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He ended, by apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Zisca, as it were, killing him at second-hand. For Zisca, stout and furious, blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven mad, had risen out of the ashes of murdered Huss, and other bad Papistic doings, in the interim; and was tearing up the world at a huge rate. Rhinoceros Zisca was on the Weissenberg, or a still nearer Hill of Prag since called ZISCA-BERG (Zisca Hill): and none durst whisper of it to the King.
A servant waiting at dinner inadvertently let slip the word:--"Zisca there? Deny it, slave!" cried Wenzel frantic. Slave durst not deny. Wenzel drew his sword to run at him, but fell down dead:
that was the last pot broken by Wenzel. The hapless royal ex-imperial Phantasm self-broken in this manner. [30th July, 1419(Hormayr, vii. 119).] Poor soul, he came to the Kaisership too early; was a thin violent creature, sensible to the charms and horrors of created objects; and had terrible rhinoceros Ziscas and unruly horned-cattle to drive. He was one of the worst Kaisers ever known,--could have done Opera-singing much better;--and a sad sight to Bohemia. Let us leave him there: he was never actual Elector of Brandenburg, having given it up in time; never did any ill to that poor Country.
SIGISMUND IS KURFURST OF BRANDENBURG, BUT IS KING OF HUNGARY ALSO.
The real Kurfurst of Brandenburg all this while was Sigismund Wenzel's next Brother, under tutelage of Cousin Jobst or otherwise;--real and yet imaginary, for he never himself governed, but always had Jobst of Mahren or some other in his place there.
Sigismund, as above said, was to have married a Daughter of Burggraf Friedrich V.; and he was himself, as was the young lady, well inclined to this arrangement. But the old people being dead, and some offer of a King's Daughter turning up for Sigismund, Sigismund broke off; and took the King's Daughter, King of Hungary's,--not without regret then and afterwards, as is believed. At any rate, the Hungarian charmer proved a wife of small merit, and a Hungarian successor she had was a wife of light conduct even; Hungarian charmers, and Hungarian affairs, were much other than a comfort to Sigismund.
As for the disappointed Princess, Burggraf Friedrich's Daughter, she said nothing that we hear; silently became a Nun, an Abbess:
and through a long life looked out, with her thoughts to herself, upon the loud whirlwind of things, where Sigismund (oftenest like an imponderous rag of conspicuous color) was riding and tossing.
Her two Brothers also, joint Burggraves after their Father's death, seemed to have reconciled themselves without difficulty.
The elder of them was already Sigismund's Brother-in-law; married to Sigismund's and Wenzel's sister,--by such predestination as we saw. Burggraf Johann III. was the name of this one: a stout fighter and manager for many years; much liked, and looked to, by Sigismund. As indeed were both the Brothers, for that matter;always, together or in succession, a kind of right-hand to Sigismund. Friedrich the younger Burggraf, and ultimately the survivor and inheritor (Johann having left no sons), is the famed Burggraf Friedrich VI., the last and notablest of all the Burggraves. A man of distinguished importance, extrinsic and intrinsic; chief or among the very chief of German public men in his time;--and memorable to Posterity, and to this History, on still other grounds! But let us not anticipate.
Sigismund, if apanaged with Brandenburg alone, and wedded to his first love, not a King's Daughter, might have done tolerably well there;--better than Wenzel, with the Empire and Bohemia, did.
But delusive Fortune threw her golden apple at Sigismund too;and he, in the wide high world, had to play strange pranks.
His Father-in-law died in Hungary, Sigismund's first wife his only child. Father-in-law bequeathed Hungary to Sigismund: [1387(Sigismund's age then twenty).] who plunged into a strange sea thereby; got troubles without number, beatings not a few,--and had even to take boat, and sail for his life down to Constantinople, at one time. In which sad adventure Burggraf Johann escorted him, and as it were tore him out by the hair of the head. These troubles and adventures lasted many years; in the course of which, Sigismund, trying all manner of friends and expedients, found in the Burggraves of Nurnberg, Johann and Friedrich, with their talents, possessions and resources, the main or almost only sure support he got.
No end of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from this sublime Hungarian legacy! Like a remote fabulous golden-fleece, which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little when conquered. Before ever setting out (A.D. 1387), Sigismund saw too clearly he would have cash to raise:
an operation he had never done with, all his life afterwards.
He pawned Brandenburg to Cousin Jobst of Mahren; got "20,000Bohemian gulden,"--I guess, a most slender sum, if Dryasdust would but interpret it. This was the beginning of Pawnings to Brandenburg; of which when will the end be? Jobst thereby came into Brandenburg on his own right for the time, not as Tutor or Guardian, which he had hitherto been. Into Brandenburg; and there was no chance of repayment to get him out again.
COUSIN JOBST HAS BRANDENBURG IN PAWN.
Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself.
Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown domains, winking hard at robber-barons, and the like;--and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (VICEREGENT, more like a hungry land-steward), whom nobody took the trouble of respecting.