Chapter IX. — BURGGRAF FRIEDRICH IV.

Brandenburg and the Hohenzollern Family of Nurnberg have hitherto no mutual acquaintanceship whatever: they go, each its own course, wide enough apart in the world;—little dreaming that they are to meet by and by, and coalesce, wed for better and worse, and become one flesh. As is the way in all romance. "Marriages," among men, and other entities of importance, "are, evidently, made in Heaven."

Friedrich IV. of Nurnberg, Son of that Friedrich III., Kaiser Rudolf's successful friend, was again a notable increaser of his House; which finally, under his Great-grandson, named Friedrich VI., attained the Electoral height. Of which there was already some hint. Well; under the first of these two Friedrichs, some slight approximation, and under his Son, a transient express introduction (so to speak) of Brandenburg to Hohenzollern took place, without immediate result of consequence; but under the second of them occurred the wedding, as we may call it, or union "for better or worse, till death do us part."—How it came about? Easy to ask, How! The reader will have to cast some glances into the confused REICHS-History of the time;—timid glances, for the element is of dangerous, extensive sort, mostly jungle and shaking bog;—and we must travel through this corner of it, as on shoes of swiftness, treading lightly.