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Chapter 6


Münster

October 1634


There was an aphorism to the effect that in Münster, either it was raining or the church bells were ringing. If both were happening at the same time, it was Sunday.

It wasn’t Sunday; it was raining. The rain was dripping off Frederik’s hat, onto his shoulders, as he drew up his horse in the main square.

He should have sent a company of soldiers accompanied by financial and legal staff well ahead of him to do reconnaissance and make arrangements since, practically, there was not going to be any way for him to avoid putting his major administrative center in this city, even though it was about as far away from Denmark’s areas of primary interest as he could get and still be within the borders of Westphalia.

Whatever troubles might develop in the northeast portions of the new province, those of the southwest, getting it to accept the regime of a Swedish emperor after the depredations that had been committed on its people by Swedish armies, were, he thought, necessarily going to be more intransigent. And the Oberstift bordered on the Spanish Netherlands section of the new kingdom of the Low Countries where the new king, Don Fernando, the former cardinal-infante, was still an unknown quantity and unquestionably a brother of Philip IV of Spain; not the probably more rational, and certainly more Protestant, United Provinces, where he would be dealing with Fredrik Hendrik.

Anyone who had studied how the spillover of the Dutch wars of a half-century ago had ravaged this part of Westphalia would not question his decision to locate the new province’s permanent capital in the south.

He hoped.

Rain ran down the back of his neck and under his cloak, a chilly streak against his skin.

Any minute now, some officious official was likely to emerge from one of the buildings on the square to greet him. When they came through the gate, one of the guards had taken off running in the direction of the center of the town.

It would be interesting to see who showed up.

The Erbmänner—the patricians chosen into the city council by a convoluted, four-stage, process? Mostly Catholics, but some Protestants; those mostly Calvinist, but a few Lutherans; almost all of them would-be gentlemen of leisure, feeling severely put-upon and burdened by the requirement that if they wanted to reside in the city, they had to assume some of the burdens of maintaining civic life.

An alderman? There were two on the city council, advocating for the interests of the thirty-four masters who represented the seventeen guilds in the Gesamtgilde?

Someone from the increasingly vociferous Gemeinheit, noisy enough by themselves but now spurred on by the external influence of the Committees of Correspondence, that was demanding a larger place in the city administration for ordinary workers and artisans?

Or a functionary? A jurist or a notary, to demonstrate how little significance the council proposed to ascribe to the arrival of the new provincial governor?

The suffragan bishop, Claessens, who was still here and exercising Catholic episcopal functions in the name of Ferdinand of Bavaria, the pluralist archbishop of Cologne who also held this see? Even if he didn’t show up today, a meeting with him would be on Frederik’s agenda, and soon. Topic: the meaning of religious tolerance as proclaimed by the USE. Get rid of Archbishop Ferdinand’s requirement that only Catholics could obtain citizenship in the city. Abolish the law that the sale of heretical books was prohibited. Make it clear that the requirement that parents could only send their children to Catholic schools was void.

Most of which would be welcomed well enough by the majority of the people, who were far from wholehearted supporters of the Tridentine Counter-Reformation’s strictness in spite of a generation’s effort by the Jesuits. There were people still alive here who could remember fondly the halcyon days of confessional haziness in the late sixteenth century when communion in both kinds was occasionally celebrated at Catholic masses, accompanied by the singing of Lutheran songs; far more who remembered the prevalence of a married Catholic clergy, whether the reformers of Trent classified the women as “concubines” or not. Their memories did not have to be long; as recently as twenty years ago, the episcopal visitation had estimated that the proportion of the Catholic clergy in the diocese who lived in some type of quasi-marital relationship amounted to ninety-five percent.

A representative of the cathedral chapter, all of whom were members of the Westphalian nobility with networks of kinship and patronage extending far beyond the city? Few of them voluntarily gave up the noble lifestyle of hunting and drinking. Perhaps even one of the archdeacons?

The Jesuit collegium was huge. Before the war, it had counted over a thousand students. Frederik seriously doubted that it would send anyone to greet him. Nor would any of the other convents and monasteries, of which there must be at least a dozen, all told, running the gamut from wealthy cloisters accepting only nobles of the region outside the city to small tertiary orders largely drawing from the city’s artisan families.

In the end, it was two of the magistrates from the council who emerged from the city hall, accompanied by a small entourage of flunkies. A Kerckerinck and a Schenckinck, perhaps. Or a Steveninck and a Nunninck. Perchance a Bischopinck and a Wesselinck or a Wermelinck and a Grevinck. There was a certain soothing rhythmic quality to many of the family names.

This evening, he would dine and sleep as a guest of one Ludolf Burmeister, Protestant and holder of various municipal offices over the decades.

That left open the question of where he would dine and sleep on subsequent evenings.

* * *

Where would he reside?

Where would he find working space for his staff?

His first impulse was to seize the existing Domdechanai of the Catholic cathedral chapter of the Hochstift; simply appropriate it. Unfortunately, that was not feasible because of the USE policies on religious toleration, any more than he could simply turn the cathedral Protestant. Or St. Lambert’s. Or the Apostelkirche. Or the Church of Our Lady. Or St. Servatius. Or St. Ludger’s. Or even St. Peter’s, even though its recent date of construction, only thirty-five years earlier, for the may-they-be-confounded Jesuits made it tempting. Extraordinarily tempting. So tempting.

Was there anything that had become Protestant during the Reformation era and the Catholics had then grabbed back as a result of the Edict of Restitution? Unfortunately not; the wretched Bavarian archbishop of Cologne had taken everything into his grasping hand even before the war.

He would have to build a new, modern, Lutheran church. Preferably right in the face of the Jesuits. Attract enough Lutherans to the city to make the investment worthwhile. He made a note to have Johann Rist, his newly acquired private secretary, tell one of the lawyers he had brought from Rinteln get in touch with his appropriate counterpart in Münster. There was certainly an adequate supply of them.

He and Rist were beginning to develop a certain mutual respect.

Speculations regarding a possible future church did not solve the question of a residence. He looked out the window at the row of gabled houses on the west side of the square. Built of limestone in the local variation of Renaissance style, they mostly belonged to wealthy merchants. Would any of them be for sale? Or rent? Or were any of the owners in dire disgrace with the USE? He’d have Rist assign someone to look into it. One of those would do for the time being.

In addition to the new Lutheran church, he should construct, eventually, a new, modern gubernatorial residence on the other side of the Jesuits. Box them in. He made a note to tell Rist to have someone look into land ownership issues on the surrounding properties.

The residence would need a Protestant chapel, naturally. He was still a summus episcopus, if in a rather ambiguous way. A tradition from the first one that the elector of Saxony had constructed at Schloß Hartenfels in Torgau and Martin Luther had dedicated in 1544. The one at Schwerin. Or one such as his father had completed at Frederiksborg only the year before the Thirty Years War broke out. A chapel which would lead the congregation to gather around the baptismal font, pulpit and altar-table, the focal points of preaching and communion. An altar at the eastern short end. Below the organ. Of course, he would need an organ. The governor’s pew and oratorio on the west. The pulpit on a side wall, in the middle. Galleries for visitors.

That would be far in the future of the Province of Westphalia. His father’s bounty was liberal, but certainly did not extend to construction projects, which probably, from the divine perspective, did lie in the same general realm as storing up goods in barns. There were more urgent necessities than buildings.

It dawned upon him that he needed a chaplain. His own chaplain. Now. Or, at least, sooner rather than later.

* * *

He probably shouldn’t simply take over the city hall, either, although that would not come cross-wise against the up-timers’ views on religious toleration. It simply wouldn’t be prudent. Carving out some space within it for his staff might be a workable option for now, though. For the meantime.

Eventually there would need to be a new chancery building. A barracks, once he built up a regiment. But first, get his newly acquired staff settled somewhere and put them to work.


Bremen

November 1634


Newspaper reports about the unrest in Bremen spread throughout the USE. In the city itself, the Hochedler, Hochweiser Rath, in hopes of regaining control, annexed the Alte Neustadt. In response, a movement fronted by those who identified themselves as members of the Fourth of July Party, unquestionably backed by the threat of the Committees of Correspondence, had forced through changing the name of the Hochedler, Hochweiser Rath to the more modern and republican Senat. That was only the most symbolic development. Behind that lay the restructuring of the local citizenship laws that accompanied preparations for the province to vote in the upcoming national election.

Alverich Knaub continued his regular reports. According to his observations, the internal strife was escalating. For the time being, the traditionally chosen four mayors and twenty councillors still held office, but there was swelling demand for a sweeping revision of the way in which the city was administered. The Committees of Correspondence were demanding that the incumbents be forced to stand for election, running against challengers from outside the patriciate.

Knaub’s mood was increasingly testy. Money to maintain his household was a problem. The horrible storm that had spread destruction over Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had not entirely spared northwestern Germany. Extraordinary tides had risen far up the Weser and Elbe both, backing up the waters, flooding the river bottoms; even, in some places, changing the course of the channels. The small fleet that his family operated had taken damage. The investment dividends that supplemented his retainer from Duke Frederik were way down; his expenses were not.

And his daughters were running wild, being exposed to up-time influences, unsuitable clothing styles, and radical ideas that were permeating the entire city. Knaub was appalled.


Münster

December 1634


“I have a lot to do here,” Frederik said to Rist. “Not more urgent things, necessarily, but ultimately more significant things, I believe. Neither do I want to head back to Bremen in midwinter weather.”

Rist was not yet to the point of giving his employer advice. He sat there, watching the governor draw dots and circles on the paper he had affixed to the ever-present easel.

“There have been demonstrations, but no riots.

“There have been caucuses and public meetings; oratory in the city hall and griping in the taverns; petitions submitted.

“Knaub insists that there is a constant underlying threat of violence, but so far, aside from ordinary fistfights and such that the constabulary can handle, no actual violence.

“There’s nothing in my authority as governor to allow me to unilaterally intervene in the way a city chooses to administer itself. Not unless it undertakes to act in ways that are clearly contrary to the constitution and laws of the USE.”

Frederik stopped talking out loud and stared at the easel.

Which isn’t happening in Bremen, he thought, as far as I can tell, no matter how distressing Knaub finds it all. On the contrary, I suspect that the Stearns is hearing the news with delight, along with the rest of the FoJP. And Oxenstierna is likely hearing it with considerable Schadenfreude, for however little he may care for the reforms that the Bremer are throwing themselves into, he will be chuckling because they can only cause more trouble to me.

Rist saw no reason to interrupt the sudden silence.

Frederik strode over to his standing desk and grabbed a piece of used notepaper, striking out the lines that were already on one side of it and scribbling on the reverse.

“Here.” He handed the note over. “Put this in proper form and send it out today. I’ll do a longer memorandum tomorrow.”

Rist looked at it. “Who is Emil Jauch? I don’t have an address.”

“I worked with him in Lübeck during the retreat last spring. I need someone in Bremen, since I can’t go myself. I can’t use anyone from the Erzstift. That would immediately get tangled up with the church problems. By now, that will include von Bargen. I need an emissary plenipotentiary to mediate and arbitrate the internal unrest in the city—someone not immediately identified with either the old Rath or its opponents. Send it in care of my half-brother, Christian Ulrik Gyldenløve. You have that address; he’ll know where to find Jauch.”

“Gyldenløve?” Rist said doubtfully.

“Goldenlion. Our father has given that surname to all of his acknowledged bastards. Christian Ulrik is my brother Ulrik’s twin by another mother.”

Rist raised his eyebrows.

“Kirsten Madsdatter gave birth to him one day after our mother gave birth to Ulrik.” Frederik pulled his full lips in, chewing on them with disapproval. “Kirsten was one of the queen’s maids of honor.” Frederik pursed his lips, pushing them out. “Our royal father must have found her presence in my mother’s chambers convenient when he was feeling horny.

“He’s as smart as Ulrik. Studied at the University of Leiden; excelled in Latin and the classics; could well have become a professor if our father had permitted him such a path. After that, he received the same military training as Ulrik—exactly the same, both of them under von Arnim in Saxony. All he’s lacking to be a wholly satisfactory royal scion is a female parent of ebenbürtig lineage with a marriage certificate.” Frederik grimaced. “Even without those, he is, as far as our father is concerned, destined to become an officer, a courtier, and a diplomat. With a suitably prestigious marriage.”

Rist had nothing to say.

* * *

“My Lord Governor, were you expecting guests?”

The footman stood stiffly at attention this night, a date so shortly after midwinter that the dark came miserably early.

The governor of the Province of Westphalia, already attired in a fur-lined evening robe and comfortable, equally fur-lined, slippers, a snug fur-lined cap on his head, stood up, placing the book he had been reading face down on the stand next to his chair.

His comfortable, leather-upholstered, reclining chair that his father had sent him for Christmas.

The stand that held a modern mantled lantern, the kind that threw so much more light than a candle, that his brother Ulrik had sent him for Christmas.

“Who is it?”

“They came to the gate; the guard called Lieutenant Meyer, who has accompanied them to the house himself.”

Frederik abandoned the warm fire burning in his ceramic tile stove and made his way out into the cold hall.

Glædelig jul,” came a voice from the foot of the stairs. “I didn’t have a present for you, so I brought myself.”

Frederik rarely scurried, but this time he made an exception, folding the young man in an enthusiastic embrace. “What are you doing here? Come upstairs. Get warm.” He looked at the other man. “Meyer, do go to the kitchens and get a mug of hot broth before you go back out in this weather. The cook’s helpers will still be cleaning up.” Then . . .  “Christian Ulrik, who is this?”

“I . . . sort of need to explain things.”

“It’s the adorable Bente Luft, then, I presume. And a long story. But I keep a bachelor household. No housekeeper; no live-in maids. How long have you been riding in this wet snow? She looks to be half-frozen. I have no one to help her with a hot bath, no one from whom to borrow warmed clothing for her . . . ”

The footman, standing as stiffly as before, cleared his throat. “My Lord Governor, if I may speak?”

“Yes, Vendt?”

“My home is not so far distant. I can send one of the potboys for my wife and mother. Let them know what is needed.”

“Good man; good idea. Do it.” Frederik turned back. “Now come upstairs, both of you. I have a good fire burning.”

“My Lord Governor, if I may speak?”

“Yes, Vendt?”

“It might not be unwise to remove as much of their soaking wet outer clothing as possible here in the hallway and send it to the kitchens to be dried, rather than have it drip all the way to the living quarters.”

“Oh, yes.” Christian Ulrik pulled the wet hooded cloak from the girl’s shoulders and knelt down to remove her boots. “Do you at least have some extra slippers around?”

The footman cleared his throat.

“Yes, Vendt.”

“It might not be unsuitable to have one of the potboys fill some warming pans with embers and use them to ameliorate the damp that has likely crept into the bedding in the best guest chamber.”

“Vendt,” Frederik said with some exasperation. “Just do it. All of it.”

After Vendt’s female relatives had arrived bearing sacks of supplies and borne Bente off for cossetting, Frederick sank back into his chair. He picked up the book, placed a bookmark, and closed it. There didn’t seem to be any prospect of further reading this night.

“Please explain.”

“I have . . . fallen out of favor with His Majesty.”

“How?”

“I want to marry Bente.”

Frederik pulled his lips in. “Why now? She’s been your sweetheart since the first time you laid eyes on her, which must be two or three years ago. She’s followed you from one posting to another—easy ones and difficult ones—with perfectly good cheer, unless I’ve missed out on some gossip. I know that you’ve already made financial provisions for her; she’ll be taken care of if anything happens to you.”

If anything happens was always a concern for a young military officer.

Not to mention that she hadn’t brought him a dowry. There was a perfectly practical proverb: A fair wife without fortune is a fine house without furniture. Not that fathers were generally inclined to provide dowries when no marriage was involved. He wasn’t sure what old Luft’s financial situation might be. Toll keepers in the Danish royal service had sufficient opportunities to make profits, both legitimate and somewhat less so. With prudent investments, if there came to be a marriage, there might be a dowry as well.

“His Majesty has his eye on an advantageous marriage for me. Into the Lykke family, as it happens. He tried to talk me into sending her to Norway. When I refused, he called in her brother and tried to influence him, gossip about dishonor to his sister and all that.” Christian Ulrik snorted. “As if there would be any more gossip now than there was at first. I came to a complete understanding with old Luft at Helsingør, assured him that I would always treat her honorably, and see that she was always cared for.”

Christian Ulrik turned so that his other side was to the stove’s warmth. Frederik’s pantaloons were long on him, and loose. Looser than they would have been two years before, when they last saw one another. I am, Frederik thought a little ruefully, beginning to put on weight. The curse of the sedentary.

“I promised. Promised. An oath that I could not keep if I were forced to dismiss her. Which I said to the king. Who then said that if I would not dismiss her, then he would dismiss her father from his position as toll-collector. A position in which he has served our royal father honorably for a long time. Then . . . ”

Frederik only nodded. He did not need to hear what came next. Christian IV of Denmark had a legendary temper, particularly when someone thwarted his will. Particularly if he had been drinking when somebody thwarted his will.

“So I said that I would not only keep her, but marry her. Take her, her parents, her sisters and their husbands, and get a commission from Don Fernando in the Low Countries. I don’t see why I shouldn’t marry her. She’s a commoner, but her family is perfectly respectable. I’m the one who’s a bastard.”

Christian Ulrik let the ensuing silence drag on for a couple of minutes. Then . . .  “It’s not as if I’m ever going to look at another woman with desire. I didn’t whore around before I met her; I knew the minute I saw her that she was the only one I would ever want.”

Frederik sorted through that mentally, pitying the wretched fate of the romantic man—of romantic men in general; consider the plight of Romeo in that play—and wishing that his easel were here in his private sitting room and not in the office downstairs. Everything was easier when he could see things laid out in front of him.

The easiest first. “What have you done with her father, sisters, and the rest of the human menagerie?”

“Left them in Hamburg, in a decent inn. No reason to drag them all down here when I wasn’t sure what you would have to say. Or, if you turned me off, what Don Fernando would have to say. Possible diplomatic ramifications and all those things.”

Christian Ulrik switched the side benefiting from the stove’s warmth again. “She’s expecting. I don’t want to father a bastard. It’s not the easiest thing in the world for a child to be.”

“I’m fairly sure,” Frederik answered, “that I can persuade some pastor to skip the banns if necessary.”

“We can wait three weeks. Or three months, if need be. She’s not that far along.”

“Where are your funds deposited? Your working capital and what you settled on her?”

“Hers were invested in Lykstad—Glückstadt as the Germans call it. I switched them to Altona when we passed through, in case anybody got ideas about confiscating them. Mine are in Lübeck.”

“Good enough.” Frederik brought his hands together as if he were praying. “I think it would be prudent if I pass this across Gustav Adolf’s desk before we proceed any farther.”


Magdeburg

December 1634


The newspapers reported a rumor that Christian IV was petitioning Emperor Gustav Adolf to have his son Frederik awarded the title of Prince of Westphalia.

Ben Leek waved his copy at his son as they ate breakfast. “Ridiculous!” he proclaimed. “How on earth would anyone figure that the Danish kid might deserve a promotion already. He’s been in office for six months and hasn’t accomplished a single thing.”

Papers in the rest of the USE quickly picked up the story.


Grantville

December 1634


Hal Smith checked with his daughter-in-law Joanie, who had, after all, spent a year at the Danish court as governess to the batch of half-royal daughters.

“I don’t know. It might be, I suppose. Royals and nobles are deeply into titles. But something about it bothers me. At the court, of course, they spent a lot of time doing protocol-ish things and ritual-ly things, like receiving ambassadors and holding parades. But they didn’t spend all of their time dressed up in their best, like they were ready to pose for an official portrait. They joked around; they laughed.” She stopped. “Do you remember that little rhyme from somewhere?


Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes.

He only does it to annoy,

Because he knows it teases.”


Hal admitted that he had heard it somewhere.

“What’s worming around in my mind last now are the last two lines. Christian IV may be a king, but he has the sense of humor of your average eight-year-old boy. And his nose is bound to be a little out of joint about the Union of Kalmar. If he could figure out a way to prank the glorious Emperor and High King of this and that . . . I wouldn’t put it past him. But don’t quote me on that.”

Hal didn’t quote her. Not to anyone. He did keep the thought prudently in mind when examining the various clauses of the contracts for aircraft construction that he made with both the USE and Denmark.


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