Origin of Altenburg—Prosperous Burghers—A Princely Crime—Hussite Plunderers—Luther's Visits—French Bonfire—Electress Margaret's Dream—Kunz von Kauffungen—"Don't burn the Fish"—A Conspiracy—Midnight Robbers—Two Young Princes Stolen—The Flight—The Alarm—The KÖhler—The Rescue—Kunz Beheaded—The Triller's Reward, and what a famous Author said concerning it.

Wends had long peopled the Pleissengau when King Henry I.—the Fowler, as his contemporaries named him—conquered it during one of his many inroads among his neighbours, and made it part of the Osterland early in the tenth century. The newly-won territory was soon settled by German colonists, who, finding an ancient fortification on the summit of a bluff, rocky hill, called it alte Burg, whence the present name of the town and principality of Altenburg. Henry, or his successor, Otho, built a castle on the hill, no portion of which, or of the one which replaced it, now remains. The town is first mentioned in a document of the year 986. Its story is the old one: family feud, rapine and revenge, chivalry and heroism, intermingled with quaint and quiet glimpses of social life, characteristic of the "dark ages." Earliest among its possessors were the Hohenstaufens; latest are the Hildburghausens. At one time it was imperial; at another independent; now pledged or given away by an emperor; now held by a duke. In 1286 its prosperity was such that the burghers went carried in sedan-chairs to the council-house, and their wives walked to church festivals on carpets spread before them in the street.

Six years later Friedrich the Bitted quarrelled with Adolf von Nassau for having pledged Altenburg to King Wenzel of Bohemia; whereupon Adolf invited Friedrich to a Christmas feast, and while he sat at table employed a ruffian to murder him, as the speediest way of settling the dispute. The blow, however, fell on the wrist of a burgher of Freiberg who rushed between, and lost his hand in preventing the crime. Friedrich escaped, changed his dress, and, under cover of night, fled the city; but, having gained a battle in the interval, he returned as ruler in 1307. The scene of this malignant assault is supposed to have been a house in the market-place.

Then came a succession of Friedrichs: the Earnest, the Strong, the Warlike, the Quarrelsome, the Mild, and such like. It was in 1430, during the lifetime of the last mentioned, that those fierce Reformers, the Hussites, came across the mountains and made an inroad into the principality. They chose Three-Kings' Day for their attack on the town, which was abandoned to them by the inhabitants, who fled to neighbouring villages, or took refuge in the castle; and, having burnt and plundered to the satisfaction of their cupidity or their conscience during four days, they left the place to recover as best it might.

The same Elector, Friedrich the Mild, married the Austrian Princess Margaret—fit wife for such a prince, if we may judge from her endeavours to prevent bread becoming too dear for the townsfolk.

Luther was in Altenburg from the 3rd to the 9th of January, 1519, to hold a conference with Karl von Miltitz, the papal legate. The two met in the house of George Spalatin, who became a firm friend of the great Reformer. Luther visited the town also when on his famous journey to Worms, and on several occasions afterwards.

The council-house was the scene of a religious conference from October, 1568, to March of the following year. The parties in presence were—the theologians of Electoral Saxony on the one hand, of Ducal Saxony on the other; and among the subjects mooted they discussed the questions, "Whether good works were needful for salvation?" and, "Whether man can co-operate in the attainment of his own salvation?" and with the usual result; for the disputants separated without coming to a decision.

The old town suffered from the disasters and commotions of the Peasants' War. The Imperialists quartered themselves upon it after the fatal battle of LÜtzen. The troubles of the Seven Years' War fell upon it, and of the campaigns that ended in the downfall of Napoleon. In 1810, the French commissioners seized a quantity of English manufactures in possession of resident merchants, and made a great bonfire therewith in the market-place. In 1813, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia visited the town, and in the same year it afforded quarters to 671 generals, 46,617 officers, and 472,399 ordinary troops.

Now we must go back for awhile to the year 1455, the times of Friedrich the Mild. On the night of the 6th of July in that year the Electress Margaret, his wife, dreamt that two young oaks, growing in a forest near the castle, were torn up by a wild boar. Herein her maternal heart foreboded danger to the two princes Ernest and Albert, both still in their boyhood. The times were indeed disquieting, what with Hussite wars, territorial quarrels, and the ominous foretokens of the coming Reformation. Mild as Friedrich was, he, too, had had some fighting with his brother, Duke Wilhelm, about their lands. Among his officers was a certain Conrad, or, as he was commonly called, Kunz von Kauffungen, formerly captain of the castle, who, through disappointment, had come to entertain two causes of quarrel against his master. One was that, having been sent to surprise and capture Gera, he was taken himself, and only recovered his liberty by payment of four thousand florins ransom. Of this sum Kunz claimed reimbursement from the Elector, and met with denial. The second was, a demand for the restoration of estates of which he had been granted temporary possession, but which, defying legal authorities, he refused to give up until the coveted four thousand florins should be once more in his pocket. Chafing under his twofold grievance, he broke out into threats of reprisal, to which Friedrich answered jocularly, "Don't burn the fish in the ponds."

Baffled and exasperated, Kunz devised a scheme for bringing the question to a speedy issue: persuaded Hans Schwalbe, one of the scullions at the castle, into his interest; concerted measures with his brother Dietrich von Kauffungen, Wilhelm von Mosen, and others, thirty-seven altogether, and watched his opportunity.

Treacherous Schwalbe failed not in the service required of him, and gave information of the Elector's absence: called away by affairs to Leipzig. Whereupon Kunz and his confederates, mounting to horse, rode to Altenburg, and halted under cover of a wood—where now the pleasure-ground is laid out at the foot of the castle—between eleven and twelve in the night of the 7th of July. Finding all quiet, he sent his body-servant, Hans Schweinitz, forward to fix a rope ladder, with Schwalbe's help, at a window above the steepest side of the rock, and, following with Mosen, the two climbed up and got into the castle. Once in, they hastened to the chamber of the young princes, and each seizing one, made their way to the gate. But, instead of Albert, the little Count Barby had been picked up. Kunz was no sooner aware of the mistake, than, giving Ernest, whom he carried, into Mosen's arms, he hurried back with the terrified count, and brought out Albert. Quicker, however, than the robbery was the spread of an alarm. The Electress, apprehensive, perhaps, because of her dream on the previous night, appeared at a window, imploring Kunz to restore her children, and promising to intercede with the Elector in favour of his demands. Her entreaties and lamentations fell on deaf ears; Mosen had already made good his retreat, and Kunz speedily followed him through the gate, which was easily opened, there being but a single invalid on guard. The time was singularly favourable for the success of the plot, as nearly all the residents and functionaries were enjoying themselves at a feast given by the Chancellor in the town.

The alarm-bell began to ring. Mosen and the others galloped off with their prize, and Kunz, mounting his horse with young Albert before him, and attended by Schweinitz, lost no time in making for the frontier. If Isenburg could be reached before the pursuers came up, the game would be in his own hands. On they went in the dim night through the Rabensteiner Forest, along rugged and darksome ways, where they wandered from the track, their horses stumbled or floundered in miry holes, forced to choose the wildest and least-frequented routes, for dogs were barking and alarm-bells ringing in all the villages, warning honest folk that knaves were abroad. The dewy morning dawned, birds twittered among the branches, the sun arose, daylight streamed into the forests, and still the fugitives urged their panting horses onwards. A few hours later the young prince, worn out by want of rest and the increasing heat, complained of thirst; whereupon Kunz, though still a half-score miles from the Bohemian frontier, halted not far from the village of Elterlein, and crept about in the wood to pluck berries for the boy's refreshment. While the captain was thus occupied, a certain charcoal-burner—George Schmidt by name—at work near the spot, attracted by the glint of armour between the trees, approached the halting-place, made suspicious, perhaps, by the alarm-bells. To his surprise, he saw horses showing marks of hasty travel, and a fair-haired boy well attired, who said at once, "I am the young prince. They have stolen me." No sooner spoken than the KÖhler, running up to Kunz, who was still stooping over the berries, felled him with a blow of the stout pole which he used in tending his fires. A shout brought up a gang of his comrades, sturdy fellows with long hair and grimy faces, who promptly laid hold of Kunz and Schweinitz, bound their hands, and carried them off for safe keeping to the neighbouring monastery of GrÜnhain. Thither also was the young Albert borne in friendly arms, and from thence, on the following day, an escort, among whom went the KÖhler, conducted him back to his weeping mother—a real triumphal procession by the time they arrived at Altenburg.

Mosen and his troop, meanwhile, had betaken themselves to a hiding-place not far from the castle of Stein, on the right bank of the Mulde, about half way towards the frontier. While some made good their retreat to secret quarters, the principals concealed themselves with Prince Ernest in a rocky cave screened by trees, waiting for a favourable opportunity to renew their flight. But hearing, while on their look-out, sundry passers-by talk of the capture of unlucky Kunz, they sent a messenger to Friedrich von Schonburg at Hartenstein, offering to deliver up the prince on condition that they should be left free to depart unmolested. The condition was granted: they gave up their captive, and were seen no more in all the province; and Schonburg conveyed Ernest to Chemnitz, where he was received by his father the Elector.

Unlucky Kunz having been carefully escorted to Freiberg, was there beheaded on the 14th of July—an example to knightly kidnappers. On the next day the KÖhler's homely gaberdine and the garments of the princes were hung up in the church at Ebersdorf, not far from the scene of the rescue. As for the KÖhler himself, he had but to speak his wishes, for the Electress, in the joy of her heart at the restoration of her sons, could not sufficiently reward the man who had saved the younger. "I worried them right well"—(wohl getrillt)—he said, when recounting how he had laid about him with his pole at the time of the rescue; and ever afterwards was he known as the Triller. His wishes were modest enough;—a little bit of land, and liberty to hunt and cut wood in the forest—and amply were they gratified.

Such is in brief the story of the Prinzenraub, as it happened four hundred years ago—a memorable event in Saxon history. A walled-up window in the castle at Altenburg, on the side towards the Pauritzer Pond, is said to indicate the place where in the former building the robbers entered. The Princes' Oaks still flourish; and the cave in which Ernest was hidden is still known as the PrinzenhÖhle. And our own history is involved in the event, for from that same Ernest descends the Consort of our Queen.

To most English readers the Prinzenraub was an unknown story until a few years ago, when Thomas Carlyle published it from his vigorous pen in the Westminster Review, where all the circumstances are brought before us in the very vividness of life. "Were I touring in those parts, I would go and see," says the author, referring to the rumour that the estate bestowed on the Triller remained still in possession of his posterity. By inquiry at Altenburg, I learned that this estate lay in the neighbourhood of Zwickau, so, as I also was bound for the Bohemian frontier, I did go and see on the way.