Maurice, Elector of Saxony

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Maurice of Saxony

Maurice I, Elector of Saxony (March 21, 1521 – July 9, 1553) was a Duke of Saxony (1541–53) and later Elector (1547–53) of Saxony. His clever manipulation of alliances and disputes gained the Albertine branch of the Wettin dynasty extensive lands and the electoral dignity.

[edit] Biography

Maurice was born in Freiberg and succeeded his father, Duke Henry IV, in 1541. Although a Protestant, he aided the Catholic Emperor Charles V against the forces of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire (1542), Duke Wilhelm of Jülich-Cleves-Berg (1543), and King Francis I of France (1544).

In 1545, he was dissuaded from supporting the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League by an Imperial promise of the Saxon electorship, then held by John Frederick the Magnanimous (1503-1554) of the rival Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty; Maurice returned to Charles's camp and conquered Electoral Saxony. Ousted in 1547, he returned after John Frederick's defeat in the Battle of Mühlberg (April 24, 1547) and received the electoral dignity and sizable lands.

Soon, however, Maurice began to resent Charles's plans to reintroduce Catholicism in the Empire's Protestant territories and the continued imprisonment of his father-in-law, Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse, whose freedom Charles had guaranteed. Commissioned to capture the rebellious Lutheran city of Magdeburg (1550), Maurice seized the occasion to raise an army and signed anti-Habsburg compacts with France and Germany's Protestant princes. In March 1552 the rebels overran southern German states, including parts of Austria, forcing the Emperor to flee and release Philip.

In August 1552 the Lutheran position was provisionally guaranteed by the Peace of Passau. Again returning to the Emperor's camp, Maurice campaigned against the Ottomans in Hungary. Finally, in northwestern Germany, he confronted his former ally Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, who had rejected the Passau armistice. He defeated Albrecht in the Battle of Sievershausen (1553) but was himself killed in this battle.

His only daughter Anna of Saxony married William the Silent and was mother to Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange.

Preceded by John Frederick	Elector of Saxony 1547 – 1553	Succeeded by Augustus

[edit] References

Georg Voigt, Moritz von Sachsen, Leipzig 1876.
Erich Brandenburg, Moritz von Sachsen, Bd. I, Leipzig 1899.
Günther, Wartenberg, Landesherrschaft und Reformation. Moritz von Sachsen und die albertinische Kirchenpolitik bis 1546. Weimar 1988.
Karlheinz Blaschke, Moritz von Sachsen. Ein Reformationsfürst der zweiten Generation. Göttingen 1983.
Johannes Herrmann, Moritz von Sachsen. Beucha 2003.
Hans Baumgarten, Moritz von Sachsen, Berlin 1941.
Hof und Hofkultur unter Moritz von Sachsen (1521-1553), hrsg. von André Thieme und Jochen Vötsch, unter Mitarbeit von Ingolf Gräßler im Auftrag des Vereins für sächsische Landesgeschichte, Beucha 2004.