1550, seventy-two years old, and was buried in the cathedral of Königsberg, the first Protestant
bishop and chancellor of the first Prussian Hohenzollern, standing with him on the bridge of two
ages with his hand on the Bible and his eye firmly fixed upon the future.
Albrecht, acting on the advice of Luther, changed the property of the Knights into a hereditary
duchy. The king of Poland consented. On April 10, 1525, Albrecht was solemnly invested at Crakow
with the rule of Prussia as a fief of Poland. Soon afterwards he received the homage of the Diet at
Königsberg. The evangelical preachers saluted him under the ringing of the bells. The Emperor
put him under the ban, but it had no effect. Most of the Knights received large fiefs, and married;
the rest emigrated to Germany. Albrecht formally introduced the Reformation, July 6, 1525, and
issued a Lutheran constitution and liturgy. The fasts were abolished, the number of holy days
reduced, the ceremonies changed, the convents turned into hospitals, and worship conducted in the
vernacular. All Romish and sectarian preaching was prohibited. He assumed all the ecclesiastical
appointments, and became the supreme bishop of Prussia, the two Roman-Catholic bishops Georg
and Queiss having surrendered to him their dignity. Their successors were mere superintendents.
He felt, however, that the episcopal office was foreign to a worldly sovereign, and accepted it as a
matter of necessity to secure order.^793 He founded the University of Königsberg, the third Protestant
university (after Wittenberg and Marburg). It was opened in 1544.^794 He called Dr. Osiander from
Nürnberg to the chief theological chair (1549); but this polemical divine, by his dissertations on
the law and the gospel, and on the doctrine of justification, soon turned Prussia into a scene of
violent and disgraceful theological controversies.^795
Albrecht did not enjoy his reign. It was sadly disturbed in this transition state by troubles
from within and without. He repeatedly said that he would rather watch sheep than be a ruler. He
was involved in heavy debts. The seven children of his first wife, a daughter of the king of Denmark,
died young, except a daughter, Anna Sophia, who married a duke of Mecklenburg (1555). His pious
and faithful wife died, 1547. In 1550 he married a princess of Braunschweig; her first daughter was
born blind; only one son, Albrecht Friedrich, survived him, and spent his life in melancholy. But
Albrecht remained true to his evangelical faith, and died (March 20, 1568), with the words of Psa.
31:5, upon his lips, "Into Thine hand I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou
God of truth." He left proofs of his piety in prayers, meditations, and the testament to his son, who
succeeded him, and died without male issue, 1618.
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
A few glimpses of the later history are here in place to explain the present confessional
status of the Protestant church in the kingdom of Prussia.
The Duchy of Prussia in 1618 fell as an inheritance to John Sigismund, Elector of
Brandenburg (1608–1619), son-in-law of the second Prussian Duke (Albert Frederick), and a
descendant of Frederick of Hohenzollern, who had become margrave of Brandenburg by purchase
in 1415. In this way the connection of Prussia arid Brandenburg was completed.
But Prussia remained in feudal subjection to Poland till 1656, when Frederick William, "the
great Elector," conquered the independence by the victory of Warsaw. He is the first, as Frederick
(^793) "Coacti sumus," he said, "alienum officium, i.e., episcopate in nos sumere, ut omnia ordine, et decenter fierent." Preface to the
Articuli ceremoniarum, published by a general synod at Königsberg, May 12, 1530.
(^794) Arnoldt, Historie der königsberger Universität, 1746.
(^795) See above, p. 570. Osiander’s son-in-law, Funke, Albrecht’s chaplain and confessor, continued the controversies, but was at last
beheaded with two others, 1566, as "Ruhestörer, Landesverräther und Beförderer der osiandrischen Ketzerei."