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A Historical Account, Interspersed With Biographical Anecdotes
A Historical Account Interspersed With Biographical Anecdotes Author:Frederic Shoberl General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1840 Original Publisher: H. Colburn Subjects: History / Europe / Great Britain Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial ac... more »cess to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THURINGIA AND MEISSEN UNITED. From 1247 10 1322. Henry the Illustrious added Thuringia to the possessions of the house of Meissen. In 1268 he divided his dominions with his three sons, and died in 1288. Albert, who for his vices received the surname of the Degenerate, the eldest son of Henry the Illustrious, obtained, on the partition of his father's territories, the province of Thuringia. In his early years he was a prince of great hopes, and particularly distinguished himself in the campaign against the Pagans, in Prussia, in 1265. He married Margaret, daughter of the emperor Frederick II., by whom he had three sons and a daughter. She was a princess of excellent character, but had the misfortune to lose the affections of her husband, who was fascinated by the attractions of ous of her ladies, named Cunigund von Eisenberg. This woman, who possessed in a high degree the art of pleasing, not content with having deprived her mistress of her husband's love, formed the cruel resolution of putting her completely out of the way, that she might step into her place. Albert was base enough to countenance her design. After some attempts to poison her had failed, they chose (in 1270) an expedient worthy of their age. They prevailed, by the promise of a great reward, upon a man of the lowest class, an ass-driver, who daily brought water, wood, and other necessaries to the castle of Wartburg, to introduce himself, disguised as a ghost, into the bedchamber of the landgravine, and to strangle her while asleep, upon which her death might be ...« less