Lastly, the many miraculous stories which the biographer of Elizabeth relates of her, I had no right, for the sake of truth, to interweave in the plot, while it was necessary to indicate at least their existence. I have, therefore, put such of them as seemed least absurd into the mouth of Conrad, to whom, in fact, they owe their original publication, and have done so, as I hope, not without a just ethical purpose.
Such was my idea: of the inconsistencies and short-comings of this its realisation, no one can ever be so painfully sensible as I am already myself. If, however, this book shall cause one Englishman honestly to ask himself, ‘I, as a Protestant, have been accustomed to assert the purity and dignity of the offices of husband, wife, and parent. Have I ever examined the grounds of my own assertion? Do I believe them to be as callings from God, spiritual, sacramental, divine, eternal? Or am I at heart regarding and using them, like the Papist, merely as heaven’s indulgences to the infirmities of fallen man?’—then will my book have done its work.
If, again, it shall deter one young man from the example of those miserable dilettanti, who in books and sermons are whimpering meagre second-hand praises of celibacy—depreciating as carnal and degrading those family ties to which they owe their own existence, and in the enjoyment of which they themselves all the while unblushingly indulge—insulting thus their own wives and mothers—nibbling ignorantly at the very root of that household purity which constitutes the distinctive superiority of Protestant over Popish nations—again my book will have done its work.
If, lastly, it shall awaken one pious Protestant to recognise, in some, at least, of the Saints of the Middle Age, beings not only of the same passions, but of the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, as themselves, Protestants, not the less deep and true, because utterly unconscious and practical—mighty witnesses against the two antichrists of their age—the tyranny of feudal caste, and the phantoms which Popery substitutes for the living Christ—then also will my little book indeed have done its work. C. K.
1848.
CHARACTERS
Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Hungary,
Lewis, Landgrave of Thuringia, betrothed to her in childhood.
Henry, brother of Lewis.
Walter of Varila, }
Rudolf the Cupbearer, }
Leutolf of Erlstetten, }
Hartwig of Erba, } Vassals of Lewis.
Count Hugo, }
Count of Saym, etc. }
Conrad of Marpurg, a Monk, the Pope’s Commissioner for the suppression of heresy.
Gerard, his Chaplain.
Bishop of Bamberg, uncle of Elizabeth, etc. etc.
Sophia, Dowager Landgravine.
Agnes, her daughter, sister of Lewis.
Isentrudis, Elizabeth’s nurse.
Guta, her favourite maiden.
Etc. etc. etc
The Scene lies principally in Eisenach, and the Wartburg; changing afterwards to Bamberg, and finally to Marpurg.
PROEM
(EPIMETHEUS)