Heather R. Darsie lives in the United States. She has a Bachelor of Arts in German Languages and Literature, and a Juris Doctorate. During her time at university, she had the privilege of studying in Costa Rica and France, with visits to Germany and other countries.
Ms. Darsie first became interested in the Renaissance time period when she read a biography about Elizabeth I of England. She found Elizabeth I to be very inspiring and her world to be both foreign and familiar.
Ms. Darsie has spent the last ten years researching the history of the Holy Roman Empire. This has helped her gain perspective as to the political world stage during the Renaissance.
As a bibliophile, she turned her attention to illuminated manuscripts. She is learning more each day and is glad to share it with you. Today we talk about Lutheran connections to the House of Cleves.
Her book:
https://maidensandmanuscripts.com/
Heather R. Darsie lives in the United States. She has a Bachelor of Arts in German Languages and Literature, and a Juris Doctorate. During her time at university, she had the privilege of studying in Costa Rica and France, with visits to Germany and other countries.
Ms. Darsie first became interested in the Renaissance time period when she read a biography about Elizabeth I of England. She found Elizabeth I to be very inspiring and her world to be both foreign and familiar.
Ms. Darsie has spent the last ten years researching the history of the Holy Roman Empire. This has helped her gain perspective as to the political world stage during the Renaissance.
As a bibliophile, she turned her attention to illuminated manuscripts. She is learning more each day and is glad to share it with you. Today we talk about Lutheran connections to the House of Cleves.
Her book:
https://maidensandmanuscripts.com/
Welcome back to the Lutheran History podcast. Today is our last episode of the season. It will take a little break until summer. But we're very happy to welcome to the podcast, Heather our Darcy. She is an author of several books, including Duchess of Cleves, the king's beloved sister, which is about honor of Cleves, one of the wives, the fourth wife, I believe, of Henry the eighth. And her more recent book children of the house of Cleves, Ana and her siblings. If you are really deep into Luther history or history history buff, you maybe didn't know this, maybe you did. But that honor is related to the same family that protected Martin Luther she married the nephew of Frederick the Wise, John, the magnanimous who became a elector of Saxony as well. So there's a direct family connection to the Reformation today. So Heather Darcy is joining joining us, she's going to take a look more at the the political, possibly some of the social aspects of the history of this family. But how all this political stuff is going on during the time of reformation is broader connections to the rest of the Reformation history. I should mention here quickly that Heather has a website called maidens and manuscripts, she has a lot of interesting articles and research on there, including some stuff directly related to Martin Luther and the Reformation. So with no further ado, Heather, thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to talk about Martin Luther and what Saxony in greater Germany were like during the 16th century. Yeah. And sometimes I think the older the better with history. And this is about as far back as you can get for for Luther history back to the 1500s. And just getting our minds wrapped around what's going on at this time. context. I always find very interesting before you sometimes get into the details of the theology. So we're gonna be talking a lot about that today. Hopefully So, Heather, I just want to ask because they ask a lot of our guests How did you get started on this project? For me, it was a natural segue from the first book on a duchess of Cleves. I learned a lot more about what was happening with German politics and German religious movements as I was researching my first book on a duchess of Cleves, and I wanted to continue with that because her older sister Isabella, who we were talking about a moment ago, Mairead, Electra, Johann Friedrich, who, as you mentioned, was the nephew of Frederick the Wise and the son of John the steadfast. And she became she and her husband became the first Lutheran power couple if I can put it that way. And she was a huge supporter of Martin Luther. And of course, that was her husband and her husband's family. And while I was learning about them, I knew that I needed to write or I felt very drawn to write another book that was more so focusing on what Ana's brother and sisters were up to in Germany while she was over in England. Yeah, excellent. And I was just looking link about a week ago with some some Lucas chronic paintings and others, the older and the younger can ever keep them straight. But there are quite a few paintings of Sybil, who you just mentioned there. And in fact, she's in some rather famous paintings, if you're kind of a Lutheran Art History person. There's that famous chronic altarpiece in Wittenberg with the Luther preaching Christ crucified, you have the keys, in confession, you have the word separate, but in the baptism painting, I believe she's supposed to be the mother, or at least she's one of the women around the baptismal font. So you've probably seen her face without recognizing it. Many of our listeners here today of course, the thumbnail for our episode was going to be a picture of, of Sybil as well. So to kind of get a bigger broader view of what we're talking about today. What are your thoughts on Martin Luther and his role in the Reformation as that connects now to the house of please Cleves So keeping in mind that I am not any type of theologian whatsoever and if anything, my background, I have a bachelor's degree in German languages and literature. I'm actually an attorney so I have a law degree and then added to that I completed several graduate ma courses in history. So I'm looking at it more so from a legal historical perspective than I am from a theological perspective. What I think is interesting about Martin Luther is I don't believe he meant for any of this to happen. I don't think he regrets whatsoever that it happened. But I don't think that he meant for it to. So We of course know the famous story of him riding home in the lightning storm. And he swore that if he got home safely, that he would then dedicate his life to God, which he did do. But what was happening around this time, lots and lots of increases in taxes by the Catholic Church and also the curious installment of indulgences. And effectively, if you paid what was a tax to the Catholic Church, then you could save your soul, or buy less time and Purgatory or whatever it was, and this seemed inappropriate. So one day Halloween day of 1517, he posted these 95 theses 95 ideas that he had to debate on the witan bag, chapel door, wanting to have this discussion, and that act in and of itself was not strange, or out of the ordinary, it was common if you're going to have a deep debate that someone would do that it was a very public place. But what came after that is what's really extraordinary. And also at around this time period, or during this time period, we see the transition from Maximilian the first as a Holy Roman Emperor, to his grandson, Charles the fifth, that election happened in 1519. And the Germans weren't really a big fan of having a Spanish Burgundian come to lead them rather than someone like Maximilian, who was Austrian, or at least much more German and could speak German, as opposed to his grandson Charles the fifth. And then when you keep going, Germany was much farther behind. And I'm sorry, I'm gonna pause for a second, I'm going to be using the terms Germany and the Holy Roman Empire synonymously. Most of what was or what is Germany now was within the Holy Roman Empire, but it didn't, what we think of as Germany now didn't exist until around the 1870s. But in the beginning of the 16th century, is when the Germans start seeing themselves as being a nation, the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. So I'll be using Germany and Holy Roman Empire interchangeably, sorry. But what's good, Germany is really far behind as far as social justice goes. So in England, you still have your peasants, but it's not they're not quite as tied to the land and not quite as oppressed as they still are in Germany. And so you have Martin Luther, coming in posting these theses, they kind of catch on, people start wanting to learn more about it and think about it. And aside from the oppression, this of the social structures, you also have what they're perceiving as an impression from the church, which is, of course, all these taxes and whatever other silly things the Catholic Church was, or perceived to be silly things I should say, the Catholic Church was doing within the borders of Germany. And it made for Martin Luther to become a figurehead. And so we see things like the peasants revolt, and the peasants involved in that in 1515 21, I believe when it kicked off, or using Martin Luther as a figurehead, to start rebelling against the German princes. And Martin Luther did not like that. And he was not in favor of it. But we repeatedly see these activities that Martin Luther didn't invite, but that use him as a figurehead or circle around him. And I don't like I said, I don't know that he meant for any of that to happen. But that's what occurred. And then also, on top of that, the Germans were struggling against the Overlord ship, if you will, of the Holy Roman Emperor, because usually, there were over 200 duchies, within the Holy Roman Empire, and they all wanted to have more control over their territories. And part of what happened is, if you remained Catholic during the German reformation, that meant that you were pro empire. But if you became a Lutheran, that meant that you were anti empire and anti emperor. So Lutheranism, in a way, aside from the important religious aspects, also became almost like a political party. Yeah, and there's a whole field of reformation studies that I myself have only dipped my toe in kind of the social aspect of that, and there's a whole Marxist school in there. There's the urban movement. There's a lot of stuff on that. But I think your point, and you're, like you said, coming to kind of a more secular legal point of view. You know, I think I don't think Martin Luther would disagree that he did. This was not an intentional thing, especially the stuff he never even took ownership for at all. Even the split from the church though, theologically. He saw the church as a whole as a unit, right? It's, it's called the Lutheran Reformation that the Lutheran revolution or rebellion or anything like that, it's the idea of reforming things. As you know, but it's impossible for this to just affect one aspect of life and for Americans maybe and we've talked about this in other episodes, it's kind of hard though. There's, for us to picture this. There's not really a separation of church or state or secular, your public religious life versus your private religious life, it is all mixed up. So if Luther is going to touch one, one of those things, there's going to be a domino effect or it's all interconnected in some way. So no surprise that we all have something to talk about whether we're looking at the theological or the legal aspect. But of course, I'm sure you know that Luther started off as a lawyer before he you know, the thunderstorm thing. So that's interesting that you were brought to the reformation is from a legal perspective, just just as he was brought into theology from that area, well, that's got it to me. It seems like a neat little parallel there. Yes. So yeah, yeah. So that's that's good to understand the political connection because now that's where you get into the the family of things to the veteran Rubinstein family, the house of Saxony. Oh, I always get them confused. The Albertina were nesting branch they are nesting right that Yes. So the wise is from? Yes, that's exactly right. I cannot remember the name of Frederick the Wise, wise his grandfather, but he had two sons anston out Albus or Ernest and Albert, you have to forgive me because I wind up saying German names and stuff all the time. And it's just kind of this podcast, you never have to ask forgiveness for speaking in German, so okay, it just gets in my head. And so so there were two brothers, Aaron Ste. And Albert. And the sons who descended from albirex were the lesser lords, if you will. And so they remained Dukes, but they were not along the electoral line. So an elector is higher than a Duke in within the I guess you could call it nobility system, or at least hierarchy of the Holy Roman Empire. And there were a limited number of electors within the Holy Roman Empire. And they're the ones who elected the next emperor until that became hetero hereditary between maximum and the first and Charles of fifth, which is a whole different topic, but just to give a rough overview. So and then the sons of Aaron's directly they became the electors of Saxony. And so there was always a bit of a struggle. And before specifically talking about Frederick the Wise, and John The steadfast. I just wanted to mention that the Albert 18 side like Duke, George the bearded and a few others that followed after him, always struggled against and tried to undermine the Ernestine branch, which are the ones who protected Luther and so the Albert teen branch remained Catholic so that they could remain unified with the Holy Roman Emperor. So that out of the way, I'm now going to switch to talking a little bit about Frederick of Saxony Frederick the third, he was known as the cheap or as the wise, I've learned the cheap part. It's been interesting when I was researching this book, I found that most people had two epithets, one slightly negative and one more positive so on a Cleves father was known as Johann this, Johan the simple, or Johan the peaceful. So and they kind of go together a little bit. Yeah, so you could be cheap and maybe that makes you appear wise because you're not spending all your money. And we have to keep in mind to that. Friedrichs Frederick the third of Saxony, his father had spent a lot of money on wars and accumulating more territory, and he stopped doing that. So I'm wondering if that might be what led to calling him the cheaper the wise. But what was really interesting about him and made him stand out from his forebears is, he was very intellectually curious. So he was interested in reading and learning. He at one point tried to purchase a large collection of Greek works from somewhere in Venice, he brought back relics from the Holy Land, very, very intellectually curious, and in some ways, I think he's the first German Renaissance Prince, or at least the first German prince, who was very, very visible as an elector to start embracing these rennaisance ideals. So in France, of course, we have Francis the First who's embracing these ideals. In England, we have Henry the eighth in Scotland, we have James the fourth. So these ideas of being curious, looking at older literature's investing in art, things like that. He's the first one to start doing that. He also was interested in reforming the legal system, and also adhering to the legal system. And I think a big example of us seeing this is when we look at the 1521 diet of voms it looks like worms. It's voms under 1521 Diet of Worms. And that's of course, where Martin Luther is effectively declared an outlaw. And has to Lee Frederick the Wise doesn't agree with this because Frederick believed that it was his jurisdiction and that he's the one who should make the decision because Martin Luther was a subject of Saxony. And although the Emperor has his own Imperial prerogative, it had not quite risen to that level yet. So for the Emperor to go from zero to 60, like that was extraordinary. And by zero to 60, I mean, for him to just quickly, outlaw Martin Luther without a trial was extraordinary. And of course, when people were outlawed back then that meant that you legally did not exist as a person. So when we think of the term outlaw, we think of oh, this is a bad person, their criminal in the legal sense for that time period. It meant that you did not own anything anymore, that your life was forfeit that you had no rights. And Fredricka no protections at all right? Nothing that anyone could do anything to you and get away with it. Yeah, exactly. And so Frederick the Wise, again, from a legal perspective, regardless of whether he agreed with Martin Luther sought that that was not acceptable. And so he then, of course, intercepts Martin Luther Or has someone intercept Martin Luther on his way from the diet. And then at that point, Martin Luther hides in Vuitton bag for several months, as younger your dog or the young servant or young lord George. Yeah, and we had a whole episode talking about that whole Diet of Worms in the fake napping, kidnappings every want to call it and that's just an interesting story. But yeah, that's that's a good point to realize that and I believe, you know, I think I've heard it said that the Frederick the Wise never fully came out and said, I'm a Lutheran or anything like they are religiously. I think most people who study him say, well, he's definitely very sympathetic to what Luther has to say. And maybe that's coming from his his curious mind, he wants to listen, not just what's politically is advantageous to because you could say with all his relic collection, financially just made sense for him to sit on his relics and make money because people would pay money to, to get that. Of course, there's other stuff going on. But he's hearing Luther out and saying, This guy who happens to be kind of the star of my, my brand new university, I want to protect him. But you're also pointed out to us, which is a very good insight. There's some legal arguments he's making to this isn't Charles the fifth is crossing the line here as far as me protecting my subject and my my jurisdiction. To put it another way, if Frederick the Wise allowed that to stand, then in theory, Charles a fifth could pluck anybody off the street, he wanted to outlaw them and take their property and kill them. And that was not okay. In Germany didn't have the Holy Roman Empire didn't have a unified criminal system at this point, either. Which was another issue that I would assume Frederick the Wise was thinking about. So you start seeing like a criminal constitution, everything under Charles a fifth comes out, I think, in 1525 or so. But there's not even a unified legal system within the Holy Roman Empire. So it really is governed territory by territory. But turning a bit from that, I want to go back to what you're saying about Frederick the Wise being sympathetic to Luther. And I think that's accurate. He never as far as I'm aware, and I'm not an expert on Frederick the Wise, but I did spend quite a bit of time researching him for children of the house of Cleves. He wanted to know what what Martin Luther his thoughts were, and he wanted to understand and he wanted to think for himself before he made any decisions and whether Frederick made any overt decisions. I don't believe he did other than not outlawing or otherwise forbidding Martin Luthers teachings, because there are certain other areas in Germany that completely forbade Martin Luther his teachings. If we go to jewel years, Cleves Burg, or as I say it you could use a bag, which is where the bill of Cleves came from. Her parents were both very, very Catholic, but they took the VMA idea the intermediate way or the middle road towards approaching this encroachment of Lutheranism, because several people from the Duchy of Ulis, which was a very wealthy or I think actually it was the wealthiest of the three main duchies would go to Viton back become educated and Lutheranism or Lutheran teachings and then come back, so it wasn't outlawed to be a Lutheran there in your paper bag, but you couldn't be caught spreading Lutheran literature, you couldn't be caught parasitizing so it wasn't it legally to be Lutheran, you just couldn't do anything to further advance it. And so there was, again varying degrees of laws going from German territory to German territory somewhere, as I mentioned, completely outlawed Lutheranism somewhere. If I don't see it, I don't know about it somewhere, they completely tolerated it. So there are really a lot of varying degrees. But what Frederick of Saxony did is he allowed Martin Luther to keep thinking and I have to wonder if Frederick saw Martin Luther, not just for the importance of his theological perspectives, but also as an intellectual and if he's, as we were discussing, really intellectually curious, it would make sense that that could be a reason why he's wanting to protect him, as well. Yeah, and we, he deserves his own episode basically, or a couple, right? And today, we're bringing him up because we're going to follow the family tree. Okay, here's Frederick the Wise, which is even your basic knowledge of the Reformation. You should probably know who that is. He's a main player on the political stage, but what some people maybe don't realize, well, he doesn't live much longer past the diet and forums and Luthor is doing a lot of Lutheranism. There's a lot of stuff going on. Low key and in the background because he's younger York at this point. Yeah. Up in the Wartburg Castle. Yeah. But so much of the other developments of not only Luthers life but the Reformation take place when Frederick the Wise is no longer around. So you want to take us through the next next couple of electors here and as they connect us to the House of Leaves? Absolutely. So Frederick the third one never had legitimate children. He did have a woman with whom he maintained a long term relationship and had at least two sons with him. But due to his lack of a legitimate heir it next went to his younger brother John known as John The steadfast or John the persistence. So I suppose being persistent isn't a negative one, but he was known as John the persistent during his lifetime. And he, to use modern slang was spicy and sassy towards Charles the fifth about Lutheranism, one of my favorite things that he did, and I'm sorry, I don't remember which diet this was, oh, there's so many of them. Yeah. Well, Charles in fifth would specifically say you can't have any Lutheran anything at the diet, and he would just show up, and would be brought, you know, all of His people, His servants in attendance with him would be wearing John's motto, and then he would have a Lutheran service happening and just doing all the things that Charles if it didn't want, so John did not what Charles thought. And I think that that's where we really start to see the breakdown in the relationship between the electorate of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire. So you have Broderick, who was a calmer personality, shall we say? Or at least? Not as aggressive? And then we have John who just does not can. He's not impressed with the Spanish Burgundian emperor. And then he fortunately did have a son named Johann Friedrich or John Frederick and of course, Frederick in German is freezer and John is Johan. So I believe that Johann Friedrich was named after his father John The steadfast, and his uncle Frederick the Wise. For a period of time before the Diet of Worms and before Frederick the Wise disappeared, Martin Luther temporarily. Johann Friedrich was meant to married to one of Charles the fifth sisters. And so they've been engaged for a little while and after that, after the whole Diet of Worms mess, Charles a fifth said, No, you will not marry my sister, so he was free to find another bride. If we go back a few generations, the Saxon electors are related to the Dukes and duchesses of ulick which is of course where Isabella of Cleves is from and so there had been a spat. Actually, at the coronation, I believe it was of the Emperor and Aachen cathedral of who would take precedence if Johann the third of he was so honored Isabella of Cleves, Father Johann first became the Duke of eulogy and bag when his father in law died because women could not be duchesses regnant they could not be in charge of their own territory. So by Johan the third of Cleves, Mark marrying Maria of eulogy bag, that meant that and Maria had no legitimate siblings, that meant that when Maria's dad died, then Johann became the Duke of Uli and bag by right of his wife. So, why this is important or to bring it back to the Auckland cathedral thing thing is at the time that Charles a fifth had a ceremony there. And I'm sorry, I can't remember if it was for him becoming the Holy Roman, I believe was for him becoming a Holy Roman Emperor. But it was right around 1519 1520 Johan of Cleves mark at this point was only the Duke of you that handbag because his father was still alive. There was a spat between representatives from Saxony and representatives from your handbag as to whether your the handbag was should be under the umbrella and had less precedents than Saxony. So there was some tension there because the Saxons were very much agitating towards wanting to have control of your the handbag which as we discussed before, was a wealthy territory. It's amazing how many things come back to money. So after after the diet of wolves and after the engagement between Johann Friedrich and one of Charles if Sisters is ended, he has find another bride conveniently, Johann the third of yudishe paperbag has daughters, he has three of them. One of them's the biller, the eldest was born in 1512. And she was of an appropriate age to become engaged. She wasn't yet of an age to go live with someone. So we have to keep in mind that in this time period, women had to be 15 before they could go live with their husbands. And men had to be 14 because even though they got married really young, there was still this recognition that if a young lady was below a certain age, it was dangerous to her to become pregnant. So Isabella would have been 13 and 1525 engagement talk really starts to pick up and 1526 and then is solidified. And then she goes to Saxony and 1527 to celebrate her marriage. So they would have kind of longer engagements when these are political deals, or were they still, it seems like just a little more than here, if I'm catching that, right. Sometimes they would i If I recall correctly, Johann Friedrich became engaged to Charles a Fifth Sister when he was a child, so it could even be done in childhood. Yeah. And sometimes what would happen is well, and if we look at Margaret of Austria, Maximilian, the first Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, the first daughter, sometimes the daughter would be sent to the court of the future husband to be raised on within the culture of that court, even if the marriage itself was delayed. Also sometimes, for example, using Vilhelm of Cleves ability of Cleves brother and the thorn in the side of Johann Friedrich and Henry the Eighth of England and several other leaders within Europe at the time. His first wife was a French princess. They were married when she was 12. They consummated the marriage by him symbolically putting his unschooled foot on the bed in which John del Bray was lying, mostly or fully clothed. And then he went home to Germany and she never actually went to Germany to go live with him because they wound up having an annulment a few years ago, or a few years after that, excuse me. So it wasn't uncommon for a younger person, or for noble people to be engaged Much, much younger or even married much younger, they just weren't allowed to live together until the young lady was at least 15. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And just a quick caveat, not everyone got married that young that was just something that higher ranking people did normal people. So by normal, I mean, non nobles, non Royals would usually get married in their 20s. So now, not terribly different from from today. Yeah. No, no, no. But the nice thing about having the biller of Cleves Mary Johann Friedrich of Saxony is that would, in theory, end the dispute over the territory of Yulia because you'd be rejoining the two houses together, and any sense that they had would, in theory, have a claim to you that now all of that winds up being a huge giant mess 100 years later, but we're not going to worry about that. So, and the biller, we don't so she was raised Catholic, but she was 15 when she moved to Saxony. We don't really know how firmly Catholic she was at the time when she moved to Saxony, or how much introduction she had had to Lutheranism. But she was regarded immediately as being very pious, and she adopted Luth. Lutheranism very, very quickly. So with and she there are some record or there are a few letters that she wrote to Martin Luther, I would assume she had some sort of interaction with Katrina when Baba. Otherwise, or at least I don't know why she wouldn't have because I would have assumed that Katrina would have been at court as well, or at least would have been around Martin Luther here and there. But Zillow winds up becoming a household backbone in the model Lutheran woman to all the other noble ladies about the Saxon court. I'm curious, do you have any examples? You know, you said she was regarded as very pious are now very devout are a good example. Is there any like for instance, that that comes to mind, you know, her daily habits or practice things, she said. I don't have any direct quotes prepared. But what I can say is that in her letters, particularly during Johann Friedrich some period of imprisonment, she was always she did reference the Bible rather often. I know that that's not necessarily direct evidence of Lutheranism. But she always had God in the Bible in the forefront of her mind. I do believe that's evidence of that. But a lot of it had to do with daily habits. And of course, being the wife of the most important person within the electorate of Saxony. She was highly visible, and so people would log and see what she was doing. Oh, kind of like the letter home I saw the, the Electress or whatever title is doing this with it. Okay. Gotcha. Well, and I don't I'm not an expert in this either. But, you know, Luther was one of his many things he's famous for is actually translating the Bible. So unless she she knew Latin, she couldn't have known. The Bible verses per se, to well, it slowed may be a Lutheran thing to just have biblical literacy at this point in time. Yeah, that's a great point. That's that's absolutely a great point. That might have been her harkening back to what she was able to learn because he did translate it, you're absolutely right, and her form of German. So the type of German that her parents spoke was very different, or different to various degrees from what was spoken in Saxony, her father's form of German was heavily mixed with what we would think of as modern or as not modern, but as Dutch. So there's a very heavy Dutch influence on his German and when you look at where the United duchies are, most of the territory former territory is within the German state of North Rhine Westphalia, some of its also in modern day, another lens. When we look at her mother's language, she very much you can tell that it's German, you can always tell that it's German. So sometimes with her father's language, it's a little confusing if you're not aware of what you're reading, but the spelling's and some of the other words were different from what you'd see in Saxony. So the way I like to compare her mother's a bill of clues mother's dialect with Johan or excuse me, not young Johann Friedrich, her father, Johann of Cleves, it would, it would kind of be like putting an English person with someone from Texas, they can understand each other, but there's going to be some difficulties with some of the words that are used or how the words are used. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. Well, I know that for Luther, that was a major challenge is translation. Do I translate just into this dialect? Or do I try to find okay, what's the word that everyone from everywhere in Germany could possibly understand? Even if it's not their native way of saying it? So it you know, other historians have been credited him with kind of unifying the German language from being too divergent after that point, at least? But yeah, a major challenge. So yeah, I was thinking, Oh, well, at least she does. You know, Seville doesn't have to go to court to learn the language, which you're telling us that? Well, she kind of did. The culture too, I would imagine. Yes, absolutely. And if we take this child of a person, one is from England, and one is from Texas, so they have that interesting dialect. And then we put them in Scotland, which modern Scotland we're, we're speaking predominantly English and not Scots. But that's also another thing that she had to keep taking into consideration. But when I look at her letters from the 1540s, she's very much writing in a Saxon dialect as far as I can tell. And what's incredible about Martin Luther is work just from a linguistic perspective, and you did just touch on this, but it wasn't just his translation of the Bible that was solidifying the German dialect because German modern German absolutely comes from Saxon German, just like a Italian, I believe, comes from the Florentine dialect of Italian, and I believe Spanish is Catalonian I want to say. So all the languages are the modern languages that we're speaking now did come from dialects originally, but one great thing that happened with Martin Luther is the printing press and So of course, that's invented in the 1400s. But he was able to not only translate the Bible into a language that Germans could understand, but he was able to make copies. He was also able to make pamphlets. So for example, we were talking about the peasants war versus the the peasants revolt in the early 1520s. And Martin Luther had to come out of hiding to go against that. People were able to print things or he was able to print his thoughts going against that revolt, using the printing press, and therefore disseminating it much, much faster. Do you see what I'm saying? And so he just had a huge impact on it. And the other thing that's wonderful about this as well, is that neither Frederick the Wise, or John The steadfast said, No, you can't do that. No, you cannot use the press that way. Yeah, it's all it's all connected somehow. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And then we of course have in the, by the 1530s, Johann Friedrich Isabella's husband becomes the Elector of Saxony. They have they wound up having four boys together, but sadly, only three of them lived past infancy. And fun fact, King Charles a third of England is actually descended from the villa of Cleves sons. Oh, is that through? Alberta? who marries Victoria? Is he a soundboard and Victoria? Both of them have both of them? Yes. And I think I might have if I go really far down the rabbit hole, and I'd have to double check this, but they might also be related to on his brother Vilhelm. But that's going I'd have to double check that and go back a lot farther. But yeah, yeah. So they're descended from the bellows is totally, totally irrelevant history we're talking about I mean, like, you know, I'm kind of saying that tongue in cheek, but but it is, you know, this is a direct connection to people still still on thrones today. Yeah. So we also have the League of small called, which was founded by Philip Hasha. And Johann Friedrich, and this was also called the Protestant League. So this is your first we were talking earlier about how being pro Lutheran was being anti Holy Roman Empire. This is the first major step towards this happening. And there were other places that were creating similar leagues, or alliances. So for example, in Denmark, they were kind of forming something against the Holy Roman Emperor, but again, that was taking the form of being Protestants or being reformed minded. And the biller, as far as I know, was supportive of this league of small called are those Protestant League, Martin Luther was supportive of it just because it's thought of let's protect the progress that we've made with reforming the church because we have to keep in mind to some of the things that had already started being done. Were the Saxon within Saxony. Right around the time Martin Luther posted his 95 theses. Some of the Catholic Church's smaller properties were being I guess, you could say dissolved, I was trying to avoid that word, because he had the dissolution of the monasteries over in England that starts happening a few years after that goes on in Saxony, but it really is a very similar process of taking land and items away from smaller Catholic churches within Saxony that were perhaps not behaving well. So Martin Luther is very much in favor of this Protestant League, this league of small called and having a military backing for protecting the reformist or Lutheran purpose within Germany. Yeah, he also, you know, same thing with he didn't intend the Reformation as like a revolution within the church. He had kind of had a parallel thought politically to for all he didn't want, okay, we're Lutherans, we're going to start a rebellion overthrow the government and the Emperor. He wasn't going that far. And in fact, they had kind of a crisis of conscience. I was studying stuff going down in Nuremberg, and they're like, we can't even protest too strongly or something like that, is it? Well, no, we had to find that line of how can we not actually openly revolt but yet protect our a reformation? Can we do alliances? Can we do that militarily? And so you have the small called leave very political military? And then you come up with this confessional document that the small called articles which, which is one of the things that Luther wrote is what as well? Yes, absolutely. And I, from what I can tell Martin Luther did whatever he could, to not cross that line. Yeah. And unfortunately for him with everything that was happening in Europe at the time, and with the German princes, generally just not liking Charles the fifth. He frequently was dragged over the line. But overall, I would I would agree, and I don't I don't think he was trying to he wasn't trying to cause an A she'll write. I think it just like his I think it's kind of his character's personality. And I do believe it's part of his conscious and religious convictions though. He really looks down on the end justifies the means. Like, as long as there's a good goal we can say and do whatever ever we want. And I think he was really pushing back against that. Pretty much wherever England pop up. I think so, Tim? Yeah. So how did you know talking about John, your Johann Friedrich here, you know, how did he kind of get along with Luther and or Seville? Is there too? Do you have any insight of their personal interactions or connections? I didn't dive deeply into it. But I have no reason to think that they didn't get along or they didn't care about each other that they weren't friendly with each other or that. Johann Friedrich was against Martin Luther, Johann Friedrich was a Lutheran. The villa was a Lutheran, their sons were Lutherans. So they were supportive of Martin Luther his work, or at least of what was happening around Martin Luther, as a result of his own curiosities about what was happening within the Catholic Church. And he was Johann Friedrich always welcomed Martin Luther at Quartz. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Well, I have a little little tip, a little tidbit trivia to fill it. If you go to the go to Weimar we're back was for a few years, where I forget the name of the church, but it's another famous chronic altarpiece. You have Luther, in the middle of the altarpiece. But on the left on the right, you have you on Frederick Sibylla, then those three sons that were alive, they're all in the same painting again, yes, together. That's another example. So, at least in the public's perception, or at least, what the artist Craddock was trying to do, they're painted together, least twice now, that if I if I'm connecting the Wittenberg altarpiece as well, so they yes, they're definitely publicly identifying with him. And as you said that they're Lutheran. And it's not like today where a whole you have this and that you're making a pretty big statement if you publicly identified yourself. Yes, I'm in the Reformation. Now, I would say I believe that it's insofar as the biller and Johann Friedrich go, and Martin Luther that was done post humorously of them, but the sons are still alive. So, but that tells us that the sons viewed all of them as going together. Right? Yeah. Is it from the 1550s? Possibly, I mean, do you have it in your book? Maybe? I do. Yes. It's from 1555. Okay. And zebula and Johann Friedrich died a couple of years before that. Okay. Yeah, Martin Luther had been gone for a while at that point. Yeah. 1546. Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, for the sake of time, we have a little more things we like to get through today. Anything with Sybilla that we want to talk if you would like to talk about before we maybe goes through her her siblings, and probably Molly is the one who I'm talking about to Isabella had an impressive amount of courage. So we were talking about the legal small called, or the Protestant League, of course, you have the small Celtic wars, in from about 1546 to 1547 is the first set of small Celtic wars. And then there's a second set in the early 1550s. During the Battle of mailbag in, I believe was March of 1547, Johann Friedrich is captured. And we don't know at the time, it was reported, he might have been dead, because witnesses who saw him be captured saw him received this huge slash this huge gash on his face that went from his left eyebrow or maybe corner of his eye all the way down to his chin or under his left lip. And in portraits of him after this, and also portraits of him, post him as portraits of him, you see this huge scar on his face, which was unusual for the time period, because many people had scars on their faces, even like we do today. But those weren't usually painted. So you wouldn't know that they were there. Yeah, that was kind of like a murder thing. You know, I got this wound for my face in a way, right. So um, it's not something I'm ashamed of to show that off? I think so. And I'd have to look at the bimah Castle chapel altarpiece that we were talking about a moment ago to see if he has any sort of mark on his face. But again, if you look at any portraits, you'll see anything from like a tiny little halfmoon under his eye to the full scar going from his brow down to his face. But because of that scar, and because he or that wound, and because he didn't come back, Sybil of Cleves was worried that he was dead and had a legitimate reason to worry that he was dead. Also, their eldest son had been taken into custody. So Isabella is down in bitten bag defending the castle she had it fortified, was ready for the Emperor to go homme. He comes bombards the castle for several days. I believe that several days it was least a couple of days. And eventually she has to capitulate or risk everyone within the castle and within the city. She goes out with her ladies to meet with the Emperor. She's clad in black, and she just immediately begs for Johan Friedrichs body. Because they one thing that I really enjoy about Isabella and Johann Friedrich is even though their marriage was arranged as most of them were back then they genuinely loved each other and for this woman to have the courage to go and go to the most powerful person who could have also taken her into custody and say, Hey, can I please have my husband back, have his body back she then learns that he's alive. The Emperor agrees to let Johann Friedrich go home with Isabella for a week or two before he starts his leave with six years five, six years of imprisonment. And she, the biller wrote to her husband faithfully, she sent him presents while he was imprisoned, this included gifts like songbirds to cheer him up. She sent him pomegranates at one point because she heard that he was unwell. So even while he was being carted around in the custody of the Emperor, and she went without seeing him for such a long time, she was very still very devoted to him as her husband Yeah, that's a it's a very warming story. Like it's a good point, you know, you kind of have to be with each other because your your parents told you so or your you know, diplomatically politically just make sense. And you know, Seville is finger sister Anna had the other half of that where it was totally set up. Did not have the lasting romance with Henry the Eighth there, which kind of got off lucky compared to a couple of the other wives there. But still, by comparison, yeah, it's such it isn't a story. And that's one of the things I appreciate about your book is I don't know if I've seen that story anywhere else, and if it is probably not in English. So that's, that's it. One of the values of your book is bringing this to light to an English speaking audience. And turning to the builds relationships with her brother and sisters, so ANA, who married Henry, the eighth of England, that marriage was annulled for political reasons. For those of you who are unaware of my research, I'd very much encourage you to read on a duchess of Cleves, the king's beloved sister, which is the first book about on a cleaves research and written from the German perspective. Henry didn't get rid of her because he thought she was ugly. We'll just leave it at that. But Ana, as far as I can tell, was not a very spiritual or religious person. So there were people were expected to attend church and they were expected to have an interest in their souls, but much like today, some people went through the motions and some people were devoted and devout Ana, from what I can tell went through the motions, whereas the biller was devoted, and devout. So Ana was Catholic. I don't know that she ever she would have been aware of Lutheranism. I don't know if it was really something that she thought about just again, her personality being different from Isabella Vilhelm. Their brother was Lutheran or Catholic when it suited him. So he started to become more friendly to the Lutherans after he became the Duke of UDK. For bag after Ana and Isabel of Cleves father died, because he wanted to hold on to this territory that he was fighting with Charles a fifth about and again, if you want to learn more about that you can, it's in both of my books. But that occasionally meant that he had to be Lutheran for political reasons. So he could have Lutherans back him. Then in the Cleves war, he's defeated, and he has to be a Catholic and any of his sons because they will become the ones to rule the United duchies of you that way. Footbag have to be Catholic. So on paper Vilhelm was Catholic for the rest of his life. But interestingly, periodically he would take the Lutheran form of the sacrament, communion that's the word I'm looking for. Or I'm sorry, he would occasionally partake in a Lutheran form of communion or he would indulge in a Lutheran style service. So he, he was never Lutheran. But he was never totally Catholic in his adulthood or after he became the Duke when he was about 22 years old. Now, the youngest sister a Malia, that's the one for anyone who's watched the tutor's TV show it talks about on a cleaves Annamalai of Cleves and a lot of people who are interested in more so the Tudor history aspect, rather than the German reformation, totally forgot that Isabella The elder sister even existed, but, uh, Malia never winds up getting married. And at one point it said that she was too Lutheran to marry anyone. Wow. What is that supposed to meet? I'm not quite sure. But I can tell you she was very devout and maybe also as sassy as her oldest sister because when a Malia's sister in law, passed away in the 15th I think it was 1581 or so. The sister in law wife avail home, was very Catholic, and had a Catholic mass for her burial. And a Malia refused to go because it was Catholic. At one point, she made her brother Vilhelm, so angry with her Lutheranism that he chased her with a sword, and a servant had to intervene and slammed the door shut. Her Vilhelm had six surviving children, he had seven total but little girl, Unfortunately, he passed away when she was quite young, but he had two sons and four daughters. She would have spent a lot of time raising the four daughters or with the four daughters, I should say. They're her nieces in Germany, and I don't remember the exact breakdown, but all of them were Lutheran for at least a little while, if not for the rest of their lives. So Isabella and Amalia we have to assume had some sort of correspondence. Amalia was very much in favor of it. She was so in favor of it that she risked her brother's wrath and did not care and also made sure to pass it on to her nieces. Amalia never wound up marrying anyone or having any of her own children. Well, seems like she had her hands full just being a full time with her and I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So she's that in some ways, it's an interesting contrast between oldest and youngest youngest siblings, Avila is this beacon of Lutheranism and, and Lutheran womanly behavior, and is an excellent role model up in Saxony in the Northeast. And then you have a molly of Cleves, who's to Lutheran to marry and incites her brother to violence with her stubborn Lutheran Lutheran Ness, and then also refuses to go to her sister in law's funeral because it's not Lutheran. So it's just interesting to see two sides of the same devoted coin. Right? Very, very firm in their convictions and yet, how they, how they how that plays out in their lives. Yeah, that's, well, that said, nothing's new, I guess, or nothing that's happened today hasn't really happened the past you'll find people like that, too. Although being chased with a sword. That's a whole nother level. She must have really, really done something there. No. All right. Well, thank you for that overview. We could spend so much more time and I've really enjoyed her time with that today. But if you told us the whole book, nobody would go and buy your book. So I encourage our audience to pick it up. It's just the title children in the house of Cleves, Ana and her siblings by Heather Darcy. Now, I do want to ask you about any future projects you're anticipating. But before that, I didn't get to ask you before. But we chatted briefly earlier. And I think it's very interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about your research process and how you're bringing up this information because I think you've done some pretty serious archival work that I think our audience would be interested in hearing a little bit about. Thank you. I will start with how I began my journey into researching on a Cleves. As I mentioned before, I have the bachelor's degree in German languages and literature. And when I was in law school, I, I became interested in English history. And really what it came from was my dad who unfortunately, passed away in 2020. He would always read history books, but he never did anything with it. But he would always read like World War Two history books in World War One. And growing up, you know, we always think that our parents know everything about something and I'm in my early 20s. At this point, I'm like, Dad, what do you know about the English Wars of the Roses, and he's like nothing. I said, I'm gonna go learn about it. So I did. And that's what really got me into, or led me into Henry the Eighth and his six wives. And all I ever read about ANA who was from Germany was that she was ugly, and she got dumped, and that that just it seems so it seemed too simple of an explanation because the cost to ship her over there. Also, women didn't get discarded because they were unattractive. I mean, Claude of France, who married Francis the First had a twisted spine either because of tuberculosis, lodging, and her spine or scoliosis. And there was a there have been plenty of examples of women being unattractive, quote, unquote, for whatever reason, and they still went and had children with their important spouse who was a king or a Duke or, or whatever it was, so it didn't make any sense to me and then this is very ignorant of me, but I didn't think her name name could have been an because an spelled that way isn't a German name. And so I decided one day, you know what? I'm going to learn more about her. So I wrote a letter to the mayor of Cleves in German saying who I was and what I wanted to do and asking for help. And then I got and I wrote a physical letter, because, in my opinion, if you have something that you're holding in your hand, that's harder to ignore than an email. But then I received an email from his support staff, and they had forwarded my letter to the castling, Cleves and to the archives and Duisburg. And it just kind of went from there. And other things that occurred while I've been researching this family would include when I go to the Newberry library in Chicago, for example, I live around Chicago. And I'd be researching one thing and find another and they also have a lot of, or at least enough of Martin Luthers works in the original German. And so in some ways just to learn how to read our older German, Saxon German. And then eventually, of course, the dialects spoken by ANA Cleves parents, I would just go to the Newbery and I would read those different books and pamphlets with Martin Luther is and just seeing how much more was there and the random things that I would stumble upon, I just knew that I had to put this together in a greater work. And I think that having part of my purpose, too, was we have a lot of theologically leaning books about the Lutheran Reformation, which makes perfect sense. But I wanted to explore more about the Lutheran Reformation from a non theological perspective, which I hope I was successful in doing in this book. Yeah, it's very, very interesting. And I think you said at one point, you're looking at stuff, not just, you know, Luthers works have been printed and published in German, your your reading, demand the manuscript part, right, where it's handwritten for some of that, I believe Luthers. But if certain other documents have other other documents in your research, yeah. And that, you know, that I've tried, and I've not really cracked the code. And that's, I'm just talking about like, 19th century German. You're doing older stuff, although I think sometimes it might be clear, but that's a whole nother topic. But yeah, that just so our audience knows like you're doing real you know what the right word for it, but real archival work in that and that that's very valuable, that you're able to just read the letters on the page, translate it, and then tell it in a story printed in English for us to be able to read it. Like I said, I'm not aware that maybe there is but I'm not aware of this, the whole civil story and that's, I just find that fascinating because it's really close to really close to what a lot of people study the Reformation, but just never get around to to that far. So, to me, you're making a big, big contribution. Thank you. And then I'm, um, I do have a few more books coming out. I am deviating slightly from my favorite Germans, but I promise that I'm coming back to them I have later this year I have Stewart spouses, a compendium of consorts from James the First of Scotland to Queen Anne of Great Britain, that should be released around September of 2024. And then they also have books about Katherine of Aragon, Henry the eighth's first wife, and Anne Boleyn. Henry, the eighth second wife. And then after that, I'm going to be writing about Charles the Fitz sisters. So we'll be getting back to Lutheran Reformation history. In a couple years, you have to wait a couple years, but it's coming, I promise. All right. Awesome. Well keep up the good work. You have a big schedule in front of you a lot, a lot of stuff going on. I don't regret my lifestyle. Well, and thank you for your time today. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. And for our listeners, just a little heads up. You are now able to listen to our podcast episodes on YouTube. I believe I've linked her episodes there. Don't judge the listed count. It's going to be a little low is when he gets off the ground on YouTube, but you can go there and connect with us there. If you'd like to support the podcast there's ways to do that on our website as well as through Patreon. Hold on through the summer. Listen to some favorite episodes. We have some more material ready for you already has