1454, a formidable rebellion took place against the authority of the
knights.

Casimir, King of Poland, who had long had hostile intentions against
the order, secretly threw all his weight into the cause of the
malcontents, who made such way that the grand master was forced to
retire to Marienberg, his capital, where he was soon closely besieged.
Casimir now openly declared war, and laid claim to the dominions of
the knights in Prussia and Pomerania, formally annexing them to the
kingdom of Poland.

The grand master sent petitions for aid to the neighboring princes,
but without success. The kings of Denmark and Sweden excused
themselves on account of the distance of their dominions from the seat
of war. Ladislaus, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was about to marry his
sister to Casimir, and the religious dissensions of Bohemia and the
attacks of the Turks upon Hungary fully occupied his attention and
demanded the employment of all his troops and treasure; and finally
the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet at this very time (1458)
seemed to paralyze the energies of the European powers.

The grand master, Louis d'Erlichshausen, thus found himself deserted
in his time of need. He did what he could by raising a considerable
body of mercenaries, and with these, his knights, and the regular
troops of the order, he defended himself with courage and wonderful
endurance, so that he not only succeeded in holding the city, but
recovered several other towns that had revolted.

But his resources were unequal to the demands made upon them, his
enemy overwhelmed him with numbers, his own soldiers clamored for
their pay long overdue, and there was no prospect of aid from without.
There was nothing left, therefore, to him but to make the best terms
he could. He adopted the somewhat singular plan of making over
Marienberg and what remained of the dominions of the order to the
chiefs who had given him aid, in payment for their services, and he
himself, with his knights and troops, retired to Koenigsberg, which
then became the capital of the order. Marienberg soon afterward came
into the hands of Casimir; but the knights again captured it, and
again lost it, 1460.

War continued year after year between Poland and the knights, the
general result of which was that the latter were defeated and lost one
town after another, till, in 1466, a peace was concluded, by the terms
of which the knights ceded to Poland almost all the western part