House of Ascania

The House of Wettin and the Landgraves of Hesse—descended from Elizabeth of Hungary of the Miracle of the Roses—the same families who were involved in supporting Martin Luther’s Reformation and the creation of his seal the Luther Rose, were involved a century later in again advancing the cause of reformation, this time under the guise of the Order of the Rosy Cross, also known as the Rosicrucians. As demonstrated Frances Yates, the celebrated expert on the movement, in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, the philosophy of Christian Kabbalah as expressed by Francesco Giorgi and Cornelius Agrippa is very close to the occult philosophy expressed in the Rosicrucian manifestos and by Robert Fludd. Many suggestions as to the origin of the name of the “Rosicrucian” have been made, but as Yates indicates, it seems most likely that Giorgi’s Christian Kabbalah became associated with Queen Elizabeth I, the Tudor Rose, Dee’s scientific British imperialism, and with a messianic movement for uniting Europeans against the Catholic-Hapsburg powers.

The Rosicrucian manifestos appeared around the same time that the German prince Frederick V of the Palatinate (1574 – 1610) began to be seen as the ideal incumbent to take the place of leader of the Protestant resistance against the Catholic Hapsburgs, to be achieved through his dynastic union with King James I’s daughter, Elizabeth Stuart. The perceived occult importance of their marriage was enshrined in a Rosicrucian tract called The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, published in 1616, which contains allusions to the Order of the Golden Fleece. The word “chymical” is an old form of “chemical’ and refers to alchemy, for which the “Sacred Marriage” was the goal.

The chief advisor to Frederick V of the Palatinate, and architect of the political agenda of the Rosicrucian movement, was Christian of Anhalt (1568 –1630), of the House of Ascania, also known as the House of Anhalt, who succeed the House of Welf as Dukes of Saxony. Like the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman emperors, the House of Anhalt traced their descent to Ascanius, legendary king of Alba Longa and the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whom they equated with Ashkenaz, grandson of Japhet, the son of Noah, whose descendants were reputed to have migrated from the marches of Ascania in Bithynia, in northwest of Asia Minor, and at last to have settled in Germany.[1] Similarly, Trithemius’ De origine gentis Francorum compendium (1514) described the Franks as originally Trojans, or “Sicambrians,” who after the fall of Troy came into Gaul after being forced out of the area around the mouth of the Danube by the Goths in 439 BC. He also details the reigns of each of these kings—including Francus, from whom the Franks are named—and their battles with the Gauls, Goths, and Saxons.

The Duchy of Saxony was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire by 804 as Francia. With the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Saxony became one of the five German duchies of East Francia. The early Dukes of Saxony were members of the House of Billung, who trace their descent to Liudolf (c. 805/820 – 866), who married Oda Billung, great-granddaughter of Guillaume of Gellone, purported son of Rabbi Makhir, of the royal line of David, who ruled the Jewish princedom of Septimania in Southern France. Rabbi Makhir was a member of the Kalonymos family of northern Italy, that had immigrated to Germany in the tenth century, where they became leaders of the community of the Ashkenazi Hasidim movement, who were central to the development of the Kabbalah. According to Jewish legend, after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Romans transported large numbers of the Jews to distant regions of the Roman Empire, many of them being sent as slaves to a German region on the Upper Rhine, which was known as Ascania, named after Ascanius, who was equated with Ashkenaz of Genesis, whose father Gomer was an ally of Gog, the chief of the land of Magog. Hence the term “Askenazim.”[2]

According to Ottfried Neubecker, in A Guide to Heraldry, in the heroic poem by Heinrich von Veldeke (c. 1150 – d. after 1184), based on the story of Aeneas, the bearer of the arms of a lion refer to Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, set against the bearer of the arms of an eagle, symbol of the Holy Roman emperor.[3] Veldeke, who was an influence on Wolfram von Eschenbach, wrote his most sizeable work, the Eneas Romance, the first courtly romance in a Germanic language. Veldeke’s Eneas was based on the Old French Roman d’Enéas, that in turn was inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid. The Roman d’Enéas is one of the three important Romans d’Antiquité (“Romances of Antiquity”) of the period, the others being the anonymous Roman de Thèbes and the Roman de Troie of Benoît de Sainte-Maure (d. 1173), who belonged to the court of the Plantagenets.

The Roman d’Enéas inspired a body of literature in the genre called the roman antique, loosely assembled by the medieval poet Jean Bodel (c. 1165 – c. 1210), as the Matter of Rome. Bodel divided all the literary cycles he knew best into the Matter of Britain, the Matter of France and the Matter of Rome. According to Bodel, the Matter of Rome was the literary cycle made up of Greek and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. The Matter of Rome also included what is referred to as the Matter of Troy, consisting of romances and other texts based on the Trojan War and its after-effects, including the adventures of Aeneas. In the epic poems Alexander Roman and the Roman de Troie, Alexander the Great, and Achilles and his fellow heroes of the Trojan War were treated as knights of chivalry, not much different from the heroes of the chansons de geste.

The dedication of Roman de Troie, to a “riche dame de riche rei,” is generally believed to be Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II, who were the parents of Henry the Lion’s wife Matilda. Earlier heraldic writers attributed the lions of England to William the Conqueror, whose son, Henry I of England, married Matilda of Scotland, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Margaret of Wessex, daughter of the mysterious Agatha of Bulgaria, descended from Guillaume of Gellone. One of the earliest known examples of armory as it subsequently came to be practiced can be seen on the tomb of Henry II’s father, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, who married Henry I and Matilda’s daughter, also called Matilda. An enamel, probably commissioned by Matilda, depicts Geoffrey carrying a blue shield decorated six golden lions rampant and wearing a blue helmet adorned with another lion. A chronicle dated to c. 1175 states that Geoffrey was given a shield of this description when he was knighted by his father-in-law, Henry I, in 1128.

Henry the Lion was the heir of the Billungs, the same family who produced Emperor Otto the Great. The House of Billung merged into the House of Welf and House of Ascania (also known as House of Anhalt) dynasties when Magnus died in 1106 without a male heir. The family’s property was divided between his two daughters. Wulfhilde married Henry the Black, of the House of Welf, whose daughter, Judith of Bavaria, married Frederick II, Duke of Swabia, and was the mother of Frederick Barbarossa. Judith’s brother, Henry the Proud, was the father of Henry the Lion. Henry the Lion married Matilda of England, the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Isabella’s brother, John of England was the father of Henry III of England, and his sister, Isabella of England who married Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa.

Magnus’ daughter Eilika married Otto, Count of Ballenstedt (c. 1070 – 1123), the first prince of the House of Ascania to call himself count of Anhalt, and was also briefly named duke of Saxony. His son, Albert the Bear, lost the duchy of Saxony to his cousin Henry the Lion, but later conquered Brandenburg and called himself its first margrave. Upon the deposition of Henry the Lion in 1180, the ducal title of Saxony fell to House of Ascania under Albert the Bear’s son, Bernhard, Count of Anhalt (c. 1140 –1212). After his Bernhard’s death in 1212, oldest son, Henry I, Count of Anhalt (c. 1170 – 1252), inherited Anhalt, while his younger brother Albert I, Duke of Saxony (c. 1175 – 1260), inherited the duchy of Saxony, from whom descend the dukes of Saxony. Henry I married Irmgard of Thuringia, the daughter of Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia, the son of Louis II, Landgrave of Thuringia and Judith of Hohenstaufen, the sister of Frederick Barbarossa. In 1218, Henry I assumed the title of a prince and thereby was the real founder of the princely House of Anhalt. On Henry I’s death in 1252, his three sons partitioned the principality and founded, respectively, the lines of Aschersleben, Bernburg and Zerbst. This led to the differentiation between Lower Saxony, ruled by the Ascanians, and Upper Saxony, which belonged to the House of Wettin. In 1296, the remaining lands were divided between the Ascanian dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg, the latter obtaining the title of Electors of Saxony by the Golden Bull of 1356, a decree issued by the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg and Metz, headed by the Emperor Charles IV, which fixed, for a period of more than four centuries, important aspects of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire.

Genealogy of the Order of the Dragon

• SIGISMUND OF LUXEMBOURG, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (ORDER OF THE GARTER, founder of the ORDER OF THE DRAGON) + Barbara of Celje

  • Elizabeth of Luxembourg + Albert II of Germany

    • Elizabeth of Austria + Casimir IV, King of Poland

      • Vladislaus II of Hungary + Anne of Foix-Candale

        • Anna Jagellonica + Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (Grand Master of the ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE)

          • Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (Grand Master of the ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE) + Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress

            • RUDOLF II, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (ORDER OF THE GARTER, ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, sponsor of JOHN DEE)

          • Archduchess Anna of Austria + Albert V, Duke of Bavaria

          • Maria of Austria + William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg

            • Marie Eleonore of Cleves + Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia (son of Albert of Prussia, founder of the Duchy of Prussia)

            • John William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg

          • Eleanor, Duchess of Mantua + William I, Duke of Mantua

            • Vincenzo Ι Gonzaga (ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, nephew of Louis Gonzaga, Grand Master of the PRIORY OF SION)

            • Margherita Gonzaga + Henry II, Duke of Lorraine

          • Joanna, Grand Duchess of Tuscany + Francesco I de' Medici

            • MARIE DE MEDICI + Henry IV of France

        • Louis II of Hungary + Mary of Austria (d. of Philip I of Castile + Joanna of Castile)

      • Sophia of Poland + Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (son of Albert III Achilles, Margrave of Brandenburg, member of the ORDER OF THE SWAN, spent time at the court of Emperor Sigismund + Anna of Saxony, daughter of Frederick II, Elector of Saxony)

        • George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach + Emilie of Saxony

        • Albert, Duke of Prussia (Grand Master of the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS) + Dorothea (daughter of King Frederick I of Denmark)

        • Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Viceroy of Valencia (ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE) + Germaine de Foix (widow of Ferdinand II of Aragon)

      • Barbara Jagiellon + George, Duke of Saxony

        • Christine of Saxony + PHILIP I, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE (supporter of MARTIN LUTHER, founded the Schmalkaldic League with JOHN FREDERICK I, ELECTOR OF SAXONY, who commissioned LUTHER ROSE)

          • Agnes + Elector Maurice of Saxony

            • Anna of Saxony + WILLIAM THE SILENT

              • Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (Order of the Golden Fleece)

          • William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel + Sabine of Württemberg

            • MAURICE, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE-KASSEL (leading sponsor of the Rosicrucian movement, friend of FREDERICK V OF THE PALATINATE) + Agnes of Solms-Laubach

              • see Genealogy of the House of Hesse-Kassel

          • Elisabeth of Hesse + Louis VI, Elector Palatine

            • Anna Marie + Charles IX of Sweden

            • Frederick IV, Elector Palatine + Louise Juliana of Nassau (daughter of WILLIAM THE SILENT + Charlotte of Bourbon)

              • ALCHEMICAL WEDDING: Frederick V of the Palatinate + Elizabeth Stuart

      • Sophia of Poland + Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

        • George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

        • Albert, Duke of Prussia (Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, founder of the Duchy of Prussia) + Dorothea (daughter of Frederick I of Denmark)

        • Albert, Duke of Prussia + Anna Maria

          • Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia + Marie Eleonore of Cleves

            • Anna of Prussia + John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg (after Albert Frederick’s death in 1603, the Sigismund III Vasa permitted John Sigismund to succeed him in 1611, thereafter ruling Brandenburg, and Duchy of Prussia in personal union)

              • George William, Elector of Brandenburg + Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (see below)

            • Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia + John George I, Elector of Saxony (see below)

        • Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach (Order of the Golden Fleece)

      • Sigismund I the Old (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Bona Sforza

        • Sigismund II Augustus + Barbara Radziwiłł (accused of promiscuity and witchcraft)

          • Sigismund II Augustus

        • Anna Jagiellon + STEPHEN BATHORY (sponsor of JOHN DEE and uncle of ELIZABETH BATHORY, the “Blood Countess”)

        • Catherine Jagiellon + John III of Sweden

          • Sigismund III Vasa (from whom the Vasa kings of Poland were descended. Raised by Jesuits, sponsored alchemist SENDIVOGIUS)

Irmgard’s brother, Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, married Elizabeth of Hungary, of the Miracle of the Roses, from whom descend the Landgraves of Hesse. Elizabeth of Hungary, who was a greatly venerated Catholic saint, was an early member of the Third Order of St. Francis, by which she is honored as its patroness. Elizabeth’s father was Andrew II of Hungary, the son of Bela III of Hungary and Agnes of Antioch, who was associated with Pontigny Abbey. Elizabeth’s sister Violant married James I of Aragon, the son of Peter II of Aragon, who died in the Battle of Muret defending the Cathars, and was the founder of the Order of Saint George of Alfama. Their descendants formed the network of families who intermarried the Lusignans who led the orders that inherited the Templars properties, including the Order of Montesa. Another story of the “miracle of the roses” is told of Elizabeth of Hungary’s great-niece, Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, the wife of Denis I of Portugal, who founded the Order of Christ.

In 1211, Andrew II accepted the services of the Teutonic Knights and granted them the district of Burzenland in Transylvania. During the rule of Hermann von Salza (1209–1239), the fourth Grand Master, the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order. As a friend and councillor of emperor Frederick II, Hermann achieved the recognition of the order as of equal status with the older military orders of the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar by Pope Honorius III. Frederick II elevated Hermann to the status of Reichsfürst, or “Prince of the Empire,” enabling the Grand Master to negotiate with other senior princes as an equal. During Frederick II’s coronation as King of Jerusalem in 1225, Teutonic Knights served as his escort in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Andrew II had been involved in negotiations for the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth with the son of Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia (d. 1217), whose vassals included the family of Hermann von Salza. Hermann I was the son of Louis II, Landgrave of Thuringia and Judith of Hohenstaufen, the sister of Frederick Barbarossa’s daughter Judith of Hohenstaufen. According to the epilogue of the Eneas, Veldeke allowed Margaret of Cleves, the wife of Hermann I’s brother Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia (1151/52 – 1190), to read his work when it was nearly completed. The work was stolen, and it was only returned to Veldeke in 1184 by Hermann I, who gave him the order to finish it. Some believe the thief was Herman’s brother Henry Raspe, while others believe the thief was Count Henry I of Schwarzburg, who had a feud with Louis III. Hermann I married Sophia of Wittelsbach. Their sons were Louis IV of Thuringia and Conrad (c. 1206 – 1240), the landgrave of Thuringia, the fifth Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and the first major noble to join the order.

Hermann I supported poets like Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach who wrote part of his Parzival in 1203 at Wartburg Castle, the former residence of Elizabeth of Hungary. In Wolfram’s story, Wartburg is the Grail castle Munsalvaesche, where the Knight Swan Loherangrin hears a call of distress from Elsa of Brabant, who is being held prisoner in the castle of Cleves, modern Kleve, Germany. The principal French versions of the romance are Le Chevalier au Cygne and Helyas. The first mention of Helyas is when arrives on the scene when the Emperor Henry IV held court at Neumagen to decide a claim by the Count of Frankfort for the duchy of Bouillon, then held by Ida of Louvain, the widow of the Duke of Bouillon. Helyas of Lorraine won the battle, and married Ida, by whom he begot Geoffrey of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade. When Ida betrays her promise not to ask his identity, Helyas leaves her, never to return. Helyas then married Elsa of Brabant, producing a son, Elimar, who married Rixa, the heiress of Oldenburg, and became the Count of Oldenburg.[4] Helyas then marries Beatrix of Cleves and becomes king of Francia. They have three sons: Diederik, who succeeded his father in the county of Cleves; Godfrey, who became count of Lohn; and Konrad, who became ancestor of the counts of Hesse.[5]

A contemporary poem known as the Wartburgkrieg presented the story of the Knight of the Swan Lohengrin as Wolfram’s entry in a story-telling contest held at Wartburg by Hermann I, where the magician Klingsor of Hungary predicted the birth of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who would marry Hermann’s son Louis IV, and spend two thirds of her short life, from 1211–1228, at the Wartburg, the site of her “miracle of the roses.” Ludwig IV’s brother Conrad succeeded Hermann von Salza as Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.[6] Saint Elizabeth had left the court at Wartburg and moved to Marburg in Hesse, where she founded a hospital, which became a center of the Teutonic Order, who adopted her as its secondary patroness.

Sophie of Thuringia, the daughter of Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia and Elizabeth of Hungary, married Henry II, Duke of Brabant, from the House of Reginar. Henry II was the son of Henry I, Duke of Brabant and Matilda of Boulogne, the granddaughter of King Stephen I of England and Matilda of Boulogne, the daughter of Eustace III, the brother of Godrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I of Jerusalem. Matilda’s mother was Mary of Scotland, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret, the daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha of Bulgaria. Matilda’s brother was David I of Scotland, a supporter of the Templars.

In 1234, along with Count Otto II of Guelders, Count Dietrich V of Cleves and Count Otto I of Oldenburg, Henry I of Brabant participated in the Crusade against the heretics of Stedinger. The crusade was being called for by Conrad of Marburg (1180 – 1233), a controversial enemy of heretics who had taken part in the Albigensian Crusade, and who had been Elizabeth of Hungary’s spiritual director. In support, in June 1233, Pope Gregory IX wrote Vox in Roma, condemning the Luciferian sect, to Emperor Frederick II, Henry VII of Germany and Conrad of Marburg, among others. The bull describes the initiation rites of the sect, featuring descriptions common to the Cathars, including the presence of a demon in the form of a black cat, the performance of an obscene kiss, and the extinguishing of lights followed by a sexual orgy. In 1235, Emperor Frederick II appointed Henry I, Duke of Brabant, to travel to England to bring him his fiancée Isabella, daughter of John of England, but he fell ill on his way back and died at Cologne.

Order of the Swan

Sophie of Thuringia was the heiress of Hesse, which she passed on to her son, Henry I, Landgrave of Hesse (1244 – 1308), upon her retention of the territory following her partial victory in the War of the Thuringian Succession. Upon the death of Sophie’s uncle, Landgrave Henry Raspe (1204 – 1247) in 1247, Sophia secured the Hessian possessions for her minor son Henry the Child (1244 – 1308), who would become the first landgrave of Hesse and founder of the House of Hesse in 1246. Henry I of Hesse was raised to princely status by King Adolf of Germany in 1292. The remaining Thuringian landgraviate fell to Henry III, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1215 –1288), of the House of Wettin.

The House of Wettin played an important role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation, in alliance with Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (1504 – 1567), a direct descendant of Elizabeth of Hungary, who became the ancestress of the Landgraves of Hess through her daughter Sophie. The House of Wettin, one of the oldest in Europe, is a dynasty of German counts, dukes, prince-electors and kings that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Many ruling monarchs outside Germany were later tied to its cadet branch, the current House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who changed to the House of Windsor in England. Around 1000, the family acquired Wettin Castle, on the Saale river in Germany.

Genealogy of the Order of the Swan

• Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia + ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY, of the MIRACLE OF THE ROSES (see Genealogy of Agatha of Bulgaria)

  • Sophie of Thuringia + Henry II, Duke of Brabant (see Genealogy of Guillame of Gellone)

    • Henry I, Landgrave of Hesse (the first Landgrave of Hesse) + Adelheid of Brunswick-Lüneburg

      • Adelheid + Berthold VII, Count of Henneberg-Schleusingen

        • Elizabeth + John II, Burgrave of Nuremberg

          • Frederick V, Burgrave of Nuremberg + Elisabeth of Meissen

            • Elisabeth + Rupert of Germany

              • Louis III, Elector Palatine (acted as vicar for EMPEROR SIGISMUND, founder of the ORDER OF THE DRAGON)

              • Frederick I, Elector Palatine

            • John III, Burgrave of Nuremberg + Margaret of Luxemburg (sister of EMPEROR SIGISMUND)

            • Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg (first member of the House of Hohenzollern to rule the Margraviate of Brandenburg, ally of EMPEROR SIGISMUND) + Elizabeth (daughter of Frederick, Duke of Bavaria-Landshut, and Maddalena Visconti)

              • John, Margrave “the Alchemist” of Brandenburg-Kulmbach + Barbara of Saxe-Wittenberg

              • Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg (House of Hohenzollern. Founder of the ORDER OF THE SWAN) + Catherine of Saxony (see below)

              • Albert III Achilles, Elector of Brandenburg (member of the ORDER OF THE SWAN, spent time at the court of Emperor Sigismund) + Margaret of Austria (daughter of Ernest, Duke of Austria, member of the Order of the Dragon, son of Viridis Visconti and father of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor)

                • John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg + Margaret of Thuringia

                • Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

                  • George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (signed Augsburg Confession)

                  • Albert, Duke of Prussia (Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, founder of the Duchy of Prussia) + Dorothea (daughter of Frederick I of Denmark)

                  • Albert, Duke of Prussia + Anna Maria

                  • Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach (Order of the Golden Fleece)

                • Sibylle of Brandenburg + William IV, Duke of Jülich-Berg

                  • Maria of Jülich-Berg + John III, Duke of Cleves

                    • Sibylle of Cleves + JOHN FREDERICK I, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (see below)

                    • Anne of Cleves + Henry VIII of England (no issue)

                    • William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg + Maria of Austria (daughter of Ferdinand I and Anna Jagellonica)

Henry III’s son, Albert II, Margrave of Meissen (1240 – 1314), married Margaret of Sicily, the daughter of Emperor Frederick II and Isabella. Their grandson, Frederick II, Margrave of Meissen (1310 – 1349), married Mathilde of Bavaria, the daughter of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Their grandson was Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (1370 – 1428), who in 1423 received the Saxon Electorate from Emperor Sigismund, founder of the Order of the Dragon. In The Book of Abramelin, Abraham of Worms boasted of using Kabbalistic magic to summon 2000 “artificial cavalry” to support Frederick I in his war against the Hussites. For his victory at the Battle of Brüx in 1421, Frederick I received the Saxon Electorate from Emperor Sigismund.

Frederick I’s daughter Catherine of Saxony married Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg (1413 – 1471), founder of the Order of the Swan. Frederick II was the son of Frederick I (1371 – 1440), Brandenburg’s first ruler of the House of Hohenzollern, who could also trace their descent to Elizabeth of Hungary. Frederick I was an ally of Emperor Sigismund and his brother John III, Burgrave of Nuremberg (c. 1369 – 1420), married Sigismund’s sister, Margaret of Luxemburg. Frederick II’s mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick, Duke of Bavaria-Landshut, and Maddalena Visconti. Elector Frederick II’s brothers included John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1406 – 1464), known as “the Alchemist,” whose daughter Barbara married Ludovico III Gonzaga, and Albert III Achilles married Anna of Saxony, the daughter of Frederick I of Saxony’s son, Frederick II, Elector of Saxony (1412 – 1464), a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, who married Margaret of Austria, daughter of Ernest the Iron, of the House of Habsburg and a member of the Order of the Dragon. Ernest the Iron was the son of Leopold III, Duke of Inner Austria and Viridis Visconti. Margaret’s brother was Emperor Frederick III, who succeeded Sigismund as Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick III married Eleanor of Portugal, daughter of Edward, King of Portugal, brother of Prince Henry the Navigator, Grand Master of the Order of Christ. After passing some time at the court of Emperor Sigismund, Albert III took part in the Hussite Wars, and then distinguished himself assisting Sigismund’s successor, the Habsburg king Albert II of Germany, against the Hussites and their Polish allies.

Albert III Achilles was a member of the Order of the Swan, founded by his brother Frederick II, in reference to the Swan Knight, with himself at their head, thirty men and seven women united to honor Virgin Mary. The order spread rapidly, and further branches were established in the Franconian Principality of Ansbach and in the possessions of the Teutonic Order in East Prussia. However, the order was disbanded during the Protestant Reformation which discouraged devotions to Mary.

The House of Wettin split into two ruling branches in 1485, when the sons of Frederick II agreed to the Treaty of Leipzig in 1485, dividing the territories hitherto ruled jointly. Frederick II’s elder son Ernest, Elector of Saxony (1441 – 1486), who had succeeded his father as Prince-elector, received the Electorate of Saxony and Thuringia, while his younger brother Albert III, Duke of Saxony (1443 – 1500), a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, obtained the March of Meissen, which he ruled from Dresden. Albert III’s possessions were also known as Ducal Saxony. Albert III’s son, George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony (1471 – 1539), also a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, married Barbara Jagiellon, the sixth daughter of King Casimir IV of Poland and Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria. She was named after her great-grandmother, Barbara of Cilli, who co-founded the Order of the Dragon with her husband Emperor Sigismund.

Barbara’s brother was Sigismund I the Old, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, who married Bona Sforza. Their daughter, Anna Jagiellon married Stephen Bathory, sponsor of John Dee and uncle of the “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Báthory. Barbara’s other brother Vladislaus II Bohemia of Hungary was the father of Anna Jagellonica, who married Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Their son, Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, was the father of Rudolf II, a knight of the Order of the Garter, and also, like his father, of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Rudolf II maintained an occult-oriented court in Prague which attracted Rabbi Loew, known as the Maharal, the creator of the golem, and John Dee, sparking the rise of the Rosicrucian movement.

Barbara Jagiellon’s sister Sophia of Poland married Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1460 – 1536), the son of Albert III, Margrave of Brandenburg I and Anna of Saxony. Frederick I and Sophia’s sons include Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1493 – 1525), and knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and Albert of Prussia (1490 – 1568), the last Hochmeister of the Teutonic Knights. Duke Frederick of Saxony (1473 –1510), the youngest son of Albert III, Duke of Saxony, was the 36th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Knights had been in a long power struggle with Poland over Prussia. Because the Teutonic Knights' fortunes had declined throughout the fifteenth century, they hoped that by selecting someone connected by marriage to the ruling Jagiellon dynasty of Poland, they would strengthen their position.

When Frederick of Saxony died in 1510, Albert of Prussia was chosen as his successor. In 1522, Albert journeyed to Wittenberg, where he was advised by Martin Luther to abandon the rules of his order, to marry, and to convert Prussia into a hereditary duchy for himself. Luther worked to spread his teaching among the Prussians, while Albert's brother George presented the plan to Sigismund I the Old.[7] Albert converted to Lutheranism and, with the consent of Sigismund, turned the State of the Teutonic Order into the first protestant state, Duchy of Prussia, according to the Treaty of Kraków, which was sealed by the Prussian Homage in Kraków in 1525. When Albert died in 1568, his teenage son Albert Frederick (1553 – 1618) inherited the duchy. This Order of the Swan disappeared when the house of Brandenburg adopted Protestantism in 1525, but the marriage of Albert Frederick to Mary Eleanor, sister and heir of John William, duke of Cleves, who died in 1609, introduced the Hohenzollerns a new and more prestigious descent from the Swan Knight, from whom would descend the later famous Kings of Prussia.[8]

Luther Rose

Martin Luther’s reforms were concentrated on the church in the Electorate of Saxony, working closely with a friend of Philip I of Hesse, John, Elector of Saxony (1468 – 1532), and whose son, John Frederick I of Saxony (1503 – 1554), commissioned Luther seal of the rose and cross.[9] Although the Protestant Reformation is usually considered to have begun in 1517, when Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, the first overt schism resulted from the edict issued in 1521 at the Diet of Worms, an imperial diet called by Emperor Charles V and conducted in 1521. Luther refused to recant his views in response to a Papal bull of Pope Leo X, the corrupt Medici pope who sold fraudulent promises of salvation called “indulgences.” At the end of the Diet, Charles V issued the Edict of Worms, which condemned Luther as “a notorious heretic” and banned citizens of the Empire from preaching his ideas. However, Frederick III had obtained a promise of safe conduct for Luther to and from the meeting. This guarantee was essential after the treatment of Jan Hus, the heretic protected by Emperor Sigismund, founder of the Order of the Dragon, who was burned at the stake following the Council of Constance in 1415 despite the same promise.

The symbol of the swan which became associated with Luther derives from a prophecy reportedly made by Hus, whose teachings had a strong influence on Luther.[10] In the Bohemian language, Hus’ name meant “grey goose.” In 1414, while imprisoned by the Council of Constance and anticipating his execution, Hus prophesied, “Now they will roast a goose, but in a hundred years’ time they’ll hear a swan sing. They’d better listen to him.”[11] The evening before October 31, 1517, when Luther would post his Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, John the Elector recorded a dream had by his brother, Frederick III the Wise (1463 – 1525), about a monk who wrote on the church door of Wittenberg with a pen so large that it reached to Rome, which he was told by the monk, that is “belonged to an old goose of Bohemia, a hundred years old.”[12] Luther himself referred to Hus’ prophecy in 1531, and his Wittenberg colleague Johannes Bugenhagen (1485 – 1558) invoked it in the funeral sermon that he preached for Luther in 1546.[13]

Elector John and Frederick were the sons of Ernest, Elector of Saxony, founder of the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin, which remained predominant until 1547 and played an important role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. Ernest married Elisabeth of Bavaria, whose father, Albert III, Duke of Bavaria, was the son of Ernest, Duke of Bavaria and Viridis’ sister Elisabetta Visconti. As ally of the House of Luxembourg, Ernest, Duke of Bavaria, backed Emperor Sigismund in his wars against the supporters of Jan Hus. Elisabeth’s sister Margaret of Bavaria was briefly married to Federico I Gonzaga, the son of Ludovico III Gonzaga of Barbara of Brandenburg, daughter of John the Alchemist. Barbara’s sister Dorothea married Christian I of Denmark (1426 – 1481), the first king of the House of Oldenburg. Their son, John I of Denmark (1455 – 1513), married Ernest and Elizabeth’s daughter Christina of Saxony.

Genealogy of the Protestant Reformation

• Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (received the Saxon Electorate from Emperor Sigismund, founder of the Order of the Dragon)

  • Frederick II, Elector of Saxony (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Margaret of Austria (daughter of Ernest, Duke of Austria, member of the Order of the Dragon, son of Viridis Visconti and father of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor)

    • Anna of Saxony + Albert III Achilles, Elector of Brandenburg (member of the Order of the Swan. See below)

    • Ernest, Elector of Saxony (founder of the ERNESTINE branch of the House of Wettin) + Elisabeth of Bavaria (see below)

      • Christina of Saxony + John I of Denmark (see below)

      • FREDERICK III, THE WIFE, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (one of the most powerful early defenders of Martin Luther, hiding him at Wartburg Castle)

      • JOHN, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (1468 – 1532, known for organizing the Lutheran Church in the Electorate of Saxony with the help of Martin Luther, helped PHILIP I, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE, found the League of Gotha) + Sophie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

        • John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (friend of Martin Luther, founder of Schmalkaldic League with PHILIP I, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE, and ordered creation of LUTHER ROSE) + Sibylle of Cleves

      • JOHN, ELECTOR OF SAXONY + Margaret of Anhalt-Köthen

      • Margaret of Saxony + Henry I of Lüneburg

        • Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (signed the Augsburg Confession) + Sophia of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

          • Henry, Duke of Brunswick-Dannenberg + Ursula of Saxe-Lauenburg

            • Julius Ernst, Duke of Brunswick-Dannenberg + Maria of Ostfriesland

              • Maria Katharina + Adolphus Frederick I, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (member of Fruitbearing Society, see below)

            • AUGUSTUS THE YOUNGER, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (member of Fruitbearing Society, friend of JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAE, purported author of the ROSICRUCIAN MANIFESTOS, and RABBI TEMPLO) + Dorothea of Anhalt-Zerbst (daughter of the Ascanian prince Rudolph of Anhalt-Zerbst)

        • Francis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (signed Augsburg Confession)

    • Albert III, Duke of Saxony (ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, founder of the ALBERTINE branch of the House of Wettin)) + Sidonie Podiebrad of Bohemia

      • George, Duke of Saxony (ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE) + Barbara Jagiellon (the sixth daughter of King Casimir IV of Poland and Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria. named after her great-grandmother, Barbara of Cilli, who co-founded the ORDER OF THE DRAGON with Emperor Sigismund. Sister of Sigismund I the Old, whose daughter Anna Jagiellon married Stephen Bathory, sponsor of John Dee and uncle of Elizabeth Báthory, the “Blood Countess”)

        • Christine of Saxony + PHILIP I, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE (see below)

          • Agnes of Hesse + MAURICE, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (see below)

          • Christine of Hesse + Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp

      • Henry IV, Duke of Saxony (1526 – 1586) + Catherine of Mecklenburg

        • AUGUSTUS, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (recognized as Elector by the ousted John Frederick I in 1554. Sponsored the publication of the BOOK OF CONCORD) + Anna of Denmark (sister of his close friend Frederick II of Denmark, who sponsored Tycho Brahe)

        • AUGUSTUS, ELECTOR OF SAXONY + Agnes Hedwig of Anhalt

        • MAURICE, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (though a Lutheran, allied with Emperor Charles V against the Schmalkaldic League. Gained the Electorate for the Albertine line in 1547 after Charles V's victory at the Battle of Mühlberg) + Agnes of Hesse (see above)

          • Anna of Saxony + WILLIAM THE SILENT (Order of the Golden Fleece. See below)

      • Frederick of Saxony (Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights)

  • Anna of Saxony, Landgravine of Hesse + Louis I, Landgrave of Hesse

    • Henry III, Landgrave of Upper Hesse + Anna of Katzenelnbogen

      • Elisabeth + Johann V of Nassau-Vianden-Dietz

        • William I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg

          • WILLIAM THE SILENT (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Anna of Saxony (see above)

            • Maurice, Prince of Orange

          • WILLIAM THE SILENT (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Charlotte of Bourbon

            • Countess Louise Juliana of Nassau + Frederick IV, Elector Palatine

              • ALCHEMICAL WEDDING: Frederick V of the Palatinate + Elizabeth Stuart

Ernest and Elisabeth’s son, Frederick III the Wise, Elector of Saxony, was one of the most powerful early defenders of Martin Luther. In 1521, Frederick protected Martin Luther following his excommunication after the Diet of Worms by hiding him at Wartburg Castle, where he devoted his time to translating the New Testament from Greek into German and other polemical writings. Luther reported that he was often harassed by the devil during his stay at the Wartburg. Awakened by the devil one night, Luther supposedly defended himself against Satan by throwing an inkwell at him. However, Luther’s statement that he had “driven the devil away with ink” is usually ascribed to his translation of the Bible rather than nightly fights at Wartburg. The ink stain on the wall in Luther’s room at the Wartburg was still visible during the last century.[14]

Elector John’s son, John Frederick I, married Sibylle, Electress of Saxony, of the House of Cleves, who are descended from her great-great-grandfather, Adolph I, Duke of Cleves, who was raised by Emperor Sigismund, founder of the Order of the Dragon, as duke and a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1417. Adolph’s wife was Mary of Burgundy, Duchess of Cleves, sister of Philip the Good, founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Sibylle’s great-grandfather, John I, Duke of Cleves, was the brother of Catherine of Cleves, whose daughter Marie married James II of Scotland. John I’s other sister, Marie of Cleves, married Charles, Duke of Orléans, Order of the Golden Fleece, who became the parents of Louis XII of France, and the grandparents of Claude of France, the wife of Francis I of France, a supporter of Guillaume Postel and Leonardo Da Vinci. His son, Henry II of France, married Catherine de Medici.

Frederick III the Wise appointed Luther and Philipp Melanchthon to the University of Wittenberg, which he had established in 1502. In his time at Wittenberg, Melanchthon and his son-in-law Caspar Peucer (1525 – 1602) were of the main promoters of the astrological department.[15] Peucer and Melanchton collaborated closely on a book about divination, indicating that magic, incarnations and other practices that appeal to the devil are illicit, while three are permitted. These are oracles, divination from natural causes and, most importantly, astrology.[16] In a few instances, Peucer worked with the Danish astronomer and alchemist Tycho Brahe—a friend of John Dee—including a dispute with Christoph Rothman around the Tychonic system, a proposed compromise between Copernicus’ heliocentric and the geocentric models of the universe, which Brahe believed was compatible with the Bible.[17]

Among their friends at the university was Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter who was praised by Albrecht Dürer. Cranach was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced. He was a close friend of Martin Luther, and made numerous portraits of his, and provided woodcut illustrations for his German translation of the Bible. Throughout his career, Cranach painted numerous nude subjects drawn from mythology, including Venus, Lucertia, sleeping nymphs, the Three Graces and the Judgement of Paris, a theme popular with the faculty at Wittenberg. In De alchimia, written by Valentin Hernworst, the most striking illustration is a Judgement of Paris, as an allegory of a decisive step in the Great Work, the making of the Philosopher’s Stone, which shares striking details with the Wittenberg woodcut of Nikolaus Marschalk at Wittenberg. Cranach signed his works with his initials until 1508, when John Frederick I granted him the use of the serpent with bat wings, which bears a red crown on the head and holds a ring studded with a ruby in its mouth, an evident alchemical symbol.[18]

Cranach had two sons, both artists: Hans Cranach, whose life was obscure, and Lucas Cranach the Younger, continued to create versions of his father’s works for decades after his death. Cranach also had three daughters, one of whom was Barbara Cranach, who was an ancestor of Goethe. The Nazis had a particular interest in Cranach, leading to claims for restitution from Jewish collectors who looted. The Nazis looted Cranach’s Portrait of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony from Jewish art collector Fritz Gutmann before murdering him, but was later recovered by his grandson Simon Goodman. Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus became part of Hitler's personal collection. The diptych Adam and Eve has been the focus of a legal dispute between the heirs of the former owner, Dutch art collector, Jacques Goudstikker, and the Norton Simon museum in California. In 1999, the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress (WCJ) notified the North Carolina Museum of Art that the Madonna and Child in its possession had been looted by Nazis from the Jewish Viennese art collector, Philipp von Gomperz. In 2000, a Budapest court ruled that a Cranach and other looted paintings claimed by the granddaughter of famous Hungarian Jewish art collector Baron Herzog should be returned to her. In 2012, the heirs of Rosa and Jakob Oppenheimer submitted a claim to the National Gallery of Ireland for a Cranach painting of Saint Christopher.

In 1525, Luther married the former nun Katharina von Bora, with Melanchthon and Cranach and his wife as witnesses, and Luther and new wife moved into a former monastery, “The Black Cloister,” a wedding present from Elector John. It was at the Diet of Worms that Luther met Philip I of Hesse, and he embraced Protestantism in 1524 after a personal meeting with Melanchthon. In 1539, Luther became implicated in the bigamy scandal of Philip I of Hesse, who wanted to marry one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, Margarethe von der Saale. Philip solicited the approval of Luther, Melanchthon and Martin Bucer (1491 – 1551), citing the polygamy of the patriarchs as a precedent. They reluctantly advised Philip he should marry secretly because divorce was worse than bigamy. As a result, Philip married Margarethe with Melanchthon and Bucer among the witnesses. However, Philip’s sister Elisabeth made light of the scandal, and when Philip threatened to expose Luther’s advice, Luther told him to “tell a good, strong lie” and deny the marriage, which Philip did.[19]

Schmalkaldic League

In 1521, the year Emperor Charles V sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms, Francis I of France started a conflict in Italy that lasted until the Battle of Pavia in 1525, leading to Francis I’s temporary imprisonment. Having assisted in suppressing an uprising during the German Peasant’s War in 1525, Elector John helped Philip I of Hesse found the League of Gotha, formed in 1526 for the protection of the Reformers. Charles V’s difficulties with the Protestants re-emerged in 1527 as Rome was sacked by an army of Charles’s mutinous soldiers, largely of Lutheran faith, commanded by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. In 1531, Philip I and John Frederick I, then the two most powerful Protestant rulers in the Holy Roman Empire at the time, officially established the Schmalkaldic League, with the Protestant princes pledging to defend each other if their territories were attacked by Charles V.

In 1529, Philip I had convoked an assembly of German and Swiss theologians at the Marburg Colloquy, which paved the way for the signing in 1530 of the Augsburg Confession, and for the formation of the Schmalkaldic League the following. In 1530, Charles V requested the Imperial Diet of Augsburg to decide on three issues: the defense of the Empire against the Ottoman Turks; issues related to the public, and disagreements about theology. It produced numerous outcomes, most notably the 1530 declaration of the Lutheran estates known as the Augsburg Confession, that was presented to the emperor. It produced numerous outcomes, most notably the declaration of the Lutheran estates known as the Augsburg Confession, that was presented to the emperor. The Confession was signed by leading Protestant nobles, such as Elector John, and George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1484 – 1543), of the House of Hohenzollern. George was the third of eight sons of Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and his wife Sophia of Poland. George entered the service of his uncle, Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, living at his court from 1506. The confession was signed by Margrave George, Ernest I, Philip I of Hesse, as well as Elector John and his son John Frederick, his brother-in-law Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen (1492 – 1566), and his nephews, the brothers Francis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1508–1549) and Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1497 – 1546).

The Luther Rose, became a widely recognized symbol for Lutheranism, was designed for Martin Luther at the behest of John Frederick I in 1530, while Luther was staying at the Coburg Fortress during the Diet of Augsburg. When Lazarus Spengler sent Luther a drawing of the seal of a rose and a cross commissioned by John Frederick I, Luther wrote Melanchthon a letter to describe how he viewed the symbol an expression of his theology and faith. Luther informed Melanchthon, that John Frederick I had personally visited him in the Coburg fortress and presented him with a signet ring, presumably displaying the seal.[20]

For fifteen years, the League was able to exist without opposition because Charles was busy fighting wars with France and the Ottoman Empire. At the insistence of John Frederick I, membership in the Schmalkaldic League was conditional on agreement to the Augsburg Confession.[21] In 1535, Anhalt, Württemberg, Pomerania, as well as the free imperial cities of Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, and the Free Imperial City of Kempten joined the alliance. In 1535, Francis I of France, who persecuted Protestants at home, supported the Protestant princes in their struggle against their common enemy. Francis I of France, in an effort to limit the power of the Habsburgs, allied with Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, forming a Franco-Ottoman alliance, brokered by the French Kabbalist Guillame Postel. The Italian War of 1536–38 between France and the Holy Roman Empire ended in 1538 with the Truce of Nice. Also in 1538, the Schmalkaldic League allied with the newly reformed Denmark.

Francis I’s tactical support ended in 1544 with the signing of the Treaty of Crépy, whereby the French king, who was fighting the Emperor in Italy, pledged to stop backing the Protestant princes and the League in Germany. The league would also get limited support from Brandenburg under Joachim II Hector (1505 – 1571), but during the Schmalkaldic War he would send cavalry support to the Emperor against the league.[22] Joachim II was the son of Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg and Elizabeth of Denmark, the daughter of John I of Denmark and Christina of Saxony, the sister of Frederick the Wise and Elector John. Elizabeth’s brother, Christian II of Denmark, married Isabella of Austria, the sister of Charles V. Joachim II’s first wife was Magdalena of Saxony, sister of Philip I of Hesse’s wife Christine. Joachim II’s second wife was Hedwig Jagiellon, the daughter of Sigismund the Old. In 1544, Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire signed the Treaty of Speyer, which stated that during the reign of Christian II’s nephew Christian III (1503 – 1559), Denmark would maintain a peaceful foreign policy towards the Holy Roman Empire. In 1545, the League gained the allegiance of the Electoral Palatinate, under the control of Frederick III, Elector Palatine (1515 – 1576), the grandfather of Frederick IV, Elector Palatine.

In 1545, the Council of Trent was finally opened and began the Counter-Reformation. However, the Schmalkaldic League refused to recognize the validity of the council and occupied territories of Catholic princes. In June 1546, Pope Paul III entered into an agreement with Charles V to suppress the spread of the Reformation. After the peace with France, Charles signed the Truce of Adrianople in 1547 with the Ottoman Empire, which was allied to Francis I, to free even more Habsburg resources for a final confrontation with the League. From 1546 to 1547, in what is known as the Schmalkaldic War, Charles and his allies fought the League over the territories of Ernestine Saxony and Albertine Saxony. The Schmalkaldic War ended the predominance the Ernestines. Although itself Lutheran, the Albertine branch rallied to the Emperor’s cause. Charles V had promised the rights to the electorship to Albert III’s grandson, Maurice, Elector of Saxony (1521 – 1553), a cousin of Philip I of Hesse’s wife, Christine of Saxony. In 1541, Maurice married Philip I’s daughter, Agnes of Hesse. Maurice refused to join the Protestant Schmalkaldic League, although the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, his friend and father-in-law, was its leader. The principal reason for his refusal to do so is generally regarded as his hate for his Ernestine cousin John Frederick I and the Imperial promise of the Saxon electorship which he held. Though a Lutheran, Maurice allied with Charles V against the Schmalkaldic League. Thus, he participated in the Charles V’s army in the war against Suleiman the Magnificent in 1542, Duke William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg in 1543, and Francis I of France in 1544.

In 1546, with the assistance of Ferdinand I, the younger brother of Charles V, Maurice invaded the lands of John Frederick I in Saxony, beginning the brief Schmalkaldic War. On April 24, 1547, Charles V’s forces routed the Schmalkaldic League at the Battle of Mühlberg, capturing many leaders, including, most notably, Johann Frederick I. Philip I surrendered in May. Following the victory, Maurice gained the Electorate for the Albertine line of the House of Wettin, and John Frederick I had to cede territory and the electorship to him. Although imprisoned, John Frederick I was able to plan a new university, which was established by his three sons in 1548 as the Höhere Landesschule at Jena. It was awarded the status of university in 1557 Emperor Ferdinand I, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece.[23] Many of the princes and key reformers, such as Martin Bucer, fled to England where they directly influenced the English Reformation. Bucer accepted invitation to come to England from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489 – 1556), who had helped build the case for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Charles V’s aunt, Catherine of Aragon.

In 1548, the victorious Charles forced the Schmalkaldic League to agree to the terms set forth in the Augsburg Interim. However, Protestantism had established itself firmly in Central Europe. A small Protestant victory in 1552 forced Charles to flee across the Alps to avoid capture. His younger brother and heir Ferdinand I signed the Peace of Passau, which granted some freedoms to Protestants and ended all of Charles’ hopes of religious unity within his empire. The Protestant princes taken prisoner during the Schmalkaldic War, John Frederick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, were released. The Council of Trent was re-opened in 1550 with the participation of Lutherans. In 1552, Protestant princes, in alliance with Francis I’s son and successor and husband of Catherine de Medici, Henry II of France, rebelled again and the second Schmalkaldic War began. Maurice, Elector of Saxony, switched to the Protestant cause and bypassed the Imperial army by marching directly into Innsbruck where Charles V set up the Imperial court, with the goal of capturing the Emperor. Charles V was forced to flee the city. After failing to recapture Metz from the French, Charles V returned to the Low Countries for the last years of his emperorship. In 1555, he instructed his brother Ferdinand to sign the Peace of Augsburg in his name, which officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups, granting Lutheranism official status within the Holy Roman Empire and allowing princes choose the official religion within the domains, according to the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio.

William the Silent

Maurice, Elector of Saxony, married Agnes of Hesse, the daughter of his cousin Christine of Saxony, the first wife of Philip I of Hesse. Their daughter Anna of Saxony had a love affair and illegitimate child from Jan Rubens, father of the famous Dutch painter Peter Paul Rubens, who was close friends with the family who operated Plantin Press. At the time, Anna was married to William “the Silent” of Orange (1533 – 1584). William’s daughter by another woman, Charlotte of Bourbon, was Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau was the mother of Frederick of the Palatinate. William the Silent, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1581. The Principality of Orange was a feudal state in Provence, in Southern France, founded around the year 800, when it was awarded to Guillaume of Gellone for his services in the wars against the Moors and in the reconquest of southern France and the Spanish March. It was constituted in 1163, when Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa elevated the Burgundian County of Orange to a sovereign principality within the Empire. The principality became part of the distributed holdings of the house of Orange-Nassau from the time that William inherited the title of Prince of Orange from his cousin in 1544.

Louise Juliana’s mother was Charlotte of Bourbon, whose maternal grandparents were John IV de Longwy, Baron of Pagny, and Jeanne of Angoulême, a half-sister of Francis I. Charlotte’s father was influential in the court of Catherine de Medici. Charlotte’s paternal grandmother was Louise de Bourbon, who was the daughter of Gilbert, Count of Montpensier and Clara Gonzaga, a descendant of Edward I, Count of Bar, a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Edward was the son of Henry III, Count of Bar and Eleanore, the daughter of Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. Louise of Bourbon’s brother was Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (1490 – 1527), who supposedly succeeded Leonardo da Vinci as Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Clara’s brother, Francesco II Gonzaga married Isabella d’Este, and fathered Charles IIIs successor, Ferrante I Gonzaga. Francesco II was succeeded by his nephew, Ludovico Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, who married Henriette of Cleves, a lady-in-waiting of Catherine de Medici.

William the Silent’s grandfather, Henry III, Landgrave of Upper Hesse, was the brother of Louis II, Landgrave of Lower Hesse, whose son, William II, Landgrave of Hesse (1469 – 1509), a descendant of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary of the “Miracle of the Roses.” William II was first married to Yolande, the daughter of Ferry II of Vaudémont and Yolande of Bar, the daughter of René of Anjou, also a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, as well as founder of the Order of the Fleur de Lys. By his second wife, Anna of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the father of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (1504 – 1567), the grandfather of Frederick V’s father was Frederick IV of the Palatinate of the Rhine (1574 – 1610).

William the Silent’s fourth wife was Louise de Coligny, who during her life remained an advocate for Protestantism. She corresponded with many important figures of that time, like Elizabeth I of England, Henry IV of France, Marie de Medici and Philippe de Mornay, as well as with her many stepchildren. She died at Fontainebleau. Cosimo Ruggeri, who had been the trusted sorcerer of Catherine de Medici, was a personal friend of Marie de Medici’s favorites, Concino Concini (1569 – 1617) and his wife Leonora Dori, who was later burned at the stake for witchcraft.[24] Marie’s sister, Eleonora married Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and nephew of Louis Gonzaga, Grand Master of the Priory of Sion.

Fruitbearing Society

As Susana Åkerman explained, all the evidence indicates that it was a comet in the cross-shaped Swan (Cygno) in 1602 and supernova in Serpentario in 1603/04 that triggered the Rosicrucian movement in Tübingen, which included Johann Valentin Andreae, the reputed author of the Rosicrucian manifestos.[25] Although the authorship of the Rosicrucian manifestos is not confirmed, Martin Brecht and Roland Edighoffer have each found evidence of the involvement of Andreae in several of the treatises, especially the Confessio fraternitatis.[26] The Augsburg Confession is the fourth document contained in the Lutheran Book of Concord, the doctrinal standard of the Lutheran Church, compiled by a group of theologians led by Johann’s grandfather and friend of Martin Luther, Jakob Andreae (1528 –1590), and Martin Chemnitz (1522 – 1586), at the behest of their rulers, who wished an end to the religious controversies in their territories that arose among Lutherans after Luther’s death in 1546.[27] Chemnitz was employed by Albert, Duke of Prussia, as the court librarian for the Konigsberg State and University Library, where his interest shifted from astrology, which he had studied in Magdeburg, to theology. Andreae, who attended the diets of Regensburg and Augsburg, became professor of theology in the University of Tübingen, and provost of the church of St. George. Andreae also established a family coat of arms, a St. Andrew’s cross and four roses, which was quite similar to Luther Rose.[28]

Andreae and Chemnitz were supported by the powerful Augustus, Elector of Saxony (1526 – 1586), the brother of Maurice, Elector of Saxony, and who was married to Anne of Denmark, the daughter of Christian III of Denmark. Anne’s brother was Frederik II of Denmark, whose fascination with alchemy and astrology facilitated the rise of Tycho Brahe, a friend of John Dee. Augustus’s second wife was Agnes Hedwig of Anhalt, the sister of Christian of Anhalt, chief architect of the political agenda of the Rosicrucian movement. Christian and Agnes were the children of John V, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (1504 – 1551), and Margaret of Brandenburg, the sister of Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg, who supported the Schmalkaldic League.

The Rosicrucian movement inspired the foundation of similar societies with an interest in natural philosophy, among them the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (“Fruitbearing Society”), whose members included Johann Valentin Andreae, Christian of Anhalt, and his siblings. The Fruitbearing Society was linked to the Order der Unzertrennlichen (“Order of the Inseparables”), founded in 1577, which was said to have used a secret alphabet containing numerous alchemical symbols.[29]  During the funeral celebrations of Christian of Anhalt’s sister, Dorothea Maria of Anhalt, on August 24, 1617, timed to commemorate St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, several princes took the opportunity to propose the founding of the society, and appointed her brother, Louis I, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen (1579 –1650) as its first president.

Genealogy of the Fruitbearing Society

• Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg (first member of the House of Hohenzollern to rule the Margraviate of Brandenburg, ally of EMPEROR SIGISMUND) + Elizabeth (daughter of Frederick, Duke of Bavaria-Landshut, and Maddalena Visconti)

  • John, Margrave “the Alchemist” of Brandenburg-Kulmbach + Barbara of Saxe-Wittenberg

    • Barbara of Brandenburg + Ludovico III Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua

    • Dorothea of Brandenburg + Christian I of Denmark (first king of the House of Oldenburg)

      • John I of Denmark + Christina of Saxony (sister of FREDERICK III “THE WISE,” ELECTOR OF SAXONY and JOHN, ELECTOR OF SAXONY)

        • Christian II of Denmark + Isabella of Austria (daughter of Philip I of Castile + Joanna of Castile)

        • Elizabeth of Denmark + Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg (see below)

      • Margaret of Denmark + James III of Scotland

        • James IV of Scotland + Margaret Tudor (d. Of Henry VII, Golden Fleece + Elizabeth of York, daughter of Elizabeth Woodville)

          • James V of Scotland (Order of the Golden Fleece) + MARIE DE GUISE

            • Mary, Queen of Scots + Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

              • King James I of England + Anne of Denmark

                • Elizabeth Stuart + ALCHEMICAL WEDDING: Frederick V of the Palatinate (see below)

      • Frederick I of Denmark + Anna of Brandenburg (see below)

  • Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg (House of Hohenzollern. Founder of the ORDER OF THE SWAN) + Catherine of Saxony (daughter of Frederick II, Elector of Saxony, Order of the Golden Fleece)

  • Albert III Achilles, Elector of Brandenburg (member of the ORDER OF THE SWAN, spent time at the court of Emperor Sigismund) + Anna of Saxony (daughter of Frederick II, Elector of Saxony + Sophia of Poland (sister of Sigismund I the Old)

    • John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg + Margaret of Thuringia

      • Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg + Elizabeth of Denmark (see above)

        • Margaret of Brandenburg + John V, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst

          • Joachim Ernest, Prince of Anhalt + Eleonore of Württemberg

      • Anna of Brandenburg + Frederick I of Denmark (see abovve)

        • Christian III of Denmark + Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg

          • Anne, Electress of Saxony + AUGUSTUS, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (personally sponsored the publication of the BOOK OF CONCORD)

            • Christian I, Elector of Saxony + Sophie of Brandenburg

              • John George I, Elector of Saxony + Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia

              • Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Plötzkau (FRUITBEARING SOCIETY) + Sibylle of Solms-Laubach

            • Dorothea + Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

              • Dorothea Hedwig of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel + Rudolph, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (FRUITBEARING SOCIETY)

    • Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

      • George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (signed AUGSBURG CONFESSION)

      • ALBERT, DUKE OF PRUSSIA (Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, founder of the Duchy of Prussia) + Dorothea (daughter of Frederick I of Denmark)

      • Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach (Order of the Golden Fleece)

    • Sibylle of Brandenburg + William IV, Duke of Jülich-Berg

      • Maria of Jülich-Berg + John III, Duke of Cleves

        • Sibylle of Cleves + JOHN FREDERICK I, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (commissioned design of LUTHER ROSE)

        • Anne of Cleves + Henry VIII of England (no issue)

        • William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg + Maria of Austria (daughter of Ferdinand I and Anna Jagellonica)

          • Marie Eleonore of Cleves + Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia

• Joachim Ernest, Prince of Anhalt + Eleonore of Württemberg

  • John George I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (learned in astrology and alchemy. Member of FRUITBEARING SOCIETY) + Countess Palatine Dorothea of Simmern

  • CHRISTIAN OF ANHALT (advisor-in-chief of Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, of the ALCHEMICAL WEDDING) + Anna of Bentheim-Tecklenburg

  • Agnes Hedwig of Anhalt + Augustus, Elector of Saxony (see above)

  • Dorothea Maria of Anhalt (at whose funeral the FRUITBEARING SOCIETY was founded, on August 24, 1617, date of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572) + Johann II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar

    • Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (member of FRUITBEARING SOCIETY, founder of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha dynasty. See Genealogy of the House of Romanov) + Elisabeth Sophie, Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (see above)

      • Elisabeth Dorothea + Louis VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (see below)

  • Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Plötzkau (FRUITBEARING SOCIETY, led Rosicrucian court, including PAUL NAGEL, collaborated with Baltazar Walther)

  • Rudolph, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (Fruitbaering Society) + Dorothea Hedwig of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (see above)

    • Dorothea of Anhalt-Zerbst + AUGUSTUS THE YOUNGER, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (member of FRUITBEARING SOCIETY, friend of Johann Valentin Andreae, purported author of the Rosicrucian manifestos, and Rabbi Templo)

The Fruitbearing Society included Charles X Gustav of Sweden, numerous German nobles, and scholars. Among the members of the society during its relatively brief history were virtually all of the great poets of the German Baroque, as well as other learned men who wrote on subjects ranging from literature and music to history, philosophy, and the law. The society included Wolfgang Ratke (1571 – 1635), a German educational reformer whose system was based on the philosophy of Francis Bacon. Also a member of the society was Christian’s brother, John George I of Anhalt-Dessau (1567 – 1618), who ruled the unified principality of Anhalt jointly with his brothers. John George was much appreciated by his subjects and considered learned abroad, particularly in the subjects of astrology and alchemy. Other than Andreae, other Fruitbearing Society members specifically associated with the Rosicrucian movement included Andreae’s friend Tobias Adami (1581 – 1643), a disciple of Tommaso Campanella, author of City of the Sun.

The aim of the Fruitbearing Society was to standardize vernacular German and promote it as both a scholarly and literary language, following the example of the Accademia della Crusca, a society of scholars of Italian linguistics and philology in Florence, of which Louis I had been a member.[30] The Villa di Castello, which served as the headquarters of the Accademia, was the country residence of Cosimo I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. However, the Accademia used humor, satire, and irony to distinguish themselves from the purported pedantry of the Accademia Fiorentina protected by Cosimo I. Likewise, it was reported that some of the rituals introduced into the Fruitbearing Society gave rise to ridicule and laughter, such that many were deterred from joining. The admission rituals included drinking from a tazza-shaped chalice called Mount of Olives cup, taunting new members on a rotating chair, and having them hold a speech in exemplary German.[31]

Andreae was also a friend of a fellow member of the Fruitbearug Society, Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1579 – 1666), the grandson of Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who was one of the signatories of the Augsburg Confession and a nephew of Elector John. Augustus was married to Dorothea of Anhalt-Zerbst, the daughter of Rudolph, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (1576 – 1621), another brother of Christian of Anhalt and also a member of the Fruitbearing Society. Augustus is known for founding the Herzog August Library at his Wolfenbüttel residence, then the largest collection of books and manuscripts in Northern Europe. Under the pseudonym Gustavus Selenus he wrote a book on chess and another on cryptography which was largely based on earlier works by Johannes Trithemius. Augustus was also interested in occult sciences and alchemy and maintained an active correspondence with Andreae, whom he had tutor his three sons.[32]

The legend of Rosencreutz may have been inspired by Balthasar Walther who served as personal physician to Christian of Anhalt’s brother, Prince August of Anhalt-Plötzkau (1575 – 1653), whose court was a center for occult, alchemical and Rosicrucian thought during the opening decades of the seventeenth century. There, in 1612 or 1613, more than a year before its first printing, Walther’s collaborator Paul Nagel transcribed a copy of the Fama. Nagel was also a practicing alchemist, who collected recipes from the likes of Edward Kelley. In addition to more than a dozen other astrological tracts Nagel’s copy of the Fama also contains Kabbalistic explications of the Book of Revelation and Daniel. Nagel was the first person to set any part of Boehme’s work in print.[33] In 1611, Prince August of Anhalt-Plötzkau proposed publishing the two Rosicrucian manifestos together, but was unable to locate a copy of Confessio.[34]

House of Hesse-Kassel

When Philip I of Hesse died in 1567, Hesse was divided between his sons from his first marriage, which included Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Marburg, Hesse-Rheinfels Hesse-Darmstadt. Philip I of Hesse’s grandson was Maurice of Hesse-Kassel (1572 – 1632), a member of the Fruitbearing Society, and a close friend of Frederick V. Maurice’s court in Kassel was a flourishing center for alchemy and Paracelsian medicine, including occultists such as German Jew and alchemist Michael Maier (1568 – 1622), physician and counsellor to Rudolf II Habsburg, who in 1611 left Prague for Hesse-Kassel. In Septimana Philosophica, alchemist Michael Maier wrote:

The rose is the first and most perfect of flowers. The Gardens of Philosophy are planted with many roses, both red and white, which colors are in correspondence with gold and silver. The centre of the rose is green and is emblematical of the Green Lion or First Matter. Just as the natural rose turns to the sun and is refreshed by rain, so is the Philosophical Matter prepared in blood, grown in light, and in and by these made perfect.[35]

Maurice, also called “the Learned,” was a great patron of alchemists and medical men.[36]  An Anglophile, Maurice actively pursued connections with England and maintained a company of English “comedians.”[37] Maurice’s father had been William IV of Hesse-Kassel (1532 – 1592), called “William the Wise,” a notable patron of the arts and sciences and a pioneer in astronomical research, who founded the first European observatory in 1564 in his castle at Kassel, and was on friendly terms with Tycho Brahe, a friend of John Dee. Both manifestos were published by an official printer to Maurice. Maier composed a wedding song for the marriage of Frederick V and Elizabeth, and in 1619 he became Maurice’s physician.

Maier wrote that the 1603/4 celestial phenomenon was a sign to the Rosicrucian brotherhood to emerge from their period of secrecy.[38] In 1608, Maier went to Prague, and in 1609, he formally entered the service of Rudolf II as his physician and imperial counselor. Rudolf raised him to the hereditary nobility and gave him the title of Imperial Count Palatine. In both Silentium post clamores and Themis aurea, Maier maintains that the R.C. Fraternity actually exists, and is not a mere mystification, as some have suggested. However, he asserts that he is not a member and is too humble to have access to such exalted beings. The Themis aurea discusses the R.C. Fraternity as an Order of Chivalry, comparing its ‘R.C.’ emblem with the insignia of other Orders, the double cross of the Knights of Malta, the Fleece of the Order of the Golden Fleece, or the Garter of the Order of the Garter. Maier goes on to affirm, that the emblem of the R.C. Order is neither a double cross, a Fleece, nor a Garter, but the words R.C.

Maier was a friend of fellow alchemist and Rosicrucian Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Fludd travelled for six years in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, where he studied with Jewish Kabbalists and was visited by Maier. By his own account, Fludd also spent a winter in the Pyrenees studying theurgy with the Jesuits.[39] Fludd’s vast volumes on the universal harmony, the Utriusque cosmi historia published at Oppenheim in 1617 – 1 9, are heavily influenced by the Franciscan Kabbalist, Francesco Giorgi, and essentially represent Giorgi’s philosophy in a later form.[40] Fludd’s Apologia opens with an invocation of the traditions of the prisca theologia, particularly “Mercurius Trismegistus.”

Fludd defended the Rosicrucians from charges of “detestable magic and diabolical superstition.” The Rosicrucian brothers, explains Fludd, only used good kinds of magic—Magia, Kabbalah and Astrologia—that were mathematical and mechanical. The magic of the Kabbalah was holy, he argued, teaching how to invoke the sacred names of angels. The nova of 1603/4 was taken to mark the coming of the new age, a circumstance set out in detail by Fludd in 1616. Fludd wrote in his Tractatis Apoligetica (1617) that “new star” of 1572 marked the beginning of the Rosicrucian work, which then continued to be prepared in secrecy until the 1603-4 conjunction, which was a sign to the Brotherhood to emerge into the open, expand their membership and begin the restoration of the world.

winter lion

Christian played an important role in the formation of the Protestant Union in 1608, when the Protestant princes met in Auhausen and formed a coalition of Protestant states, under the leadership of Frederick V’s father, Frederick IV, in order to defend the rights, land and safety of each member, which included the Palatinate, Neuburg, Württemberg, Baden-Durlach, Ansbach, Bayreuth, Anhalt, Zweibrücken, Oettingen, Hesse-Kassel, and Brandenburg. With the death of Frederick V in 1610, the Protestant Union began placing their hopes in his son and successor, Frederick V, whose marriage to Elizabeth Stuart was celebrated in Andreae’s The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. Frederick V and his uncle, Maurice, Prince of Orange (1567 – 1625), were elected to the Order of the Garter at Windsor a week before Frederick V wedding to Elizabeth Stuart.[41] Maurice was the son of William the Silent and his second wife Anne, the daughter of Maurice, Elector of Saxony, and Philip I of Hess’ daughter Agnes. Maurice had been educated at Heidelberg University in the Palatinate, where he had met Simon Studion and other founding members of the Rosicrucian movement.[42] Elaborate celebrations, organized by Francis Bacon, followed the ceremony, which included a performance of the pagan themed The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn by Francis Beaumont and The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn by George Chapman, with costumes, sets, and stage effects designed by Inigo Jones. On their return trip to Heidelberg, Frederick and Elizabeth travelled to The Hague to visit Maurice before leaving for Germany, where the couple entered amidst widespread celebration.

During the thirteenth century, Joachim of Fiore’s system of an ultimate redemption was transformed from awaiting a future Angelic Pope to electing the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, seated in a Templar throne in Sicily, as opponent to the Church and world monarch of the redemption. Fredrick was however declared anathema by Pope Gregorius IX in 1240. Since his death, followers of Joachim’s prophecies in southern Germany awaited a new Frederick, just as the French long awaited their second Charles in Charlemagne. Michel Lotich Pomer(iensis) wrote to King Carl IX of Sweden and drew a cross-marked heart mounted by a precious crown supporting a rose and an “F” probably for Fredrick, which signaled that there now was a German Prince ready to rise as a new crusading Emperor.[43] Lotich saw Fredrick IV, Frederick’s father, as a possible candidate. Lothich pointed to a new era heralded by the new star of 1572. He drew up the sign of Cassiopeia and placed beside it a sword topped with a star. The sword stood on an altar inscribed with the sign of Leo.

Lotich also advanced the prophecy of the Lion found in the works of Paracelsus in 1536. A renewed use of the Lion prophecy in Germany can be traced back at least to 1598. A first part was culled from Paracelsus' Liber Mineralibus (ca. 1540), republished in his collected works at Basel in 1588. Paracelsus is said to have claimed that he would return fifty-eight years after his death, in 1541, which probably made 1598 a year of special significance. Paracelsus had published a shorter prophecy in 1530 that was republished at Strasbourg in 1616, of the coming of the Lion, after which a “New World” would begin.[44] Millenarian ideas about the Paracelsian Lion inspired King James in 1588 to complete his own calculations about the scenario in Revelations 20:7-10, where Satan is released following the thousand-year period and Gog and Magog are released. King James’ commentary was read by courtiers in Hesse in 1604 and at Heidelberg in 1613.[45]

On his way to Austria and Bohemia, Lotich says, he had been given part of Divine Wisdom. He was told of a meeting taking place in 1599 at Heidelberg with the administrator of Wurtemberg during the minority of Fredrick IV, with Maurice of Hesse-Kassel, and Christian of Anhalt.[46] Christian of Anhalt, who was Frederick V’s chief advisor, was eager to support Henry IV of France, husband of Marie de Medici, in plans for a large-scale attempt to end Hapsburg power in Europe. According to Frances Yates:

When Henry’s projects were interrupted by his death, the Palatinate policy, still inspired largely by Anhalt, turned to other means for the pursuit of these large aims. It was then that the young Elector Palatine, Frederick V, began to be seen as destined to step into the vacant place of leader of Protestant resistance against the Hapsburg powers.[47]

Christian’s brother and fellow Fruitbearing Society member, Prince August of Anhalt-Plötzkau, was introduced to Adam Haselmayer, the first commentator of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, by his close friend the Paracelsian Karl Widemann, secretary of John Dee’s collaborator, the English alchemist Edward Kelley, at the court of Emperor Rudolf II.[48] Raphael Eglinus (1559 – 1622) was involved the first edition of the Fama printed at Kassel in 1614, which included Haselmayer’s text on the Paracelsian Lion. Eglinus was behind the first edition of the Confessio at Kassel in 1614 which had an alchemical preface on Dee’s Monas symbol, written by the mysterious figure, Phillippus a Gabella, or Philemon R.C. In 1606, Maurice gave Eglinus a position as lecturer in Hermeticism at the University of Marburg, where, under the pseudonym “Nicolaus Niger Hapelius,” he proceeded to publish a commentary to the alchemical prophecy on Elias Artista, the Cheiragogica Heliana, also signed “Radix Ignis Elixir.”[49] In 1617, Haselmayer produced an inspired writing that exemplifies his idea of the Lion, which asserted that through the Kabbalah one could come to know and recognize “that great man, the Lion of the north, Elias Artista, the defender of eternal sapience and glory in the Church.”[50]

Three successive comets in the winter of 1618 were described in the Fama siderea nova of Johan Faulhaber, an active participating in the stream of Rosicrucian publications. Not long after, the Paracelsian Lion prophecy was put together to support Fredrick V as the “lion of the Woods,” the Leo ex Silva.[51] Cyprian Leowitz had predicted from the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Cancer in 1563 that though there would be wars in the heartland of Germany, that knowledge would nevertheless increase, the secret arts would be made known, and the biblical Leo ex Silva, the legendary Lion of the Woods, would step forth in Bohemia.[52]

Following the death of Rudolf II in 1612, the most likely next candidate for the imperial and Bohemian thrones was the fanatical Catholic-Hapsburg Archduke Ferdinand of Styria (1578 –1637), later Ferdinand II, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Ferdinand and his Jesuit advisers were determined to stamp out heresy. In 1617, Ferdinand became King of Bohemia, and immediately put an end to Rudolph II’s policy of religious tolerance by revoking the Letter of Majesty and implementing the suppression of the Bohemian church. It was under these conditions that the first Rosicrucian texts emerged, whose general intention, according to Frances Yates, is clear, “of associating the first Rosicrucian manifesto with anti-Jesuit propaganda.”[53]

In 1618, the largely Protestant estates of Bohemia rebelled against their Catholic King Ferdinand, triggering the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. Expecting that King James would come to their aid, in 1619, the Rosicrucians granted the throne of Bohemia to Frederick in direct opposition to the Catholic Habsburg rulers. Christian of Anhalt was appointed to command the Protestant forces to defend Bohemia against Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II—a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece—and his allies when that country’s nobles elected Frederick as their king in 1619. However, King James opposed the takeover of Bohemia, and Frederick’s allies in the Protestant Union failed to support him militarily by signing the Treaty of Ulm in 1620. Frederick’s brief reign as King of Bohemia ended with his defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in the same year. Imperial forces invaded the Palatinate and Frederick had to flee to Holland in 1622, where he lived the rest of his life in exile with Elizabeth and their children, mostly at The Hague, and died in Mainz in 1632. For his short reign of a single winter, Frederick is often nicknamed the “Winter King.” Frederick’s supporters issued pamphlets in response, calling him the Winter Lion, or otherwise still, the Summer Lion.[54]

Genealogy of Frederick II of Denmark

• Frederick I of Denmark + Anna of Brandenburg (daughter of John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg and Margaret of Thuringia)

  • Christian III of Denmark (supported Schmalkaldic League) + Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg

    • Anne, Electress of Saxony + AUGUSTUS, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (brother of MAURICE, ELECTOR OF SAXONY; sponsored the publication of the BOOK OF CONCORD, compiled by Martin Chemnitz, a friend of Philip Melanchthon; and Jakob Andreae, grandfather of Johann Valentin Andreae, author of Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz)

      • Christian I, Elector of Saxony + Sophie of Brandenburg

        • John George I, Elector of Saxony + Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia

          • Marie Elisabeth of Saxony + Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp

            • Sofie Auguste of Holstein-Gottorp + John VI, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (see below)

              • Karl William, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (Fruitbearing Society) + Duchess Sophia of Saxe-Weissenfels

        • Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Plötzkau (Fruitbearing Society) + Sibylle of Solms-Laubach

      • Dorothea + Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

        • Dorothea Hedwig of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel + Rudolph, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (Fruitbearing Society)

          • Dorothea of Anhalt-Zerbst + AUGUSTUS THE YOUNGER, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (member of Fruitbearing Society, friend of Johann Valentin Andreae, purported author of the Rosicrucian manifestos, and Rabbi Templo)

          • John VI, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (member of Fruitbearing Society) + Sophie Augusta of Holstein-Gottorp

• Elizabeth of Denmark, Duchess of Mecklenburg + Ulrich, Duke of Mecklenburg

  • Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow + FREDERICK II OF DENMARK (Order of the Garter; close friend of AUGUSTUS, ELECTOR OF SAXONY; interested in alchemy and astrology; supported TYCHO BRAHE)

    • Elizabeth of Denmark + Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

      • Elisabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel + Johann Philipp, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg

        • Elisabeth Sophie, Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg + Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (member of Fruitbearing Society)

    • Anne of Denmark + KING JAMES I OF ENGLAND

      • Elizabeth Stuart + ALCHEMICAL WEDDING: Frederick V of the Palatinate

    • CHRISTIAN IV OF DENMARK (knight of the Order of the Garter; hosted CHRISTIAN OF ANHALT during his exile) + Anne Catherine of Brandenburg

Jonathan Israel attributed to Maurice of Orange a significant role in the outbreak of the conflict, by persuading his nephew Frederick V, to accept the Bohemian Crown, as well as actively encouraging the Bohemians to confront Habsburg rule, and providing them 50,000 guilders as well as sending Dutch troops to fight in the Battle of the White Mountain.[56] After their flight from Bohemia, Maurice granted Elizabeth and Frederick asylum in Holland. He let them use his home in The Hague and gave them another residence in Leiden.[57] In 1621, in response to his affiliation with the Palatines, Christian of Anhalt was put under an imperial ban that effectively made him an outlaw, and he fled to the court of Christian IV of Denmark, a knight of the Order of the Garter, and son of Frederick II of Denmark, and brother of Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I of England, the father of Frederick V’s wife, Elizabeth Stuart.

Although the Rosicrucian movement purportedly ended in disaster, it was the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, which ended it and the Eighty Years War, which laid the foundations for the creation of a New World Order, as a global federation of nation-states. The Thirty Years War completed the decline of the Habsburg Empire and altered the balance of power in Europe. Simultaneously, the previously held idea that Europe was supposed to be governed spiritually by the Pope, and temporally by one rightful emperor, such as that of the Holy Roman Empire, was undermined by the Protestant Reformation, when Protestant-controlled states became less willing to respect the authority of either the Catholic Church and the Catholic-Habsburg led Emperor. Consequently, the Peace of Westphalia is considered by political scientists to be the beginning of the modern international system, when feudal principalities gave way to the modern concept of the nation-state. Westphalian sovereignty, or state sovereignty, is a European principle that now defines global standards in international law, whereby each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory.[58]

[1] Edward M. Pierce. The Cottage Cyclopedia of History and Biography (Case, Lockwood, 1868), p. 55.

[2] Wickman Steed. “Jewish Question Rooted Deep in European Political History.” Jewish Daily Bulletin (April 10, 1934).

[3] Ottfried Neubecker. A Guide to Heraldry. Maidenhead (England: McGraw-Hill, 1979), pp.90–91.

[4] Jonathan R. Lyon. Princely Brothers and Sisters: The Sibling Bond in German Politics, 1100-1250 (Cornell Press, 2012), p. 243.

[5] David Hughes. The British Chronicles, Volume 1 (Heritage Books, 2007), p.379.

[6] “Beatrix van Kleef van Teisterband (c.695 - c.734) - Genealogy.” Retrieved from https://www.geni.com/people/Beatrix-van-Kleef-van-Teisterband/6000000002141639343

[7] Natalie Jayne Goodison. Introducing the Medieval Swan (University of Wales Press, 2022).

[8] Hugh Chisholm, ed. “Albert.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). (Cambridge University Press, 1911), p. 497.

[9] Anthony R. Wagner. “IV.—The Swan Badge and the Swan Knight.” Archaeologia, 97 (1959), p. 133.

[10] Martin Brecht. Martin Luther 1521–1532: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, Vol 2 (1994), pp. 260–63, 67.

[11] Heiko Augustinus Oberman & Walliser-Schwarzbart. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (Yale University Press, 2006).

[12] Alanna Ropchock Tierno. “The Lutheran Identity of Josquin’s Missa Pange Lingua.” Early Music History, vol. 36, (October 2017), pp. 234 n. 94.

[13] John Milton Smith. The stars of the Reformation: being short sketches of eminent Reformers (S.W. Partridge & Co, 1878), p. 45.

[14] Bridget Heal. “Martin Luther and the German Reformation.” History Today, Volume 67, Issue 3 (March 2017).

[15] “Legends about Luther: Throwing the Inkwell.” Retrieved from https://www.luther.de/en/tintenfass.html

[16] Rienk Vermij. “A Science of Signs. Aristotelian Meteorology in Reformation Germany.” Early Science and Medicine, 15, 6 (2010), pp. 648–674.

[17] Ibid, p. 656.

[18] Adam Mosley. “Peucer, Caspar,” Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (New York: Springer, 2014), pp. 1697–1698.

[19] Helmut Nickel. “‘The Judgment of Paris’ by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Nature, Allegory, and Alchemy.” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 16 (1981), pp. 127 n. 21.

[20] Martin Brecht. Martin Luther, tr. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–93), pp. 212.

[21] Martin Luther. Luther’s Works. 55 Volumes (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1957-1986).

[22] Philip Benedict. Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). p. 46.

[23] Christopher Clark. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (United Kingdom: Penguin Group, 2006), p. 8.

[24] Stefanie Kellner. “Die freiheitliche Geisteshaltung der Ernestiner prägte Europa.” Monumente (February, 2016)). pp. 9–16.

[25] Eugène Defrance. Catherine de Médicis, ses astrologues et ses magiciens envoûteurs : Documents inédits sur la diplomatie et les sciences occultes du xvie siècle (Paris, Mercure de France, 1911), p. 311.

[26] Ibid., p. 214.

[27] Donald R. Dickson. “Johann Valentin Andreae’s Utopian Brotherhoods.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 4, 1996, pp. 762.

[28] Robert Kolb, et al. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), pp. 481-485.

[29] Donald R. Dickson. “Johann Valentin Andreae’s Utopian Brotherhoods.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 4, 1996, pp. 764.

[30] Philip Ball. Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything (University of Chicago Press, 2014), p. 138; McIntosh. The Rosicrucians.

[31] “Fürst Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen (Der Nährende).” Retrieved from http://www.die-fruchtbringende-gesellschaft.de/files/ausgabe2.php

[32] Neues Conversations-Lexicon oder Encyclopädisches Handwörterbuch für gebildete Stände: F - Gri, Band 5 (Comptoir für Kunst und Literatur, 1825), p. 394; Cited in Miles Mathis, “The Fruitbearing Society and its memorable member emblems.”

[33] Vera Keller. Knowledge and the Public Interest, 1575–1725 (Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 89.

[34] Leigh T.I. Penman. “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: Crisis, Chiliasm, and Transcendence in the Thought of Paul Nagel (†1624), a Lutheran Dissident during the Time of the Thirty Years’ War.” Intellectual History Review, 20: 2 (2010), pp. 201-226.

[35] Donald R. Dickson. “Johann Valentin Andreae's Utopian Brotherhoods.” Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 760-802.

[36] As cited in Hauck. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy, p. 66.

[37] Yates. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 40.

[38] Ron Heisler. “The Forgotten English Roots of Rosicrucianism.” The Hermetic Journal (1992).

[39] Michael Maier. Symbola Aureæ Mensæ, (Frankfurt, 1617).

[40] Urszula Szulakowska. The Alchemy of Light: Geometry and Optics in Late Renaissance Alchemical Illustration (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000). p. 168.

[41] Yates. The Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethan Age, p. 197.

[42] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 4.

[43] C. Oman. The Winter Queen (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), ch. 50; cited in Graham Phillips. Merlin and the Discovery of Avalon in the New World (p. 169) (Inner Traditions/Bear & Company). Kindle Edition.

[44] Åkerman. Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 112.

[45] Ibid., p. 121.

[46] Ibid., p. 74.

[47] Ibid., p. 113.

[48] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 25.

[49] Carlos Gilly. Adam Haslmayr. Der erste Verkünder der Manifeste der Rosenkreuzer. (Amsterdam: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, 1994), p. 106; Ole Peter Grell. Paracelsus (Leiden: Brill, 1998). p. 163.

[50] Åkerman. Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 118.

[51] Ibid., p. 156.

[52] Ibid., p. 158.

[53] Ibid., p. 157.

[54] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 59.

[55] Kimberly Nichols (July 19, 2013). “The Queen of Hearts and the Rosicrucian Dawn.” Newtopia Magazine. Retrieved from https://newtopiamagazine.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/the-queen-of-hearts-and-the-rosicrucian-dawn/

[56] Jonathan I. Israel. The Dutch Republic (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995) Ch. 21, “The Republic under siege, 1521-1528.”

[57] C. Oman. The Winter Queen (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), ch. 50; cited in Graham Phillips. Merlin and the Discovery of Avalon in the New World (p. 169) (Inner Traditions/Bear & Company). Kindle Edition.

[58] Jason Farr. “Point: The Westphalia Legacy and the Modern Nation-State.” International Social Science Review, Vol. 80, No. 3/4 (2005), p. 1.

Volume Two

1. The Elizabethan Age

2. The Great Conjunction

3. The Alchemical Wedding

4. The Rosicrucian Furore

5. The Invisible College

6. 1666

7. The Royal Society

8. America

9. Redemption Through Sin

10. Oriental Kabbalah

11. The Grand Lodge

12. The Illuminati

13. The Asiatic Brethren

14. The American Revolution

15. Haskalah

16. The Aryan Myth

17. The Carbonari

18. The American Civil War

19. God is Dead

20. Theosophy

21. Shambhala