y of the country were of another mind. These, in
the late anarchies, had set up for a kind of kings in their own right.
They had their feuds; made war, made peace, levied tolls, transit dues;
lived much at their own discretion in these solitary countries; rushing
out from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any
herd of "six hundred swine," and convoy of Luebeck or Hamburg merchant
goods, that had not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and
mechanic fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful?
Arbitrary rule, on the part of these noble robber lords! And then much
of the crown domains had gone to the chief of them--pawned (and the
pawn-ticket lost, so to speak), or sold for what trifle of ready money
was to be had, in Jobst and Company's time. To these gentlemen a
Statthalter coming to inquire into matters was no welcome phenomenon.
Your Edle Herr (noble lord) of Putlitz, noble lords of Quitzow, Rochow,
Maltitz, and others, supreme in their grassy solitudes this long while,
and accustomed to nothing greater than themselves in Brandenburg, how
should they obey a Statthalter?

Such was more or less the universal humor in the squirearchy of
Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf Friedrich. But the chief seat
of contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes, above spoken
of; big squires in the district they call the Priegnitz, in the country
of the sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a forty or fifty
miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were
"incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to
homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in
discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set;
bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ill habits of long
continuance.

Friedrich was very patient with them; hoped to prevail by gentle
methods. He "invited them to dinner"; "had them often at dinner for a
year or more:" but could make no progress in that way. "Who is this we
have got for a Governor?" said the noble lords privately to each other:
"A Nuremberger Tand" (Nuremberg plaything--wooden image, such as they
make at Nuremberg), said they, grinning, in a thick-skinned way: "If it
rained Burggraves all the year round, none of them would come to luck in
this country;" and continued their feuds, toll-levyings, plunderings,
and other contumacies.

Seeing matters come to this pass after a