s been broken under the
very eyes of his Majesty by bloody combats, and the Elector Conrad of
Maintz had gone hand in hand with him of Brandenburg to entreat his
Majesty to make an example of this matter. These two were likewise the
most powerful of all the electors; the spiritual prince had, at the
closing of the Diet, been named Vicar of the Empire, and he of
Brandenburg was commander-in-chief of all the Imperial armies. And his
voice was of special weight in this matter, inasmuch as the great
friendship which had hitherto bound him to the Emperor had of late cooled
greatly, and both before and during the sitting of the Diet, his Majesty
had keenly felt what power the Brandenburger could wield, and with what
grave issues to himself.

Thus, when my lord the Elector and the high constable Frederick demanded
that the law should be carried out with the utmost rigor in the matter of
Herdegen, it was not, as many deemed, by reason that the King was not at
one with our good town and the worshipful council, and that he was well
content to vent his wrath on the son of one of its patrician families,
but contrariwise, that his Majesty, who hated all baseness, had heard
tidings of Herdegen's bloody deeds at Padua and his wild ways at Paris.
Likewise it had come to his Majesty's ears that he had falsely plighted
his troth to two maidens. Nay, and my grand-uncle had made known to King
Sigismund that Ursula, who had been known to the Elector from her
childhood up, had been driven by despair at Herdegen's breach of faith to
give her hand to the sick Bohemian Knight, Sir Franz von Welemisl.

Moreover the Knight Johann von Beust, father of Junker Henning, had
journeyed to Nuremberg to visit his wounded son; and whereas he learnt
many matters from his son's friends around his sick-bed, he earnestly
besought the Elector so to bring matters about that due punishment should
overtake the Junker's foeman.

My lord the Elector had many a time showed his teeth to the knighthood of
Brandenburg, appealing to law and justice when he had taken part with the
citizens and humbled the overbearing pride of the nobles. It was now his
part to show that he would not suffer noble blood to be spilt unavenged,
though it were by the devilish skill of a citizen; forasmuch as that if
indeed he should do so all men would know thereby that he was the sworn
foe of the nobles of Brandenburg and kept so tight a hand on them, not
for justice' sake, but for sheer h