Vespasiano Gonzaga by Bernardino Campi as
the Elector Alexander I of Saxony
Olivia Rosen,
Transformer: A Life of the Elector Alexander.
From "Chapter 4: Funeral Games"
On the surface the investiture of Alexander with the electoral dignity was the smoothest transition of power Saxony had known in living memory. Emperor Ferdinand threatened no dispossession of the Ernestine line due to its support of the Reformation. The 1485 Partition of Leipzig had been undone, uniting the lands of the two factions of the House of Wettin. And the line of succession from father to sole living lawful son was clear. For the people of all social classes of the new Saxony, Alexander's investiture was an opportunity to celebrate the stability of the realm post-Augsburg and assess the progress since Luther nailed his 95 theses to the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg, which increasingly served as the marker for the beginning of the present age.
Within the House of Wettin, the situation looked far different. Johann, Duke of Saxony, younger brother to Alexander's father Friedrich IV, had been invested by the Saxon estates with the regency for his nephew, though Alexander was only two years short of his majority and showed no defects of intellect or competence. Alexander's mother, the Electress Dorothea, had been organizing a party of resistance to Johann for the past decade, and saw the regency as little other than an opportunity for Alexander to be usurped and replaced by Johann, who in turn had three sons who would then inherit Saxony. The oldest of these had already married a royal princess, Anna of Denmark. Anna had proved, to the great inconvenience of Alexander's party, fruitful in marriage. She bore her husband, Johann Wilhelm, a daughter, Sybille, in 1555, a son, Friedrich, in 1557, and another daughter, Maria, in 1558. Sybille had died in 1556 and Friedrich not long before his namesake in 1558, but Maria showed signs of robust health and the Johannine Wettins were confident Anna would produce heirs. By contrast, Alexander had yet to marry, and his marriage now presented the most pressing issue of state, it would seem.
For his part though, the Duke Johann disagreed. He wasted little time following the death of his brother reinstating the arrangement whereby princes of the House of Wettin were married off in order of their age. Thus the German princes who had been in correspondence with Friedrich IV over potential matches between the daughters of their houses to his heir Alexander were surprised, shocked even, to find the Duke Regent Johann instead offering them his sons as potential grooms.
Most notable among these was Wilhelm III of Juelich-Cleves-Berg-Mark-Ravensberg. The Elector Friedrich IV had stepped in at a crucial point in the beginning of the Spanish War to preserve Wilhelm's rule from the Habsburgs, at great risk to himself in the notorious Ride to Dueren, and though Wilhelm's continuing need for self-preservation on the doorstep of the Habsburg possessions in the Netherlands had prevented him from being a loyal ally in the ensuing convoluted maneuverings of the German princes during the Spanish War, he had attempted to serve as an honest broker between the parties. Switching from the Lutheran Confession to the Catholic partly in exchange for a prestigious match with a daughter of Ferdinand, Wilhelm had hoped to marry his own eldest daughter to Alexander, bridging the dynastic gap between Catholic and Protestant in the Empire. Among other advantages, there was only six years' difference in the ages of Alexander and his Marie Eleonore.
Wilhelm was thus not pleased to find the Duke Regent offering instead to marry Marie Eleonore to his second son, Johann Heinrich. This would entail an age difference of not six, but sixteen years. He rejected the notion out of hand, and moreover took away from the exchange the darkest possible gloss on Johann's intention toward the boy who was the new Elector of Saxony. Other princes of the empire reacted similarly. Johann's efforts proved fruitless, and seemed to be resulting in yet another delay in any more members of the next generation of Wettins actually finding wives. Both Johann Heinrich and his younger brother Johann Georg had been long since ready for marriage, and appealed to their father to once and for all end the uncertainty.
To this purpose Johann hit on a novel solution, matching Johann Heinrich not to Anna, the surviving daughter of the Albertine Duke Moritz of Saxony, whose marriage had long been an issue to the House of Wettin. Instead, Johann Heinrich would marry Moritz's widow, Agnes of Hesse. Agnes still possessed intact her properties held by right of her marriage to Moritz, as well as assets bequeathed her by her father, Philip of Hesse. Marrying Agnes would thus invest Johann Heinrich with substantial wealth, and increase still further the bonds between the Johannines and the House of Hesse, whose princes had long worried over Agnes's treatment by the Ernestine Wettins. It might also dispossess Anna of those parts of her inheritance which descended through her mother, which could now go to the latter-born sons Agnes might bear to Johann Heinrich. And as to those heirs, Agnes was still 33, perhaps past the years of peak childbearing, but having given Moritz two live children in a relatively brief marriage a son for Johann Heinrich might still be possible.
Thus in 1561 Johann Heinrich and Agnes wed. Johann Georg was widely anticipated to be the next Wettin to be married, but instead Johann ended the ordeal of Anna of Saxony by accepting the proposal of Willem, Prince of Orange, for her hand, and approving for her an enormous dowry to cure the defects of her loss of stature due to her father's death and the termination of the rights of the Albertine Wettins. Dorothea's party wasted no time speculating Johann was doing this to remove Anna as a possible bride for his third son before Alexander reached his majority.
At the same time, Johann moved to implement his own agenda in other matters. He suspended much of the Strangers' Law in 1561, throwing the status of the new arrivals to Saxony into doubt, eliminating the affirmative promise of freedom of worship within its purview, but not the regulations it imposed on Protestant religious groups of foreign origin. Thus they could be required to divulge their texts and permit agents of the state to attend services, but on no basis whatsoever those churches could be outlawed and their practitioners expelled. Anna of Denmark, who following the death of Johann's wife Sybille was the highest-ranking woman in the Johannine Wettins, first became a trusted advisor to her father-in-law Johann in the matter of the marriage negotiations. And now it was believed it was her influence that was making itself known in the suspension of the Strangers' Law, as a more tightly regulated Nordic approach to Lutheranism began to substitute itself for the latitude Friedrich had allowed his subjects.
Thus, without doing anything, Alexander became the recipient of much affection from the Calvinists of Saxony, and Johann's partisans wasted no time referring to Dorothea's court as the French party. Julius of Braunschweig had anticipated just this turn of events for the better part of a decade, and had long since formulated a plan. He proposed to the Duke Regent that the Elector Alexander go on a tour of the other princely states of the empire, to build relationships with Saxony's necessary allies and also to ascertain in person the suitability of potential consorts. Coincidentally, Alexander's planned return would be just after he reached his majority. Johann refused this request on the grounds of the duke's safety, and moreover he dismissed Julius from service as the young elector's head of household.
Clearly, matters were now approaching a crisis. Importantly, the terms on which the Estates had granted Johann the regency concerned the management of the state, not the physical custody of the young elector. Probably by the design of the Saxon nobility, Johann could have power, but he could not play Richard III to Alexander's Edward V. However, the elector leaving the realm to visit other princes also clearly constituted a matter of state in which the regent's authority naturally held sway.
Thus the Elector Alexander resolved the question by leaving Altenburg to go hunting. It did not matter that Alexander, like his father, did not particularly care for hunting. He headed into the woods with a strong guard of seventy intensely loyal soldiers, and it would later become apparent, his personal treasury and a good portion of his mother's jewels. When later questioned by a very frustrated Duke Regent, the chamberlain of Altenburg simply replied that he had been given no authority over the prince's movements, nor could he expect to have authority over a prince who was seventeen years old, who was under no suspicion of any wrongdoing, and who was plainly in possession of his senses.
But by the time Johann even knew of the Elector Alexander's hunting trip, the young prince was being entertained at a castle of the surprised Elector Palatine, in Amberg. And in what must have been a special pleasure for the Duke Regent, the Elector Palatine was forwarding to him the bills run up hosting and entertaining the young Elector and his companions. Some of Alexander's party believed it best to seek assistance directly from Emperor Ferdinand, brother to Alexander's dead grandmother, Isabella of Spain, Queen of Denmark. But while Alexander clearly understood the value of the threat of Ferdinand's involvement, he knew allying himself with Saxony's hereditary enemy would come at a steep political price.
So instead, he chose to make his tour, visiting Nuernberg, Ansbach, Wurttemberg, the Rhenish Palatinate, and eventually the agglomeration of lands that served as the realm of the Duke of Juelich-Cleves-Berg-Mark-Ravensberg. The whole situation was becoming an enormous embarrassment, especially as the young Elector had told the Duke of Juelich, whom he had first met when he had been charged with inspecting the circumstances of his captivity in the Netherlands, that he felt himself more in danger under the regency of his uncle than he had in the clutches of Emperor Charles. Suddenly the empire was buzzing about the possibility of a crisis in the Saxon succession, despite Alexander having already been elevated to the dignity in name. If these rumors ripened into a dispute in fact, it would inevitably draw in the imperial courts and the Emperor Ferdinand.
In these same travels Alexander used the promise of a marriage alliance to extract the support from the princes who were his hosts. Elisabeth of the Palatine and Marie Eleonore of Juelich-Cleves-Berg-Mark-Ravensberg were the most notable of the matches considered. The Saxon Estates, hearing of Alexander's exploits, greatly feared imperial involvement in Saxon internal matters. By early 1562 it had been made clear to Johann an extension of his regency would not be considered, just as a message was likewise sent to Alexander making clear that any formal appeal to the empire would be both unnecessary and deeply injurious to his legitimacy in the country.
While he was still in Juelich, Alexander concluded a marriage alliance with Duke Wilhelm, albeit with an actual wedding and consummation delayed, ostensibly on account of the bride's youth, but in actuality because the duke wanted guarantees of Alexander's unquestioned rule in Saxony first. At first, Johann was tempted to treat Alexander's treaty with Wilhelm as a legal nullity, but it was coupled with the news that the elector would be returning home mere months after his birthday, with an additional guard provided by his new prospective father-in-law. But the Saxon Estates approved the marriage, eager to suppress any hint of dispute in the succession, and when Alexander arrived back in Saxon territory in late 1562 at Goslar, he was received as the ruling prince, without question.
As if to punctuate the new situation and leave no doubt in anyone's mind, Alexander's first official act was the expulsion of Johann's court from Schloss Hartenfels in Torgau. The largest and most important of Saxony's castles would once again be a seat of the elector. Alexander did not even do Johann the courtesy of exchanging it for another residence: the former duke regent would have to build a new castle or accommodate himself to a much smaller domicile. There was no denying the statement being made to Johann. In fact, it quickly became apparent that Alexander was anticipating the possibility of an attempted usurpation or rebellion, and in fact might even be hoping for such, given that this would in turn provide him the opening he needed to recover all the lands that had been granted to the duke over the previous thirty years, to the exclusion of Johann's own children.
For his part, Johann's own long experience let him know he was being goaded. He refused to oblige his nephew by bearing arms against him and giving him cause to take away everything. But at the same time, nothing was resolved. The Johannines were as wealthy and powerful as ever, and could impede or even endanger Alexander's rule almost at their whim.
One final postscript to this struggle is necessary: Johann's partial rescinding of the Strangers' Law had also provoked a response inside the court itself. The "Englisch Wettins", or the House of Brandon, or at least those still in residence in Saxony following the accession of Elizabeth, were dismayed by Johann's move against the churches many of them regarded as cognate with their own beliefs. Thus no sooner did Alexander appear at Goslar, but Henry Brandon Earl of Lincoln, Guildford Dudley and Jane Dudley all left Wittenberg to meet him and endorse him as the unquestioned ruler of the country. And with them they took Henry's mother Katarina, still styling herself Queen Katherine of England. Alexander received them all graciously at Magdeburg, relishing the symbolism of the rest of the House of Wettin closing ranks against the Johannines. Together, they returned to Wittenberg, where Alexander entered in great state.
Alexander in turn reversed Johann's brief change in policy toward the Calvinists and other Protestant sects, and went a bit further. On his travels he had developed a close friendship with the Elector Palatine, who had recently converted to Calvinism, and had intensely considered his daughter Elisabeth as a potential electress. Instead he negotiated a match between Elisabeth and Johann Georg, Johann's youngest son, infuriating the Johannines and most especially Anna of Denmark. When Johann Georg lodged a weak protest, Alexander made clear it would be either Elisabeth or no wife at all.
