as Life-rent, and they shall be Sub-vassals under us as Hereditary
Duke. 3. In all which Uncle Sigismund and the Republic of Poland
engage to maintain us against the world.

That is, in sum, the Transaction entered into, by King Sigismund
I. of Poland, on the one part, and Hochmeister Albert and his
Ritter Officials, such as went along with him, (which of course
none could do that were not Protestant), on the other part:
done at Cracow, 8th April, 1525. [Rentsch, p. 850.--Here,
certified by Rentsch, Voigt and others, is a worn-out patch of
Paper, which is perhaps worth printing:--
1490, May 17, Albert is born.
1511, February 14, Hochmeister.
1519, December, King Sigismund's first hostile movements.
1520, October, German Mercenaries arrive.
1520, November, try Siege of Dantzig.
1520, November 17, give it up.
1521, April 10, Truce for Four Years.
1523, June, Albert consults Luther.
1524, November, sees Luther.
1525, April 8, Peace of Cracow, and Albert to be Duke of
Prussia.] Whereby Teutsch Ritterdom, the Prussian part of it,
vanished from the world; dissolving itself, and its "hermaphrodite
constitution," like a kind of Male Nunnery, as so many female ones
had done in those years. A Transaction giving rise to endless
criticism, then and afterwards. Transaction plainly not
reconcilable with the letter of the law; and liable to have logic
chopped upon it to any amount, and to all lengths of time.
The Teutschmeister and his German Brethren shrieked murder;
the whole world, then, and for long afterwards, had much to say