It was not a matter
of conviction, but of compulsion. Protestant
rulers drove out of their lands those who could
not stomach the new religion, and Catholics ex-
pelled such as wanted a change. Thus Eybach,
next door to Geislingen, is Catholic ; and Wiesen-
steig, up the river, is the same.

In the year 1536 there was a priest at Rod-an-
der-Weil, who also held the cure of Hasselbach,
and one cure was about equal in value to the
other. Then came the Reformation, and the
parishioners of Rod wanted to become Lutherans,
but those of Hasselbach held to the ancient
Church.

The rector was in difficulties. If he remained
Catholic, he lost Rod and his income derived
thence ; if he became Protestant, he lost Hassel-
bach. At last he saw his way out of the diffi-
culty. Early in the morning, in a black gown,
he preached Lutheran doctrine in Rod ; an hour
later he said Mass in vestments at Hasselbach
and preached the Catholic faith. He baptised ac-
cording to Lutheran ritual at Rod, two miles off ;
then according to Catholic usage at Hasselbach.
At the former he denounced the Pope as Anti-
christ, at the latter he taught obedience to the
chair of S. Peter. So it went on for some time.

M 161

The Land of Teck

At last a Protestant consistory met at Weilthal,
and he was hauled up before it to give an account
of himself. He explained that he considered him-
self the minister of the congregation, and served
each as suited it : some like apples, and some
like onions. And he was suffered to continue his
course. A good deal of this sort of thing doubt-
less went on in the time of religious ferment, not
quite so pronouncedly as in the case of the rector
of Rod and Hasselbach ; but many an incumbent
allowed himself to adopt any religious opinion
that suited his pocket. Moreover, he did not know
exactly what he was expected to hold and teach
and what to denounce, whether to throw in his
lot with Luther, or with Calvin, or with Zwingli,
and he looked helplessly to his parishioners or to
his patron to decide for him. Then, again, there
was a continual shifting of patrons. An heiress
of a family that had Protestantised the churches
it controlled carried the property into a Catholic
family, and at once these churches were restored
to Catholic worship. Rather than be dispossessed
the pastor shed his negations and resumed his
teaching according to the doctrines of the Church,
threw aside his black gown and donned the
chasuble.

The Lutherans and Calvinists hated each other
with only a little less virulence than they hated
the Catholics. Baron Polnitz tells an amusing
story of his meeting a Lutheran pastor in society.

162

The Fils Thai

When this latter heard that Polnitz had been a
Calvinist, but had joined the Catholic Church, he
threw up his hands and eyes to heaven, and ex-
claimed : " A worshipper of Baal ! Better than
that even if he had remained a d— d Calvinist."

In the Rhenish Palatinate the people were
forced to change their religion ten times in less
than a century. Wolfgang of Anhalt bought
Kothen in 1546 ; he expelled the priests, forbade
Catholic worship, and made the population Lu-
theran. Next year Kothen fell to Count Sigis-
mund of Lodron, and reverted to the Catholic
Church. In 1552 it was restored to Wolfgang,
who reconverted his people to Lutheranism. On
his death, fourteen years later, his successor made
Kothen Calvinist. At Goppingen, when it fell to
the Empire, the Archduchess Claudia received it
by a grant, and she reintroduced Catholic wor-
ship into the parish church. But citizens are not
so manageable as peasants, and she failed to
convert them en masse. None can believe ac-
cording to order ; one can shed one's clothes
quicker than put them on.

The "sour sauce," as Frederick William III of
Prussia called the rancorous controversy that was
waged between the two confessions, gradually lost
its acidity. The Reformed ceased to believe in
Election, and the Lutherans became aware that
Free Justification was a pregnant mother of
moral dissolution. Religious indifference spread,

163

The Land of Teck

and when Frederick William III invented his
" Evangelical Church/' which was to consist of
a fusion of Calvinism and Lutheranism in one
body, very few cared to oppose it. The work
begun in 1817 was completed by a Cabinet order
in 1839 ; but already, in 1823, the Union had been
accepted and carried out in Wiirtemberg. In
matter of doctrine there was little to divide the
two Protestant bodies ; all had become pro-
foundly indifferent as to the articles on which so
fierce controversy had raged, and were quite
content to belong to a creedless Church. In
the gospel mention is made of the children
who asked for bread and were given a stone, but
in these Evangelical churches they have to con-
tent themselves with soap-bubbles, that may be
iridescent, but contain no substance, where Chris-
tianity has been diluted to the thinnest possible
infusion.

The only tower that now remains of the de-
fences of Geislingen is high above it, the Oeden-
thurm, planted on a rock, four-square at base,
and gradually rising to a circular drum. Until
comparatively recently in it lived a watchman
who looked out all night for tokens of fire, to
be greatly apprehended where the houses were
built of timber. If he perceived any he kindled
a cresset, and brayed down an alarm through an
enormous horn.

Geislingen was, and still is, a place where much
164

GEISL1NGEN

The Fils Thai

turned work is produced. Murray, in his " Guide
Book/' says : " The traveller is here beset by a
crowd of girls and old women offering for sale
toys in bone, wood, and ivory, which are manu-
factured on the spot ; they are so importunate,
that it is generally necessary to buy something
in order to be rid of them." This is no longer
the case. Manufacture is too flourishing here
and elsewhere in Germany to need touters to get
rid of the wares. Some ivory sculptures produced
here were of no little artistic value. One Wilhelm
Knoll, who died in 1764, carved the story of the
Passion, which was sold and came to England.
A series of the emperors, by his son Michael, was
disposed of in Vienna. The Guild book of the
turners begins in 1450. In 1780 there were as
many as thirty-six master workmen in ivory,
bone, and wood.

Geislingen was not annexed to Wiirtemberg
till 1810. The church, built of reddish brown
tufa, is in the Geometric Pointed style, nave and
north and south aisles. The interior is clean and
well cared for. The choir serves as a Sunday-
school ; the old high altar remains, but is not
used ; over it is a small altarpiece given by Maria
of Helfenstein, Duchess of Bosnia. In the lower
compartment is a representation of Purgatory
that is kept closed with a shutter lest it should
give ideas to the school-children contrary to
Protestant teaching. The Communion Table, of

165

The Land of Teck

stone, in the nave, as I saw it, had a carpet before
it about which were ranged dining-room chairs,
for a marriage. There is no provision made in
any of these churches for kneeling, because the
Evangelicals sit or stand, they never kneel. They
sit to sing hymns, stand to pray. The pulpit is a
very fine piece of Renaissance work, inlaid, with a
sounding-board rising as a spire.

A rock standing above the town is called the
Geiselstein, and is traditionally held to be the
petrified founder of the place and to have given
it its name. He was a count long before the
Helfensteins were thought of — at least, at Geis-
lingen. When his wife died he fell into deep
depression, and his knightly pursuits pleased him
no more. All he cared for was his two little boys,
whom he watched as a hen does her chickens.

One day the Swabian duke was hunting in the
Fils Thai, and sent word to Geisl to attend him.
The Count could not refuse, but before quitting
home he laid strict injunctions on his boys
not to leave the house. The day was fine, the sun
shone bright. Below the tower was a pond in
which there lay a boat, and where carp were bred
for the table. The children, unable to resist the
temptation, disobeyed their father's order, stole
forth, and entered the boat. In their frolics they
upset it and were both drowned. The sport of
the day afforded no pleasure to Count Geisl. A
presentiment of evil weighed on him, and without

1 66

f 1

IN THE EYBACH THAL

The Fils Thai

taking leave of the Duke he left his retinue and
returned home, there to see the overturned boat
and the bodies of his children caught on the weir.
His grief turned him to stone.

There was once a musician. He had naught
but his fiddle, and with that he earned his daily
bread. As he was one day coming over the
Steig from Ulm he saw a dying man lying in the
road, wounded and drenched in his blood. Being
of a compassionate nature, he knelt and raised the
man's head on his breast, and asked him who
had thus maltreated him. But he received no
reply, and next moment the man was dead. At
that instant a Geislinger rushed upon him with
uplifted club. " You scoundrel ! I have caught
you in the act ! " And he drew him away before
the magistrates, and accused him of having mur-
dered one of the citizens of the town. As the
dead man was of consequence, and as the fiddler
was of none, short work was made of his trial,
and he was condemned to death on the spot
where the crime had been committed. There, as
the executioner stood by in scarlet mantle,
brandishing the two-handed sword, the poor
musician on his knees cried out : " O you magis-
trates of Geislingen ! hard of heart, the very
stones will weep for my fate ! " Next minute his
head was struck off. Then from out of a cleft
in the stone flowed a little rill, crystal clear, and
washed from off the grass the innocent blood that

167

I' h>J A» rift.

The Land of Teck

had been shed. The spring still flows, and the
visitor who understands the language of birds,
sitting by it, will hear in spring the little feathered
mothers in their nests telling their fledglings the
story of the origin of the Briinnlein-an-der-Steige.

From 1763 to 1769 Schubart was schoolmaster
and organist at Geislingen. In a letter to his father-
in-law, in 1767, he wrote : " Here one has to be
mighty pious, and toil like an ox, and starve like
a gaol-bird. The slavery under which I groan
and expiate all my sins is like that of a galley-
slave . . . work, ever work. Living in the stench
of dirty heads and bestial exhalations, I fling
books away and teach spelling. Instead of gazing
on the graces of a Greek Apollo, I see only boorish
features under the stubbly heads of baboons, and
the back view of monkeys. I am constrained to
swallow the gall with which stupid parents be-
spatter my face ; I have to endure the dullness
of an hypocritical idiot, who conceals his donkey-
ears under a wig, and his envious, spiteful heart
under a long black cloak. Such is my lot/' Of
musical taste the Geislingers were barren. " There
is so little of it here that they prefer the tootling
of a goatherd to the best concert. But, when I
write on this theme — difficile est, satyram non
scribere."

However in later years he sang another strain.
In a letter of 18 November, 1787, he said of the
days spent in Geislingen : " Remembrance of them

168

The Fils Thai

serves to dissipate the darkest clouds in my life.
As one new born I came there once more, and
could hardly restrain from weeping, tears, how-
ever, of thankfulness and joy, that after long dis-
tress God has allowed me to enjoy the delight
of meeting again there my unspeakably dear
friends. In Geislingen, when I arrived, all the town
was in commotion. Our grandfather, with locks
silver white, stood beaming with happiness at
the side of my carriage ; and grandmother was
standing trembling with emotion at her door.
I remained there three days, but slept hardly at
all, so as to enjoy the love and friendship that
were shown me at every moment with inexpressible
Swabian true-heart edness. Schad, Wagner, and
especially the town scrivener, from whose window
I looked out and drank in the charms of the
romantic neighbourhood, showed me hospitality.
Especially touching was it when my old pupils
came round me to thank me, with their eyes full
of tears, for the teaching I had given them."

Schubart was a Swabian by birth, son of a
deacon at Aalen. He had to leave the University
of Erlangen on account of his dissipated life and
heavy debts. Then he came to his father and
picked up a small income by composing sermons
for the pastors round about. He was next ap-
pointed teacher and organist at Geislingen, where
he married. Next we find him musical director
at Ludwigsburg, but he had to throw up this

169

The Land of Teck

situation on account of his disorderly life. After
rambling from place to place, he settled for a
while at Augsburg, but was expelled the city
because he had turned the burghers and clergy
into ridicule. Then he went to Ulm, where,
having published a statement that the Empress
Maria Theresa had received a paralytic stroke, he
was thrown into prison and lingered in Hohen-
asperg for ten years. He was only released at
the intercession of the King of Prussia, in 1787,
when he became musical director of the theatre
at Stuttgart, and there he died in 1791. He was
a poet and an historian, but his writings hardly
count as classics.

One of the loveliest excursions from Geislingen
is over a spur of the Alb, down the Valley of
Rocks, with its dolomitic spires, to Eybach, where
is the seat of Count Degenfeld. The glen, Felsen
Thai, is narrow and closed at the end by cliffs.
Formerly the only way down was by ladders,
but now a descent can be effected by a stair cut
in the rocks. Eybach derives its name from the
yew trees that formerly abounded here — growing
out of the rocks — but most have been cut down ;
one veteran alone remains in the gardens of the
castle.

This schloss was built in 1768, and is in
the uninteresting and unpicturesque style of
the period. This estate came to the Degenfelds
in 1457, and in the church are their monuments.

170

The Fils Thai

William of Degenfeld was made Knight of the
Golden Spurs on the bridge over the Tiber by
the Emperor Frederick III ; he died, nearly a
hundred years old, in 1533. Of his eight sons,
seven died without issue, and the eighth, Martin II,
was in priest's Orders. In order to continue the
stock, he turned evangelical and married. He
got into a brawl with the steward for Ulm : both
drew, both were wounded. The Duke of Wur-
temberg demanded satisfaction of the city of
Ulm, but with the remark that the unfortunate
affair would not have occurred had both been
drinking water instead of wine. Martin observed
thereupon that he did not know what was the taste
of the former fluid, and that he was too old to
experimentalise on strange drinks.

One of the family, Conrad, died in 1600. He
had gone to bed in a tavern in the same room
with the steward of Schorndorf. This man woke
up in the night, and saw a white figure meander-
ing about the room. Thinking it was a ghost, he
drew his hanger and ran the apparition through
the body ; and only then discovered it was Conrad
von Degenfeld walking in his sleep. The steward
was tried for this, and by Enzlin, the Chancellor,
who was his personal enemy, was sentenced
to death and executed. As he stood on the
scaffold he cried out : " I, as a Christian, forgive
my enemies ; but of a surety God will exact ven-
geance for my innocent blood." The vengeance

171

The Land of Teck

did fall on Enzlin, who, as we shall see, was
himself executed at Urach in 1613.

Christopher Martin, the son of Conrad, took
service under Wallenstein and Tilly, but after-
wards went over to that of Gustavus Adolphus.
After the battle of Nordlingen, 1634, the Imperial
troops overran all Swabia, and showed no mercy
to the estates of a renegade from the Imperial
service. His castle at Schorndorf was burnt, and
with it perished all the family treasures and
archives that had been placed there for security.
Then Degenfeld entered the French service, but
quitted it for that of Venice. Sultan Ibrahim, who
was incensed because a number of Turkish vessels
had been captured by the fleet of the Republic—
in one of these was his favourite and his four-
year-old son — fell upon the Venetian possessions
on the mainland. Christopher Martin was ap-
pointed Governor-General of Dalmatia and Al-
bania, took the field against the Turks, and
recaptured one town after another. He escaped
death several times as by a miracle. On one
occasion ten of the enemy had disguised them-
selves in the uniform of his Morlacks, and gather-
ing round him at the same moment discharged
their carbines at him. Yet he was not hit. On
another occasion his tent was pitched near a
tower that had been taken from the Turks.
Before these latter had quitted it they had laid
a train to a store of gunpowder in the vault be-

172

nppfh

The Fils Thai

neath. The tower blew up, and four sentinels
before the tent of Christopher Martin were killed,
but he escaped without a scratch.

Another time at Urania he was engaged in
battle, along with his eldest seventeen-year-
old son, Ferdinand. One of the officers of his
staff wore a conspicuous dress with scarlet
collar and silver lace. The general said to him :
" You have made yourself a target for the
enemy ! " At the same moment a shower of
balls fell about them. The dog of the general,
Fidele, snapped at them as though they were
flies, to the great amusement of the staff. But
their laughter ceased when it was seen that a bit
of scrap-iron had struck Ferdinand on the face
and that he was drenched in blood. " Courage,
my boy!" shouted the father. "Ranzau" (one
of his officers) "was hit like this at Dole, and was
well again in a fortnight/' " My dear father/'
answered the lad, " there is no lack of courage
here — but there is of sight. My eyes are put
out/' And, in fact, he was blinded for life.
Ferdinand had a dog named Fidelino that had
been left behind with his mother in Padua. When
the brute saw his master so fearfully disfigured,
it howled and seemed inconsolable. " Fidelino/'
said the blinded lad, " henceforth I shall call you
Fidelissimo." Both dogs were painted by an
artist at Padua, and their portraits may be seen
in the schloss at Eybach.

173

The Land of Teck

The valley above Eybach, called the Roggen
Thai, is deserving of a visit. On the left rises the
Albansfelsen, formed like an old castle, with its
towers and roofless gables, and green beech tree
filling all the gaps. On the right, where the valley
narrows and parts, is the Lochfelsen ; the high
crag pierced as with a window. Further up is
the Roggenfelsen, and between the valley so
called and the Magenthal stands the Gabelfelsen
with two prongs. There were three, but one was
struck by lightning and broken down. The entire
valley is full of beauty. The road runs up the
valley and over the high tableland, to descend to
Weissenstein, where are a castle and brewery be-
longing to Count Rechberg, who has his principal
residence at Donzdorf.

A branch line of railway runs up the valley of the
Fils, halting at one or two fashionable baths. The
train passes under the Michaelsberg, where there
is a fine section of the upper beds of the Jura
limestone that can be observed here perhaps
better than anywhere else in the Alb.

Above Ditzenbach rises a conical hill crowned
by the ruins of Hiltenburg. The ascent is by a
winding road. On the platform can be seen walls
standing twenty feet high, vaults and a well, also
the remains of a mighty tower. But of all this
nothing can be seen from below. This was the
residence of the Helfenstein Counts after they
had sold the castle from which they took their

174

The Fils Thai

name. In 1516, when Duke Ulrich was on his
way through the valley to Goppingen, the guard
in the castle, for no assignable reason, fired off a
cannon, and the ball fell among the Duke's
officers when at table, but did no one any harm.
He was furious, and made loud threats. The
matter was referred to the Emperor, who decided
that it was a mismanaged shot discharged in
honour of his appearance. Ulrich would take no
excuse. He went with a large force into the valley.
The Countess, then expecting to become a mother,
came down from Wiesensteig to implore him to
be reconciled. The Count had been away at the
time at Augsburg, and she had not been in the
castle. Ulrich, however, bade his men set fire
to it, on 9 November. This outrageous act was
one of the grievances which caused the nobles
and knights of the land to turn against him, along
with the cities and the peasantry, and caused his
expulsion.

Over against Hiltenburg opens, on the right,
the Hardt Thai, that runs for about four miles
and ends in a basin surrounded by barren hills.
In the midst lies the village of Ganslosen, the
Swabian Gotham, but which the inhabitants
prefer to have called Auendorf, because it is " au
en Dorf," as good a village as any in the land.
Ganslosen is said to be a corruption of Gasslosen,
i.e. without Gaste — guests, as lying out of the way
and leading to nowhere. This, however, is not

The Land of Teck

now the case, as a good road over the mountain
opens communication with Goppingen. Many
are the stories told of the wiseacres of Ganslosen.
They built themselves a Townhall, but forgot to
make any windows in it, so they went out, some
with sacks, some with shovels and wheelbarrows,
to get sunshine to bring in, one even with a mouse-
trap to catch a sunbeam. The villagers, so as to
know the time of day, set up a sundial against
the church tower, but, lest it should get injured
by rain, built a shed over it.

The terminus is at Wiesensteig, that derives
its name from the Wiesent, a bison, that would
have disappeared wholly out of Europe had not
the Czar extended his protection to it and pre-
served a hundred head in the forest of Bialowitz
in Lithuania. It was here that the bisons from
the Alb were wont to descend to drink. In like
manner Urach takes its name from the Ure, or
Aurochs. In the Nibelungen Lied both beasts,
also the giant elk, are spoken of as not extinct
when that poem was written :—

Then slew he speedily a Wisent and an Elk,
Strong Ures and a giant stag (Schelch).

Caesar describes the ure as " little smaller than
an elephant, but in appearance like an ox, of
great strength and speed ; it never suffers itself
to be tamed, and spares no man it sees. To have
killed an ure is held in highest honour among the

176

The Fils Thai

Germans, and its horns, set in silver, serve as
drinking vessels at their carouses. "

More than that, the heads with their horns
covered the helmets of the early knights, and gave
occasion to the many horned crests one sees in
German heraldry. With the burning sun on the
steel cap it was necessary to wear a puggery — the
mantle over it. But to prevent this from slipping
off it was given two holes, through which the horns
projected, or else the helm was furnished with
wings, hinged and capable of being folded to
admit of the mantle being passed over them. Or,
again, as in the case of the Teck crest, the eagle
or the dog was provided with a sort of sleeve
that was drawn over the crest like a glove.
Another method of holding the mantle fast was
to surround the helm with a wreath of twisted
cloth of two colours. This was the only mode
adopted in England.

Wiesensteig is thirteen miles from Geislingen,
and the train takes an hour and twenty minutes
to accomplish the journey. The town lies 1940
feet high, and is surrounded by hills that rise
from six to seven hundred feet above it ; but the
source of the Fils is three miles further up. The
little town, once surrounded with walls, and
which had three gates and as many towers, is
built in a crescent ; its street is unpaved. In the
market-place is a fountain that is decorated with
the arms of Helfenstein and Fiirstenberg. The

N I77

The Land of Teck

Schloss or Residence has been for the most part
demolished. The church, which is in the Baroque
style and is tawdry inside, possesses two towers
with caps. Nearly all the houses are ancient.

On the side of a hill, at a little distance above
the town, is the Steinerne Weib, a column of
dolomite that bears a faint resemblance to a
woman with her arms folded over her bosom,
and drapery depending from it. The story told
of it is that there was a widow who was desperately
desirous of being married again, and thinking her
children an encumbrance, threw them down the
precipice, and in punishment was turned to stone.
But according to another version she was one
who by her denunciations obtained the execu-
tion by fire of seventy reputed witches at Wiesen-
steig in the latter part of the sixteenth century.
There may have been such a woman, and common
abhorrence has confounded her with the earlier.
The first story seems to be a localisation of that
of the Countess of Orlamiinde, who murdered her
two children by running knitting-pins in at their
ears, in the hopes of winning Albert, Burgrave
of Niirnberg. But, in this latter case, the wretched
woman appears as the White Lady of the House
of Hohenzollern, and was not petrified.

The source of the Fils is at the side of the long
furrow or valley down which at one time it flowed,
and which, indeed, it excavated for itself. But,
working its way underground to a lower level, it

178

The Fils Thai

deserted its old channel and broke out further
down. One can see on the Alb above Wiesen-
steig, in the Schertelskhohle, how the structure
is that of a fossil sponge, so that water is con-
tinually sinking to form subterranean rivers.

Wiesensteig was originally a feoff of the Dukes
of Teck, but when the first House failed the
county became the independent property of the
Helfensteiners. This proud family had posses-
sions from the Danube to the Rems. Nothing of
them remains save their white elephant on a red
field upon the town fountain and their monu-
ments in the church. Their castles have been
demolished and their palace at Wiesensteig re-
duced to a fragment. The Duchess Maria, who
by her extravagance contributed to the ruin, lies
under a flat stone in the church of a village of
masons, below Hiltenburg. Neither the family,
which she impoverished, nor the city of Ulm,
which she enriched, cared to spend a gulden on a
stonecutter to trace on the blank slab her arms,
her title, or even her name.

179

CHAPTER IX

URACH

URACH was the nursery of the Wiirtem-
berg Royal Family, and consequently
also of the second series of Dukes of
Teck. It is a picturesque old town, folded
about by the mountains clothed in beech woods,
and is reached by a branch line from Metzingen ;
from this latter place Hohen Neuffen may also
be reached. Before proceeding up the valley of
the Erms to Urach we will branch off to Neuffen,
a little town under the rounded forepost of the
Alb that supports the ruins of a castle. This
Hohen Neuffen is one of those conical heights
that form so marked a feature of the Alb-fringe,
connected with the plateau by a narrow saddle,
that has been artificially cut through so as to
isolate the fortress. The castle belonged originally
to the Counts, who called themselves after it.
From 1198 one after another was an inseparable
companion and adherent of the Hohenstaufen
emperors. In 1211 Count Henry of Neuffen
took to the youthful Frederick II the tidings that
he had been elected to the German throne, and
invited him from Sicily to Germany. Henry and
his brother Albert were with the Emperor in his

1 80

HOHEN NKUFKX

Urach

campaigns in the Fatherland, Italy, and Palestine.
Albert was also a loyal ally of Henry VIII. His
second son was Gottfried, a minnesinger. One of
his little lays may be thus roughly translated :—

Dearest summer, sweetest pleasure,
Joys how many bring'st thou me !

Birds are singing, blithely winging
Here and there from tree to tree.

Blossoms open, fragrance flinging,
Sullen winter far must flee.

Now, alas ! the birds migrating,

I must wail my bitter woe.
No more your sweet lips partaking,

Red as cherries they, I trow.
But for me ! — Thou, too, forsaking,

With the swallows from me go.

In the year 1519 Duke Ulrich was driven out
of his land by the Swabian Bund and the Imperial
troops. One after another of his castles yielded
to the enemy, and the commandant of Hohen
Neuifen, Berthold von Schilling, surrendered to
the Austrians without striking a blow.

Fifteen years later the banished Duke, assisted
by the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, succeeded in
defeating the Imperial troops at Lauffen on the
Neckar, and then he passed through the land with
his host to recover all the strong places that had
been lost. So he came to Hohen Neuffen. Berthold
von Schilling was still there, and Duke Ulrich
resolved to make an example of him. No attempt
at resistance was offered, no gun was discharged,

tii

The Land of Teck

the gates were open, the drawbridge was down ; and
when the Duke passed over the latter he saw in
the entrance the commandant with a bowl of
smoking stew in his hands, and tucked under his
arms a couple of bottles of wine. Two attendants
were by him with goblets and spoon, and knife
and fork, and in the rear was a nurse dandling a
baby in swaddling clothes.

The Duke's brow coloured with wrath as he saw
the traitorous commandant ; at the same time his
mouth watered for the steaming hash, and he
longed as well for a cooling drink. " My Lord
Duke," said Berthold, " you have dropped in
at the right moment. To-day a son and heir
has been born to me — there's the baby ! "
He stepped aside, and with the bowl thrust the
nurse and infant into prominence. " I invite you
to be his godfather and to partake of the chris-
tening feast. I have ordered up some fiddlers and
a score of pretty girls from Neuffen ; and the re-
ligious ceremony concluded, we'll make a night of
it." What could the Duke say ? His wrath disap-
peared, and he consented to eat and drink, stand
sponsor to the child, and stretch his legs in a dance.
Moreover, as a christening present, he made a
grant of land to the godson thus unexpectedly
forced upon him.

The castle fell to Wiirtemberg in 1301, and
has served as a state prison rather than as a
residence for princes. Considerable remains crown

182

DUKE ULRICH

(1498-1550)

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

Urach

the rocky height, and the walls have suffered
rather from the tooth of time than from the hand
of man. The open gateways, the blank windows,
and the mighty towers make an imposing effect.
But the castle, at all events since the sixteenth
century, never can have been picturesque. There
remain the covered ways, the casemates of the
old armoury, and the prisons. On the south side
towards the Alb is an oval tower of earlier and
better construction than the rest. Not a roof
remains. The castle became in course of time so
dilapidated that it was occupied by only a few
invalids. When the commandant appeared before
Duke Ludwig Eugene to make his report " that
nothing during the year had fallen out at Hohen
Neuffen,"— " I am thankful," replied the Duke,
" that nothing has fallen in." The castle was
finally abandoned in 1802, when the cannon and
the contents of the armoury were removed to
Ludwigsburg, and the organ of the chapel was
given to the church of Neuffen.

After its abandonment the castle became the
lurking place of a shepherd, Koffler of Beuren, a
fellow who had already spent twelve years in
prison. He lived in one of the dungeons, and
prowled about the Alb stealing sheep and any-
thing he could lay his hands on. This had been
going on for some years, and none knew where the
man concealed himself, till some boys observed
sheep-skins extended to dry in the sun upon the

183

The Land of Teck

ruined walls. He was regarded as so super-
naturally strong and such a desperate charac-
ter, that it required a large force of police to be
brought together to capture him. He was taken
in 1852. In the dungeon, which he had converted
into a storehouse, were found bones of sheep, pigs,
piles of potatoes and beans, dried fruit, also gold
rings, and whole suits of garments. He had
succeeded in evading detection by keeping a small
tavern at Beuren, called the Sun, and it was only
at night and in the small hours of the morning
that he went about robbing the neighbourhood.

The story was told of Hohen Neuffen, that is
related of many another castle, that when be-
sieged, the garrison fed an ass full with the last of
their supply of corn, and threw the beast over the
walls. Those investing the castle thought that
the supplies must be abundant therein, and with-
drew, hopeless of compelling a surrender. In com-
memoration of this, an ass's hoof was affixed to
the second gate, as a Wahrzeichen. What, how-
ever, is true is that a woman in the town below
had often watched the asses toiling up the steep
ascent conveying water to the garrison, as there
was no well of drinking water in the castle. She
so pitied the poor beasts that she bequeathed a
field to them for their maintenance or solace. It
is called to this day the Asses' Meadow.

The good people of Neuffen pass among their
neighbours as the "Ass-eaters." A story is told

184

Urach

to account for this. A miller had lost his Neddy.
About the same time a report spread that a deer
had appeared in the forest. All the sportsmen
in Neuffen were up in excitement and went
together into the woods after the deer. At last
it was killed and brought back to Neuffen, where
a feast was arranged, at which the sportsmen were
to meet and partake of the venison. Greatly was
it enjoyed, although pronounced rather tough-
still, undoubtedly the meat was tasty. At the
conclusion of the banquet the miller entered the
room. " Gentlemen ! " said he, "I want to be
indemnified for my donkey which you have eaten. "

Among the many prisoners who have pined in
the dungeons of Hohen Neuffen was the Chan-
cellor Matthias Enzlin. He was accused of having
violated the constitution. He had been the
counsellor of Duke Frederick, who had himself
trampled on the constitution, and had employed
his chancellor to extort money by every possible
means from the people. No sooner was Duke
Frederick dead than Enzlin was arrested, obliged
to refund a vast sum that he had made out of
the plunder of the country, and condemned to
lifelong imprisonment in Hohen Neuffen. But
there he endeavoured to corrupt his jailer to
allow his escape. He was then sent to Hohen
Urach, and, as he carried on the same intrigues
there, was executed in the market-place of Urach.

A more notorious prisoner was Suess Oppenheim.
185

The Land of Teck

This man was the son of a handsome Jewess, the
wife of the Rabbi Isachar Oppenheim. He was
born in 1692, and was her child by the Baron
George of Heydersdorf, with whom she carried on
a guilty intrigue. He was taken into the firm of
the wealthy Jewish family of Oppenheim in
Vienna, but was dismissed for misconduct. Then
he became a barber's assistant, but managing to
ingratiate himself with the family of Thurn and
Taxis, which had acquired vast wealth through
the monopoly of the post office, he managed to get
into an office of the Palatine Court at Mannheim.
Having met Charles Alexander of Wiirtemberg
at the baths of Wildbad, he lent the prince a sum
of money, and when Charles Alexander became
Duke he rewarded Suess by making him his
confidant. Charles Alexander had been a gallant
soldier and had assisted in the storming of Bel-
grade. On becoming Duke he swore to observe
the constitution, which was more liberal than in
any other German principality. But the new
Duke had been accustomed to the despotic com-
mand of an army, and he resolved on upsetting
the constitution and ruling as an absolute monarch.
He was extravagant and in need of money.
Suess assisted him in his designs. He nominated
every minister and officer, and accepted bribes.
If the least opposition was manifested, Suess
threatened the gallows, forfeiture of goods, and
imprisonment, and as the Duke subscribed every

186

Urach

order Suess brought him, it was well known that
his threats were not idle. He farmed the coinage
with great profit to himself, and taxed the country
to such an extent that the people could endure it
no longer.

Suddenly the Duke died, and then Suess was
lost. On 19 March, 1736, he was sent to the
fortress of Hohen Neuffen ; but thence he almost
succeeded in effecting his escape by bribing the
guards with the diamonds he had succeeded in
secreting about his person. His trial was tediously
protracted for eleven months; at length, on 4
February, 1738, he was led forth to die, to be hanged
in an iron cage. The cage had been made in 1596,
and stood 8 feet high, and was 4 feet in diameter.
The gallows was 35 feet high. The wretched man
was first strangled in the cage, hung up in it like
a dead bird, and then the cage with him in it was
hoisted up to the full height of the gallows-tree.1

The valley of the Erms to Urach is very rich. It
is one great orchard of fruit trees, beneath them
hay is made ; there are few open meadows. The
hills contract, showing here and there gleaming
walls of limestone, but mostly clothed in forest.
Presently it seems to be blocked by the towering
height of Hohen Urach, surmounted by crumbling
walls, and behind this, as behind a shield, lies
the town of Urach.

1 I have given his story in full in Historic Oddities and Strange
Events. Methuen and Co., 1889.

187

The Land of Teck

Close to the station is the Schloss, erected in
1443, partly of timber and plaster and partly of
stone. In it is the Goldener Saal, a chamber
supported by wooden pillars, panelled, and
adorned with a profusion of gilding, painting,
and sculpture. Duke Eberhard wi' the Beard did
much towards its enrichment, and everywhere
may be seen his achievement, a palm tree with
the motto Attempto (I venture). Both Eberhard
and Duke Christopher were born in this castle,
and in it the former celebrated his marriage in
1473 with Barbara Gonzaga of Mantua, on which
occasion 14,000 persons took part in the festivi-
ties, and the town fountain flowed with wine.
In the hall is a life-sized statue of Count Henry,
the cousin of Eberhard; a model, full size, of
a monstrous boar that Duke Ulrich killed in
1507 ; and a cannon ball flung from Hohen Urach
as a salutation to the Imperial officers who held
the town and were banqueting in the Goldener
Saal, when they were besieging the castle during
the Thirty Years7 War.

Count Ulrich the Well-beloved was one day
sitting by the gate of the castle, when he saw a
young man come out with the tail of a fish hanging
down behind under his short cloak. " Come
hither, my fine fellow," said the Count ; 'I
will give you a bit of advice. Another time,
when stealing a fish out of my kitchen, wear
either a longer cloak or select a smaller fish."

188

Urach

Count Ulrich liked to have his little jokes, and
he had occasionally to put up with those played
on him. He had in his court a Herr von Lenters-
heim, whose wife was renowned for her beauty.
The Count more than once expressed to the
husband the desire he felt to see the lady. Von
Lentersheim made excuses, but as the Count
became more pressing he invited his master to
come to his house and see her there. On the
day appointed Count Ulrich with a goodly at-
tendance rode to Lentersheim, and found the
portcullis down and the drawbridge raised. Then
appeared the master with the lady on the
parapet at the top of the gate-tower. Von
Lentersheim thrust his wife forward, and called
to the Duke : " Look at her well. Now you can
see her face/' Then he turned his lady round,
and shouted, " Now, my lord, you can see her
back. You have seen quite enough of her, so you
may go your way."

The old Lords of Urach were fond of the Chris-
tian name Egino, and they have conveyed it into
the present House of Fiirstenberg. The builder of
Hohen Urach was a Count Egino in the eleventh
century. One of his sons, Kuno, was Cardinal-
bishop of Preneste. He was with the Pope at
Canossa and witnessed the shameful scene of the
humiliation there of Henry IV. He was also a
bitter foe to Henry V. In mi as Papal Legate at
Jerusalem he delivered the sentence of excom-

The Land of Teck

munication against the Emperor. He was one of
the few men who, when elected Pope, declined the
honour. He presided at Soissons at the trial of
Abelard, along with the Archbishop of Rheims.
No one ventured to cope with the irresistible
logician. The prudent and friendly Bishop of
Chartres demanded a fair hearing for Abelard, but
the Legate and the Archbishop, who were un-
lettered men and weary of the debate, commanded
his book, unread, unexamined, to be burnt, and
the author to be punished with seclusion in a
monastery for the intolerable presumption of
writing without the authority of the Pope.
Abelard was compelled with his own hands to
throw his book into the fire, and his tears flowed at
the loss of his labours, condemned by those too
stupid to understand him. Another Kuno was
Cardinal-bishop of Oporto and Papal Legate in
France and England ; he also declined the papacy.
In the Charterhouse at Giiterstein, near Urach,
Eberhard knelt before his "Old father" and
tried friend, Prior Conrad of Miinchingen, to
receive his blessing on starting upon pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, 1468, and there he descended
on his return, bearing in his hand a branch
of white thorn he had gathered at Bethlehem, the
parent of many another white thorn in the land.
In 1893, on the marriage of Princess May of Teck,
our present gracious Queen, with George, Duke
of York, I wrote the following ballad : —

190

Urach

THE SPRIG OF MAY

The gallant Count Eberhard forth did ride

From Teck with a knightly band,
His good sword girded at his left side,
But a pilgrim's staff in hand.
And he said, " I will seek
Where the day doth break,
God's benison on my land."

To Bethlehem city Count Eberhard came,

Where the seraphs once did sing,
From out of a welkin in lambent flame,
" Noel ! " to the new-born King.
There he stood by a thorn
Dew-spangled at morn,
And white as an angel's wing.

Then a twig from the tree Count Eberhard brake,

A twig from the thorn brake he,
As he said : " Pray God for sweet Jesus' sake
He'll be with my dear land and me.
And may this be the sign
Of the favour divine,

If the twig grows into a tree."

Six months and a day are over and passed

Then Eberhard did return,
On the deep blue sea, he sailed as fast
As a bird on pinions borne ;
And ever in hand
On the water or land,

He carried the flowering thorn.

Then he planted the May from Bethlehem,

Still wet with the angel-dew,
In his Swabian garden. From twig to stem,

And from stem to trunk it grew.
191

The Land of Teck

And the sun, they say,
Danced that day

It was planted ; the wan moon too.

The rainbow dipped her feet in gold,

And lightly the tree trod round ;
The thunder-cloud parted, and southward roll'd,
Unscathing the holy ground.

And all the night long,

There was heard, as a song

Without words, a wondrous sound.

In the Swabian land still groweth the May,

So sturdy with blossoms pale.
And Count Eberhard's line is strong to-day
And knoweth nor fault nor fail.
Through the centuries three,
And four — race and tree

Are lusty and young and hale.

To the Swabian tree cometh a princely hand

To gather a sprig of may,
In the garden of roses of Angle-land,
To root it for ever and aye.
And the bells will ring
And the maidens sing
With the lads, as in time of hay.

A flow'ret watched by angel eyes,

And white as the pearliest bloom,
And sweet as the breath of Paradise,
Is the May our Prince brings home.
In a gladsome rout
We will all turn out,

For our hearts are full to-day.
In a merry throng,
To welcome with song,

Our Prince with his fair white May.
192

Urach

It was in 1486 that Count Eberhard started with
a goodly retinue of twenty-four nobles, two
chaplains, a physician and a surgeon, three
trumpeters and two cooks. In Venice he witnessed
the wedding of the Doge with the Adriatic ; then
by Ragusa, Crete, and Rhodes, he travelled to
Jaffa. He visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and
was dubbed knight in the church of the Holy
Sepulchre. On July I7th he set his face home-
wards. In Corfu he was caught up by the Count
of Hohenlohe, who was also on his way home. He
visited Rome, and was well received by Pope
Paul II. In Rome, he reckoned up seventy-seven
churches, "and," says the chronicler, "in all these
churches, indulgence is granted for forty-eight
years and forty-eight days ; but — where art Thou,
O Christ, through Whose name the Father is to be
supplicated ? " He returned over the Alps to Ulm
and home with his thorn twig, to be planted in his
garden at Einsiedeln. His beautifully carved stall
and prayer desk are in the church of Urach, that
he built.

In the Palace garden, at Stuttgart there is a
group of statuary representing Count Eberhard
asleep with his head in the lap of a shepherd. The
story is this: In March, 1495, at a Diet held at
Worms, the Emperor Maximilian raised Count
Eberhard to be a Duke of Wiirtemberg, and it was
then that at a banquet the princes and electors
boasted of their lands : one claimed to have silver
o 193

The Land of Teck

mines, another the best vineyards, a third the richest
pasture land, a fourth the wealthiest cities. Then
Eberhard said, " I can boast of none of these
things. But this I say, that when weary with the
chase, I can lay my head to sleep in the lap of the
poorest of my subjects, with no watch or guard
near, in absolute confidence.11 There ensued a
silence for a moment, then : —

Und es rief der Herr von Sachsen
Der von Baiern, der vom Rhein,
Graf im Bart, Ihr seid der reichste,
Euer Land tragt Edelstein.1

Duke Eberhard died on 24 February, 1496 ;
and one of the greatest treasures of the Schloss at
Urach is a contemporary portrait of the prince,
mild of eye and of a pleasant countenance. He
was small of stature, and was not muscular, but
brave and of a tough constitution. He had a
noble and kindly expression of face, was simple and
modest of conduct, of frugal habits, shrewd and
witty, a lover of learning and of art, and deeply
pious. At his death, his friend Nauclerus ex-
claimed, " Hoc vivo stetit, hoc cecidit Germania
lapso " : With this man living Germany stood
strong, he being dead, it falls. The Church of
S. Amandus, at Urach, was begun in 1479, but was
not completed till 1499. It has a clerestory and is

1 Then cried the Lord of Saxony, he of Bavaria, he of the Rhine,
Bearded Count, You are the richest, your land produces precious
stones.

194

Urach

richly vaulted throughout. The aisles end apsid-
ally. Against the buttresses outside, in niches,
were figures of saints, thrown down by the icono-
clasts, but they are now in process of restoration.
The choir is used for school children receiving in-
struction, and the place of the high altar is taken
by a stone teacher's desk facing west. The Com-
munion Table in the nave is within an iron cage.
The stained glass is new and bad. There are
statues of Duke Eberhard and Duke Ulrich in this
church ; Eberhard had founded a chapter in con-
nection with it.

The second provost was Gabriel Biel, a great
favourite of Eberhard, who made him Professor of
Theology in his newly erected University of
Tubingen. Eberhard listened to his sermons with
delight. Indeed, his sermons were popular with
all classes, not on account of any eloquence shown
in the delivery, but for their beautiful simplicity
and sterling excellence. His style was pithy, his
sentences pregnant with meaning ; what he said,
he said in few words. Perhaps the main difference
between a sermon of Biel and one by a modern
preacher is, that the former contains many thoughts
in few words, whereas the latter consists of many
words, but few thoughts.

In the church a disputation took place, in
1537, between the Reformers and some Catholic
doctors, in the presence of Duke Ulrich ; in con-
sequence of this all the paintings, altarpieces

195

The Land of Teck

and statuary were torn down and destroyed.
The chapter was suppressed at the same time.
In the square of Urach is a charming little
fountain erected in 1551, and at the foot the
sculptor has represented himself. The church,
which had but the stump of a tower, has recently
been provided with an octagonal spire.

Hohen Urach, the castle on a conical hill
dominating the town and commanding the valley,
does not promise much when seen from a distance,
but a good deal more remains than appears from
below. Formerly the conical hill might have been
likened to a papal tiara, with its triple circuit of
walls. In the centre was the corps de logis, a lofty
and stately edifice of which now only a fragment
remains. In this castle was confined for many
years Duke Henry, first cousin of the Bearded
Eberhard; and in it was born Ulrich, the direct
ancestor of the reigning family of Wiirtemberg and
of the Princes of Teck. The grandfather of the
Bearded Eberhard was also an Eberhard, and he
had married the heiress of the Count of Mont-
beliard in Burgundy. You can recognise the arms
of Montbeliard in the later coats of Wiirtemberg
by the two fish back to back. By his wife
Count Eberhard had two sons, Ludwig, the father
of the Bearded Eberhard, and Ulrich, who was nick-
named the Well-beloved. Between these two the
territories pertaining to the House were divided.

Ulrich the Well-beloved died in 1480, and left two

196

Urach

sons, Eberhard the Younger and Henry. Eberhard
the Younger was a giddy, frivolous youth, and as
he was impatient of the duties incumbent on his
position, and cared only for pleasure, he handed
over the sovereign rights of his share of Wurtem-
berg to his cousin Wi' the Beard for an annual
payment in money. In 1482 a conclave was held
at Miinsingen, in which it was resolved that thence-
forth the whole of the territories of the House
should be held to be indivisible ; Eberhard the
Younger very soon tired of this arrangement and
became troublesome. We have seen what he did
at Kirchheim. Henry, the second son of the Well-
beloved, had been granted Montbeliard ; he also
gave annoyance, and showed signs of derange-
ment. So violent did he become that when a son
was born to him, and the mother died a few days
later, a trusty servant carried the babe on his back
in a hamper to Stuttgart and confided it to the
care of the uncle, Eberhard Wi' the Beard. Charles
the Bold had invaded Montbeliard, and had
captured the Count. He laid siege to the castle,
and so as to force the garrison to yield he brought
out Count Henry, made him kneel before the walls
on a black cloth, and placed an executioner in scarlet
with brandished sword by his side. The governor,
however, refused to be intimidated. The fright he
had undergone quite unhinged the mind of the
Count, who never wholly recovered from the shock.
It came to the ears of Eberhard Wi' the Beard
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The Land of Teck

that his cousin was negotiating the sale of the
Burgundian territory. As this was a breach of the
Convention of 1482, he was summoned to Stuttgart,
where he was arrested and sent to Hohen Urach,
there to be kept in easy confinement ; and his seal
was taken from him and broken, to prevent misuse.
His second wife, an admirable woman, Eva von
Salm, accompanied him to his prison and there
bore him a son on i September, 1498, George, who
became the ancestor of the princely line of Wiir-
temberg, after the extinction of the elder branch.

From his prison, the deranged prince could see
the silver streak of the Urach waterfall up a lateral
valley, and after torrents of rain even hear its
roar. From it also he heard the horn of his son
Ulrich, as he hunted the woods. Indeed, he
survived the expulsion of his son, and died in
Hohen Urach in 1519. Alas for the stately castle !
Between 1750 and 1760 it was pulled down to
supply material for the ridiculous little Versailles
at Grafeneck, with its summer houses and opera
house. Consequently there are now only the
foundations of it remaining.

For some time, like Hohen Neuffen, it served as
a State prison. In it was confined Nicodemus
Frischlin, who had been Professor of History and
Poetry at Tubingen. He was of a restless and
quarrelsome disposition ; he fell out with Crusius,
Professor of Greek and author of the Annals of
Swabia. He assailed him by word and in abusive

198

Urach

pamphlets. In 1575 Frischlin read his comedy
Rebecca before the Diet at Ratisbon, and was
crowned as a poet. In his Praise of a Country
Life, Frischlin attacked the nobility : " What a
display of windy pride is found in these fellows,
who respect none as noble, unless they can show a
set of smoky portraits of ancestors. The most
ignorant and uncouth nobles puff themselves up
as superior to the most learned men ; everywhere
they take the first seats, everywhere Squire Jack
must have the precedence, at court and in courts
of law they order all as pleases them, just as if we
others were only called into existence to minister
to their pride or their necessities." He lashed
their vices, their treatment of the peasantry, their
luxury ; and his satire was the more biting
because it was true. But the gentry did not want
to have themselves thus shown up to the world.
He narrowly escaped being stabbed ; he was
insulted and maltreated and finally obliged to fly.
In 1582 he was appointed Rector of the School
of Laibach, in Carinthia. Ever restless, and
continually making enemies, he shifted his quar-
ters from place to place, receiving honourable
appointments in Prague, Wittemberg, Brunswick,
and Marburg, but making himself so disliked
wherever he went as to render his stay there im-
possible. As his attempts in a court of law to
recover his wife's inheritance failed, he poured out
a torrent of invective against the Duke, his Govern-

199

The Land of Teck

ment, and his officials. Duke Ludwig obtained his
arrest at Mayence, and he was sent to be confined
at Hohen Urach. Hence he attempted to escape
by tearing up his bedclothes, fastening them
together, and letting himself down from the
window of his prison. But they gave way, and
he fell on the rocks and was killed, on the night
of 25 November, 1570. It was moonlight, but in-
stead of selecting a point whence a descent might
have been effected, he chose that where the rock is
most precipitous. On the spot where his broken
body was found grows the Late Spider orchis,
Ophris arachnites, that bears some resemblance to
a death's-head, and the peasants suppose that it
there springs as a memorial of the unfortunate
man. It is found elsewhere, especially on the high
pastures, but is not common. In England it is
very scarce, but has been picked on the chalk cliffs
of Folkestone. In 1755 an oak coffin was exhumed
in the churchyard at Urach, in which was his body,
incorrupt, with a roll of MS. in the hand, but all
the main bones broken.

The castle is entered through a passage arched
over and some forty paces long. The guardrooms
remain intact, and the bases of the towers. The
chapel was large and had six Gothic windows, but
one alone retains its mullion and head. It was
entered by two pointed arched doorways. A
flight of steps descending from the chancel led to a
dungeon. There were two wells in the castle court.

200

Urach

The waterfall is worth visiting, especially in
spring ; it shoots over a lip like the spout of a milk-
jug, and drops 120 feet. Another excursion is to
the Falkenstein Cave. The entrance is through
an arch overhung by the boughs of trees and
creepers. The vault becomes low, so that one can-
not stand upright. In the distance may be heard
the mutter of falling water that flows out of small
lakes or ponds superposed in terraces, and finally
the stream issues below as the Elsach. It is as-
serted that black trout live in the cave. There are
at least seven other caves in the district that
may be explored.

The valley may be traced upwards to Seeburg,
passing on the way the ruins of the castle of Hohen
Wittlingen and Baldeck. The former stands on a
rock precipitous on three sides. Spiral staircases
cut in the cliff led to natural caverns in the heart
of the rock, that were used as store chambers.
It came to Wiirtemberg by purchase in 1251.
The castle served as a prison " for scholars and
preachers/' and afforded a refuge to the reformer
Brenz when under the protection of Duke Ulrich
in 1559, and whilst there he composed his cate-
chism that served as a textbook for the Reformation
in Wiirtemberg, but was not completed till 1576
at Hornberg in the Black Forest. Brenz was very
different from Luther. The latter was careful to
leave the shell of Catholicism standing in the
churches, whilst voiding it of all significance.

201

The Land of Teck

Consequently a Lutheran church is a Pompeii of
Mediaeval Catholicism. But Brenz, Zwingli, and
Calvin broke up the shell, swept away all traces
of the past, cut all connection, even apparent, with
the Mediaeval Church, and made all things new.

Below Wittlingen Castle opens the Schillings
Hohle, that enjoys some regard as having served
as a place of refuge in times of war. Human
remains have been exhumed in it. At a depth of
thirty feet were bones of bears and lynxes and a
human skull of considerable amplitude.

Baldeck was the seat of a knightly family, of
which every son was named Otto. It can be traced
back to 1268. Towards the end of the fourteenth
century they became officials of Wiirtemberg. The
last of the race lost his life by a fall from his horse
whilst hunting, in 1665. After that the castle
became the haunt of a gang of robbers, who
plundered and sometimes murdered the travellers
on their road from Urach to Miinsingen. The
family arms of the von Baldecks may be seen on
the south-east side of the church of Urach, sur-
mounted by the crest, a dog.

Seeburg, seven miles above Urach, derives its
name from the lakes that were there, one of which
surrounded the castle. One of these went by the
name of the Bottomless Lake, but Duke Frederick
drained it and the rest in 1618, and the bottom is
now green meadow. Seeburg and the three other
castles above Urach alone held out in 1311 against

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Urach

the Emperor Henry VII, when he swept over the
land of Count Eberhard.

There was a pastor at Seeburg at the close of the
eighteenth century who was a prosy preacher ; and
his congregation, as soon as he began to address
them, settled themselves comfortably into their
pews and went to sleep. In the Evangelical service
there is nothing congregational except the hymns,
three in all. The people are preached at, prayed
at, read to, exhorted, expostulated with. They do
not even respond at the Amen, but leave that to
the pastor. One day, finding that his congregation
was snoring, the minister suddenly gave vent to a
loud Amen. Up sat the audience, wide awake,
and felt for their hats and umbrellas. " Ah, you
rascals ! " shouted the preacher, " I've done you
this time. I'm but half through my discourse.
My Amens are semicolons only."

The high road from Urach runs up the heights to
Miinsingen, the only town on the Alb plateau. It
has for Wiirtembergers a great interest, for in it is
the Schloss in which the Magna Charta of their
liberties was signed — and, wonderful to relate, it
has not been pulled down. Hard by is the Alder-
shot of their military, bringing a little life into the
town, and a plentiful flow of beer down thirsty
throats.

Between Miinsingen and the Truppen-Uebungs-
Platz is Auingen, and here rises a rounded hill
called the Reichenau. On this once stood a castle

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The Land of Teck

with its towers and its well. Far down under
the foundation lies an incomparable treasure, in a
golden cauldron. Once every five hundred years
a man is born who can secure the treasure, if he
have the requisite courage. Once a shepherd had
this chance. He was feeding his flock under the
mound when he missed a sheep, and, following it,
saw on the summit the beautiful apparition of a
damsel in white, who said to him : " Young man,
know that to you it is given to secure inestimable
wealth. Come here a fortnight hence and bring
two priests with you and do not be scared by any
sights you may see. If you secure the treasure
you release me." The shepherd told the story to
the pastor at Miinsingen, and he and his coadjutor
agreed to accompany the shepherd to the hill
on the appointed day. There they saw lambent
flames playing about the mount and the golden
cauldron on the summit waiting to be taken. As
they approached a thunder-storm burst over them,
but they pursued their way in spite of the lightning
flashes. Next, monstrous beasts appeared — they
were still of good courage and pushed forward.
But as they reached within a furlong of the
cauldron the earth gaped, and so horrible a stench
issued from it that pastors and peasant took to
flight. Fancy a German peasant bred on dung-
heaps flying from a smell! Since then none have
secured the treasure, but many a Swabian damsel
has found her Schatz on the Exercir Platz.

204

CHAPTER X

REUTL1NGEN

IN Marian's Topographien, published after
his death in 1630, is an engraving repre-
senting Reutlingen, a free Imperial city as
it was. It was surrounded by walls and
towers of stone, these latter capped with struc-
tures of timber and plaster and with high-pitched
roofs — a dream as of Albert Diirer. On two sides
of the town were eight towers, quaintly diversified ;
as was the manner in German towns, their archi-
tects simply could not withhold from making
everything they designed to be marvels of pic-
turesqueness. In this so different from the banal
drums with conical fools' caps of French fortifica-
tion. And above all rose the Achalm, with its
crown of towers. Any one arriving at Reutlingen
Station, with his thoughts full of Merian's repre-
sentation, is struck with dismay as before him
stretches the Garten Strasse, than which anything
more ugly was never devised, and he is disposed
to exclaim with Touchstone, "When I was at
home I was in a better place ; but travellers must
be content." However, by turning aside one
reaches the Wilhelm Strasse, and is in the old

205

The Land of Teck

town, where there are quaint and beautiful
buildings ; but Reutlingen does not approach
Tubingen in picturesqueness. It retains scraps
of its ancient beauty, but scraps only — like a
once beautiful woman who has outgrown her
charms, and dresses outrageously. The fringe, the
flounces, of Karls Strasse and Garten Strasse are
repellent. Reutlingen, however, has suffered
cruelly by fire.

On the evening of 26 September, 1726, when
the streets were quiet and the citizens were be-
taking themselves to rest, the cry went forth,
" Fire ! fire ! " and the bells in the tower of
S. Mary's pealed forth the alarm. Fire had broken
out near the gate leading to Stuttgart. A girl
going to bed had let the stump of the tallow dip
she held fall from her hand on to the floor. The
boards did not fit, and it slipped through a gap
into the chamber below that was full of hay.
The shoemaker who lived underneath thought he
was able him'self to extinguish the flames, and did
not at once summon aid. Soon it obtained com-
plete mastery and the flames rose above the roof.

The citizens had put out many a fire before, and
directly the alarm was given fire-engines were
hurried to the spot. Men and women formed a
cordon to the town brook, with pitchers and
buckets. But these efforts were unavailing.
From moment to moment the conflagration spread,
and in consequence^of the current of air produced

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Reutlingen

by the fire, sparks were carried across the street
and kindled the gable of the opposite house, so
that an arch of flame crossed the street and drove
the people back by a rain of sparks.

Speedily the houses behind those already burn-
ing were ignited, and the conflagration ran up
the Butchers' and the Tanners' streets. These were
very narrow, and the gables leaned forward so
that it was almost possible for those in the top
storeys to shake hands across the street. The
structures were nearly all of wood, the rooms
panelled, and the attics filled with the product
of the year — stores of wood, hay, straw, dried
fruit, nuts, etc. The fire ran on devouring and
never satisfied. A light south wind was blowing,
but the conflagration awoke its own currents of
air, that began to blow like a storm, and drove
the flames forward, so that it was no longer one
house after another that was kindled, but whole
rows of houses caught at a time. When one street
had been reduced to ashes, the wind turned, and
drove the flames in another direction. As all
thoughts of extinguishing the fire were abandoned,
it was sought to stop it by pulling down houses,
that the progress of the flames might be cut off.
But this attempt had to be given up; their
advance was so rapid that even the ladders
employed for the purpose caught fire.

Then despair fell on the Reutlingers. Some
fled into the fields, others endeavoured to save

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The Land of Teck

some of their goods before their homes became a
prey. Laden with their treasures, the inhabitants
crowded out at the gates, and in their efforts to
escape became so wedged together that escape
was hindered. The sick were carried away in
their beds and laid in the open vineyards beyond
the walls. Parents wandered about seeking their
children, and children screamed or sobbed in
misery and terror. The night was cold and wet,
and this added to the general wretchedness.

When morning broke a third part of Reutlingen
was a mass of smoking ruin, and still the flames
were advancing. At dawn the beautiful Rathaus
caught, and the fire gleamed through its painted
windows. All feared for the lovely parish church ;
to save it desperate efforts were made, and
the houses about it were plucked down. But
the fire was ruthless. The intense heat, which
made the water boil in the fountains, was unen-
durable in its neighbourhood, a long yellow
tongue of flame shot forward and licked the top
of the spire. Towards evening it was seen that
sparks were wandering about in the tower, among
the beams ; presently they ran together, and
flames burst out of the windows. A whirlwind
arose and the whole church was enveloped in a
sheet of fire. The bells of their own accord tolled
the church to its doom, till they fell and melted
on the bed of glowing ashes below. It is said that
all night long the tower gleamed as if at white

398

Reutlingen

heat ; by morning it was a blackened wreck. On
the third day the fire had ignited the upper quarter
of the town. Then it overleaped the walls and
the suburbs were kindled. And so it proceeded
till it reached that portion of Reutlingen where it
had commenced, and there it expired for lack of
material to devour.

Three or four public buildings had been
spared ; and the caprice of the fire was notice-
able. The city fountains were uninjured, and
the chapel of S. Nicolas, though it had lost its
bell, was otherwise unhurt ; the Franciscan
convent, now the gymnasium, was also intact.
Till the town was rebuilt, there being no more
bells, drummers beat to summon the people
to divine worship. Help came from the other
free Imperial cities, and the work of reconstruc-
tion advanced. But the time was come when the
idea of beauty was dead, and moreover there were
no funds available to do more than build houses
that could shelter the heads of the citizens,
without regard to style or decoration. And thus it
comes about that Reutlingen is a disappointment.
Happily, even in 1726, there was still a clinging
to traditional forms and modes of construction
— the Wilhelm Strasse and some of the side
streets are delightful. It was in the nineteenth
century that architectural brutality broke out,
that despised the old and glorified only what was
vulgar and ugly.

P 209

The Land of Teck

Fortunately the parish church was not so
seriously injured but that it was capable of repair.
The church had been built in fulfilment of a
vow made when the place was besieged by Henry
Raspe of Thuringia, one of the papal pets, set up
at the instigation of Innocent IV in opposition to
the Emperor Frederick II. The call to rebel and
assume the crown had been sent to Otto of
Bavaria, to the King of Bohemia, and to the
Dukes of Austria, Brabant, and Saxony; also to
the Margraves of Meissen and Brandenburg, but
the offer had been indignantly, even contemptu-
ously, rejected. At last Innocent found a candidate
in Henry, Landgrave of Thuringia, a man who
had driven his sister-in-law, the saintly Elizabeth,
from her home in the Wartburg, and compelled
her to beg her bread; he had poisoned his
nephew Hermann, so as to secure his inheritance.
The popes were not happy in choosing champions
of their cause, they selected tyrants steeped
in blood, like Charles of Anjou, murderers like
Henry Raspe, or feeblings such as William of
Holland.

Henry of Thuringia marched to Reutlingen ;
but the citizens, loyal to the Emperor and to
Hohenstaufen, shut their gates against him,
although Innocent had issued his mandate adjur-
ing all prelates and electors, princes and cities,
to renounce allegiance to Frederick and receive
his nominee Henry. This adventurer had at-

210

REUTI.INGEN

Reutlingen

tempted to take Ulm and had failed, and he failed
also to reduce Reutlingen. When he broke up
his camp and retired he left behind him a batter-
ing-ram 126 feet long and provided with seventy-
four iron rings, by means of which it was slung
in a frame and swung against the walls. After
the church was completed this was placed in it,
but was removed in 1517, and planted before the
Townhall, where it became a prey to the flames
in 1726. Frederick III once passed through
Reutlingen. The streets were not paved, and his
carriage wheels sank so deep in the mud that he
laughingly exclaimed, " Our good free city loves
us so dearly that it wants to retain us."

During the Middle Ages Reutlingen was in-
cessantly engaged in feud with the princes of
Wurtemberg, who desired to clip away its privi-
leges, conferred by the Hohenstaufens. In May,
1377, occurred the battle of S. Leonard's. The
Reutlingers had driven off a herd of cattle from
Urach, which was under the protection of the
Count of Wurtemberg, and had set fire to the
village of Dettingen. As they returned they passed
under Achalm, that commanded the approach to
the city from the north, and was a castle belonging
to Wurtemberg. At the foot of the hill stood the
chapel of S. Leonard. The young Count Ulrich
of Wurtemberg, who was in Achalm, incensed at
the outrage and seeing the smoke rising from
Dettingen, swooped down on the city troop with

211

The Land of Teck

232 spearmen. But the Reutlingers in the town
rushed out to the assistance of their fellows, and
Count Ulrich, caught between both bodies of
men, met with an ignominious defeat. As Uhland
sang : —

They fell on the knights to the left, to the right,
Not one met with mercy in pitiless fight,
The tanners their hides dipped in purple flood,
The dyers their fleeces dyed red in men's blood.
No captive was taken, the knights doomed to death,
All slay, hack and slaughter, not pausing for breath.

This is an exaggeration. Actually seventy Wiir-
tembergers fell, but these were mostly nobles.
The standard-bearer of the Count was killed.
Ulrich was wounded and escaped with difficulty.
The Wiirtembergers had been vastly outnumbered,
for the citizens were as many as seven hundred
returning from Dettingen, and those who issued
from the city were at least as many. The young
Count acted without judgment, and showed more
pride than discretion.

Achalm is a conical hill surmounted by a castle.
It had been acquired by Count Eberhard, the
father of Ulrich, only the year before, and it
was a thorn in the side of the free city. At
a later period the commandant of Achalm, a
favourite of the Duke, was dining one day in
the tavern of the Bear in Reutlingen along
with his wife and children. They had come into
the town, we may presume, for a day's shopping.

212

Reutlingen

There were some citizens also sitting in the inn,
and words were interchanged relative to the
grievances borne by the town against the Duke.
The commander retaliated by reproaching the
insolence of common tradesmen. From words they
came to blows, and in the scuffle the captain was
killed. The tidings reached the Duke the day of
the funeral of the Emperor Maximilian, which he
was attending. In a fit of ungovernable fury he
swore revenge, and on the following day sped with
a large body of troopers to Reutlingen, without
giving proclamation of war, as was the received
law of chivalry. The citizens, however, heard of
his approach, and defended their walls. It was
the depth of winter, the land was covered with
snow. On the fourth and fifth days of the siege
he discharged six hundred bronze cannon balls,
each weighing seventy-eight pounds, against the
town, and threw fire-balls over the walls, that
ignited several of the houses. As the water in the
brook was frozen, the town was in imminent danger
of being burnt.

At length, on the eighth day, the gates were
opened to the Duke, and he was met by the
clergy singing the Te Deum. He rode into
the market-place, ordered all the cellars and
store-chambers to be thrown open ; all the silver
and gold ware and jewelry to be collected, and
sent to his castle at Tubingen. Then he broke
the old coat of arms of Reutlingen and tore up its

213

The Land of Teck

banner. The town was ordered to receive and
maintain in it a Wurtemberg garrison of three
thousand men, to build a blockhouse to receive
them, and to submit to a governor of ducal ap-
pointment. A greater insult could not have been
offered to the Emperor and to a free city under
his immediate protection. This act at once roused
the indignation of the other free cities. The
Swabian Bund called together its troops and
placed them under the command of Duke William
of Bavaria. Urach, Stuttgart, one town and castle
after another submitted. Tubingen made a feeble
and ineffectual resistance. The whole country lay
at the feet of the Confederacy. The Duchess
Sabina, who had left Ulrich, unable to endure his
violence and infidelities, and had fled to Bavaria,
returned with her two children to take up her
residence in Urach. The first act in the life-
drama of Duke Ulrich was ended. He had reaped
what he had sown, and the luxury-loving prince
was constrained for fifteen years, till 1534, to
wander in poverty and exile.

This Duke Ulrich, the son of the crazy Duke
Henry, who was confined in Hohen Urach, was
the prince who introduced the Reformation into
the land. He is no more to be regarded as an
ideal nursing father of the Church than our Henry
VIII, or than the Hessian Landgrave Philip. His
extravagance, and the burdens he laid on the
people to meet his extravagance, had embittered

214

Reutlingen

his subjects against him. Added to this, he re-
duced the weights and measures. This led to an
outbreak. The Bundschuh, a confederation of
peasants that had come into existence at the close
of the fifteenth century, became active, and under
the name of " the poor Conrad " waxed menacing.
By the aid of neighbouring princes Duke Ulrich
had been enabled to quell the rising. Five hundred
peasants from the Remsthal fled the country;
those who remained were tortured, executed, their
houses levelled with the dust, or obliged to pay
heavy fines. Overawed by the executions the
agitation subsided, but broke out again when, on
7 May, 1515, the Duke with his own hand mur-
dered in a wood the knight Henry von Hiitten,
because he had complained at Ulrich having
seduced his wife. At once eighteen knights with-
drew their allegiance to the Duke, and the widely
connected family of the murdered man took the
matter up and lodged complaint before the Em-
peror. He was placed under the ban of the
empire. He had exasperated the peasantry by
his burdensome taxation ; the cities by his treat-
ment of Reutlingen, and the nobility by the
assassination of Hiitten and the wanton burning
of Hiltenburg. The Duke of Bavaria was offended,
as his sister had been compelled, by the irregulari-
ties of her husband Ulrich, to fly to him for refuge.
Against this combination the Duke was powerless
and had to escape out of the land.

215

The Land of Teck

Reutlingen was notorious for the sour wine
produced in its vineyards. The story goes that
a traveller was given a glass, but after the
first sup he poured the rest into his knapsack,
saying, "Let it tear that rather than my vitals."
When Prince Eugene came to Reutlingen, the
burgomaster and council to do him honour offered
him a bowl of their wine. He drank it, where-
upon a second was produced :—

With thanks and bows Prince Eugene then address'd the Mayor's

train,

" Much rather, honoured councillors, I'd storm Belgrade again,
Than face another such a draught of sour Reutlingen wine.
Take my advice, if stuff like this you swallow when you dine,
Drink it, and welcome ; but to ask your luckless guests refrain,
For rather, through the smoke and flame, I'd storm Belgrade

again."

The vines, however, have been much improved,
and from the rich vineyards that clothe the slopes
of the Achalm and other hills a by no means un-
palatable wine is now made. But if the juice of
the grape was poor, the water was esteemed good,
especially that flowing from the fountain sur-
mounted by a statue of Barbarossa, near the
church.

In Swabia there stood of old a town of honest fame,

A sparkling fountain in the midst had gained a wondrous name ;

For in its virtues lay a power to make the foolish wise ;

The Well of Wisdom it was called, a rare and welcome prize.

216

Reutlingen

Free access to that stream was had by all within the town,

No matter what their thirst might be, unchecked they drank it

down :

But strangers, ere they dared to taste, must first permission gain
Of the Mayor and his councillors, of such an honour vain.
A horseman once passed through the town, and saw that foun-
tain play,

And stopped to let his thirsty steed drink of it by the way.
Meanwhile the rider gazed around on many a structure fair,
Turret and spire of olden times that pierced the quiet air.
Such boldness soon attracted round the gaze of passers-by,—-
The Mayor ran in robes of state, so quick was rumour's cry,
The man and horse were at the spring, the latter drinking down
The precious gifts of Wisdom's Well, unsanctioned by the town.
How swell'd the Mayor's wrath ! how loud his tones, as thus he

spoke, —
"What's this I see? Who's this that hath our civic mandate

broke?

What wickedness mine eyes behold ! what wisdom, wasted so
Upon a brute ; as punishment, from this you shall not go,
But stop a prisoner until our Council's mind we hear ! "
The rider stared ; but, wiser grown, his steed pricked up his ear,
And turning round, he left the town more quickly than he came,
While watch and ward were gone to guard his exit from the

same;

Forgetting what the horse had drunk, they had all gone in state,
To keep their prisoners secure, by guarding the wrong gate.

The Church of S. Mary has what is an unusual
feature, a square east end that contains three grace-
ful two-light windows. The statues in the choir of
saints were thrown down by iconoclasts, and their
places are now being filled by Luther, Melancthon,
Brenz, and other reformers. The place of the
high altar is occupied by a Holy Sepulchre moved
from the west end. In a side chapel is a most

217

The Land of Teck

exquisite font, on which are represented the seven
sacraments; the foliage is especially beautiful.
There is a new and good stone pulpit, but the
modern glass, with the solitary exception of one
window at the west end of the north aisle, is
execrable. The west front of the church is fine ;
there is a beautiful rose window behind tracery.

WAHRZEICHEN, REUTLINGEN.

The Garten Thor, or City Garden Gate, has
sixteen large stone balls carved over the gate,
eight more below on one side, and one far down
on the other ; this is one of the Wahrzeichen
of the town ; another being the owl between
two crouching women already mentioned, ap-
parently both in pillory. ,

One morning in August, 1420, the town of
218

Reutlingen

Tubingen was thrown into commotion. Some
wood-cutters had come on the body of an appren-
tice not far from the place, bearing evident tokens
of his having been robbed and murdered. It was
soon ascertained that the corpse was that of the
son of Aigler, a butcher of Tubingen. Among
those who viewed the body was a taverner of
Pfiillingen ; he at once informed the magis-
trates that the murdered man and another young
fellow of Reutlingen had been the day before at
his house and had gone off together to Reutlingen.
Messengers were at once sent to this latter town
to require the authorities to investigate the matter.
They did so, and discovered that the companion
of the dead apprentice was the son of Hans
Laibling, a tanner, who had returned the day
before, after having been on his wanderings for
ten years. He was arrested and examined, and
in his room was found the knapsack of the mur-
dered man, containing his clothes, his pass-book,
and thirty-four gulden. Young Laibling, however,
accounted for this as follows : He had come over
the Alb along with Aigler to Pfiillingen, where
they had entered a tavern and drunk together.
On leaving he saw that his companion had taken
too much wine and was stumbling, so he relieved
him of his knapsack, which he put on his own
back. On their way they met a cart going
to Reutlingen, and, as he had a chance of a
lift, Laibling parted from his companion and

219

The Land of Teck

jumped in. Not till he had gone some distance
did he remember that he had his friend's knap-
sack. It had been his purpose to send it to him, to
Tubingen, at the first opportunity. The statement
of Laibling was corroborated by the taverner and
by the waggoner, and, as the young man bore an
excellent character, the magistrates were satisfied,
that he had told the truth, and he was discharged.
The people of Tubingen, however, were not con-
tent with this decision; they supposed that Laibling
had been acquitted through family interest, and in
resentment they would not suffer any Reutlinger
to enter the gates of their town.

So little doubt was entertained in Reutlingen
as to the innocence of Laibling that one of the
town council allowed his beautiful daughter to
become engaged to him. But it was precisely this
that brought about his ruin. There was a young
dyer in the town who had been attached to the
damsel, and he was filled with resentment
at the success of his rival. He resolved on
revenge. Accordingly he sent to Tubingen
and offered to betray the young man into
the hands of the officials there. They fell in
with his proposal, despatched a waggon laden
with straw to the town, and under the straw
concealed a chest. The load of straw was offered
for sale in the market-place of Reutlingen, but at
such a price that none would buy. At night the
waggon was drawn up in front of Laibling's door.

220

Reutlingen

In the early hours of the morning the three carters
and the dyer entered Laibling's house, muffled
the youth, carried him down and placed
him in the chest under the straw ; to prevent
his crying out one of the men lay upon him. The
whole was conducted with such secrecy that for
two days no suspicion had been aroused in Reutlin-
gen as to what had become of the apprentice.

Arrived in Tubingen, the unfortunate man was
thrown into a damp dungeon without light,
till drawn forth and subjected to trial. As he
protested his innocence he was put on the rack,
and in his agony admitted his guilt, but the
moment he was unbound retracted the confession.
With the utmost precipitation Laibling was con-
demned to execution and to be exposed on the
wheel. He was dead before the Reutlingers were
aware what had become of him.

For years a bitter feud on this account existed
between the towns. Long after, a man was dying
in the town of Sulz, when he confessed that it was
he who had murdered Aigler. He had been a soap-
boiler, and during the harvest season of 1420 had
gone on his way to Rottenburg to buy some
tallow for his business, when he had entered a
tavern, drunk and gambled with his companions
and had lost all his money, more than sixty gulden.
Leaving, and angry at his loss, he overtook an
apprentice in a wood, and noticing that he wore
a leather belt that seemed to contain money, he

221

•

^.*^~ ...

: ; x •••

'to.

The Land of Teck

struck him down, killed, and robbed him.
But the money he had thus obtained did him no
good. His business declined, his health as well,
and he was attacked by a loathsome disease, which
rendered life intolerable. Before dying he desired
to have his confession recorded, and to let it be
known that Laibling had been unjustly sentenced.

WAHRZEICHEN, TUBINGEN.

The magistrates of Sulz sent copies of the confes-
sion to Reutlingen and to Tubingen, and when the
wretched man was dead, had his body exposed on
a wheel to be devoured by the birds. Communica-
tions now passed between the two towns, and the
Tubingen Council apologised fully to that of Reut-
lingen for the error they had committed. The
body of Laibling was exhumed and given an

222

Reutlingen

honourable burial, and because the Reutlingers
demanded as an expiation, that some public and
enduring record of what had been done should be
erected, and as at the time the parish church of
S. George was in course of construction, it was de-
cided to have a representation of Laibling twisted
on the wheel introduced into the east window of
the north aisle. And there it is to this day — the
tracery in stone is made of the spokes of the wheel
and the members of the executed apprentice.

But as the Tiibingers did not desire that this
should be the sole unusual object in their
church, they had three other windows in the
same aisle so contrived that sculptured figures of
S. George and the Dragon, S. Martin sharing his
cloak with a beggar, and the Blessed Virgin Mary
should serve as tracery in others as well.

Reutlingen was not annexed to Wiirtemberg
till 1803.

The way to Achalm leads past a royal sheep
farm, where Angora and Cashmere goats and
Merino sheep feed in the rich meadows. The hill
rises 2312 feet above the sea, 790 feet above Reut-
lingen. It is entirely isolated, and the castle on
the top was at one time both extensive and strong,
but was ruinous in 1500. It was begun to be
demolished in 1644, and in fourteen years all was
carried away except the poor fragments that
remain. There is now a square tower standing,
from which waves the Wiirtemberg flag, but it is

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The Land of Teck

new. The castle was erected in 1036 by the counts
Egino and Rudolf, members of the illustrious
family of Unruochs (the Restless), an ancestor of
which played an important part under Charles the
Great. The pedigree, with some gaps, goes back
to Unruoch I, whose grandson Berengarius be-
came King of Italy and Roman Emperor; his
brother Unruoch II founded the Swabian line.
They had their family burying-place at Dettingen.
A son of Count Egino was Bishop Werner of
Strasburg, who accompanied Henry IV to Canossa.
This branch came to an end in 1058.

According to popular etymology Achalm takes
its name from an interrupted exclamation of the
founder Rudolf, who when dying exclaimed,

"Ach Aim ," but could say no more, and finish

" almachtiger Gott"; and his brother completed
the castle. Actually ach is an early word for
water, and aim signifies a high-placed pasture.

From Reutlingen by train the pretty valley can
be threaded, watered by the Echatz, to the much-
visited castle of Lichtenstein. Hauff, in 1826,
thought to do for his own country what Sir Walter
Scott had done for Scotland, and he published
his novel Lichtenstein ; it was received with
enthusiasm, and Hauff was lauded as a second
Scott. It has its merits, the descriptions of
scenery and of the peasantry are good. The
ancient castle was a seat of a family of the name,
vassals of the Count of Wurtemberg. One of them

224

Reutlingen

fell at Reutlingen in 1377, and John of Lichten-
stein was with Count Eberhard the Mild at the
Council of Constance in 1414 ; but after that date
the family became impoverished, and the last of
the race sold his castle and possessions to the
town of Reutlingen in 1430.

Attention having been drawn to the castle by
HaufFs romance, it was bought by Count William
of Wiirtemberg, who had the present gimcrack
affair erected by the architect Heideloff in 1839.
It is remarkable that Heideloff in Germany,
Violet le Due in France, Rickman and Blore
in England, all earnest students of Gothic
architecture, when set to do original work failed
egregiously. It is not enough for a man to take
up with a style new to him in order to achieve any-
thing in it, he must be steeped in the spirit ; so
only will he not fail.

The castle was so secure, cut off by precipices
from the valley and the Alb plateau, that Duke
Ulrich when driven to flight was wont by day to
hide in a cavern hard by, and at night to come
below the rocks and shout, " Der Mann ist da ! n
whereupon the drawbridge was lowered to receive
him. The interior of the castle contains armour,
pictures, cabinets, and many articles of value.

Above Pfiillingen, that lies at the entrance to

the Echatz Thai, rises on one side the basaltic cone

of the Georgen Berg, planted with vines to its

summit, and on the other the Ursula Berg, the

Q 225

The Land of Teck

abode of the mysterious Urschel — who goes by
many other names in Germany — the Goddess of
Childhood, a beautiful lady clothed in white, with
whom dwell the souls of children before they are
born. A kindly divinity, she who helps those in
need. One day a peasant sat in his waggon on
the heights, when his oxen took fright and dashed
headlong down the steep side. But he reached
the bottom unhurt, because the helpful Urschel
protected him. Once a peasant saw her standing
at the mouth of a cave, and he was invited within.
She was so beautiful that she filled him with an
unappeasable longing to dwell ever with her ; he
pined away and died. In Bavaria also is an
Urschel Berg, and there children throw horn
buttons or pebbles as offerings to her. At Eisenach
also is the Horsel Berg. There she is confounded
with Venus. She lured Tannhauser within, he spent
with her many years. When he came forth he
went on a pilgrimage to Rome and sought ab-
solution. The Pope said, "Never shall you be
forgiven, till my staff puts forth leaves ! " And
lo ! a year after it burst forth in buds that broke
into foliage. He sent into Germany after Tann-
hauser to announce his pardon. But he was too
late, the knight had returned within the mountain
and was seen no more.

Urschel is probably the same as the Indian
Usha, the Dawn. When the Germans were Christ-
ianised the missionaries were sorely perplexed what

226

Reutlingen

to do with the deeply rooted belief in Urschel. In
some places they converted her into the entirely
fabulous S. Ursula, gave her a chapel, and so
consecrated the height in which she lived. But
others of sterner stuff denounced her as a demon,
who lured Christian people to destruction, and
identified her with Venus. She is also called
Perchta or Bertha, and as such has a home in the
Berthaburg by Boll.

Another attempt to Christianise her was to
identify her with Claudia Procula, the wife of
Pilate, who sent to the governor to bid him have
nothing to do with the condemnation of Christ,
in recognition of which she was granted the
privilege of taking charge of the souls of little
children who die unbaptised. At Christmas she
may be seen at night wandering over the Alb
attended by crowds of little mites all dressed in
white. One night a peasant saw the train pass
by. The last was a little child who had so long a
robe that, treading on it, it stumbled. So the
man called to the infant, " Stay, little Wagtail,
till I have tied up your skirt/1 Then he girded
about the child's loins with his kerchief. "Thanks,"
said the infant ; " you have given me a name, and
now I am free."

Once a mother was weeping in a cemetery, when
she saw Urschel with her retinue of little darlings
pass through the graveyard and over the hedge.
But one staggered behind the rest carrying a

227

The Land of Teck

pitcher, and its smock was drenched with the over-
flow. The woman recognised her own lost babe, and
snatched and pressed it to her heart. Then the

child said : —

How pleasantly warm
Is my dear mother's arm !
But, mammy, refrain,
Tears dropping as rain,
My pitcher they fill
And o'er me distil,
Heavy to bear
Brimming with tear.

228

CHAPTER XI

HOHENZOLLERN

HOHENZOLLERN should not have
come within the limits I had pro-
posed for this book, as it does not
touch immediately on the confines
of the Land of Teck. But to describe the Alb
and its historical associations, as a nursery of
great dynasties, and to leave out Hohenzollern,
would be a performance of Hamlet with the part
of Hamlet left out. The House of Wiirtemberg
and Teck and that of Hohenzollern have been
related, though their relation has not invariably
been amicable, and their relations have been
entirely reversed. In the middle of the sixteenth
century Count Eitel Fritz swore solemnly that he
and all his descendants to the last man would be
true and loyal subjects to the Dukes of Wiirtem-
berg, and although his oath did not bind the
Franconian branch of the Hohenzollerns, it might
have been considered as restraining the incor-
poration of Hohenzollern into Prussia, running
thereby a splinter into the heart of Wiirtemberg,
and giving to Prussia a slice out of the Swabian
cake. Hohenzollern Hechingen and Hohenzollern
Sigmaringen were two independent principalities

229

The Land of Teck

till the year 1850, geographically, ethnologically,
historically parts of the Duchy of Swabia. But
Prussia, for political reasons, desired to obtain a
foothold in the south, and though the Princes of
Hechingen and Sigmaringen may each have
thought, like Euclio in the Aulularia —

In mentem venit

Te bovem esse, et me esse assinum, ubi tecum conjunctus siem,
Sibi onus nequam ferre pariter, jaceam ego assinus in luteo,

yet each had to submit to the dominant will
of Prussia. Moreover, another reason for in-
cluding Hohenzollern in this book is the fact that
we have seen the extinction in blood of the great
Hohenstaufen House, by the machinations of the
papacy, and it is but meet to look upon the
converse picture, another great Swabian family,
rising from the Alb and reaching to the Imperial
crown, independent of all blessing by the See of
Rome, and certainly contrary to its wishes.
Frederick the Oettinger, Count of Zollern, at the
beginning of the fifteenth century had been the
faithful and prudent adviser of Count Eberhard
IV, and up to his time the Hohenzollerns had
admitted a feudal supremacy to Wurtemberg.
After the death of Eberhard, Frederick revolted
against the widow, but his brother, Eitel Fritz,
as already said, pledged his whole race to loyalty.
The castle of Hohenzollern occupies an isolated
wooded prominence of the Alb, one of the many
conical outlying heights that characterise its

230

HOHENZOLLERN

Hohenzollern

fringe. It stands 2837 feet above the sea. As the
blasted summit of the Hohenstaufen is a figure
of the extinction of one great Swabian race, so,
on the other hand, does wooded Hohenzollern,
diademed with towers and battlements, and with
the Imperial eagle waving above it, proclaim the
rise of another Swabian race to wear the crown
of Charlemagne.

From a distance the appearance of the castle
is very fine, but from a distance only. Disillusion
follows a near approach. In Merian's Topography
is given a representation of the place as it was
before its destruction, and it would have been
wise faithfully to reproduce that rather than to
break out into pretentious Cockney Gothic. Of
the original castle nothing remains save the chapel.
The new structure was erected by King Frederick
William IV of Prussia during the years 1850-5.

The entrance or Eagle Gate bears the inscrip-
tions : —

Zollern, Niirnberg, Brandenburg im Bund
Bauen die Burg auf festem Grund.

H54

Mich baut Preussens starke Hand
Adlerthor bin ich genant.1

1854

Above is the Prussian Eagle, with the inscrip-
tion, " From Rock to Sea." Beneath is a horse-
man, a representation of the Elector Frederick I.

1 (Zollern, Niirnberg, Brandenburg, together have built the castle on
a firm basis, 1454. The strong hand of Prussia built me, I am named
the Eagle Gate, 1854.)

231

The Land of Teck

The platform of the castle is a rude heptagon,
and the castle consists of three blocks, a body
with two wings, standing above the steep, rocky
face of the hill. The approach is from the further
side. There are five towers, of which two rise
180 feet. The castle is five storeys high. The lowest
is vaulted. In the garden is a bronze statue of
Frederick William IV with a fountain. In the
interior, a flight of steps by the armoury is
adorned with a statue of Jost (Jodocus) Frederick
of Zollern, the second builder of the castle, in 1454.
The chapel, which is romanesque, contains some
old glass brought from the monastery of Stetten
that stood at the foot of Hohenzollern.

The early history of the race that occupied the
fortress is veiled in obscurity. It claims as an-
cestor the Swabian Count Thassilo, about 800,
who is supposed to have founded the castle ; but
this is more than doubtful. The most ancient
mention of the Hohenzollern family is to be
found in the life of S. Meinrad, born about the
year 797, son of Berchtold of Zollern ; he retired
from the world and took vows in the abbey of
Reichenau to his great-uncle Erlebald, the su-
perior. But desiring solitude, Meinrad left the
monastery and constructed for himself a cell of
wattle branches in the forest, in which he spent
twenty-five years as a hermit. He had been
ordained priest, and he said Mass in his cell chapel,
to which many pilgrims came. Two men, sus-

232

Hohenzollern

peeling that he had a store of money collected
from the pilgrims, resolved on robbing him.
Meinrad had two pet ravens, and when these men
approached they screamed and fluttered about
the hut with every sign of fear, so that, as
the murderers afterwards confessed, they were
startled at the evident tokens of alarm in the
birds. Meinrad opened the door when they
knocked, and when he denied that he had money
to give them they beat him about the head with
clubs till he was dead. They then searched his
cell for money, but found none. Leaving, they
were pursued by the ravens till they reached
Wollerau, where, the birds being recognised, the
men were arrested, and when taken before the
magistrate confessed what they had done. This
was in 861. The latter part of the story reminds
us of the cranes of Ibycus.

It is possible that Berchtold, the father of
S. Meinrad, gave his name to the Berchtoldsbar,
an extensive country that included the sources
of the Danube and the Neckar and stretched away
to the Lake of Constance. In 790 Gerold was
Count there ; he was the brother-in-law of Charle-
magne, and his viceroy in Bavaria, where he had
been placed to make head against the invading
hordes of Avars. Charles had himself marched
against them with a mighty army made up of
Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians, which assembled
at Ratisbon. After having penetrated deep into the

233

The Land of Teck

land occupied by the barbarians, he retired,
leaving the prosecution of the campaign to his
son Pepin and his trusty friend Count Gerold.
After some years' conflict, the Avars were com-
pletely defeated ; but the victory cost Charles
dear, for he lost in it his gallant Paladin and
dearest friend, who was killed by an arrow. Gerold's
soldiers bore his remains from Pannonia into
Germany, to lay them in the abbey of Reichenau,
near Constance, an abbey richly endowed by his
family. As he died without issue, his possessions
passed by bequest to the abbey. According to
a later tradition, Gerold had been banner-bearer
to the great Emperor, and had been with him in
the pass of Roncevaux, in the Pyrenees, where he
had displayed prodigies of valour. On this account
Charlemagne had granted that thenceforth the
Swabian contingent should ever lead the way in
all battles of the Empire, and that the Swabian
dukes or counts should be hereditary banner-
bearers in the realm.

It is because of this that the counts and dukes
of Wiirtemberg, as actual inheritors of the head-
ship of the Swabian stock, bore the Imperial
banner quartered in their arms. The Kings of
Wiirtemberg quarter the Imperial standard along
with Teck and Hohenstaufen. We cannot say for
certain that the brother of Gerold was the founder
of the Hohenzollern line, but it is not im-
probable.

234

PIECE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY STAINED-GLASS.
THE ARMS QUARTERED ARE: I, WURTEMBERG ; 2, TECK

3, THE IMPERIAL BANNER; 4, MONTBELIARD
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

Hohenzollern

His sister was Hildegard, who married Charles
the Great in 771, when she was aged thirteen.
Charles had not great good fortune with his first
two wives, Himiltrud and Desiderata. The off-
handed way in which the great Emperor dismissed
the latter and sent her back to her father, King
Desiderius, at Pavia, led to war with the Lombards.
Hildegard bore Charles nine children, four boys
and five girls. Of the sons, Louis and his twin
brother Lothair were born whilst Charles was
absent in 778 in Spain warring against the Moors.
On account of her piety, Hildegard was highly
esteemed by the people, who praised especially
her kindness to the sick and poor. She was in-
timate with Lioba, a kinswoman of S. Boniface,
and an Englishwoman, who was Abbess of Tauber-
bischofsheim. Hildegard died at the age of twenty-
six in 783, and was buried at Metz. The inscription
on her monument, composed in Latin verse by
Paulus Diaconus, at the King's command, com-
mended her beauty and her goodness of heart.
Popular legend has much to say about her.
According to that, when Charles was absent, he
left Hildegard behind in Swabia under the custody
of his half-brother Talland. This man was struck
with her charms, and so pestered her with his
attentions that she had him locked up in a castle
of the Alb. On the return of Charles, he maligned
the Queen, and so convinced him of her infidelity
that the King gave orders she should be drowned.

235

The Land of Teck

Talland commissioned two thralls to throw her
into the Rhine. This was done, but she was
rescued by a faithful servant-girl named Rosina,
and retired to Buchau, on the Lake of Constance,
where she entered a convent. There she speedily
became renowned for her skill in herbs, and
many persons resorted to her to be cured of their
infirmities.

Talland, in punishment for his wickedness, was
smitten with leprosy. Hearing of the wonder-
working woman at Buchau, he went thither, but
was repelled by Hildegard till he should acknow-
ledge some grievous crime he had committed, and
for which he was chastised by Heaven. This he
did, and acknowledged that he had maligned the
Queen and encompassed her death. Thereupon
Hildegard gave him an ointment that cured him.
Charlemagne, rejoiced that his stepbrother was
healed, came to Buchau to thank the wonder-
working woman. In his presence she unveiled,
and to his amazement he recognised his wife. All
now came out, and Charles would have put
Talland to death had not Hildegard pleaded that
he should be pardoned. Charles gladly took her
back, and loved her dearly till her death. The
story further goes on to say that one day she
found her boys quarrelling as to which should
succeed their father in the Empire. She bade
each of them bring a cock and let the birds fight
the matter out, and resolve the question by this

236

Hohenzollern

means. The cock of Louis obtained the mastery,
and he it was who, after his father's death,
ascended the throne as Louis the Pious, a weak
and amiable Prince, who inherited his mother's
religious character, but none of his father's
masterful qualities.

Nothing certain is known of the Counts of
Zollern till Burkhard I, who died in 1061. The
next, supposed to have been his son, was Fred-
erick I, who married Udilhild, daughter of the
Count Egino of Urach. Of him a story is told
that he was filled with overpowering desire to go
on crusade. He started, and on reaching the
Holy Land lost all his companions, his horses,
and his goods, and was reduced to the utmost
distress. Then, in the desert, the Evil One ap-
peared to him and tried to drive the usual com-
pact with the Count. But he was too wary to
make any promise. " Well," said Satan, " I am
a good fellow at bottom, and possibly maligned
by priests and monks ; to show you that I am
really good-natured I will present you with a grey
horse that will travel over land and sea, and I
make absolutely no conditions with you, save
that when you unsaddle her — she is a mare —
you turn her head to the west." Count Frederick
cheerfully accepted the offer, and was given a
handsome horse. He engaged in a few skir-
mishes, hacking the heads off pagans, and then,
desiring to see Hohenzollern again and his wife

237

The Land of Teck

and bairns, rode over land and sea, nor stayed
till he reached his castle in Swabia, when he
leaped from the saddle and rushed to the arms
of his dear Udilhild. Presently the groom came
in with a blank face to announce that the horse
had disappeared like a puff of smoke. The Count
knew that he had forgotten to bid the groom turn
the head to the west as he unsaddled and un-
bridled, and said composedly, " Well, it can't be
helped ; it is as God willed." A few hours later
a White Lady appeared at the castle gate and
demanded admittance. When brought into the
Count's presence she said that she had been
transformed into the form of a steed for some little
trifle of a fault in her past history, the particulars
of which she need not specify ; but that now she
was released through the Count having taken the
loss of his grey mare so composedly, without
swearing. " Mademoiselle," said the Count, point-
ing to his Countess, " I have a grey mare of my
own." Then the White Lady vanished.

Stetten was founded as a monastery, and as the
family burial-place by the Counts of Zollern. In
their mortuary chapel was an altar with a winged
triptych of the fifteenth century, representing
the Passion on a gold ground, the Crucifixion
forming the centrepiece. The wings were kept
usually shut and fastened by a little bolt.
Whenever, without being touched by the hand
of man, the wings were seen thrown back of a

238

Hohenzollern

morning, disclosing the figure of the Crucified, it
was a sure token that within thrice twenty-four
hours a reigning Count or Countess would die;
but if the bolt only were withdrawn, that
portended the approaching death of an infant of
the race of Hohenzollern. The last recorded
marvel of this nature was in February, 1488,
when Count Jost Nicolas died unexpectedly.
Shortly after, the monastery caught fire and was
burnt down, and the altar and the triptych were
destroyed in the conflagration.

Frederick I died in 1120. He had six sons, of
whom two left issue, Frederick II (d. 1142), an-
cestor of the Burgraves of Nuremberg, and Bur-
chard, ancestor of the Counts of Hohenberg,
which line died out about 1482. Count Frederick
III of Zollern (d. 1200) was, to his credit, one of
the most staunch allies of the Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa and of Henry VI. He became Bur-
grave of Nuremberg, having married the heiress of
Conrad, hereditary Burgrave, of the Austrian
family of Ratz. His two sons, Frederick, now
reckoned as Second (d. 1218), and Conrad I (d.
c. 1230), were simultaneously Counts of Zollern
and Burgraves of Nuremberg. According to the
custom of the time, the brothers shared authority
and possessions together, in all good amity ;
and after the death of Frederick II Conrad lived
on with his nephew, sharing equally with him.
Then, in 1226, the family divided into two lines,

239

The Land of Teck

the Swabian under the nephew, Frederick, who
took the ancestral possessions, and Conrad, who
retained the Burgravate of Nuremberg.

Count Eberhard of Wiirtemberg died in 1419.
He had married Henriette, heiress of Montbeliard.
At his court had been Frederick of Hohenzollern,
commonly known as the Oettinger. Henriette
had cast on him an eye of favour, and she was
mightily offended when, after the death of her
husband, he united with her enemies and defied
her. Enraged at this breach of friendship, she
swore that she would destroy his castle. " No
rancorous woman shall gobble me up," said
Frederick, scomngly. " I will gobble him up,
castle, lands, life, and all," exclaimed the angry
woman when this was reported to her.

Frederick, it must be admitted, had not dis-
dained to ply the trade of a highwayman. He
had infested the roads, stopped convoys of mer-
chandise, and had so irritated the cities of the
Swabian Bund that they united their forces
against him. Henriette seized on the occasion
to advance to their aid at the head of 2000 Wiir-
tembergers, and Hohenzollern was subjected to a
close blockade. For two years this siege lasted,
and the Confederacy was getting tired of the task.
Not so the widow Henriette ; the vengeance of an
insulted woman does not pass away in two years.
She continued the blockade, in winter as well as
summer, till Frederick had but thirty-four men

240

Hohenzollern

left. Then, his stores exhausted, he opened com-
munications with the dowager. She would make
no concession, and finally he was compelled to
surrender unconditionally. Thereupon, in 1422,
he opened the gates, and the Countess ordered the
complete demolition of the castle, by fire and pick-
axe, nothing to be spared save the chapel. ' The
widow has gobbled up my castle," groaned the
Count. She annexed all his possessions. " She
has eaten up my lands/' said he. Still unfor-
giving, she sent him to Montbeliard, in Burgundy,
to be thrown into a dungeon, where he languished
for ten years till his back was bowed and his hair
turned grey. " The widow has sucked the marrow
out of my bones," he lamented. He was not re-
leased till 1429, when Count Ludwig's minority was
at an end, and his mother ceased to be regent.

Then the broken man emerged from confine-
ment and resolved on going in pilgrimage to the
Holy Land. His castle was a ruin, his estates
devastated, he had no money in his coffers — only
a few trusty retainers could be gathered together
to accompany him. But he had miscalculated his
strength. The journey exhausted his frame, en-
feebled by long captivity, and he died on reach-
ing Palestine. "The widow has gobbled me up
altogether/' he sighed as he expired.

Now, with regard to the siege in 1422, a curious
story is told. During the bitter weather of mid-
winter, whilst the blockade was in force, at

R 241

The Land of Teck

midnight a White Lady was seen to approach
the force of besiegers. The soldiers, in alarm,
withdrew, opening a passage for her, and she was
observed to ascend the height and disappear into the
castle. On May 8, 1423, a column of fire rose from
the eagle nest of Hohenzollern, the roof fell in,
the towers tottered and collapsed. In a few hours
the proudest of the fortresses of the Swabian Alb
had been destroyed. And it was held that the
apparition of the White Lady had foreshadowed
its fall. There passed, however, whispers among
the people that this White Lady was very far
from a spectral figure — was, in fact, a substantial
damsel of Steinlach, named Amaria, with whom
the Oettinger Frederick had established a liaison,
and that she had adopted this disguise so as to
get into the castle without let, to solace her lover
during the season of blockade.

Eitel Fritz, the brother of Count Frederick,
came to terms with Wiirtemberg, and by surren-
dering some villages, and promising that the
Hohenzollerns should thenceforth for ever be
true subjects of the Counts of Wiirtemberg, he
was allowed to rebuild the fortress. When Jost
Nicolas, son of the Oettinger, was of age, he had
wood hewed in the forests of the Alb in order to
proceed with the reconstruction of the castle,
but the Imperial free cities seized on the material
and carried it away. Not till his princely kindred
had interfered was he allowed to carry on the

242

Hohenzollern

work that had been begun in 1454. But as his
funds were few, he was unable to accomplish
his purpose, and the castle was not finished till
Count Frederick, Bishop of Augsburg, came to his
assistance. He was the son of Jost Nicolas, and
died in 1506.

The Hohenzollern family broke into branches, as
already said. In 1227 one obtained the office of
Burgrave of Nuremberg, and there came another
subdivision into a Swabian and a Franconian
branch. The latter, the younger line, in 1415, was
raised to the title of Margraves, later Electors of
Brandenburg, and in 1701, after having obtained
the Duchy of Prussia in 1618, became Kings of
Prussia, and finally received the Imperial crown
of Germany. The elder, or Swabian line, had a
more modest career. In 1576 it divided into the
counties of Hechingen, Sigmaringen, and Haiger-
loch. The latter fell to Sigmaringen in 1634. The
two branches were made princely. The Hechingen
line died out in 1867, so that the Princes of
Sigmaringen are now the sole representatives of
the elder Swabian branch.

It will have been noticed that some faint tra-
dition of a White Lady attaches to the Swabian
House of Hohenzollern ; but it is a transfer from
the Franconian House, to which it properly
belongs. In France, Great Britain, and Ireland, as
well as Germany, there exist traditions of a White
Lady attached to certain families as a prog-

243

The Land of Teck

nostication of disaster or death. In France
Melusine foretold calamity to the Lusignans ; in
Ireland a Banshee is attached to the O'Briens.
But no tradition of this sort is so persistent as
that which adheres to the Hohenzollern family.

The story told to account for it is this. Cunegund,
daughter of a Count of Leuchtenberg, was mar-
ried to the last Count Otto of Orlamiinde. She
was left by him a widow between June, 1338 and
1340, with two infant children, a son and a
daughter. She was passionately attached to
Albert of Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg,
the handsomest man of his time. The Countess
managed to send word to him that she was not an
inconsolable widow and was not insensible to his
charms. He replied carelessly that four eyes
stood in the way of his marrying her. She, think-
ing that he meant the two children, with a hairpin
thrust into their tender brains, killed them. But
Albert did not marry her, and in bitter self-
reproach she founded a convent at Himmelsthron,
and became its first abbess. She died there, and
there is her monument to this day, in Cistercian
garb, holding a pastoral staff in one hand and a
book in the other. She died in 1351. There
exists also a seal of hers, as a widow in weeds,
between the coat of arms of Orlamiinde and of
Leuchtenberg. Now, be it observed that a
widow's weeds were white, and that her habit as a
Cistercian abbess was also white. And she it is

244

Hohenzollern

who appears whenever a Hohenzollern is about
to die.

The first to mention the story is Bruschius, in
his Chronology of the Principal Monasteries in
Germany, published in 1522 ; and he calls the
murderess a duchess of Meran married to Otto of
Orlamiinde, and living in the castle of Plassenburg
in the Fichtel Gebirge. The ancestral burial-place
of the Orlamiinde family was Himmelkrone.
There Otto was buried, and there also the writer
says were laid the murdered infants. " I have seen
with my eyes and touched with my hands the
remains of these innocent martyrs/' And he
adds that in his day the bodies were incorrupt.
Hoffmann, in his Annals in 1600, also says
that he had seen the bodies. We hear that later,
owing to their having been often exposed to the
air to be seen, they crumbled into dust, and
Albinus, the pastor of the parish, buried them in
a stone sarcophagus near the altar at the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century.

We need not quote any later versions of the
story. The mistake of Bruschius in making the
Countess a member of the Meran family has led
to great confusion. Actually it was the great-
grandmother of the last Otto who belonged to the
Meran stock. Her sister had married the an-
cestor of Albert of Hohenzollern. It was the
great-grandmother of Otto who brought Plassen-
burg into his family.

245

The Land of Teck

We must put aside all conjectures as to
the murderess being any other than Cunegund,
widow of the last Otto. Several writers have
laboured to establish that the whole story is a
fable. This is easy enough to show with regard
to the earlier countesses. But it has not been proved
that the story is absolutely baseless with regard
to the last. It is true that there exists no
positive evidence of her guilt, but Bruschius
informs us that in his time such documentary
evidence did exist in the archives of Himmels-
thron ; but this is now lost. That, before the
death of Otto, there was acquaintance with Albert
of Hohenzollern is probable enough. He and
they of Plassenburg were neighbours, and the
two families were related by marriage. But,
further, in 1338, Otto had mortgaged his castle
and lands of Plassenburg to Albert of Hohen-
zollern, with the stipulation that in the event of
his, Otto's, dying without male issue, these lands
and castle should become the absolute property
of Albert ; but that should he leave a daughter,
Albert was to dower her handsomely out of the pro-
duce of the estate. This looks much as though, in
1338, Otto had not given up hopes of issue.

We do not know the precise date of Otto's
death, but we do know that he died in or before
1340. Now, supposing that he did leave two
children, the words of Albert, that four eyes
stood between him and the widow, may have

246

Hohenzollern

been understood by her as signifying that they
blocked the way to his entering into possession
of the lordship of Plassenburg. And she may have
thought that by removing this obstacle she had
a claim on his gratitude he could not overlook.
Albert, however, did not marry her. He took to
wife Sophia, daughter of the Count of Henneberg.

And now comes in a significant fact. Albert of
Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg, did not
take immediate possession of Plassenburg and the
rest of the mortgaged inheritance, as he was
legally entitled to; not indeed till 1343, and then
not till he had paid to Cunegund 3000 pounds
weight of copper coins in a sham sale of Plassen-
burg. In this deed she is spoken of as " the
noble lady, our dear kinswoman " ; and it has
been argued that Albert would not have thus
described her had she been a murderess. But this
wording was a mere formality, and really means
nothing. Noble she was, by birth and marriage,
and nothing had been proved against her. Nothing
could have been proved, as there was no authority
to bring her to task. Whispers of foul play may
have circulated, but that was all.

The document of 1343 is puzzling, and on the
face of it appears to have been drawn up to dis-
guise the complicity of Albert in the murder.
The older mortgage, making Plassenburg his,
contingent on there being no male issue to Otto,
is ignored, and a new deed of sale is executed.

247

The Land of Teck

It has been further argued that Otto died child-
less, because Cunegund in her endowment of
Himmelsthron gave money for masses to be said
for the souls of her father and mother, her hus-
band, and for herself, with no mention of the
children. But she may well have considered that
no prayers were needed for the little martyrs who
died in their baptismal innocence.

The public voice alone condemned Cunegund
as guilty of the murder, and did not release Albert
of complicity, for from thenceforth it was fabled
that whenever misfortune or death was about to
befall one of his family Cunegund would appear.

In 1486 died Albert Achilles, third son of
Frederick, the first Hohenzollern Elector of Bran-
denburg. By the death of his brother John, the
principality of Baireuth fell to him, and we hear
then that shortly before his death the White Lady
manifested herself.

From 1488 on we have repeated notices of her
appearance in the castle of Plassenburg ; but it is
said that this was actually a Fraulein von Rosenau,
who assumed the disguise so as to visit the Mar-
grave Frederick IV, who was imprisoned in
Plassenburg.

In 1540 she appeared again, and this time to
Albert the Warlike. But this undaunted Prince,
when she appeared, rushed at her, caught her by
the throat, and flung her down the stone stair-
case. When the servants came in with lights, his

248

Hohenzollern

Chancellor Strass was found at the bottom with a
broken neck, and in his possession a dagger and
papers betraying a plot to assassinate the Prince.
Again in 1554, also in Plassenburg, a panic
arose occasioned by the apparition. On investiga-
tion, it was found that a scullion boy and a quarter-
master had been disguising themselves for the
sake of frightening the servants. They were both
severely chastised.

In 1560, when the Margrave George Frederick of
Brandenburg was purposing to restore Plassen-
burg, which had been destroyed by the Imperial
troops, and arrived there with a considerable
retinue, the White Lady manifested herself, and
made such a noise, slamming the doors, rattling
chains, knocking down several maids, and
strangling the cook and the master of the kitchen,
that the Margrave fled the place and never again
went near it. In this case there was certainly
trickery, by interested personages, to keep the
place empty. But although designing persons
may have, and did, masquerade as the White
Lady, it by no means follows that all the appari-
tions can be explained in this manner.

In 1598, eight days before the death of the
Elector John George, the appearance of the White
Lady prepared the family for his decease. She
was seen again in 1619, twenty-three days before
the death of the Elector John Sigismund. The
year 1667 was one of tragic significance in the

249

The Land of Teck

House of Hohenzollern. The wife of the great
Elector, Louise Henriette, was lying ill in the full
bloom of her age. All at once a panic spread
through Berlin. The sick lady had seen the White
Lady sitting at her writing-desk. The Electress
was generally loved, and every one who believed
the report felt confident that her end was near.
A few days later the bells were tolling to announce
that she was no more. The year before that, 1666,
the spectre had been seen by the Master of the
Horse, Von Burgsdorf ; then he used some coarse
expression towards the apparition, whereupon he
was flung to the ground, but without material
injury. At one and the same hour in 1670 the
White Lady appeared in Berlin to the Margrave
Christian Ernest, and to his wife Erdmuth Sophia,
at Baireuth.

In 1688 she appeared before the death of the
Great Elector. In 1713 King Frederick I declared
that he had been forewarned by her of approaching
decease. In 1677 the Margrave Erdmann Philip
of Brandenburg had quitted the Austrian service.
One day he saw the White Lady sitting in his arm-
chair as he entered his chamber in Baireuth. He
started back, and left the room in terror. Next
day he mounted his horse in the castle court, when
the brute reared and plunged, as though seeing
something that alarmed it, and threw the Prince.
He picked himself up and, unassisted, mounted
to his chamber, but in two hours was dead.

250

Hohenzollern

There are between 1790 and 1812 several accounts
of her appearance. In 1797 she was seen by a
sentinel in a gallery of the Royal palace at Berlin
at midnight. When the watch came to be changed
the man was found in a paroxysm of terror. He
threw himself down in the guardroom, and told
the captain what he had seen — the White Lady
gliding towards the Royal apartment. A few
hours later the King was dead. Before the de-
cease of Queen Louise the fatal herald of
evil appeared. In 1850 again a sentinel in Berlin,
keeping guard in the Swiss Hall of the palace,
saw the White Lady pass him. He challenged her,
but receiving no reply, ran his bayonet through
the apparition. It traversed the form as though
he had pierced a column of smoke. This prog-
nosticated the death of Frederick William IV.

The following account of her appearances has
also been given : — 1

" Marie de la Motte Fouque had very delicate
health, and lived at Berlin with her half-brother.
One day he came home from the palace and told
her that great excitement prevailed there in con-
sequence of the apparition of the White Lady.
The lady-in-waiting, in coming out of the Queen's
apartment, found the sentinel on guard in a dead
faint. She immediately called the officers-in-
waiting, and when the sentinel came to himself
he declared he had seen the White Lady, and

1 Memoirs of the Baroness Bloomfield( London, 1883, II, pp. 90-1).

251

The Land of Teck

M. de Rochow told his sister the circumstance,
adding that it had caused great alarm. The
following Sunday a small party was given to the
Royal party by Prince Albrecht of Prussia, to
which M. de Rochow, in his capacity of Prime
Minister, was invited. In the course of the even-
ing the King complained of feeling ill, and told
M. de Rochow that he felt so unwell he must
return home, and, indeed, that he never should
have come out that evening had he not been
unwilling to disappoint his son, who had arranged
the family gathering for him. The King took to
his bed that evening, and never left it again ; he
died very shortly afterwards/'

A strange apparition is reported as having
occurred at Baireuth in 1809, when General
d'Espagne was lodging in the palace. He had
gone to bed as usual, when the sentinel heard
screams from his room, and on rushing in found
the General lying senseless on the floor. He had
been visited by the White Lady. " I know,"
said he the next day, " that I am doomed to die
shortly." And, in fact, soon after he fell in the
battle of Aspern. In 1812 Napoleon lodged in the
palace, and was so disturbed in the night that
he quitted " le maudit chateau/' as he designated
it, next day.

In the year 1751 appeared a curious book,
entitled JEsopus Epulans, at Frankfort. It
consisted of the discussions that took place

252

Hohenzollern

among a number of clergy who met once a week
to sup together and ventilate disputed questions.
Among other matters brought up for discussion
was that of the apparitions of the White Lady.
When this subject was mooted, it proved of so
much interest that it occupied six sessions. None
disputed the fact, but the question turned on why
the White Lady should appear as a prognostica-
tion of death in heretical houses, where the doc-
trine of Purgatory was denied, and it was thought
that the White Lady was actually wasting her time
in showing herself to such as had eyes, but saw
not — that is to say, to Calvinists and Lutherans,
who could not be convinced that there existed an
intermediate condition between Heaven and Hell.
The case of the apparition in 1629 in the Electoral
residence at Berlin was discussed, and the spectre is
there stated to have spoken and said, " Veni, judica
vivos et mortuos ! " The priests, although quite
agreed that she was seen as an omen of ill in the
Prussian family of the Hohenzollerns, do not seem
to have known the story of the Countess of Orla-
miinde ; at all events, they made no reference
to it, but regarded her as having been a Countess
of Rosenberg, in Bohemia, who transferred her
attentions from that family to the House of
Hohenzollern because there existed a connection
between them. The story of the apparitions at
Neuhaus, in Bohemia, was given. Then the parsons
discussed whether she were an evil spirit, one who

253

The Land of Teck

had transgressed during life and was condemned
for her misdeeds to " walk," or whether she was
a good spirit ; and they concluded in her favour :
" It is obvious, as a matter of fact, that the White
Lady persevered to the end in the love of God.
Nor can she be an evil genius, nor a damned
spirit ... for she did nothing contrary to
modesty, bashfulness, and was good in all her acts,
nor showed otherwise in her appearance. Some-
times she has been seen to be indignant, and to
frown, occasionally to have taken stones in her
hand and to have pursued those who blasphemed
against God or mocked at things sacred. Add to
this, she has exhibited love to the poor and needy."

This clearly shows that they knew nothing
about the Countess of Orlamiinde and the mur-
der of her children. They quote D. Erasmus
Franciscus in his Protheo : "As to the certainty
of this apparition, I cannot doubt it, for it is
clearly shown to have manifested itself in certain
electoral and princely houses of the Roman Empire,
whether Reformed or Evangelical, with which the
nobles of Rosenberg were related by marriage."

The relation of the Hohenzollerns to the family
of Rosenberg is very questionable ; moreover,
the House of Rosenberg is well represented to the
present day, and is princely. There is no reason
why the White Lady of Neuhaus, the ancestral
castle of the Rosenbergs, should be transferred
to the Hohenzollerns. The legends are quite

254

Hohenzollern

distinct, and the two White Ladies are also
totally distinct. At Baireuth, in the palace, is
shown a portrait that is supposed to be that
of the Countess of Orlamiinde \ it is, however,
nothing of the sort. It is some centuries later,
and represents a court lady, whose name is not
known. There have been rumours in Berlin of
further appearances, since the death of Frederick
William IV, but not authenticated.

The whole tract of land between the northern
fringe of the Alb and the Lake of Constance,
the Swabian Sea, as it is also termed, has been a
cradle of mighty dynasties. About twenty-five
miles south of the Danube is Weingarten-Altdorf,
near the picturesque old town of Ravensburg,
that was the original seat of the Guelfs, as Wai-
blingen was of the Ghibellines. It lies beyond the
district dealt with in this volume, but deserves
a passing notice. In the centre of the town,
on the Martinsberg, stands the castle, converted
later into an Imperial Benedictine abbey, with
a church built in the atrocious style favoured
by the Jesuits, erected in 1715-1728, rich with
paintings and stucco ornaments, surmounted by a
dome, and with a couple of towers. The abbey
was founded by the Guelfs, and is now used as
barracks. The church contains the tombs of
the Guelfs, that were restored in 1859 by the
King of Hanover, by that wretched architect
Klenze, who did so much to make Munich hideous

255

The Land of Teck

with his mean reproductions of Florentine palaces.
In the church is preserved a pretended drop of the
Saviour's blood, that occasions an annual pil-
grimage, entitled the Blutritt, on the Sunday after
Ascension Day. The abbey was founded in 920
as a convent for women, in 1047 it was con-
verted into a monastery for men, and in 1053
it was established in the Castle, the ancestral home
of the Guelfs. The pedigree goes back to Welf,
Count of Swabia and Bavaria, who died in or
about 824, who was the father of Judith, wife of
King Ludwig the Pious (Louis le Debonnaire),
who died in 840, and another daughter, Emma,
wife of Ludwig the German, who died 876, and
who was accordingly the sister of his stepmother,
Judith. He had two sons, Eticho I and Conrad,
who married Adelheid, daughter of Ludwig the
Pious. We need not pursue the pedigree. The
House of Welf, or Guelf, was that from which
sprang the reigning family of Bavaria, as also
that of Hanover, now represented in England by
King George V. Consequently, from a land
as the crow flies sixty miles across from north to
south, and forty miles from east to west, rose the
mighty dynasties of the Hohenstaufen, Emperors
of Germany and Kings of Rome and Sicily ; the
Hohenzollerns, Kings of Prussia, and present
Imperial house of Germany ; the Guelfs, Kings of
Bavaria, Kings of Hanover, Kings of England
and Emperors of India, the Kings of Wiirtemberg

256

Hohenzollern

and Dukes of Teck, and the Grand Dukes of
Baden.

And now let me tell the story of the origin of
the name of Guelf or Welf. There was a Count
of Altdorf-Weingarten, named Isenbart, whose
wife was Irmentrud. It fell out that a poor
woman near Altdorf gave birth to three children
at once. When the Countess heard this she
declaimed against the poor peasantess, as one
who deserved to be sewn up in a leather sack and
drowned in the Lake of Constance as an adul-
teress. Next year, whilst her husband was
absent, Irmgard gave birth at once to twelve
little boys. Full of dismay, remembering what
she had said of the poor woman, she gave eleven
of the babes to a maid and ordered her to drown
them in the river. As the woman was carrying
the children in a hamper to the water she en-
countered Isenbart on his way home. He stopped
her, and asked what she had in the basket.
" Only eleven whelps that I am taking to be
drowned/' replied she. " Let me see them."
The lid was raised, and disclosed eleven lovely
little children. Then all came out. The Count
bade the woman keep silence on the matter, and
entrusted the children to a miller's wife to be
reared. Six years later the Count had the
children brought to the castle dressed alike in
scarlet. They so closely resembled each other and
their father that no doubt could exist as to their
parentage. The children were introduced into the
s 257

The Land of Teck

hall where Isenbart sat with his knights. He rose
and related the story, and all cried out that
the woman who would have destroyed her own
infants was worthy of death. The Countess fell
at her husband's feet and implored forgiveness.
He pardoned her, but as a lasting memorial of
the event decreed that all his generation to the
end of time should be named the Whelps.

The first Welf of whom we know anything was,
as already said, Count in Swabia and Bavaria, and
died about the year 824. Many a Welf succeeded
down to Welf VII, who died in 1167. Charlemagne
married Jutta, the daughter of Welf I. In 1047
Welf III was granted the Duchy of Carinthia and
the Margravate of Verona. Welf IV was created
Duke of Bavaria in 1070. Henry XII, who died
in 1195, married Maud, daughter of King Henry II
of England, and by her had three sons — Henry,
who became the husband of Agnes of Hohen-
staufen, the ancestor of the present reigning
family of Bavaria ; Otto, who married Beatrix
of Hohenstaufen, and was elected Emperor of
Germany ; and William (d. 1213), the ancestor
of the Brunswick-Hanoverian line, that ascended
the throne of Great Britain in the person of
George I, October, 1714.

The Bavarian Welfs and the Swabian Hohen-
staufens were at feud : the former represented
the papal, anti- national party; the latter, the
party for the rights and liberties of the German

258

Hohenzollern

nation. Duke Frederick of Swabia, son of Conrad,
defeated the Bavarians under their Duke Henry
and his brother, Welf VI, in the battle of Nerres-
heim ; and late in the autumn of 1140 the Hohen-
staufen King Conrad advanced against Weins-
berg, in which was Duke Henry. In the battle
for the first time rang out the cry on the side of
the Bavarians, " Hie Welf ! " On that of the
Swabians, " Hie Gibling ! " They took this name
from Weiblingen, whence had come the foster-
mother of Duke Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and
it was said that he owed his strength and success
to the milk of the peasantess by whom he had
been nourished.

Who does not know of the furious, implacable
party strife that divided towns, princes, and
families in Germany and in Italy, fanned to fury
by the popes, whenever the fire slackened, party
strife that was identified with the names of Guelf
and Ghibelline ? And now — our gracious King
represents the Guelfs through his Hanoverian
descent ; and our gracious Queen may be taken
to represent the Ghibellines, as of Wiirtemberg
descent, the dukes of which entered in on the
possessions, titles, and honours of the Hohen-
staufen Dukes of Swabia and of Teck, and the
strife is at an end.

See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

That Heaven find means to kill your joys with love.

Romeo and Juliet ', V, 3,

259

CHAPTER XII

ON THE PEDIGREE OF HER GRACIOUS MAJESTY
THE QUEEN

A~ EIL hangs over the origin of the House
of Wiirtemberg that cannot be dis-
sipated owing to the lack of documents
of an early age. For a moment it is
lifted, and we see a Conrad of Wiirtemberg about
the year 1090 founding a religious house at
Beutelsbach to be the burial-place of his family.
He was not a count, for the title was not at that
time hereditary ; it was granted by the King to
officials governing special districts. This Conrad
died without issue between 1105 and mo, and
his sister, Liutgart, became heiress to his posses-
sions. She married, we know not whom, it is
supposed an Ulrich von Spitzenberg — but this
is conjecture only. Her son, Conrad II, was
created Count of Wiirtemberg and lived till
1127. Then the veil descends and all is dark.
Names emerge — but they are only uncertainly
fitted into the pedigree. A Hartmann flashes out
of the obscurity, Count of Wiirtemberg 1194-1239 ;
he certainly had a son, Conrad III, who became
Count of Griiningen and founded a dynasty at

260

H.S.H. THE 1ST DUKE OF TECK.

From a crayon drawing by Swinton, reproduced by the permission of
Her Majesty Queen Mary.

On the Pedigree of the Queen

Griiningen and Landau, that died out in the middle
of the fourteenth century. Hartmann is sup-
posed to have been the father of Ulrich I. But, if
history is silent, legend speaks. According to the
Zimmerische Chronicle a Count of Wurtemberg,
in a fit of passion, killed his own brother. In
consequence of this, he was driven out of the
land along with his children, and he and they
wandered over the Alb and settled at last at
Landau. There they remained for some genera-
tions in poverty, but at last rose to consequence
again. That " Ulrich Wi* the Thumb " was a son
of Hartmann is probable, as Conrad took Griiningen
and Ulrich became Count of Wurtemberg, and it
would appear that the brothers had divided the
paternal inheritance between them. With Ulrich I
the curtain rises and the rest is clear.

The ancestral castle of Wurtemberg — the hill of
Wirnto — is in the neighbourhood of Waiblingen,
that furnished a name to the nationalist faction
of Hohenstaufen, in Italian Ghibelline. The castle
occupied a height above the village of Beutels-
bach. In the eleventh century, at the time of the
Gallo-Frank emperors, the kingdom was torn by
factions, and the great nobles and even the petty
freeholders were constrained to fortify their resi-
dences to secure themselves against sudden attack
and destruction. Previous to this they had been
content with refuges on heights surrounded by
moats and palisades, where all could shelter

261

The-Land of Teck

|Ml

themselves and their cattle ; now nobles built
for themselves strong castles of stone; cities
and even villages girdled themselves with walls.
To this period we owe the building of Limburg,
Teck, Hohen Neuffen, Hohen Urach, Achalm,
Hohenzollern, etc., every available isolated cone
being laid hold of to be crested with walls. Of
the original castle of Wiirtemberg nothing remains
save one stone bearing an inscription that states
how the chapel was consecrated in 1083. What
now exists of the stronghold is due to its recon-
struction by Duke Ulrich in 1534.

The Counts of Wiirtemberg had been loyal to
the House of Hohenstaufen ; but with Ulrich I
shiftiness set in. He was called at the time " Ulrich
Wi' the Thumb," because of the unusual size of
that digit on his right hand ; but since he has
been known as " The Founder," for it was he
who placed the House of Wiirtemberg in a con-
dition to grow and extend its frontiers. It is
with him that the authenticated pedigree begins
— not but that he was lineally descended from
the sister and heiress of Conrad I, only that the
descent cannot be documentarily established.
Thus he was presumably son of Hartmann, who
also probably was son of Ludwig II, Count of
Wiirtemberg, 1166-81, who was also conjecturally
the son of Ludwig I, Count between 1134 and 1158,
who is supposed to have been the son of Conrad II,
son of the heiress Liutgart.

262

On the Pedigree of the Queen

Ulrich the Founder (1241-63) was possessed of
a considerable territory in the basins of the Neckar
and the Rems, and he refounded, or enriched, the
Abbey of Beutelsbach with large benefactions.
He played no creditable part in the troublous
times of strife between the papacy and the Em-
pire. To break away from traditional loyalty to
the Hohenstaufen House, near neighbours, near
in blood, the representatives of German unity, was
to go against the traditions of his family, and an
act of perjury. But, as already pointed out, when
the Pope, the representative of God among men,
released subjects from their oaths, incited to
rebellion, cursed those sovereigns whom they had
previously blessed, when even a bishop, Albert of
Ratisbon, 1248, did not shrink from having his
guest, King Conrad, a refugee from his enemies,
treacherously murdered ; it is no marvel that
secular princes should fling to the winds all moral
principle, and allow themselves to be governed
by self-interest alone.

Considering that he could best advantage him-
self by embracing the side of the Pope, when the
battle of Frankfort began on August 5, 1246,
Ulrich deserted Conrad, the representative of his
father, Frederick II, in Germany, like Jock of
Norfolk at Bosworth, and by this means decided
the day against Conrad. For this act of treachery
he was paid 7000 marks of silver by the Pope.
Innocent IV engaged him by large bribes to take

263

The Land of Teck

the side of his nominees, Henri Raspe and William
of Holland, and Ulrich took care to extort enor-
mous concessions from these candidates for the
throne. But when his own interests did not
jump with the purposes of the Pope, he made no
scruple to ignore the orders of the latter. After
the death of Conrad IV (1254) ne supported the
claims of the boy Conradin, at least to the duchy
of Swabia, not out of conviction, nor from self-
reproach for past treasons, but because he cal-
culated on squeezing extensive further concessions
from the unfortunate prince.

When the Pope put forward Alphonso of
Castille as candidate for the throne, most of the
Swabian nobles accepted him, because his mother
was a daughter of King Philip, and he was the
only possible representative of the Hohenstaufen
family ; but Ulrich took up the cause of Richard
of Cornwall, as rich and able to pay best. In
fact, he received from Richard not only a large
sum of money, but also the town of Esslingen, a
free Imperial city, and the confirmation of all the
grants made to him by former emperors. With
the money thus obtained Count Ulrich bought up
territories right and left, and when he closed his
eyes on February 25, 1265, it was with the satis-
faction of knowing that he had doubled the lands
subject to the Counts of Wiirtemberg.

The successors of Ulrich I followed his example,
keeping an eye on the main chance, and making

264

On the Pedigree of the Queen

principle subservient to self-interest. His son
Eberhard the Enlightened ruled from 1279 to
1325, and was engaged in contest with three
emperors, Rudolf I, Albrecht I, and Henry
VII. He also was faithless to his friends, but
determined in holding fast every one of his
acquisitions ; and at the end of a long life, not-
withstanding his turbulence, left the principality
enlarged to double its former extent. Under him
Stuttgart became the capital of the county.
His grandson, Eberhard II (1344-92), from his love
of strife earned the nickname of " the Quarrel-
some." He also extended the Wiirtemberg domains
at the expense of the adjoining Imperial possessions
and free cities, and when the Swabian Bund made
head against him, he succeeded in crushing their
resistance in a battle at Doffingen, August 25, 1388.
A later Count, Eberhard IV (1417-19), by
marrying the heiress of Count Stephen de Mont-
faucon, acquired the county of Montbeliard, in
German, Mompelgard (in Burgundy). Thence-
forth the Wiirtemberg family bore the quartering
of two fish back to back, and as a crest a crowned
damsel, with fish in place of arms. For four cen-
turies Montbeliard belonged to the House of
Wiirtemberg and was finally surrendered to
France to be indemnified by large acquisitions in
Germany. The land of Wiirtemberg was divided
in 1442 between Counts Ludwig I and Ulrich V,
but forty years later a union was effected by

265

The Land of Teck

the Congress of Munsingen (1482), when it was
decreed that thenceforth the county should be
indivisible, and the right of seniority to the
sole rule in Wurtemberg was established.

Eberhard IV had two sons, Ludwig and Ulrich
V the Well-beloved (d. 1480). We have already
seen how Eberhard the Younger, turbulent and
pleasure-loving, was ready to sell his birthright
for a mess of pottage. The second son of Ulrich,
Henry, received the county of Montbeliard, became
a lunatic, and died in confinement in the castle
of Hohen Urach.

The Bearded Eberhard became reigning duke,
an admirable prince, who removed the court
from Urach to Stuttgart. He was the first duke,
having received that title from the Emperor
Maximilian in 1495. He founded the University
of Tubingen in 1477 ; and was a true father to
his people. He closed the line of the Urach princes,
and as he left no issue, was succeeded in 1496 by
Eberhard the Younger, reckoned as Eberhard II.
He had learned nothing by the good example
of his cousin ; was deposed by the Estates of
the realm, with the approval of the Emperor ;
was obliged to leave the country ; and died
in 1504 at Lindenfelt in the Odenwald, where he
had been given a place of retreat — or light im-
prisonment— by the Palatine Philip of Hesse. He
was followed by his brother Ulrich, who had been
carried as an infant in a basket from Montbeliard

266

On the Pedigree of the Queen

to Eberhard Wi' the Beard, the uncle who could
be trusted to protect him. Ulrich was proclaimed
duke in 1498 ; he married Sabina of Bavaria, but
maltreated her brutally. He admitted later to
the Emperor Maximilian that he had beaten her,
but "not too severely." He is said to have
hounded on his big dog against her, to have
trampled her under foot, and on one occasion
to have made her go down on all fours, when he
mounted astride on her back and dug his spurs
into her sides.

He entered into an intrigue with the beautiful
wife of Hans von Hiitten, and because the husband
objected, drew him privately into a wood, stabbed
him, and hung up his body in a tree. This roused
the nobles of his land against him. He drove the
peasantry into revolt by debasing the coinage and
reducing the weights and measures, and the towns
by encroaching on their privileges. The Duchess
Sabina fled from him, unable to endure his cruelty
and infidelities, and although she survived him
fourteen years, she never saw him again. He
treated the peasants with cruelty. If any were
found bearing arms in his forests he had their
eyes gouged out.

The whole land rose in revolt against him, he
was placed under the ban of the empire in 1516,
but the sentence was withdrawn the following
year, when he undertook to indemnify the family
of Hiitten with a sum of money, to refrain from

267

The Land of Teck

rule during six years and to place the government
under a commission. But, receiving pecuniary
assistance and support from Francis I of France,
he broke his promises, and, as we have seen, took
the free city of Reutlingen and insulted the
Imperial crown. He was charged with having
made his soldiers use a parody of the Lord's
Prayer of his own composition, beginning, " Our
Father, Reutlingen is ours. Which art in heaven,
and we will soon have Tubingen and Esslingen,"
and so on, too profane to be further quoted.
The Swabian Confederacy declared war against
him, and placed its forces under the command of
Duke William of Bavaria.

Ulrich was driven out of the country and re-
mained in exile for fourteen years. During this
period Austria won a position in the land con-
necting its eastern territory with its pos-
sessions in the Breisgau and Elsass ; and it
placed Spanish troops in several of the towns
and fortresses. Duke Ulrich in vain attempted
to arrange terms with the insurgent peasantry to
help him to recover his land, but they mistrusted
him, and it was not till 1534 that he was able to
return, having entered into compact with the Pro-
testant princes of Germany, and especially with
Philip of Hesse, who agreed to restore him, if he
would introduce the Reformation into Wurtem-
berg. The Austrians were defeated in the battle
of Lauffen, and he was welcomed back by his

268

On the Pedigree of the Queen

people, whom the insolence of the Spanish garri-
sons had completely alienated from the Austrian
cause. He now set vigorously to work to sweep
out the Church and introduce Protestantism
throughout Wiirtemberg, and was aided and
counselled by the reformer Brenz. Brenz was not
only an able, but a gentle and wise man. Luther
highly respected him, and said of him: "On
Brentius reposes the gentle, quiet spirit of Elias,
whereas mine is all in storm and tempest." Ulrich
took part in the Smalkald war against Charles V,
but was brought to submission and had to pay
three tons of gold and receive Spanish garrisons
into Asperg, Schorndorf, and Kirchheim.

Duke Ulrich died in 1550 at the age of sixty-
three. He was enthusiastic as a reformer, and
had as a badge on the arms of his liveried servants,
" The Word of the Lord endureth for ever." He
listened to a sermon every day. He was succeeded
by his son Christopher, who had been born in 1515
at Urach, whither his mother Sabina had fled from
the brutalities of her husband. His early life was
full of trouble ; at the age of four he was placed
in the Court of Charles V, who desired to retain
him, so that he might keep his grip on Wurtemberg.
In March, 1520, taken from Ulm to be conveyed
to Innsbruck, he parted in tears from his pet lamb.
Practically a prisoner, he took occasion in October,
1522, when the Emperor was crossing the Styrian
Alps on his way to Italy, to effect his escape, aided

269

The Land of Teck

by his tutor. They reversed their horses* shoes,
and when the horse of the young prince fell lame,
his tutor surrendered to him the one he rode,
and concealed himself in a morass. Christopher
succeeded in reaching his mother at Munich. When
his father was reinstated in the duchy in 1534,
fresh troubles came upon him. Duke Ulrich hated
his son, and refused to see him or allow him to be
in the land, and for eight years he remained in
the French service. As his father would allow
him no money, Christopher was constrained to
contract debts. Francis I even intervened, but
without effect. At last he was allowed to live as
stadtholder at Montbeliard, but even there his
father would not grant him sufficient on which to
live. He married the daughter of the Margrave of
Brandenburg- Anspach. On his way to Anspach
in bitter winter weather he injured his foot and
asked leave of his father to be allowed to visit
Wildbad, near Urach, to effect a cure. Duke
Ulrich reluctantly permitted him, "though he is
gross as a fatted pig." In 1545 he had a son born
to him, but Ulrich remained as relentless as before.
Christopher occupied himself at Montbeliard in
theological studies, reading the works of Luther,
Melancthon, and Calvin, and making up his
mind which form of religion he would require his
subjects to adopt when he succeeded his father.
He finally decided on Lutheranism. But the
churches had already been wrecked by iconoclasts

270

On the Pedigree of the Queen

under Duke Ulrich, so that they do not present
the wealth of ancient art that is found in
such as did not undergo this treatment. Ulrich
died on November 6, 1550, at the age of sixty-
three, and was buried at Tubingen, where he
is represented in armour lying beside his wife
Sabina, whom he had hated, and from whom he
had been separated for thirty-five years. On the
monument is inscribed in Latin, " Pale Death,
thou took'st my body hence ; but had not power
o'er the Prince's soul. What mortal was — that
must decay. His noblest part lives on, in life."
Query — had he any noble part ?

The school of misfortune in which Christopher
had been reared had tended to ripen his character
and endow it with strength and moderation. He
proved to be one of the most admirable princes
of the House of Wiirtemberg. Although he was
unable to get rid of the Spanish garrisons, and
might not at once forbid the exercise of Catholic
worship, even in his capital, he did his utmost
to spread the reform through the land. And he,
alone, among the German Protestant princes, did
not seize on Church property for his own use, but
in abolishing Catholicism he retained the en-
dowments for the sake of the new Church he
founded, and transformed the abbeys into Protes-
tant prelacies and schools. He pooled all the in-
come over and above what was thus employed, and
formed therewith a fund reserved for necessities

271

The Land of Teck

in the land. His great achievement next to com-
pleting the work of reform begun by his father was
the revision of the constitution, the most liberal
in Germany ; and this was done on so sound a
basis that it withstood the attempts of later
Dukes to override it and become despotic rulers.
He expelled the Jews from the country as " mag-
gots, gnawing and mischievous/' preying on the
people. His passion was for building, and to him
is due the old castle at Stuttgart, with its beauti-
ful Renaissance arcaded court, and that at Goppin-
gen. Duke Christopher died in 1568. His widow,
Anna Maria of Anspach, aged forty-five, fell
desperately in love with the Landgrave George of
Hessen-Darmstadt, just half her age, and as he
did not reciprocate her passion, but proposed for
her daughter, she went out of her senses and died
in 1589, five days before the marriage of her
daughter.

Duke Christopher, the best, after Eberhard Wi'
the Beard, of all the Wiirtemberg princes, was
succeeded by his son Ludwig (1568-93), when he
was only fourteen years old. Unhappily, this prince
had not only been spoiled by his mother, but he was
wanting in ability, and had low tastes. He was,
however, very amiable and pliant. As he knew his
own intellectual deficiencies, he allowed his coun-
sellors to manage all political affairs, especially
his chancellor and factotum Melchior Jager. As
a boy he diligently read the Bible, and acquired

272

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DUKE JOHN FREDERICK

BORN 1582, DIED 1628

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

the designation of "the Pious." But he was
drunk nearly every day, and, though he repented
when sober, he never amended his ways. His
great amusement was to make visitors at his court
as tipsy as himself. On one occasion, when he
had invited a deputation from Reutlingen to a
boar hunt, he made them all intoxicated, tumbled
the men in that condition into a state carriage and
sent them home, with a wild boar packed behind
it, the spoil of the chase.

Queen Elizabeth wrote repeatedly to him to urge
him to take up arms on behalf of the Reformed in
the Low Countries, but partly out of constitutional
cautiousness, partly because he detested Calvinists,
he would do nothing to aid them. He married
Dorothea Ursula, daughter of the Margrave
Charles of Baden, but had no children by her;
he married, secondly, a princess of the Palatine
Counts of Liitzelstein. This marriage was also
without issue, and the succession now passed to
the Montbeliard line. The next Duke was
Frederick (1593-1608), a man of very different
stuff from Christopher and Ulrich, and not one
who allowed himself to be surrounded and in-
fluenced by pastors and preachers. He told his
court chaplain that he was not one to sit and
twiddle his thumbs behind the stove. He was a
man "singular enough." He had travelled in
Denmark, Hungary, and England, where, in 1592,
he had been introduced to Queen Elizabeth, and

T 273

The Land of Teck

carried away with him the impression that she
had promised him the Garter. In 1595 he sent an
ambassador to England to remind the Queen of
her promise, but she replied that she had never
undertaken to give him the Garter. Not till 1603
did he receive it from James I. On that occasion
a great banquet was held and a special table was
spread for the King of England, as though he
were present, and ninety courses were served.
After the feast the Duchess opened the ball with
the English ambassador, Robert Spencer. A com-
pany of English actors performed before the court.

The great object set before him by Duke
Frederick was to upset the constitution, and to
convert his rule into one of absolute sovereignty.
He dismissed all the advisers of Duke Ulrich and
chose as his creature Matthias Enzlin, an entirely
unscrupulous man. In 1607, a year before his
death, the Duke summoned the Diet together and
required it to change the constitution in his favour.
As this was refused, he dissolved it, and called
together a new assembly composed of more pliable
representatives ; and from it he extorted a grant
of 1,100,000 gulden. He died at the age of sixty,
in 1608, and was succeeded by his son John
Frederick (1608-28), a weak prince, but who at
once restored the constitution to what it was
before it had been altered by his father, and sent
Enzlin to execution.

Duke Frederick of Wiirtemberg and Montb&iard,
274

On the Pedigree of the Queen

who died in 1608, had, beside John Frederick, who
succeeded him as Duke of Wiirtemberg, a second
son, Ludwig Frederick, who was granted the
county of Montbeliard, and died in 1631. His
grandson George married Anne, daughter of
Gaspard de Coligny, Duke of Chatillon, and by
her had a son, Leopold Eberhard, born in 1670,
who died in 1723, l without issue recognised in
the Empire, and the county of Montbeliard re-
turned to the Stuttgart branch of the Ducal family.
The troubles of the Thirty Years1 War began in
the time of John Frederick, and simultaneously
furious theological controversies raged among the
Reformers. Lutherans could not and would not
combine with Calvinists against a common foe.
Wallenstein appeared in Wiirtemberg, collecting
troops for the Emperor, and as many as 20,000
in Swabia returned to the Catholic faith. John
Frederick was succeeded by his son, Duke Eberhard
III (1628-1674), who was under age at a time
when a man of consummate ability and resolution
was required at the rudder. Wallenstein's troops
were quartered in Wiirtemberg, and every town
received a garrison of Imperial soldiers. In 1633
Duke Eberhard assumed the reins of government,
but the battle of Nordlingen, on August 27, 1634,
and the death of Gustavus Adolphus, gave

1 His story, a very strange one, may be read in the Memoirs of
the Bareness Oberkirch, London, 1852, III, p. 161 et seq. Also in
Vehse j Geschicte der deutschen Hofe, XXV (1853), p. 200 et seq.

275

The Land of Teck

Wiirtemberg over as a prey completely into the
hands of Austria. The young Duke had not been
himself in the battle, but a contingent of Wiirtem-
bergers had fought on the Protestant side. When
the news of the defeat reached Eberhard at
Goppingen, he fled to his mother at Strasburg,
without making any attempt to come to terms
with King Ferdinand. The condition of Wiirtem-
berg was now deplorable ; it was parcelled up
among Austrian nobles, one part was accorded
to the Elector of Bavaria. In the tragic period of
seven out of the Thirty Years' War (1634-1641), the
population shrank from half a million to forty-
eight thousand. Next to the Palatinate no country
suffered as severely as did Wiirtemberg. At Niir-
lingen, where Ursula, the Dowager Duchess, was,
some Croat soldiers seized the aged lady by her
hair, and dragged her about, and she was only
saved from death by the intervention of an officer.
Meanwhile theological disputes raged with un-
abated force. At Tubingen the preacher, Lucas
Osiander, was holding forth, when a soldier shouted,
" That's not God's Word," and ran to climb into
the pulpit. Osiander caught the intruder by the
throat and flung him down the stairs, followed,
caught him by his feet, and dragged him to the
Lord's Table, where the women set on him with
sticks and fists, and almost beat the life out of
him !

Meanwhile the Duke lived at Strasburg, en-
276

DUKE EKERHARD III

(1628-1674)
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H, the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

joying himself in field sports. In 1637 he married
the beautiful Anna Catherine of Salm-Kyrburg,
and in eighteen years became by her the happy
father of fourteen children. In vain had the
Swedes implored him to come to the aid of the
Protestant cause, saying, " Put on an iron jacket
instead of wedding breeches." The King of
France offered him 12,000 men, but he declined
them.

At last came the long-desired peace. The
Imperial troops were withdrawn in 1648-50, and
the Swedes also retired. Wiirtemberg was sucked
dry and depopulated ; but not many who had
fled to Switzerland returned, and two thousand
men who had been in the Swedish army settled
and married in the country. Duke Eberhard III
reigned in Wiirtemberg twenty-six years after the
proclamation of peace. His wife died in 1655,
and he then married Dorothea Sophia, Countess
of Oettingen, and by her, in eighteen years, had
eleven children, so that in all he was father of
twenty-five. Duke Eberhard died in 1674, at
the age of forty-six, and was succeeded by William
Ludwig (1674-1677). After a very brief and
unimportant reign, he was followed by his son
Eberhard Ludwig (1677-1733).

Eberhard Ludwig, at the death of his father,
was still in his cradle, an infant of nine months old,
and the land was under regents for fifteen years.
Brought up without having his education properly

277

The Land of Teck

attended to, and any moral principle inculcated,
he lived only for his pleasures. He became
involved in the Spanish War of Succession, es-
tablished the first standing army in Wiirtemberg,
and lavished incredible sums on his fancies — one
of which was the building of Ludwigsburg. As
there were no Wiirtemberg nobility about the
Court, he introduced other from abroad, especially
from Mecklenburg. The Swabian nobility, indeed,
were numerous, but declined to dance attendance
at Court as underlings. He was married to
Joanna Elizabeth, daughter of the Margrave of
Baden-Durlach, but fell completely under the
sway of an adventuress, Christina Wilhelmina
von Gravenitz, who exercised such an influence
over him for twenty years that people believed
she had recourse to magic. He got a minister,
Phaler, to marry him to her, and when his Chan-
cellor, Forstner, remonstrated — " I am Pope in
my own land/' replied he, " and am responsible,
as a Lutheran Prince, to none save my own
conscience and to God/'

When an Imperial Commission insisted on her
being sent away, he contrived to have her married
to an old Count of Wiirben, who was at once to
retire to Vienna, and never show his face in
Wiirtemberg. Thus, simultaneously, the Duke
had two wives, and the Gravenitz two husbands.
It was only in 1730, when Frederick William I
of Prussia, on a visit to Stuttgart, seriously re-

278

On the Pedigree of the Queen

monstrated with the Duke, that he was at last
induced to dismiss the woman and be reconciled
with his wife. He died in 1757, and as the Crown
Prince and his grandson died before him, with
Eberhard Ludwig expired that line of the House
of Wiirtemberg, and the succession devolved on
Charles Alexander (1733-37), who was a Roman
Catholic, and married to a Princess of Thurn and
Taxis.

He had been a gallant soldier in the Imperial
service, and had fought with Prince Eugene at
the storming of Belgrade. Once, when in Venice,
he was galled at the way in which the conceited
Italian nobility despised the Germans for their
bluntness. Before he left, he invited the nobility
of his acquaintance to a theatrical performance.
When the curtain rose, a street in Rome was seen,
the stage was dark, but the Ghost of Cicero was
visible, prowling about with a lamp. Then
entered a stranger, who knocked at all the doors,
in vain, to obtain shelter ; whereupon he pulled
a watch out of his pocket to ascertain what the
time was. Then, for distraction, he produced a
book, and read. But, tired of study, he brought
out a pistol and fired it off, hoping thereby to
rouse the sleepers.

" Sir ! " said Cicero. " What is the meaning of
all these novelties ? What was that round article
you looked at ? "

" A watch — a German invented it."
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The Land of Teck

*' And that book with characters in it ? "

" Printing," replied the stranger. " A German
invented printing."

" And what was that which detonated so
surprisingly ? "

" Gunpowder — a German invented that — while
all Italy has been asleep."

Then appeared on the stage a Savoyard,
bawling, " Combs to sell, imported — Italians can't
even make them."

The native nobles looked around — the German
Prince had disappeared.

Charles Alexander could not endure the re-
strictions imposed on sovereign power by a
Landtag, and he resolved on the overthrow of the
Constitution. I have mentioned elsewhere how
he used the Jew Suess to impoverish the nation
to satisfy his insatiable need of money. The
Duke entered into a compact with the Elector of
Bavaria, and with the Bishops of Wiirzburg and
Bamberg, to send him troops to assist him in his
great project ; he himself was to go to Danzig,
and leave a Commission to abolish the Constitution
during his absence. As a price for the assistance
promised, he undertook to reintroduce the Catholic
religion into Wiirtemberg. In March, 1737,
Charles Alexander started on his journey from
Stuttgart, but went no further than his palace at
Ludwigsburg.

Although the utmost secrecy had been main-
280

PRINCESS ELIZABETH WILHKLMINA LOUISE OF WURTEMBERG
M. FRANCIS, GRAND-DUKE OF AUSTRIA, 1788, I). 1790
Reproduced l>y the permission of II. S. If. t/ie Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

tained, it nevertheless transpired that an attempt
would be made during the Duke's absence to
upset the Constitution. He had given sealed
orders to his general, Remchingen, to this effect.
However, he died suddenly, before his orders
could be carried out.

Not a moment was lost. Duke Charles Rudolf
of Wiirtemberg-Neuenstadt was invested with
the regency. General Remchingen and Suess
Oppenheim were arrested. Such was the sad end
of Charles Alexander, who, as Austrian Field-
marshal and Governor of Servia, had been the
soul of honour, generous and beloved; who
entered on his duchy not only promising good
government, but heartily desiring to rule well for
his people's good, and who, in less than four years,
had forfeited the love of his subjects.

Charles Alexander's eldest son, Charles Eugene,
succeeded (1737-1793)- He was but nine years old
when his father died, and he was sent with his
brother to the Court of Frederick the Great of
Prussia to be educated. His conduct there was
so exemplary, that the King had no hesitation in
recommending that he should be declared of age
when seventeen. As Duke Charles left Berlin,
the great Frederick gave him a paper of advice!
'The finances are the strength of the land.
Remember that Wurtemberg is not for you, but
you for the people. Seek to win their hearts.
Avoid flatterers, punish intriguers."

281

The Land of Teck

Unhappily, the expectations of Frederick were
disappointed. The long reign of Duke Charles,
of nearly fifty years, was one of cruel suffering to
the people, but of great Court splendour. It was
perhaps not altogether his fault that his reign was
one of unmitigated evil, during the earlier portion.
A boy of seventeen his own master, surrounded
by unscrupulous persons courting his favour,
with money apparently unlimited at his disposal,
it would have been a miracle had he turned out well.
As it was, from the very beginning of his reign, he
cared only for festivities, balls, operas, ballets.
One display of fireworks he gave alone cost half
a ton of gold. For forty-three years, from 1750
to 1793, the Court of Stuttgart was the most
splendid in Europe. The Chamberlain, Baron
Hardenberg, to obtain money for the lavish
expenditure of the Prince, had recourse to the sale
of young and lusty men into foreign military ser-
vice. Six thousand were sold to France in 1753-
But Hardenberg was, nevertheless, hard pressed
to find the money demanded. He endeavoured
to cut down some of the expenditure. Once he
refused to pay for a dozen dominoes ordered for a
Court ball, and when, soon after, he demurred to
the supply of an excessive number of wax candles,
the Duke insulted him grossly before the Privy
Council, and forced him to resign.

Duke Charles married Elizabeth Fredrica of
Baireuth, in 1748, but his repeated infidelities,

282

MAGDALEXA SIBYLLA, WIFE OF DUKE WILLIAM LUDWIG, M
^Produced l,y the pernnssion of H.S.H. the Duke of Tec

D 1712
?

KARL HERZOG VON WURTEMBERG
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

and his apathy to his wife, led to a separation in

1754-
Unhappily the corruption of the Court extended

itself through all classes of society. During the
Seven Years' War, Duke Charles attempted to
undermine the Constitution. After a struggle
of twenty years, in which the Emperor, Prussia,
England, and France were appealed to against the
arbitrary rule of the Duke, in 1770 a compromise
was effected, by which the land retained its
rights, and the Duke was satisfied with a large
grant of money. A historian of Wiirtemberg
wrote that after the separation from his wife
" the Duke gave full range to his worst passions ;
he mocked at the misery of betrayed innocence,
the grief of families, and was unsparing in his
threats where he met with resistance. At this
time Stuttgart was a scene of unmeasured display
and debauchery. Balls and concerts, picnics and
redoubts, lavish banquets, and extravagance in
adornment and dress disturbed the well-being
even of the lower classes, and the consequence
was deception of all kinds, bankruptcy and utter
impoverishment of families. To this corruption
was united a slavish character, a cringing towards
those of higher rank, pride and overbearing to-
wards inferiors. Violent as was the Duke, so were
the military and the nobles in their treatment of
subjects and officials. Paid flatterers exalted the
Duke as the wisest of all paternal governors ;

283

The Land of Teck

his festivities, on which he squandered the sweat
of his subjects, his hunting parties, in which he
trampled down their harvests, were exalted and
sung by these parasites. All must be sacrificed
to his pleasure : what cared he for the well-being
of his people ? But it was at the cost of these
poor victims that an appearance of comfort and
happiness was maintained, by the singing of his
Italian performers, the capers of his ballet-dancers,
the splendour of his operas, the works of his
sculptors and painters. All the while there was
impoverishment and misery behind this mask.
Even the companions of his pleasures were at
times overcome by a sense of sadness they could
not explain/*

And this was on the eve of the Revolution.

During the last five-and-twenty years of the
reign of Duke Charles, he endeavoured in a
measure to heal some of the wounds his mis-
government had caused. He became less head-
strong and more moderate, and was much in-
fluenced for good by his second wife, Francisca
von Bernardin, whose story has been already told.
He interested himself in science, and founded
the Karlschule, from which issued many famous
learned men, artists, and authors.

Duke Charles died in 1793, without legitimate
issue, and he was succeeded by his two younger
brothers, Ludwig Eugene and Frederick Eugene,
who reigned but for a few years. No sooner had

284

THE QUEEN OF WURTEMBERG

(Princess Pauline of Wiirtemberg).

Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. The Duke of Teck.

On the Pedigree of the Queen

the latter assumed the government, than the
French invaded Wiirtemberg. The Duke came to
terms with General Moreau, July 17, 1796, in
accordance with which the Wiirtemberg troops
seceded from the Imperial German army ; and,
shortly after, Montbeliard was surrendered to
France. After the departure of Moreau the land
was occupied by the Austrians, and had to suffer
from their exactions quite as greatly as it had from
the French.

The having to make common cause with the
French against Austria was forced on the Duke,
and he entered into the compact with repugnance.

Frederick Charles was a good and well-inten-
tioned prince. At his accession he declared, " I
will do righteousness, for, sooner or later, I shall
have to stand before the throne of God." He was
married to Frederica Dorothea of Brandenburg-
Schwedt. At the marriage Frederick the Great
insisted that by the contract the children of this
union should be brought up as Protestants. He
was the father of seven sons and one daughter,
who survived him.

We will now turn to the Montbeliard branch of
the family, that redeemed by its virtues the
bad example set by the members of the elder
branch. Charles Alexander, born in 1684 died in
1737, and was succeeded as we have seen by his
eldest son, Charles Eugene, who reigned to 1793,
and having no male issue his successor was his

285

The Land of Teck

brother, Ludwig Eugene, who also died without
issue, and was in turn succeeded, in 1795, by
Frederick Eugene, Prince of Montbeliard, who
died in 1797. He was the ancestor of the present
reigning family of Wiirtemberg, and of the Dukes
of Teck.

The Baroness Oberkirch in her Memoirs gives
an account of the Court at Montbeliard under
Duke Frederick Eugene of Wiirtemberg. " He
inherited some of the genius of his mother, the
Princess of Thurn und Taxis, whose powers of
fascination were so generally recognised during
her lifetime.1 The lively disposition of this
princess, vivacious almost to petulance, and her
strong passions, were a constant subject of con-
versation in the German courts. She possessed the
art of pleasing in an eminent degree, and was
the most charming and the most captivating of
women. The Prince Eugene had at first been
destined by his father for the Church, and had
even received at eighteen the ecclesiastical tonsure
at Constance. But he soon abandoned this
career to enter the service of Frederick II of
Prussia, and served under his orders during the
Seven Years1 War. He covered himself with
glory ; the hero took notice of him. The Duchess
profited by this occasion to negotiate at Berlin a
marriage between this prince (who was her third

1 The wife of Charles Alexander, Duke of Wiirtemberg, married
May i, 1727, died February i, 1756.

386

DUKE WILLIAM LUDWIG

(1674-1677)
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

son) and the Princess Frederica Dorothea Sophia,
daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwadt
and niece of the King. As it ought to be, they
fell in love on first acquaintance ; never was
there a happier or more suitable union. The
Princess of Montbeliard was an accomplished
woman, in whom virtue ennobled every grace.
They had five sons and three daughters. The
eldest, Prince Frederick William, born in Pomer-
ania, where his father's regiment was in garrison,
was of the same age as I, that was fifteen. His
brother, Prince Ludwig was thirteen. The third,
Prince Eugene, was eleven. The fourth was Prince
William, who was eight, and the fifth, Prince
Ferdinand, was only six.

" Of the three daughters the eldest was my
dear Princess Dorothea,1 who, though only ten,
was almost as tall as I. She then gave promise
of all for which she has been since distinguished —
a charming disposition, an excellent heart, and
the most extraordinary beauty. Although she
was short-sighted, her eyes were magnificent, and
their brilliancy seemed but the reflexion of her
soul.

" All these princes were reared in the Lutheran
religion, in accordance with the wishes of the
King of Prussia, although the Prince of Montbeliard
was a Catholic.

1 Afterwards Czarina of Russia, married to the Emperor Paul I.
She died March 24, 1801.

387

.->.

• * la

The Land of Teck

" On the 2oth of December, 1770, Charles
Eugene, the reigning Duke of Wiirtemberg, came
to Etupes (a country seat of the Prince of Mont-
beliard), with his brother. The Prince Charles
Eugene had a fine classical head. At the birth of
this prince in 1728, it was little thought that he
would ascend the throne of Wiirtemberg, and yet,
in 1737, every obstacle being removed, he became,
at nine years of age, head of the ducal house."

The Baroness then goes on to relate how, be-
coming of age at sixteen and independent, he
launched into every sort of dissipation and
extravagance. She recounts how he became
attached to the Countess Hohenheim, whom he
eventually married. " It was this lady who spoke
to him of his errors. She represented to him what
he was, what he might have been ; she painted
what would be the terrible consequence of his
extravagance ; she threatened to abandon him
if he neglected her warning, and at length led him
to acknowledge his errors, and to resolve to
repair them." Her story has been already told.

To return to the 2oth December, 1770. " On
the evening of this day, Charles, the reigning Duke
of Wiirtemberg, arrived ; he was not expected.
We were commencing ' Blind-man's-Buff/ in which
the entire Court was to take part. In the midst
of the confusion, an officer all bewildered bursts
suddenly into the room and announces His Royal
Highness. You may easily believe that the

288

DUKE EBERHARI) LUDWIG

(1697-1733)
Reproduced by the. permission of H.S.I I. the Duke of 'I eck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

masqueraders quickly laid aside their humps, horns,
masks, etc. The Duke delighted in surprises, and
always came unexpectedly. The Countess of
Wartensleben, who was sitting next to me, was
employing all her ingenuity to free me from the
disguise in which I was to have represented the
Devil, but the strings seemed determined not to
untie ; the Princess Dorothea laughed exceedingly
at my embarrassment ; I was very angry. At
last we had the good fortune to accomplish our
task before the Duke observed us.

" The arrival of the reigning Duke was an excuse
for fetes as splendid as the limited resources of
this retired country would allow. Standards,
bearing the arms of Wiirtemberg, quartered with
those of Montbeliard, floated from every eminence.
The Montbeliard quarterings are a field azure, two
fishes or embowed. Every lamp, torch, and
candle in the town was lighted. The three divi-
sions of the magistracy presented with great
ceremony a list of grievances, which the Duke
received graciously, and promised to consider. In
the evening he said to the Prince of Montbe-
liard, ' I am very much changed, and I am very
glad of it ; long ago I would have laughed at these
good people, who seem more ridiculous to me than
your children did the other day at Blind-man's-
Buff ; but to-day I was as grave as the honest
folk themselves. Besides, they are in the right,
and I must attend to their demands/ The public
u 289

The Land of Teck

audience lasted from nine in the morning until
seven in the evening. His Highness heard all with
patience, and none were refused but those who
asked for something absurd. I remember one poor
peasant woman, who requested that the bells
should not be allowed to toll, as it caused her
cream to turn sour.

" I passed a great part of my time at Montbe-
liard ; I was there still on the 24th April, 1771,
when the princess's seventh son was born (he was
called Alexander Frederick Charles).1 The union
of the Princes of Montbeliard was certainly blessed
by Heaven, and notwithstanding the number of
their children, each additional one was received
with as much joy as if it had been the first-born.
All the principality, both poor and rich, shared in
the happiness of their rulers. The residence
of this family was a blessing from Heaven for
this hitherto abandoned little country. The in-
exhaustible benevolence of these princes, their
solicitude for their subjects, who had been long
accustomed to misery, soon spread abundance
and richness around them. This county, which
had during seven centuries and a half preserved
its independence, soon took the position that
its importance merited. The princes assumed the
title of Serene Highness, by permission of the

1 Prince Alexander married the Princess Antoinette of Saxe-
Coburg, and was father of the Duke Alexander of Wiirtemberg ;
born 1804, married 1837 to the Princess Mary of Orleans, and died

1839-

290

MARIE FEODOROWNA, WIFE OF CZAR PAUL I.

BORN 1759, DIED 1828.

PRINCESS DOROTHEA, DAUGHTER OF FREDERICK EUGENE, DUKE OF
WURTEMBERG AND MONTBELIARD

From a painting by Roslen de Suedois reproduced by the permission of
If.S./f. the Duke of reck '

On the Pedigree of the Queen

Emperor Leopold I ; they had previously been
named simply ' Your Grace/ The inhabitants,
who were all Protestants, adored the august family
to whom they owed all their happiness."

The Baroness Oberkirch speaks of the livery
and official colours in her time being yellow and
black, those of both Wurtemberg and Teck, and
so they remained till the reign of King William,
when, for some unknown reason, they were changed
to black and red. These were the colours adopted
for the royal order instituted in 1818. That
blue and white should be the colours of Bavaria,
and red and yellow those of Baden, is reasonable
enough, for these are the tinctures of their arms,
but why those of Wurtemberg should have been
capriciously changed we are at a loss to say.

As mention has been made of the Princess
Dorothea, who married the Grand-duke Paul of
Russia, afterwards Czar, I cannot refrain from
quoting a pretty little story of her, told by the
Baroness Oberkirch. Duke Frederick Eugene had
conducted his daughter as far as Memel in October,
1776. " He related a thousand charming traits of
our dear absent one : how one morning she saw
from her window a holly tree covered with its red
berries. She began to cry, thinking of one evening
at Etupes when she and I had worn holly berries
in our hair. There was that day a grand recep-
tion ; she sent for some holly, and ordered a
coiffure like that which we had both worn, and

291

The Land of Teck

said to her father, ' Do not forget to tell my dear
Lanele [the Baroness], that I have worn holly in
memory of our friendship/ '

From the letters published in the Memoirs of
the Baroness it would seem that Princess Dorothea
was devoted to her husband, and that their
married life was happy. She was but seventeen
when she married him. In 1801 Paul I was fallen
upon in his bedroom and strangled by conspirators.
After his death, the Czarina exercised great in-
fluence over her son Alexander. According to the
Memoirs of General Wolzogen, she was a woman
of superior abilities, sympathetic and generous,
but proud and despotic. She died in 1828.

Her sister-in-law, the wife of her brother
Frederick, afterwards the first King of Wiirtemberg,
met with a mysterious and tragic fate in Russia.
Frederick had married the Princess Augusta of
Brunswick, when she was aged sixteen, daughter
of Duke Charles William and Augusta, daughter
of the Prince of Wales. Her fate was even more
sad than that of her younger sister Caroline, the
wife of George IV. Frederick, who had been in
the Prussian service, on his sister marrying the
Grand Duke Paul, resigned his commission and
went to Russia in 1784. There the Empress
Catherine II made him Governor-General of
Livonia and Finland. At the Court of Catherine
the Princess Augusta was for a while a favourite
with the Empress. But she was frivolous and a

292

CHARLOTTE MATILDA, PRINCESS ROYAL. QUEEN OF WURTEMBERG.
DAUGHTER OF GEORGE III OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

BORN 1766, DIED 1828

From a painting by Sir IVillinm Beechy, reproduced by the permission of
H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen
coquette, and excited the jealousy of the Czarina.
One day she had the temerity to address Catherine
with insolence, whereupon she was arrested and
the same night conveyed to a prison at Lohda,
near Reval ; and for some time it was not known
what had become of her. There a year later, hav-
ing had a fit, she was hastily buried alive. A
pastor heard her cries in the vault, but could not
induce her keepers to have it opened. They were
acting under orders. When, at a later date, the
coffin was opened, the unhappy princess 'was
found to have turned in it, and to be lying on her
face. Frederick married secondly Maude or Matilda
of England, the daughter of King George III.

In 1777 the Emperor Joseph II, on his way to
Paris to visit his sister, Queen Marie Antoinette,
signified to the Duke of Wiirtemberg his inten-
tion of passing through Stuttgart. The Duke at
once wrote to place his palace at the Kaiser's
disposal, but Joseph replied that he was travelling
incognito, and preferred to lodge at an inn. The
Duke then ordered all the hotels in Stuttgart to
remove their signs, and he had a large board
painted and inscribed "Hotel de 1'Empereur,"
affixed to the royal palace, and emblazoned with
the Austrian arms. When the Emperor alighted
the Duke received him, dressed as an hotel-keeper'
Everybody at the Court assumed an office as
waiter, chambermaid, porter, scullion, etc., and
not till the following day were the masquerading

The Land of Teck

dresses laid aside. The joke did not end there.
When the Emperor's carriage was brought to the
door, one of the horses was mounted by a postillion
in a very shabby jacket and dusty boots. The
Emperor remarked, "A drunken boor, no doubt.
However, I'll give him a pourboire at the end
of the stage." But when the carriage stopped to
change horses, it was discovered that the postillion
was one of the princes in disguise, and that the
post horses had actually been his own. The
Emperor laughed and said, " The imitation was
excellent up to one point — you did not swear
enough/'

The assistance of Baroness Oberkirch was in-
voked to reconcile the Duke and Duchess to the
marriage of their second son Ludwig to Mary
Anne, daughter of Prince Adam Casimir Czar-
torisky, Palatine of Russia, Duke of Klewan,
Starosch of Podolia, a descendant of the Royal
House of Jagellon. The mother of Staneslas
Poniatowski was a Czartorisky, and sister of the
Palatine.1

Prince Ludwig had been travelling for amuse-
ment and information and had been received
at the house of Prince Adam with great hos-
pitality. He fell desperately in love with Mary
Anne, the daughter of the Prince, then aged

* The late Prince Ladislas married, first, Maria Amparo, daughter
of Queen Christina of Spain, and secondly, Marguerite, Princess of
Bourbon-Orleans.

294

DUKE LUinVlG OF WURTEMBERG

BORN 1756, DIED 1817
From a miniature, reproduced by tlic permission of H.S.H the Duke of Teck

DUKE ALEXANDER OF WURTEMBERG, FATHER OF FRANCIS,

DUKE OF TECK, 1805-1885
Reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

sixteen. Great embarrassment was occasioned
by this love affair. The Czartorisky family was
illustrious and ancient. It derived from Olgerd,
Grand Duke of Lithuania, whose son Korygello,
in 1381, inherited lands in Volhynia, and one
of his children having acquired the territory of
Czartorya gave rise to the Czartorisky family that
furnished many members distinguished in civil,
ecclesiastical, and military careers, and in the
middle of the eighteenth century, through wealthy
marriages, became powerful. But it was not an
independent reigning family, and here was the
rub. The Princess Mary Anne was cousin german
to the last King of Poland ; nevertheless, families
that attain royalty by election were not considered
to enjoy the same rank as those whose claim to
the crown was hereditary. These considerations
led the Prince and Princess of Wiirtemberg-Mont-
beliard to object to the marriage. They advised
their son to break off his engagement. But he
was much in love, and, overstepping the bounds
of obedience, married without the consent of his
parents. Prince Adam was offended, and with
good reason, at any objection being raised against
an alliance with his House. The marriage took
place on October 28, 1784. Then the young people
began to think of means of appeasing the resent-
ment of the family of Montbeliard, and the Prince
applied to his sister Dorothea, Grand Duchess of
Russia, and she wrote to the Baroness Oberkirch

295

The Land of Teck

to use her best endeavours to placate the incensed
parents.

" One evening," writes the Baroness, " when
I least expected such a visit, the Prince and
Princess appeared before me, very simply dressed
and quite incognito. They entered the room
unannounced. I was very much surprised, as
may well be supposed, especially after having
read the letter of the Grand Duchess, which
explained the services that were expected of me."
Accordingly the Baroness visited the Princess
of Montbeliard and obtained her reluctant consent
to endeavour to move the Prince to yielding.
" Say a great deal to him about the Jagellons,"
said she. " Speak of the charms of the Princess ;
remind him of his own marriage ; speak of his
tenderness to his children."

The Prince answered his wife : " That which
renders me most uneasy is their extreme youth ;
even their love alarms me. These marriages made
in opposition to parents are seldom happy.
Young lovers do not know themselves at first,
and when the time of self-revelation comes, things
assume a very different aspect : they see each
other in a different light ; they become estranged ;
they quarrel ; and at length they separate."
The words were prophetic. The young couple
were divorced in 1792, after eight years together,
and when Mary Anne had borne the Prince a son,
Adam, on January 28, 1792. Prince Ludwig next

296

After a painting, by Daj

COUNTESS CLAUD1NE KHEDEY

(Afterwards Countess Hohenstein).
Inger, reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. The Duke of Teck.

On the Pedigree of the Queen

married Henriette, daughter of Prince Charles of
Nassau- Weilburg, and by her became the father
of Alexander, grandfather of the present Duke
of Teck. Prince Adam of Wiirtemberg became a
lieutenant-general in the Russian service, and
aide-de-camp to the Czar. He died unmarried
in 1847.

Prince Ludwig became a Prussian general, and
in 1790 a Polish general and commandant of
Warsaw till 1792. He had great hopes of attain-
ing to the crown of Poland, but the parcelling up
of this unhappy kingdom frustrated his hopes,
and he became Governor of Anspach and Bai-
reuth in 1795, a Russian general in 1806, and
finally Field-Marshal of Wiirtemberg. He died
in 1817.

Prince Alexander of Wiirtemberg in 1835 married
Claudine, Countess of Rh6dey, of a Transylvanian
noble House, but not being of royal birth she
could not take the rank of her husband, nor could
her children succeed to the throne of Wiirtemberg,
otherwise the Duke of Teck would have been
heir-apparent to the throne of that kingdom.
The Emperor of Austria conferred on her the title
of Countess of Hohenstein in 1835. She did not
long survive her marriage, for she was killed
whilst attending a review of the Austrian troops.
Her horse ran away with her, she was thrown,
and was trampled to death by a squadron of
cavalry. Their son was Count Francis of Hohen-

297

The Land of Teck

stein, born at Vienna, August 27, 1837. He was
educated at Vienna, and entered the Austrian
army ; served as a lieutenant in the Imperial
Gendarmerie Guard and acted as aide-de-camp to
the general in the disastrous battle of Solferino,
June 24, 1859. Both the Emperor and Empress
were warmly attached to Count Hohenstein, and
when the Kaiserin was ill, in 1860, he was deputed
to attend her to Madeira. " He was very popular
with his brother officers and much liked in Viennese
society, where his good looks gained for him the
sobriquet of der schone Uhlan" 1 In December,

1863, Count Hohenstein was created Prince of
Teck, with the rank of Serene Highness.

" The Prince and Princess of Wales made his
acquaintance when they were staying with the
King and Queen of Hanover in the autumn of

1864, and taking a personal liking to the hand-
some young officer, invited him to stay with them
at Sandringham in the following December.
Owing, however, to some misunderstanding, he
arrived in London a week sooner than was ex-
pected, and Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar was
his host till he could be received at Sandringham.
Prince Teck passed several weeks in England
during 1865, and made many friends in London
society. He was at the garden party given at

1 Memoir of H.R.H. Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck,
by C. Kinloch Cooke. London, 1900. The further quotations are
from this book.

298

H.S.H. FRANCIS, DUKE OF TECK.

BORN 1837, DIED IQOO

From a painting by Henry IVeigall, Jr., reproduced by the permission of
H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

H.S.H. PRINCESS CLAUDINE OF TECK,

DAUGHTER OF PRINCE ALEXANDER. BORN 1836

From a paint ing by Sidney Hodges, reproduced by the permission or

H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

Marlborough House, and at the close of the season
went to Goodwood races with the Dowager Lady
Ailesbury's party, going on to Cowes at the in-
vitation of the Prince of Wales. Later in the year
he again visited Sandringham."

It was in 1866 that the Princess Mary of
Cambridge met Prince Francis of Teck, at a
dinner given by the Duchess of Cambridge at
S. James's Palace to the Due and Duchesse
d'Aumale. " The wooing was but a short affair/'
wrote Princess Mary; " Francis only arrived in
England on the 6th March, and we met for the
first time on the 7th at S. James's. One month's
acquaintance settled the question, and on the
6th of April he proposed in Kew Gardens and
was accepted."

The following week the engagement was an-
nounced.

" Her future husband possessed the attributes
that most appealed to Princess Mary. He was
high-principled, domesticated, a thorough soldier
and, above all, a strong Protestant, They had,
besides, many tastes in common ; he was endowed
with much natural talent for music and also for
drawing, and had these gifts been cultivated he
could scarcely have failed to attain success, either
as a musician or as an artist. ' I long to tell you
how happy I am,' Princess Mary writes to a
friend of her early girlhood, * and with that con-
fiding hope I can (D.V.) look forward to a future

299

The Land of Teck

of bright promise, as he is not only all I could
wish, but all mamma's heart could possibly
desire for her child. I know I shall have your
prayers and best wishes on the I2th of June, on
the afternoon of which all-important day we pur-
pose going to Ashridge, which Lord Brownlow
and Lady Marian Alford have lent us for a fort-
night. . . . The Duchess of Cambridge was al-
most as pleased as her daughter with the engage-
ment, and in a letter written shortly before the
marriage, says, ' I am happy to say I feel sure
of dear Mary's future happiness. Prince Teck
seems to be a most excellent young man, good
principled, most religious, perfect manners — in
short, I call Mary a most fortunate creature to
have found such a husband.' '

The marriage took place at Kew in 1866, on
June 12.

" The scene was essentially a rural one, more
like what might have been expected in the olden
time before the days of telegraphs and railways.
The guests, both invited and uninvited, entered
fully into the spirit of the occasion, and universal
kindliness and tender feeling towards Princess
Mary animated all classes. The Queen, who was
accompanied by Prince Arthur, Princess Helena,
and Princess Louise, occupied a chair on the right
of the altar. Facing Her Majesty were the
Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince and Princess
of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Crown

300

H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF TECK

(Princess Mary Adelaide).

From a painting by Winterhalter, reproduced by the permissii
Her Majesty Queen Mary.

On the Pedigree of the Queen

Prince of Denmark, and the Grand Duke and
Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. ... As
soon as the royal guests had taken their seats,
Prince Teck arrived, accompanied by Count
Apponyi, and attended by Count Wimpffen and
Baron Varnbuter. He wore the customary blue
coat, with black velvet collar, and apart from his
position as bridegroom, his handsome face and
gallant bearing made him the cynosure of every
eye.

" By twelve o'clock all signs of rain had dis-
appeared, and the sun shone forth brightly as the
bride's procession entered the ivy-clad porch ; and
Princess Mary, who appeared deeply moved, ad-
vanced to the altar leaning on her brother's arm,
the choir meanwhile singing, ' How welcome
was the call.' She bore herself royally, and her
stately grace left an impression upon the illus-
trious assembly which time has not effaced. . . .
The Duke of Cambridge gave his sister away,
and the ceremony was impressively performed by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the
Bishop of Winchester, the Vicar of Kew, and his
curate. At the conclusion of the service the whole
congregation knelt in silent prayer for the royal
couple, and on rising from his knees Prince Teck,
in good old-fashioned style, kissed his bride, who
was immediately afterwards clasped in her mother's
arms, and affectionately embraced by the Queen.
The organ burst forth with the strains of Bee-

301

The Land of Teck

thoven's symphony, * The Ode to Joy/ which, by
Her Majesty's express desire, was substituted for
Mendelssohn's wedding march, and amidst a
murmur of admiration the handsome pair passed
slowly down the aisle, followed immediately by
the Queen and the Duke of Cambridge. The bride
looked radiantly happy, and smilingly acknow-
ledged the salutations of her more intimate friends.
As she emerged from the porch on the arm of her
husband the girls from the village school, attired
in blue frocks, white tippets, and straw hats to
match, strewed the pathway to Cambridge Cottage
v/ith flowers."

On September 16, 1871, the King of Wiirtem-
berg conferred on the Prince of Teck the title
of Duke of Teck, which had been enjoyed by
the reigning family since 1495, and had been
only provisionally laid aside by King Frederick.
Of the kindness of heart and graceful tact of the
Duke several instances are recorded. " I remem-
ber/' wrote a lady, " being told by a German
concert singer, a plain, dowdy woman, who was
often invited to sing at great houses and not much
noticed by the fine folk, that the Duke of Teck
invariably addressed kind words to her, and tried
to make her feel less forlorn."

One very cold Christmas Eve the Duke noticed
a poor old woman hawking nuts and apples at the
gates of Kensington Palace. She was shivering and
pinched with cold, and seemed not to have met

302

H.R.H. PRINCESS MARY ADELAIDE, DUCHESS OF TECK

From a painting by Henry Weigall, Jr., reproduced by the permission of

H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

with many purchasers. He hastened home with
a pile of Christmas presents he had purchased,
came back, bought up all her store and gave
the poor old creature such liberal payment that
the worn and haggard countenance shone with
smiles. This was kind enough, but the considera-
tion shown to the poor dowdy singer strikes me as
the highest mark of delicate courtesy. " I never
came back from a holiday," said Mme. Bricha, the
governess to the Princess May — I quote from
the same volume — " without finding the Duke
had done something to my room during my
absence ; and when I used to thank him he
would say, ' You know this is your home, and
I want you to feel at home/ " " When Mrs.
Laumann was dying, the Duchess went constantly
to see her old governess. On one occasion she
took a bunch of lovely flowers and placed them
in the invalid's hands. Mrs. Hatchard, thinking
the flowers might perhaps be too heavy for her
sister to hold, was about to remove them, but
Princess Mary intervened, saying, ' Do not take
them away ; Francis picked them on purpose
for her.J "

The Duchess of Teck died on October 27, 1897.
It is not my intention to write anything concern-
ing her, as her life has been so admirably por-
trayed in the Memoirs by Mr. Kinloch Cooke. He
says of her, " All classes felt the magnetic in-
fluence of Princess Mary ; young and old were

303

The Land of Teck

equally attracted by her genial manner and strong
personality, and her stately bearing and queenly
presence commanded the admiration and respect
of the entire nation. She was more widely known
than any other Princess of her time, and no
member of the Royal Family did more to maintain
the dignity of the Throne, while her beautiful
simplicity and sweetness of disposition won the
affection of the English people, and gained for
her a popularity that never waned. Years may
come and go, but the memory of Princess Mary
will live on, a bright and noble example of a life
spent for others, a life of self-denial and self-
sacrifice, a life of ceaseless well-doing, in which
the guiding principle was charity, not alone the
charity represented by the giving of alms, but
charity in its higher sense of love and goodwill
towards all mankind. She strove to do good
unto all men, and surely a princess has never lived
to more Royal purpose, in the truest sense of the
word, than Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck."

Francis, Duke of Teck, died on January 21, 1900;
he left issue, Princess Victoria Mary, born May 27,
1862, married in London July 6, 1893, to George
Duke of York, and now their Gracious Majesties
King and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

Also, Prince Adolphus, born August 13, 1868,
the present Duke, who served in the South
African War, 1899-1900, married December 12,
1894, Lady Margaret Evelyn Grosvenor, fourth

304

Photo. IV. &• D. Downey

H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF TF.CK AND PRINCE ALEXANDER

On the Pedigree of the Queen

daughter of Hugh Lupus, first Duke of West-
minster, and has a son, Prince George Francis
Hugh, and two daughters, Princess Victoria Con-
stance Mary and Princess Helena Frances Augusta.

The second son of Francis, Duke of Teck, was
Prince Francis, who served in the Soudan
expedition of 1898, and in the South African War,
born January 9, 1870. He died deeply regretted
on October 22, 1910, after a life spent in active
beneficence.

The third son is Prince Alexander, who served
in the Matabele campaign, 1896-7, and in the
South African War ; born April 14, 1874, married
February 10, 1904, to Princess Alice of Albany.

To return now to Duke Frederick Eugene, the
ancestor of the reigning family in Wiirtemberg,
and of the Dukes of Teck. I have mentioned his
eldest son, Frederick, who became King of Wiir-
temberg in 1805, and Ludwig, grandfather of
Francis, first Duke of Teck. The other sons of
Duke Frederick Eugene were Eugene, born in 1758,
a general in the Prussian army, and after 1794
Governor of Glogau. He commanded the reserve
in the war against France in 1806, and was
defeated by Bernadotte, near Halle, after the
battle of Jena. He inherited estates in Silesia ;
and married the widow of Duke Augustus of
Meiningen, Louise von Stolberg, by whom he had
two sons, Eugene and Paul.

The fourth prince was William, born in 1761, a

x 305

The Land of Teck

Danish general and Governor of Copenhagen in
1806, then Field-Marshal and Minister of War in
Wiirtemberg. He died in 1830, after having been
married for thirty years to the Burgravine von
Tunderfeldt. From this marriage descend the
Counts of Wiirtemberg, among whom Count
Alexander took a high position as a poet. He
was married to an Hungarian, the Countess Helena
Festetics-Tolna ; and died in 1844.

The fifth prince, Ferdinand, born in 1763, was
an Austrian field-marshal and Governor first of
Antwerp, then of Vienna, and finally of Mainz.
He was a remarkably handsome man. In 1795
he married a Princess of Schwarzburg-Sonders-
hausen, but a divorce ensued in 1801. He then
married an old flame of twenty years back, a
sister of Prince Metternich, Cunegund Pauline, a
lady as distinguished for her amiable qualities as she
was for her beauty. He died in 1834 a* Wiesbaden.
The sixth prince, Alexander, born in 1771,
entered the Neapolitan service, then passed to
that of Austria, and finally to that of Russia. In
1801 he was appointed Governor-General of
Livonia, Esthonia, and Courland, then of White
Russia. He died in 1833 on a journey to Gotha to
attend the marriage of his daughter to the Duke
Ernest of Coburg. His wife was also a Coburg
Princess. His son Alexander, born in 1804, married,
in 1837, Marie, daughter of King Louis Philippe,
the distinguished artist, who sculptured the well-

306

H.S.H. THE DUKE OF TECK
From a painting by Lazlo, reproduced by the permission of H.S.H. the Duke of Teck

On the Pedigree of the Queen

known statue of Joan of Arc. She died in 1839.
The seventh prince was Henry, born in 1772 ;
he abandoned his title of Prince and called himself
Count of Sartheim. He married a daughter of a
Silesian landed gentleman, who was created later
Countess of Rothenburg. His two daughters were
called Countesses of Urach.

The only daughter of Frederick Eugene who
survived him was Dorothea, of whom an account
has been already given. She was called Maria in
Russia; at the age of seventeen, in 1776, she was
married to the Grand Duke, afterwards Czar Paul
of Russia, and by him was the mother of the Em-
peror Alexander. She is described by the Baroness
Oberkirch as " beautiful as Aurora, of majestic
stature, such as sculptors would love to copy, and
with delicate and regular features enlightened by
noble and imposing grace. She was a veritably
royal beauty." Moreover, she had been exceed-
ingly well educated and was a woman of rare in-
telligence. She lost her husband in 1801, and
survived her son, dying in 1828. Four children
died before their father, Frederick Eugene ; of
these, Elizabeth married the Archduke, later
Kaiser Francis I, and another, Frederica, married
the Duke of Oldenburg.

307

PEDIGREE OF OUR GRACIOUS QUEEN

Ulrich I:~ Agnes, Duchess of Leignitz.
Wi' the Thumb, '
Count of W.

Ulrich II, Eberhard I==Irmgard, da. of the Margrave of

Count of W. the Illustrious, Baden.
11279. Count of W.

Ulrich III,==Sophia, da. of the Count of Pfirt.
Count of W.
ti344-

Eberhard II
the Quarrelsome,
Count of W.

Elizabeth, da. of the Count of
Henneberg.

Ulrich I V,y Elizabeth, da. of the Emperor
Co. of W. Ludwig the Bavarian.
ti388.

Eberhard III=Antonia, da. of Barnabo Visconti of

the Mild,
Count of W.

Milan

Eberhard IV, = Henriette, da. and heiress of
Count of W. Count of Montbeliard.

the

Count Ludwig, =
Count of W.

= Mechtild, da. of
the Palatine of
the Rhine.

= Barbara,
da. of the
Margrave
of Man-
tua.

Count Ulrich V—Elizab., da.
the Well-beloved. of Duke of
ti488. Bavaria.

Eberhard I (V);
Wi' the Beard,
Duke of W.,

I495-
ti496.

Eberhard II, Henry, —Eva, da.
Duke from Co. of of Co.
1496 to 1498, Mont- of Salm.
when deposed. b^liard.

Ulrich,

George. =? Barbara, da. of the

Landgrave Philip

Duke of W.,

fi588. of Hesse.

1498.
11550.

Sabina, da. of
the Duke of

Frederick^
Duke of W.

= Sibylla, da. of Joachim Ernest, Prince
of Anhalt.

Bavaria.

ti6o8.

Christopher

Duke of W.
ti568.

John Frederick, -
Duke of W.

i
= Barbara Sophia, da. of Ludwig Frederick of
Elector of Branden- Montbeliard.

Anna Maria,

ti628.

burg.

ti63i.

J r fVna

Ud. OI LiiC

Margrave of

Brandenburg
Anspach.

Eberhardlll,-
Duke of W.

= Anna Dorothea, da.
of Salm.

oftheRhinegrave

Ludwig,

Duke of W.

ti 591.

' J x J*

Frederick Charles, =
Duke of W.

= Eleanor Juliana,
da. of the Mar-

William Ludwig, ti6;7.
==Magdalena Sibylla,

ti698.

grave of Anspach.

da. of the Landgrave
of Hesse Cassel.

Charles Alexander, =
Duke of W.
1-I737-

= Mary Augusta, da.
of Prince of Thurn
and Taxis.

Eberhard Ludwig,
of W., 1693.
ti733-

Duke
Duke

Ludwig
Eugene,
Duke of W.
ti795.

Frederick Eugene, =
Duke of W. and
of Montbeliard, in
1795-
ti797.

= Frederica Dorothea,
da. of the Mar-
grave of Branden-
burg- Schwedt.

Charles Eugene,
of W., 1737.
1-1793-

Frederick I, =5= A
K. ofWiirtem- c

ugusta, da.
>f the Duke

Ludwig.
ti8i7.

=pHenriette, da. of
Prince Charles of

berg, 1804. c

>f Bruns-

Nassau- Weilburg.

ti8i6. >

vick.

William I, I

>aul.

Alexander. =

Claudine, Countess of

K. ofW. t
ti864.

[852.

ti88s.

Rh£dey and Countess
of Hohenstein.

1-1841.

Charles I, Fre

derick.

Francis,-

Princess Mary of

King of W. 11870.

1st Duke

Cambridge.

of Teck.

ti897.

William II, P. Adolphus,
K. of W. 2nd Duke

Princess Mary. = George, Duke of
6. 1867. ' York.

1 of Teck.

m. 1893 K. Great Britain

b. 1868.

and Ireland,

1910.

Francis.

b. 1870. 11910.

P. Alexander.

1874.

APPENDIX

THE WHITE LADY OF HOHENZOLLERN

SO as not to be tedious, and to occupy too
much space, I have not given in full all
the reputed appearances of the White
Lady. The following account may in-
terest. I take it from a rare book, Nacht-
bilder (Mergentheim, 1840). It will be seen by
it that Queen Sophia Charlotte, second wife of
King Frederick I of Prussia, had got hold of the
story of the Countess of Orlamiinde in a totally
incorrect form.

" I may have been a child of thirteen or four-
teen. My sister Christine was one year older ;
sister Lottie was the eldest, and was already grown
up. Frl. von H. [probably Heidekampf], one of
the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, was much attached
to my eldest sister, and took her into the palace
(at Berlin) as her companion. We other two often
enough visited Lottie there, and once, when our
mother was away on a journey for a week, we
quartered us with the Fraulein. That was a joy
to me especially, for, since the day that King
Frederick had patted me on the cheek and said
to me, ' Get along with you, you impudent thing/

3*3

The Land of Teck

I had become very fond of the palace. The occa-
sion of this saying by the King was as follows.
It was a matter of general talk that no one could
bear the sharp, piercing glance of his eyes without
wincing, and we children had often heard this.
In my childish audacity I ventured to test the
truth of this saying ; and one day, when I was
in the palace visiting Lottie, I planted myself in
the midst of the hall through which the King was
wont to pass on his way to parade, and I fixed
my eyes on the door of his apartment, out of
which he was expected to issue. And, in fact,
the monarch did come forth, and, naturally
enough, his glance rested on me, who stood in the
middle of the hall and looked boldly at him. He
looked at me with his peculiar, indescribable eyes
that seemed to pierce to the very depths of the
soul, looking straight into my eyes. I felt as if I
must lower them, but I plucked up my courage,
thinking, 'After all, he can't hurt me/ and returned
his glance. We may have thus looked each other
in the eyes for some seconds, when the King
stepped up to me, patted me, and said the words
above quoted. Since then I have held my nose
higher than before.

" Sister Christine and I had been nearly a week
in the palace, and lived and played like prin-
cesses. We fed from the palace kitchen, took
drives in the royal carriages, as we liked. One
afternoon we were with Fraulein von H, and her

Appendix

eldest sister, and we alone. We sat down to work,
and chattered about the last court ball, at which
we had been permitted to look on, about the fine
weather, and were grumbling that we could not
go out and enjoy it. Suddenly we were aroused
by the sound of the vibration of strings, like those
of a harp. I ran to the window, fancying that
some one must be playing in the palace court;
but almost immediately it occurred to me that if
such had been the case we could hardly have
heard it, where we were in the third storey. We
all listened, and it seemed to us that the harmoni-
ous sounds issued from under the great stove
which stood in a corner of the room. I said to
myself, ' Now then, you were not afraid to en-
counter the eyes of the great Frederick, and you
are not going to allow yourself to be scared by
the tones of an invisible musician/ I took my
measuring-yard and beat about under the stove-
The music ceased, but all at once the rod was
whisked out of my hand. I was frightened.
Christine laughed, and said the music must pro-
ceed from the street, and that my rod and my
courage together had gone down a mouse-hole.
I ran forth to conceal my feelings, under the
pretence that I was going to a shop to buy some
riband.

" When I returned, half an hour later, the
aspect of affairs had changed. My sister Christine
lay unconscious, Frl. von H. and sister Lottie had

315

The Land of Teck

returned from a visit, and were engaged, along
with her chambermaid, in trying to bring the in-
sensible girl round. The chambermaid had been
in the third room from ours, when she had heard
a piercing cry, and hurrying in, had found sister
Christine in this condition. Shortly after Frl.
von H. and Lottie had arrived.

" Only after much trouble was my sister
brought to herself again, and she then told us
that scarcely had I left before the same mysterious
notes had become again audible, and this time
had issued unmistakably from the corner in
which stood the big stove. The sound swelled
in volume, and filled the whole room with its
sweet, strange vibrations. Then she became
frightened, when all at once a white figure ap-
peared, taking shape, how she could not explain,
in that part of the room ; it had advanced to-
ward her, when she had fainted, and only now
recovered her senses.

" Frl. von H. was very superstitious and was
also avaricious. She poked about round the
stove, fancying that she would find some indica-
tions that a treasure was hidden there. Singularly
enough, she discovered, what we had never before
observed, that the flooring was here laid in a
different manner from the rest of the parquet,
and probably enough this had been done for some
particular purpose.

" Now Frl. von H. was quite convinced that she
316

Appendix

was on the eve of discovering the secret chamber
of Plutus, and she bound us all over to secrecy,
and sent out her chambermaid to fetch a car-
penter with his tools. He arrived, was also
bound to silence, and a rich reward was promised
him. So he went to work, and the aforesaid bit
of flooring was soon broken up, and lo ! there was
a second floor under it, much more solid in con-
struction. The curiosity of Frl. von H. grew.
She herself put a hand to the work, and this
obstruction was also removed, and then there
was disclosed before us a deep pit, out of which
issued an unpleasant smell of decay. Frl. von H.
sent the chambermaid for some lights, and these
were let down, and showed a sort of well with
iron stanchions set in the angles, on which lay
quicklime. The well went down deeper than we
could see — there was nothing more. We let down
a weight by a string, and it seemed to us that the
hole reached the entire depth of the palace from
the third storey. Frl. von H. now thought it
advisable to inform the Queen of the discovery.
Her Majesty did not appear in the least sur-
prised, and gave the following explanation : The
apparition was that of the restless spirit of a
Countess of Orlamiinde, who had been walled up
alive in this oubliette. She had been the mistress
of a Margrave of Brandenburg, and had borne to
him two children. When the Margrave became
a widower she wanted him to marry her, but he

317

The Land of Teck

refused under the plea that these children might
put in their claims to the land and give trouble
to his legitimate issue. Then the cruel mother
resolved to remove this impediment, and she
poisoned her children. The crime was discovered,
and the Margrave, whose love had been converted
into bitter hate, ordered the construction of this
vault or well in the palace and the Countess to be
secretly entombed in it, so as to conceal the
scandal. The spirit of the Countess has no repose
in this grave, and every seven years reappears,
and her reappearance is usually preceded by
strange sounds as of a harp, for the Countess had
been a skilled harpist. It had been remarked that
it was mostly children who saw the apparition.
Such is the story of the White Lady.

" On that very same evening a royal master-
builder was sent to examine the apartments of
Frl. von H., and he pronounced them in a bad
condition. She was accordingly removed to
another set of rooms in the second storey, and
these we occupied on the following day. My
sister got it into her head that the apparition
foreboded her own death, and, in fact, she died
not long after."

It will be seen that the Queen, who was daughter
of Ernest Augustus of Hanover, and died in 1705,
had related the story wrong in most particulars.
Albert of Hohenzollern was not Margrave of
Brandenburg, but Burgrave of Nuremberg. He

318

Appendix

was not married when Cunegund of Orlamiinde
fell in love with him. The children she is reputed
to have murdered were not his. She was not
immured at Berlin, but died a natural death as
Abbess of Himmelsthron ; and the palace at
Berlin was not built till some centuries after their
time. The Queen had picked up some few scraps
of the story and confused them with some others
she had heard.

319

INDEX

Abelard, 198

Achalm, 205, 211-13, 223-4

Adolphus, Duke of Teck, 304,

309

JEsopus Epulans, 252-4

Agnes, Duchess of Swabia, 81,
103, 104, 136

Aichelberg, 90-1

Alb, climate, 8 ; flora, 10, 63,
7 1 , 200 ; geological struc-
ture, 2-3, 98-9

Albuch, 3

Alchemists, 36-8

Alexander, Prince of Teck, 305,

309
Alexander, Prince of Wurtem-

berg (fiSSs), 297, 309
Architects, incompetent, 225,

255

Architecture, German, 24-5,
205

Arler family, 134

Augusta, Princess of Bruns-
wick, 282-3

Baireuth, 252-3, 255
Baldeck, 202
Baldung family, 134
Banner, Imperial, 234
Barbarossa. See Frederick III
and I

Beiswang, 115

Berlin, 250-2, 253, 286, 313-14

Berthold I, Duke of Zahringen

and Teck, 18, 79-82
Berthold II, 18 ; III, 18
Berthold IV, Duke of Teck, 43
Berthold, Bishop of Strasburg,

Biel, Gabriel, 195
Bluepot, 7-8
Boll, 92, 227
Brenz, Reformer, 201-2
Broken Twig style, 24-5
Bund, the Swabian, 42, 47, 204,

268

Bundschuh, 215
Burkhardt I, Duke of Swabia,

Carloman, 13

Castles, ineffective in appear-
ance, 84 ; origin of, 261-2

Caves, 55, 56-7, 72, 75, 77, 179,
20 1, 202

Charlemagne, 13, 233

Charles Alexander, Duke of
Wurtemberg (fi737), 23,
186-7, 279-81, 285, 309

Charles Eugene, Duke of Wur-
temberg (ti793), 32-4. 281-
4, 285, 288-9, 309

323

Index

Charles of Anjou, King of

Naples, 112
Christopher, Duke of Wurtem-

berg (fi568), 22, 269-72,

309
Claudine, Countess of Rhedey,

38, 297, 309
Cones, formation of, 9
Conrad I, Duke of Franconia,

King, 59-62, 105-7
Conrad, Duke of Teck, 19, 26
Conrad IV, King, 264
Conrad, the Poor, 215
Conradin, 112-14, n6, 264
Conradsfels, 71
Constantia, heiress of Sicily,

108, 133
Crests, horned, 177

Death tokens, 130, 238-9, 243-

55, 3I3-I9

Degenfeld family, 170-3
Destruction of castles and

churches, 23, 75, 79, 86, 96,

198

Diepoldsburg, 57, 59-60
Dogs, trusty, 173
Dorothea, Princess and Czarina,

287, 289, 291-2, 307

Eberhard I, the Illustrious,
Count of Wurtemberg (f
1325), 44-5, 265, 308

Eberhard II, the Quarrelsome
(fi392), 2, 65, 308

Eberhard III, the Mild (f
1417). 97, 275-7, 308

Eberhard IV (11419), 240,
265, 308

Eberhard Wi' the Beard, Duke
of Wurtemberg (fi496), 28,
30-1, 1 88, 190-4, 197, 306

Eberhard III, Duke of Wur-
temberg (f 1698), 275-7, 309

Eberhard Ludwig (fi733),
277-8, 309

Enzlin, Matthias, 171, 185

Exchanger, 58-62

Evangelical Church, 26, 164,
203

Eybach, 170, 174

Feudal tenures, 118
Fiddler of Gmiind, 139-41
Fils Thai, 153, 177
Footprints of the Saviour, 150-

2
Francis, Prince, afterwards

Duke of Teck (fi9oo), 298-

304, 309

Francis, Prince of Teck (f
1910), 305, 309

Franconian duchy, 32-4

Frederick I, Duke of Swabia,
104-5

Frederick II, Duke of Swabia,
105

Frederick III and I, King and
Emperor (Barbarossa), 43,
107-8, 116, 216

Frederick II, King and Em-
peror, iii-i2, 133, 210, 263

Frederick, Duke of Wurtem-
berg (fi6o8), 36-8, 273-5

Frederick I, King of Wurtem-
berg (fi8i6), 292, 309

Frederick Eugene, Duke of
Wurtemberg (fi797), 284-
5, 291, 293-5, 305. 309

324

Index

Frischlin, Nicodemus, 198-200
Fiirsterberg, Kuno of, 188-190

Ganslosen, 175

Geislingen, 154-69

Gerold, Count of Swabia, 233-4

Ghibellines, 255, 259, 261

Gmiind, 68, 115, 117, i33~49

Goppingen, 55-8

Goldloch, 72-3

Grafeneck, 23

Gravenitz, Countess, 278

Gregory VII, 14

Gregory IX, 1 1 2

Guelfs, 255-9

Gutenberg, 71-6

Guterstein, 190

Heidengraben, 76

Heimenstein, 87

Helfenstein, Counts of, 154-60,

174. 179
Henriette, heiress of Mont-

beliard, 196, 240-1
Henriette, Duchess of Wurtem-

berg (ti857), 3»-9
Henry IV, King, 19
Henry V, King, 14, 104-5
Henry VI, King, 108-9, *33
Henry VII, King, 45
Henry, Count of Montbeliard

ChS^)' 27> l88» J96-8,

266, 308
Henry Raspe, Margrave of

Thuringia, 210, 263
Hepsisau, 86
Heubach, 149

Hildegard, Queen, 13, 235-6
Hiltenburg, 157, 174, 179

Hohen Neuffen, 180-5

Hohenstaufen, Castle, 98, 115-
17 ; House of, 14-15, 102-
14, 258; arms of, 21, 116,
124 ; tombs of, 124-5

Hohen Urach, 187, 190-200

Hohen Wittlingen, 201

Hohenzollern Castle, 229-32 ;
House of, 229-30, 232-43 ;
White Lady of (see under
that heading)

Indulgences, 148
Innocent II, 105
Innocent III, 1 1 1
Innocent IV, 210, 263
Irene, Queen, no, 116

John XXII, 44

Joseph II, 293

Jura limestone, 2, 84, 174

Kirchheim, 12, 16-40
Krebstein, 75
Kummerniss, S., 140

Lias, 2-3, 91-3

Liberada, S., 140

Lichtenstein, 224-5

Limburg, 79, 82

Limes transrhenanus, n, 127

Livery of Wiirtemberg and

Teck, 291

Lorch, 105, no, 120-7
j Lothair of Saxony, King and

Emperor, 105-6
Ludwig I, Duke of Teck

(•j-1282), 43-4

Ludwig II, Duke of Teck, 44
Ludwig, Duke of Wiirtemberg

(ti593). 272-3
325

Index

Ludwig, Prince (fi8i7), 294-7

309

Ludwig Eugene, Duke of Wiir-
temberg (fi795). 284-5,
286, 309

Mantling of helmets, 177
Mary, Princess of Cambridge,
and Duchess of Teck, 299-

304
Mary, Princess of Teck, and

Queen of Great Britain and

Ireland, 191-2, 309
May, the Sprig of, 191-2
Meinrad, S., 232-3
Montbeliard, 196, 240, 265,

270, 273, 275, 285, 286-92 ;

arms of, 265, 289
Miinsingen, 203, 266

Napoleon I, 144-5
Neidlingen, 86
Neuffen, 180, 185

Ober Lenningen, 70-1

Oolite, 2, 93

Orlamiinde, Countess of, 244-8

Otto IV, King, 1 1 1

Owen, 21, 41, 47-8

Palm Esel, 149

Peasants' War, 53, 117-19, 152,

157-60, 215
Philip, Duke of Swabia, and

King, no, 116
Place names, 12, 50, 82, 154,

176, 224

Randecker Maar, 84
Rauber, The, 66-7

Rauchbein, 142
Rauhe Alb, 3-4
Rechberg, 3, 54, 94, 127-30;

family of, 129-30, 174 ; arms

of, 128

Red-tapeism, 64
Reformation, the, 160-3, 195-

6, 214-15, 268-9
" Restoration," 136, 149-50
Reussenstein, 87-90
Reutlingen, 205-23, 273
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 264
Rock chapels, 150-1
Rosenberg, Countess of, 253-4
Rosswags, 66-70

Sabina, Duchess of Wurtem-

berg, 219, 267, 269, 271
Sauerbrunnen, 96
Schlatstall, 71-2
Schubart, 168-70
Seeburg, 201-3
Sheep-stealer, 183-4
Sibyllenloch, 55
Smalkald Union, 145-6
Solomon, Bishop of Constance,

57-9

Spy of Aalen, 143-5
Stained glass, 138-9, 218
Steinerne Weib, 178
Stetten, 238
Stuttgart, 266, 272
Suess Oppenheim, 185-7, 281
Sulzburg, 67-8, 70
Swabia, Dukes of, 12-14, 17,

62-3, 102, 104, no
Syrlin, George, 122-3

Tannhauser, 226

326

Index

Teck, Castle, 50-4 ; Dukes of, '

17, 21-2, 50-4, 82, 302-7 ;

arms of, 21, 30-4 ; tombs of,

21-2,31,41,48, 52
Theological disputes, 163, 276
Thirty Years' War, 34-5, 55,

74, 87, 146, 1 88, 275-7

Ulrich I, Wi' the Thumb, Count

of Wiirtemberg (fi265),

261-4, 308
Ulrich V, The Well-beloved

(fi488), 26, 188-9, 196, 266,

300
Ulrich, Duke of Wiirtemberg

(ti55o), 47, 53. 174-5,
181-2, 195, 196, 212-15, 225,

267-71, 309
Urach, 180, 187-96
Urochs, 176
Ursulaberg, 225-6
Ursula, S., 226-8

Volcanic action, 9, 10, 84-5
Vrena Beutlinloch, 56-7

Wahrzeichen, 137, 140, 143,
184, 218, 222-3

Wallenstein, 275
Wascherbeuren, 99
Wascherschlosschen, 99-102
Weilheim, 79-80
Weingarten- Altdorf , 255
Weinsberg, women of, 106-7
Weissenstein, 174
Wenthal, 152
White Lady of Hohenzollern,

178, 238, 242-55, 313-19
Widerhold, Conrad von, 34-6,

Wiesensteig, 175-9
Witches, 32, 90
Woller, Jacob, 135
Wollwarth tombs, 125-6, 152
Woodwork, 100, 102-3, 146
Woolmarket, 39-40
Wiirtemberg, Counts of, 21 ;

new creation, 306 ; Castle of,

261 ; arms of, 21, 234, 265 ;

rise of House of, 21, 260-98 ;

created a duchy, 193

Zahringen, House of, 17-21,

8 1-4
Zell, 91

327

THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE

T has long been a reproach to
England that only one volume
by ANATOLE FRANCE
has been adequately rendered
into English ; yet outside this
countryhe shares with
TOLSTOI the distinction
of being the greatest and most daring
student of humanity living.

U There have been many difficulties to
encounter in completing arrangements for a
uniform edition, though perhaps the chief bar-
rier to publication here has been the fact that
his writings are not for babes — but for men
and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his
Eastern romances are written with biblical can-
dour. " I have sought truth strenuously," he
tells us, " I have met her boldly. I have never
turned from her even when she wore an

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

unexpected aspect." Still, it is believed that the day has
come for giving English versions of all his imaginative
works, as well as of his monumental study JOAN OF
ARC, which is undoubtedly the most discussed book in the
world of letters to-day.

V MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that
the following volumes are either already published or are
passing through the press.

THE RED LILY

MOTHER OF PEARL

THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS

THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD

BALTHASAR

THE WELL OF ST. CLARE

THAIS

THE WHITE STONE

PENGUIN ISLAND

THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE

BROCHE

JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT
THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL
THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN
AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PEDAUQUE
THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGN ARD
MY FRIEND'S BOOK
THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN
LIFE AND LETTERS (4 vok)
JOAN OF ARC (2 vols.)

f All the books will be published at 6/- each with the
exception of JOAN OF ARC, which will be 25/- net
the two volumes, with eight Illustrations.

f The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired.
The size is Demy 8vo (9 x 5|), and they are printed from
Caslon type upon a paper light in weight and strong of
texture, with a cover design in crimson and gold, a gilt top,
end-papers from designs by Aubrey Beardsley and initials by
Henry Ospovat. In short, these are volumes for the biblio-
phile as well as the lover of fiction, and form perhaps the
cheapest library edition of copyright novels ever published,
for the price is only that of an ordinary novel.

f The translation of these books has been entrusted to
such competent French scholars as MR. ALFRED ALLINSON,

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS,
MR. A. W. EVANS, MKS. FARLEY, MR. LAFCADIO HEARN,
MRS. W. S. JACKSON, MRS. JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH,
MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS
M. P. WILLCOCKS.

U As Anatole Thibault, dit Anatole France, is to most
English readers merely a name, it will be well to state that
he was born in 1844 in the picturesque and inspiring
surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai Voltaire,
Paris, kept by his father, Monsieur Thibault, an authority on
eighteenth-century history, from whom the boy caught the
passion for the principles of the Revolution, while from his
mother he was learning to love the ascetic ideals chronicled
in the Lives of the Saints. He was schooled with the lovers
of old books, missals and manuscript ; he matriculated on the
Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and objets d'art;
he graduated in the great university of life and experience.
It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his
youthful impressions ; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large.

11 He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His
first novel was JOCASTA & THE FAMISHED CAT
(1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD
appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned
by the French Academy, into which he was received in 1896.

U His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and
psychology ; but its outstanding features are the lambent wit,
the gay mockery, the genial irony with which he touches every
subject he treats. But the wit is never malicious, the mockery
never derisive, the irony never barbed. To quote from his own
GARDEN OF EPICURUS : " Irony and Pity are both of
good counsel ; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable,
the other sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I
invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor
beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed. Her mirth
disarms anger and it is she teaches us to laugh at rogues and
fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate.**

H Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs over
mere asceticism, and with entire reverence ; indeed, he
might be described as an ascetic overflowing with humanity,
just as he has been termed a " pagan, but a pagan
constantly haunted by the pre-occupation of Christ."
He is in turn — like his own Choulette in THE RED
LILY — saintly and Rabelaisian, yet without incongruity.

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

At all times he is the unrelenting foe of superstition and
hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said : " You will
find in my writings perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent
I do not possess), much indulgence, and some natural
affection for the beautiful and good."

IT The mere extent of an author's popularity is perhaps a
poor argument, yet it is significant that two books by this
author are in their HUNDRED AND TENTH THOU-
SAND, and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH
THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently
described as " Monsieur France's most arid book " is in its
FIFTY-EIGHT-THOUSAND.

II Inasmuch as M. FRANCE'S ONLY contribution to
an English periodical appeared in THE YELLOW BOOK,
vol. v., April 1895, together with the first important English
appreciation of his work from the pen of the Hon. Maurice
Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English edition
of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head.

ORDER FORM.

_ 190

To Mr _ : :

Bookseller.

Please send me the following works of Anatolc France:
THAIS PENGUIN ISLAND

BALTHASAR THE WHITE STONE

THE RED LILY MOTHER OF PEARL

THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS
THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD
THE WELL OF ST. CLARE
THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE-

BROCHE

THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL
THE WICKER— WORK WOMAN
JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT
JOAN OF ARC (2 VOLS.)

for which I enclose

Name

Address , _ _ :

JOHN LANE, PUBLISHER, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO ST., LONDON,W.

"Those who possess old letters, documents, corre-
spondence, <£MSS., scraps of autobiography, and also
miniatures and portraits, relating to persons and
matters historical, literary, political and social, should
communicate with <*Mr. John Lane, The Eodley
Head, Vigo Street, London, W., who will at all
times be pleased to give his advice and assistance,
either as to their preservation or publication.

A CATALOGUE OF

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WO^KS UPON ^APOLEON

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%* Ralph Heathcote, the son of an English father and an Alsatian mother, -was for
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A CATALOGUE OF

MEMOIRS OF THE COUNT DE CARTRIE.

A record of the extraordinary events in the life of a French
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THE JOURNAL OF JOHN MAYNE DURING
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Edited by his Grandson, JOHN MAYNE COLLES. With 16
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WOMEN OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

Chronicles of the Court of Napoleon III. By FREDERIC LOLIEE.
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LOUIS NAPOLEON AND THE GENESIS OF

THE SECOND EMPIRE. By F. H. CHEETHAM. With
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MEMOIRS OF MADEMOISELLE DES

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CLOTHILDE BALFOUR. With an Introduction by G. K. FORTESCUE,
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Liverpool Mercury.—". . . this absorbing book. . . . The work has a very decided
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the Life and Adventures of Sir Francis Austen, G.C.B., Admiral of
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which cost us — Nelson."

MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC. 5
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By TEODOR DE WYZEWA. Translated from the French by C. H.
JEAFFRESON, M.A. With Numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo
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THE TRUE STORY OF MY LIFE: an Auto-

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MINIATURES : A Series of Reproductions in

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sentation, Review, and the Museums. Each will be Numbered
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COKE OF NORFOLK AND HIS FRIENDS:

The Life of Thomas William Coke, First Earl of Leicester of
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A CATALOGUE OF

THE LIFE OF SIR HALLIDAY MACART-
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*** This Edition has been printed direct from tJte original manuscript in the possession
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MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC. 7
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SIR MARTIN CONWAY'S NOTE.

Nearly half a century has passed since Mr. W. H. James Weale, then resident at
Bruges, began that long series of patient investigations into the history of Netherlandish
art which was destined to earn so rich a harvest. When he began -work Memlinc -was
still called Hem ling, and was fabled to have arrived at Bruges as a -wounded soldier.
The van Eycks -were little more than legendary heroes. Roger Van der Weyden was little
more than a name. Most of the other great Netherlandish artists were either wholly
forgotten or named only in connection "with paintings with which they had nothing to do.
Mr. Weale discovered Gerard David, and disentangled his principal works from Mem*
line's, with which they were then confused.

VINCENZO FOPPA OF BRESCIA, FOUNDER OF

THE LOMBARD SCHOOL, His LIFE AND WORK. By CONSTANCE
JOCELYN FFOULKES and MONSIGNOR RODOLFO MAJOCCHI, D.D.,
Rector of the Collegio Borromeo, Pavia. Based on research in the
Archives of Milan, Pavia, Brescia, and Genoa, and on the study
of all his known works. With over 100 Illustrations, many in
Photogravure, and 100 Documents. Royal 410. ^3 iu. 6d. net.

*#* No complete Life of Vincenzo Foppa has ever been written : an omission "which
seems almost inexplicable in these days of over-production in the matter of bio-
graphies of painters, and of subjects relating to the art of Italy. The object of the
authors of this book has been to present a. true picture of the master s life based
upon the testimony of records in Italian archives. The authors have unearthed a large
amount of new material relating to Foppa, one of the most interesting facts brought to
light being that he lived for twenty-three years longer than was formerly supposed. The
illustrations •will include several pictures by Foppa hitherto unknown in the history of art.

MEMOIRS OF THE DUKES OF URBINO.

Illustrating the Arms, Art and Literature of Italy from 1440 to
1630. By JAMES DENNISTOUN of Dennistoun. A New Edition
edited by EDWARD HUTTON, with upwards of 100 Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. 3 vols. 42*. net.

*»* For many years this great book has been out «j print, altJiough it still remains the
chief authority upon the Duchy of Urbino from the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Mr. Hutton has carefully edited the whole work, leaving the text substantially the same,
but adding a large number of new notes, comments and references. Wherever possible
the reader is directed to original sources. hvery sort of work has been laid under
contribution to illustrate the text, and bibliographies have been supplied on many subjects.
Stsides these notes the took acquires a new value on account of the mass of illustrations
which it now contains, thus adding a pictorial comment to an historical and critical one.

MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC. 9
SIMON BOLIVAR, "EL LIBERTADOR." A

Life of the Chief Leader in the Revolt against Spain in Venezuela,
New Granada and Peru. By F. LORAINE PETRE. Author of
" Napoleon and the Conquest of Prussia," " Napoleon's Campaign
in Poland," and " Napoleon and the Archduke Charles." With
2 Portraits, one in Photogravure, and Maps. Demy 8vo (9 x 5 J
inches). 125-. 6d. net.

THE DIARY OF A LADY-IN-WAITING. By

LADY CHARLOTTE BURY. Being the Diary Illustrative of the
Times of George the Fourth. Interspersed with original Letters
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persons. New edition. Edited, with an Introduction, by A.
FRANCIS STEUART. With numerous portraits. Two Vols.
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THE LAST JOURNALS OF HORACE WAL-

POLE. During the Reign of George III from 1771 to 1783.
With Notes by DR. DORAN. Edited, with an Introduction, by
A. FRANCIS STEUART, and containing numerous Portraits (2 in
Photogravure) reproduced from contemporary Pictures, Engravings,
etc. 2 vols. Uniform with " The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting."
Demy Svo (9 x 5|- inches). 25^. net.

JUNIPER HALL: Rendezvous of certain illus-

trious Personages during the French Revolution, including Alex-
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With numerous Illustrations by ELLEN G. HILL, and reproductions
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JANE AUSTEN : Her Homes and Her Friends.

By CONSTANCE HILL. Numerous Illustrations by ELLEN G. HILL,
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THE HOUSE IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET.

Being Chronicles of the Burney Family. By CONSTANCE HILL,
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Hall," etc. With numerous Illustrations by ELLEN G. HILL, and
reproductions of Contemporary Portraits, etc. Demy Svo. 2 is. net.

STORY OF THE PRINCESS DES URSINS IN

SPAIN (Camarera-Mayor). By CONSTANCE HILL. With 12
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io A CATALOGUE OF

MARIA EDGEWORTH AND HER CIRCLE
IN THE DAYS OF BONAPARTE AND BOURBON.

By CONSTANCE HILL. Author of "Jane Austen : Her Homes
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NEW LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE.

Edited and Annotated by ALEXANDER CARLYLE, with Notes and
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Pall Mall Gazette. — " To the portrait of the man, Thomas, these letters do really add

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Daily Telegraph. — " The letters are characteristic enough of the Carlyle we know : very

picturesque and entertaining, full of extravagant emphasis, written, as a rule, at fever

heat, eloquently rabid and emotional.'

NEW LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE

WELSH CARLYLE. A Collection of hitherto Unpublished
Letters. Annotated by THOMAS CARLYLE^ and Edited by
ALEXANDER CARLYLE, with an Introduction by Sir JAMES CRICHTON
BROWNE, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., numerous Illustrations drawn in Litho-
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Westminster Gazette. — " Few letters in the language have in such perfection the qualities
which good letters should possess. Frank, gay, brilliant, indiscreet, immensely clever,
whimsical, and audacious, they reveal a character which, with whatever alloy of human
infirmity, must endear itself to any reader of understanding."

World. — " Throws a deal of new light on the domestic relations of the Sage of Chelsea.
They also contain the full text of Mrs. Carlyle's fascinating journal, and her own
' humorous and quaintly candid ' narrative of her first love-affair."

THE LOVE LETTERS OF THOMAS CAR-
LYLE AND JANE WELSH. Edited by ALEXANDER CARLYLE,
Nephew of THOMAS CARLYLE, editor of " New Letters and
Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle," " New Letters of Thomas
Carlyle," etc. With 2 Portraits in colour and numerous other
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CARLYLE'S FIRST LOVE. Margaret Gordon-
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20 Portraits and Illustrations, including a Frontispiece in Colour.
Demy 8vo (9 x 5^ inches), io/. 64. net

MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC, n

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINE-
TEENTH CENTURY. By HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBER-
LAIN. A Translation from the German by JOHN LEES, M.A.,
D.Litt. (Edin.). With an Introduction by LORD REDESDALE,
G.C.V.O., K.C.B. zvols. Demy 8vo (9 x 5f inches). 32*. net.

MEMOIRS OF THE MARTYR KING : being a

detailed record of the last two years of the Reign of His Most
Sacred Majesty King Charles the First, 1646-1648-9. Com-
piled by ALLAN FEA. With upwards of 100 Photogravure
Portraits and other Illustrations, including relics. Royal 410.
1051. net.

Mr. M. H. SPIELMANN in The Academy. — "The volume is a triumph for the printer and

publisher, and a solid contribution to Carolinian literature."

Pall Mall Gazette. — "The present sumptuous volume, a storehouse of eloquent associations
. . comes as near to outward perfection as anything we could desire."

MEMOIRS OF A VANISHED GENERATION

1813-1855. Edited by MRS. WARRENNE BLAKE. With numerous
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. i6/. net.

*„.* This work is compiled from diaries and letters dating from the time of the Regency
to the middle of the nineteenth century. The value of the work lies in its natural un-
embellished picture of the life of a cultured and well-born family in a foreign environment
at a period so close to our own that it is far less familiar than periods much more remote.
There is an atmosphere of Jane Austens novels about the lives of Admiral Knox and his
family ', and a large number of well-known contemporari"s are introduced into Mrs. Blake's
pages.

THE LIFE OF PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY

(1840-1893). By his Brother, MODESTE TCHAIKOVSKY. Edited
and abridged from the Russian and German Editions by ROSA
NEWMARCH. With Numerous Illustrations and Facsimiles and an
Introduction by the Editor. Demy 8vo. y/. 6d. net. Second
edition.

The Times. — "A most illuminating commentary on Tchaikovsky's music."

World.—11 One of the most fascinating self-revelations by an artist which has been given to

the world. The translation is excellent, and worth reading for its own sake."
Contemporary Review.—1' The book's appeal is, of course, primarily to the music-lover ; but
there is so much of kuman and literary interest in it, such intimate revelation of a
singularly interesting personality, that many who have never come under the spell of
the Pathetic Symphony will be strongly attracted by what is virtually the spiritual
autobiography of its composer. High praise is due to the translator and editor for the
literary skill with which she has prepared the English version of this fascinating work . . .
There have been few collections of letters published within recent years that give so
vivid a portrait of the writer as that presented to us in these pages."

12 A CATALOGUE OF

CESAR FRANCK : A Study. Translated from the

French of Vincent d'Indy, with an Introduction by ROSA NEW-
MARCH. Demy 8vo. js. 6d. net.

*#* There is no purer influence in modem music than that of Cfsar Franck, for many
years ignored in every capacity save that of organist of Sainto-Clotilde, in Paris, but now
recognised as the legitimate successor of Bach and Beethoven. His inspiration " rooted in
love and faith " has contributed in a remarkable degree to tJte regeneration of the musical
art in France and elsewhere. The now famous " Schola. Cantorum," founded in Paris tn
1896, by A. Guilmant, Charles Bordes and Vincent d'Indy , is the direct outcome of his
influence. Among the artists -who were in some sort his disciples "were Paul Dukas,
Chabrier, Gabriel faure and the great violinist Ysaye. His pupils include such fifted
composers as Benoit, Augusta Holmes, Chausson, Ropartz, and d1 Indy. This book,
•written with the deviation of a disciple and the authority of a master, leaves us with
a vivid and touching impression of the saint-like composer of " The Beatitudes."

GRIEG AND HIS MUSIC. By H. T. FINCK,

Author of Wagner and his Works," etc. With Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. net.

THE OLDEST MUSIC ROOM IN EUROPE :

A Record of an Eighteenth-Century Enterprise at Oxford. By
JOHN H. MEE, M.A., D.Mus., Precentor of Chichester Cathedral,
(sometime Fellow of Merton College, Oxford). With 25 full-page
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EDWARD A. MACDOWELL: A Biography.

By LAWRENCE GILMAN, Author of " Phases of Modern Music,"
"Straus's 'Salome'," "The Music of To-morrow and Other
Studies," etc. Profusely Illustrated. Crown Svo. 5/. net.

THE KING'S GENERAL IN THE WEST,

being the Life of Sir Richard Granville, Baronet (1600-1659).
By ROGER GRANVILLE, M.A., Sub-Dean of Exeter Cathedral.
With Illustrations. Demy Svo. los. 6d. net.

Westminster Gazette. — "A distinctly interesting work; it will be highly appreciated by
historical students as well as by ordinary readers."

THE SOUL OF A TURK. By MRS. DE BUNSEN.

With 8 Full-page Illustrations. Demy Svo. IQJ. 6d. net.

V* We hear of Moslem "fanaticism " and Christian " superstition," but it is not easy
to find a book which goes to the heart of the matter. " The Soul of a Turk" is the
outcome of several journeys in Asiatic and European Turkey, notably one through the
Armenian provinces, down the Tigris on a raft to Baghdad and across the Syrian Desert
to Damascus. Mrs. de Bunsen made a special study of the various forms of religion
existing in those countries. Here, side by side with the formal ceremonial of the village
mosque and the Christian Church, is the resort to Magic and Mystery.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT

STEPHEN HAWKER, sometime Vicar of Morwenstow in Cornwall.
By C. E. BYLES. With numerous Illustrations by J. LEY
PETHYBRIDGE and others. Demy Svo. js. 6d. net.

Daily Telegraph. — " . . . As soon as the volume is opened one finds oneself in the presence
of a real original, a man of ability, genius and eccentricity, of whom one cannot know
too much. . . . No one will read this fascinating and charmingly produced book without
thanks to Mr. Byles and a desire to visit — or revisit — Morwenstow."

MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC. 13
THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. ByALEXANDER

GILCHRIST. Edited with an Introduction by W.GRAHAM ROBERTSON.
Numerous Reproductions from Blake's most characteristic and
remarkable designs. Demy 8vo. I os. 6d. net. New Edition.

Birmingham Post. — "Nothing seems at all likely ever to supplant the Gilchrist biography.
Mr. Swinburne praised it magnificently in his own eloquent essay on Blake, and there
should be no need now to point out its entire sanity, understanding keenness of critical
insight, and masterly literary style. Dealing with one of the most difficult of subjects,
it ranks among the finsst things of its kind that we possess."

GEORGE MEREDITH : Some Characteristics.

By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. With a Bibliography (much en-
larged) by JOHN LANE. Portrait, etc. Crown Svo. 5^. net. Fifth
Edition. Revised.

Punch. — "All Meredithians must possess 'George Meredith; Some Characteristics,' by
Richard Le Gallienne. This book is a complete and excellent guid« to the novelist and
the novels, a sort of Meredithian Bradshaw, with pictures of the traffic superintendent
and the head office at Boxhill. Even Philistines may be won over by the blandishments
of Mr. Le Gallienne."

LIFE OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. An Account

of the Ancestry, Personal Character, and Public Services of the
Fourth Earl of Chesterfield. By W. H. CRAIG, M.A. Numerous
Illustrations. Demy Svo. I z/. 6d. net.

Times. — " It is the chief point of Mr. Craig's book to show the sterling qualities which
Chesterfield was at too much pains in concealing, to reject the perishable trivialities of
his character, and to exhibit him as a philosophic statesman, not inferior to any of his
contemporaries, except Walpole at one end of his life, and Chatham at the other."

A QUEEN OF INDISCRETIONS. The Tragedy

of Caroline of Brunswick, Queen of England. From the Italian
of G. P. CLERICI. Translated by FREDERIC CHAPMAN. With
numerous Illustrations reproduced from contemporary Portraits and
Prints. Demy Svo. 2 is. net.

The Daily Telegraph. — " It could scarcely be done more thoroughly or, on the whole, in
better taste than is here displayed by Professor Clerici. Mr. Frederic Chapman himself
contributes an uncommonly interesting and well-informed introduction."

LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF SAMUEL

GRIDLEY HOWE. Edited by his Daughter LAURA E.
RICHARDS. With Notes and a Preface by F. B. SANBORN, an
Introduction by Mrs. JOHN LANE, and a Portrait. Demy Svo
(9 x 5! inches). i6/. net.

Outlook. — "This deeply interesting record of experience. The volume is worthily produced
and contains a striking portrait of Howe."

THE WAR IN WEXFORD. An Account of the

Rebellion in the South of Ireland in 1798, told from Original
Documents. By H. F. B. WHEELER and A. M. BROADLEY,
Authors of " Napoleon and the Invasion of England," etc. With
numerous Reproductions of contemporary portraits and engravings.
Demy Svo (9 x 5! inches), 12s. 6d. net.

£4 A CATALOGUE OF

THE LIFE OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN.

Translated from the Italian of an Unknown Fourteenth-Century
Writer by VALENTINA HAWTREY. With an -Introductory Note by
VERNON LEE, and 14 Full-page Reproductions from the Old Masters.
Crown 8vo. 5-r. net.

Daily News. — " Miss Valentina Hawtrey has given a most excellent English version of this
pleasant work."

LADY CHARLOTTE SCHREIBER'S

JOURNALS : Confidences of a Collector of Ceramics and
Antiques throughout Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Turkey. From the Year
1869 to 1885. Edited by MONTAGUE GUEST, with Annotations
by EGAN MEW. With upwards of 100 Illustrations, including
8 in colour and 2 in photogravure. Royal 8vo. 2 Volumes.
42 /. net.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. A

Biography by LEWIS MELVILLE. With 2 Photogravures and
numerous other Illustrations. Demy 8vo (9 x 5^ inches). 25^. net.

*** In compiling this biography of Thackeray Mr. Lewis Melville, who is admittedly
the authority on the subject, has been assisted by numerous Thackeray experts. Mr.
Melville's name has long been associated with Thackeray, not only as founder of the
Titmarsh Club, but also as the author of'1 The Thackeray County" and the editor of the
standard edition of Thackeray's works and " Thackeray's Stray Papers." For many
vears Mr. Melville has devoted himself to the collection of material relating to the life and
work of his subject. He has had access to many new letters, and much information has
come to hand since the publication of " The Life of Thackeray." Now that everything
about the novelist is known, it seems that an appropriate moment has arrived for a new
biography. Mr. Melville has also compiled a bibliography of Thackeray that runs to
upwards 1.300 items, by many hundreds more than contained in any hitherto issued.
This section will be invaluable to the collector. Thackeray's speeches, including several
•never before republished, have also been collected. There is a. list of portraits of the
novelist, and a separate index to the Bibliography.

A LATER PEPYS. The Correspondence of Sir

William Weller Pepys, Bart., Master in Chancery, 1758-1825,
with Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Hartley, Mrs. Montague, Hannah More,
William Franks, Sir James Macdonald, Major Rennell, Sir
Nathaniel Wraxall, and others. Edited, with an Introduction and
Notes, by ALICE C. C. GAUSSEN. With numerous Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. In Two Volumes. 32^. net.

DOUGLAS SLADEN in the Queen. — " This is indisputably a most valuable contribution to the
literature of the eighteenth century. It is a veritable storehouse of society gossip, the
art criticism, and the mots of famous people."

MEMORIES OF SIXTY YEARS AT ETON,

CAMBRIDGE AND ELSEWHERE. By OSCAR BROWNING,
M. A., University Lecturer in History, Senior Fellow and sometime
History Tutor at King's College, Cambridge, and formerly Assistant
Master at Eton College. Illustrated. Demy 8vo (9 x 5f inches).

MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC. 15
RUDYARD KIPLING : a Criticism. By RICHARD

LE GALLIENNE. With a Bibliography by JOHN LANE. Crown
8vo. 3-f. 6d. net.

Scotsman — " It shows a keen insight into the essential qualities of literature, and analyses
Mr. Kipling's product with the skill of a craftsman . . . the positive and outstanding
merits of Mr. Kipling's contribution to the literature of his time are marshalled by his
critic with quite uncommon skill."

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, AN ELEGY;
AND OTHER POEMS, MAINLY PERSONAL. By
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. Crown 8vo. 4^. bd. net.

Globe, — "The opening Elegy on R. L. Stevenson includes some tender and touching
passages, and has throughout the merits of sincerity and clearness."

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY AND HIS

FAMILY : Further Letters and Records. Edited by his daughter
and Herbert St John Mildmay, with numerous Illustrations.
Demy 8vo (9x5$ inches). i6s. net.

THE LIFE OF W. J. FOX, Public Teacher and

Social Reformer, 1786-1864. By the late RICHARD GARNETT,
C.B., LL.D., concluded by EDWARD GARNETT. Demy 8vo.
(9x5! inches.) \6s. net.

*** W. J. Fox was a prominent figure in public life from 1820 to 1860. From a
weaver's boy he became M.P. for Oldkam (1847-1862), and he will always be remembered
for his association with South Place Chapel, where his Radical opinions and fame as a.
preacher and popular orator brought him in contact with an advanced circle of thoughtful
people. He "was the discoverer of the youthful Robert Browning and Harriet Martineau,
and the friend of J. S. Mill, Home, John Forster, Macready, etc. As an Anti-Corn
Law orator, he swayed, by the power of his eloquence, enthusiastic audiences. As a
politician, he was the unswerving champion of social reform and the cause of oppressed
nationalities, his most celebrated speech being in support of his Bill for National Educa-
tion, 1830, a Bill which anticipated many of the features of the Education Bill of our
own time. He died in 1863. The present Life has been compiled from manuscript
material entrusted to Dr. Garnett by Mrs. Bridell Fox.

ROBERT DODSLEY: POET, PUBLISHER,

AND PLAYWRIGHT. By RALPH STRAUS. With a Photo-
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARTIN

BLAKE, B.D. (1593-1673), Vicar of Barnstaple and Preben-
dary of Exeter Cathedral, with some account of his conflicts with
the Puritan Lecturers and of his Persecutions. By JOHN
FREDERICK CHANTER, M.A., Rector of Parracombe, Devon. With
5 full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo (9 x 5f inches), los. 6d. net.

WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH AND

HIS FRIENDS. By S. M. ELLIS. With upwards of 50
Illustrations, 4. in Photogravure. 2 vols. Demy 8vo (9x5^
inches). 32*. net.

16 MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC.

THE SPENCER STANHOPES OF YORK-
SHIRE; FROM THE PAPERS OF A MACARONI
AND HIS KINDRED. By A. M. W. STIRLING, Author of
"Coke of Norfolk," etc. With numerous Illustrations reproduced
from contemporary prints, etc. 2 vols. Demy 8ro. 52*. net.

THE SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF

COMMONS from the Earliest Times to the Present Day,
with a Topographical Account of Westminster at various Epochs,
Brief Notes on the Sittings of Parliament, and a Retrospect of
the principal Constitutional Changes during Seven Centuries. By
ARTHUR IRWIN DASENT, Author of "The Life and Letters of
JOHN DELANE," " The History of St. James's Square," etc. With
numerous Portraits. Demy 8ro. 2 is.

JUNGLE BY-WAYS IN INDIA : Leaves from

the Note-book of a Sportsman and a Naturalist. By E. P.
STEBBING, I.F.S., F.Z.S., F.R.G.S. With upwards of 100 Illustrations
by the Author and others. Demy 8vo (9 x 5^ inches), izs. 6d.
net.

A TRAMP IN THE CAUCASUS. By STEPHEN

GRAHAM. With 16 full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo (9x5!
inches). I zs. 6d. net.

SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN : A

Record of Administration in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. With
some Intervals of Sport and Travel. By D. C. E. FF.COMYN,
F.R.G.S. (late of the Black Watch). With 16 full-page Illustrations
and 3 Maps. Demy 8vo (9 x 5| inches), i is. 6d. net.

FRENCH NOVELISTS OF TO-DAY: Maurice

Barres, Rene Bazin, Paul Bourget, Pierre de Coulevain, Anatole
France, Pierre Loti, Marcel Prevost, and Edouard Rod. Bio-
graphical, Descriptive, and Critical. By WINIFRED STEPHENS.
With Portraits and Bibliographies. Crown 8vo. 5/. net.

%* The writer, who has lived much in France, is thoroughly acquainted -with French
life and with the principal currents of French thought The book is intended to be a
guide to English readers desirous to keep in touch "with the best present-day French
fiction. Special attention is given to the ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual problems
of contemporary France and their influence upon the ivtrks of French novelists of to-day.

MEN AND LETTERS. By HERBERT PAUL, M.P.

Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5/. net.

Daily JVews. - " Mr. Herbert Paul .has done scholars and the reading world in general a
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