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3. Otto Meinardus, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte des Grossen Kurfürsten’, FBPG, 16/2 (1903), pp. 173–99, here p. 176.
4. On the influence of neo-stoicism on the political thought and action of Elector Frederick William and of early modern sovereigns more generally, see esp. Gerhard Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State, ed. B. Oestreich and H. G. Koenigsberger, trans. D. McLintock (Cambridge, 1982).
5. Derek McKay, The Great Elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia (Harlow, 2001), pp. 170–71.
6. Cited from an edict of 1686 in Martin Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (3 vols., Berlin, 1897–1903), vol. 3, p. 91.
7. On the naval and colonial plans of the Elector, see Ernst Opgenoorth, Friedrich Wilhelm der Grosse Kurfürst von Brandenburg (2 vols., Göttingen, 1971–8), vol. 2, pp. 305–11; E. Schmitt, ‘The Brandenburg Overseas Trading Companies in the 17th Century’, in Leonard Blussé and Femme Gaastra (eds.), Companies and Trade. Essays on European Trading Companies During the Ancien Regime (Leiden, 1981), pp. 159–76;Hüttl, Friedrich Wilhelm, pp. 445–6; Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Afrika und die deutschen Kolonialprojekte der 2.Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 68 (1986), pp. 119–33; a useful historiographical discussion is Klaus-Jürgen Matz, ‘Das Kolonialexperiment des Grossen Kurfürsten in der Geschichtsschreibung des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts’, in Heinrich (ed.), Ein Sonderbares Licht, pp. 191–202.
8. Albert Waddington, Le Grand Électeur Fŕedéric Guillaume de Brandenbourg: sa politique extérieure, 1640–1688 (2 vols., Paris, 1905–8), vol. 1, p. 43; comments by Götze and Leuchtmar, Stettin, 23 April 1643, in Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer (ed.), Politische Verhandlungen, (4 vols., Berlin, 1864–84), vol. 1 (= UuA, vol. 1), pp. 596–7.
9. Lisola to Walderode, Berlin, 30 November 1663, in Alfred Pribram (ed.), Urkunden und Aktenstücke zur Geschichte des Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, vol. 14 (Berlin, 1890), pp. 171–2.
10. Hermann von Petersdorff, Der Grosse Kurfürst (Gotha, 1926), p. 40.
11. McKay, Great Elector, p. 21; Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst, vol. 1, pp. 41–2.
12. Margrave Ernest to Frederick William, Cölln, 18 May 1641, in Erdmannsdörffer (ed.), Politische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 451–2.
13. Privy councillors to Frederick William, 6 September 1642 and report on the Margrave’s death by Dr Johannes Magirius, 26 September 1642, in Erdmannsdörffer (ed.), Politische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 499–502, 503–5.
14. Alexandra Richie, Faust’s Metropolis. A History of Berlin (London, 1998), pp. 44–5.
15. Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst, vol. 1, pp. 56–8.
16. Hirsch, ‘Die Armee des grossen Kurfürsten’, pp. 229–75; Waddington, Grand Électeur, vol. 1, p. 89; McKay, Great Elector, pp. 173–5.
17. Curt Jany, ‘Lehndienst und Landfolge unter dem Grossen Kurfürsten’, FBPG, 8 (1895), pp. 419–67.
18. For an analysis of the battle (with diagrams), see Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars 1558–1721 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 173–6.
19. Frederick William to Otto von Schwerin, Schweinfurt, 10 February 1675, in Ferdinand Hirsch (ed.), Politische Verhandlungen (Berlin 1864–1930) vol. 11 (= UuA, vol. 18), pp. 824–5; Jany, ‘Lehndienst und Landfolge unter dem Grossen Kurfürsten’ (Fortsetzung), in FBPG, 10 (1898), pp. 1–30, here p. 7, note 3.
20. Droysen, Der Staat des Grossen Kurfürsten, p. 351.
21. Diarium Europeaeum XXXII, cited in Jany, ‘Lehndienst und Landfolge’ (Fortsetzung), p. 7.
22. Pufendorf, Rebus gestis, Book VI, § 36–9; Leopold von Orlich, Friedrich Wilhelm der Grosse Kurfürst. Nach bisher noch unbekannten Original-Handschriften (Berlin, 1836), pp. 79–81; the Elector’s account is reprinted in the Appendix, pp. 139–42.
23. Cited in Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven, CT, 1992), p. 152.
24. Frederick William, Political Testament of 1667 in Richard Dietrich (ed.), Die politischen Testamente der Hohenzollern (Cologne, 1986), pp. 179–204, here pp. 191–2.
25. Heinz Duchhardt and Bogdan Wachowiak, Um die Soveränität des Herzogthums Preussen: Der Vertrag von Wehlau, 1657 (Hanover, 1998); for contemporary Polish perspectives on the treaty, see Barbara Szymczak, Stosunki Rzeczypospolitej z Brandenburgią i Prusami Książęcymi w latach 1648–1658 w opinii i działaniach szlachty koronnej (Warsaw, 2002), esp. pp. 229–58.
26. Comment to Louis XIV by the Austrian envoy in Paris, cited in Orlich, Friedrich Wilhelm, p. 158.
27. Cited from Count Raimondo Montecuccoli’s Treatise on War (1680), in Johannes Kunisch, ‘Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm und die Grossen Mächte’ in Heinrich (ed.), Ein Sonderbares Licht, pp. 9–32, here pp. 30–31.
28. Memoir by Count Waldeck in Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer, Graf Georg Friedrich von Waldeck. Ein preussischer Staatsmann im siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1869), pp. 361–2, also pp. 354–5.
29. W. Troost, ‘William III, Brandenburg, and the construction of the anti-French coalition, 1672–88’, in Jonathan I. Israel, The Anglo-Dutch Moment: Essay on the Glorious Revolution and Its World Impact (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 299–334, here p. 322.
30. Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst, vol. 3, pp. 252–3.
31. Peter Baumgart, ‘Der Grosse Kurfürst. Staatsdenken und Staatsarbeit eines europäischen Dynasten’, in Heinrich (ed.), Ein Sonderbares Licht, pp. 33–57, here p. 45.
32. Dietrich (ed.), Die politischen Testamente, p. 191.
33. For an account of the oath ceremony on which the present description is based, see Bruno Gloger, Friedrich Wilhelm, Kurfürst von Brandenburg. Biografie (Berlin, 1985), pp. 152–4.
34. André Holenstein, Die Huldigung der Untertanen. Rechtskultur und Herrschaftsordnung (800–1800), (Stuttgart and New York, 1991), pp. 512–3.
35. This interpretation of the raised fingers is widely documented for the German territories from the early fifteenth century, but the practice is far older; see ibid. pp. 57–8;an illustration in Gloger, Friedrich Wilhelm (p. 153) shows the deputies raising their hands in the traditional salute. The quotation is from the text of an oath sworn by the subjects of a rural lordship in the Brandenburg province of Prignitz, cited in Hagen, Ordinary Prussians, p. 79.
36. F. L. Carsten, The Origins of the Junkers (Aldershot, 1989), p. 17.
37. On the seventeenth-century crisis in governance generally, see Trevor Aston (ed.), Crisis in Europe, 1560–1660 (New York, 1966); Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith, The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1978); Theodor K. Rabb, The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1975).
38. Frederick William to supreme councillors of Ducal Prussia, Kleve, 18 September 1648, in Erdmannsdörffer (ed.), Politische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 281–2.
39. Fürbringer, Necessitas und Libertas, p. 59; for examples of this mode of argument, see supreme councillors of Ducal Prussia to Frederick William, Königsberg, 12 September 1648, in ibid., pp. 292–3.
40. Resolution of the Estates of the county of Mark, Emmerich, 22 March 1641 in Haeften (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, vol. 1; pp. 140–45, here p. 142.
41. See, for example, Frederick William to the Cities of Wesel, Calcar, Düsseldorf, Xanten and Rees, Küstrin, 15 May 1643, and Kleve Estates to Dutch Estates General, Kleve, 2 April 1647, in ibid., pp. 205, 331–4.
42. Helmuth Croon, Stände und Steuern in Jülich-Berg im 17. und vornehmlich im 18. Jahrhundert (Bonn, 1929), p. 250; examples: Estates of county of Mark to protesting Estates of Kleve, Unna, 10 August 1641; Estates of Mark to Estates of Kleve, Unna, 10 December 1650, in Haeften (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 182, 450.
43. Comment by the viceroy of Ducal Prussia, Prince Boguslav Radziwill, cited in McKay, Great Elector, p. 135.
44. Comments by the Estates, Königsberg, 24 April 1655, in Kurt Breysig (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen (Berlin, 1894–9), vol. 3: Preussen, Part 1 (= UuA, vol. 15), p. 354. On these questions in Ducal Prussia, see Stefan Hartmann, ‘Gefährdetes Erbe
. Landesdefension und Landesverwaltung in Ostpreussen zur Zeit des Grossen Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1640–1688)’, in Heinrich (ed.), Ein Sonderbares Licht, pp. 113–36; Hugo Rachel, Der Grosse Kurfürst und die Ostpreussischen Stände (1640–1688) (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 299–304.
45. E. Arnold Miller, ‘Some Arguments Used by English Pamphleteers, 1697–1700, Concerning a Standing Army’, Journal of Modern History (henceforth JMH) (1946), pp. 306–13, here pp. 309–10; Lois G. Schwoerer, ‘The Role of King William III in the Standing Army Controversy – 1697–1699’, Journal of British Studies (1966), pp. 74–94.
46. David Hayton, ‘Moral Reform and Country Politics in the Late Seventeenth-century House of Commons’, Past & Present, 128 (1990), pp. 48–91, here p. 48.
47. Anon, pamphlet of 1675 entitled ‘Letter from a Person of Quality’, cited in J. G. A. Pocock, ‘Machiavelli, Harrington and English Political Ideologies in the Eighteenth Century’, William and Mary Quarterly, 22/4 (1965), pp. 549–84, here p. 560.
48. Fürbringer, Necessitas und Libertas, p. 60.
49. F. L. Carsten, Die Entstehung Preussens (Cologne, 1968), pp. 209–12; Kunisch, ‘Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm’, in Heinrich (ed.), Ein Sonderbares Licht, pp. 9–32, here pp. 21–2.
50. Reply of the privy councillors on behalf of the Elector, Cölln [Berlin], 2 December 1650, in Siegfried Isaacsohn (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, vol. 2 (= UuA, vol. 10) (Berlin, 1880), pp. 193–4.
51. Patent of Contradiction by the Estates of Kleve, Jülich, Berg and Mark, Wesel, 14 July 1651; Union of the Estates of Kleve and Mark, Wesel, 8 August 1651, in Haeften (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 509, 525–6. F. L. Carsten, ‘The Resistance of Cleves and Mark to the Despotic Policy of the Great Elector’, English Historical Review, 66 (1951), pp. 219–41, here p. 224; McKay, Great Elector, p. 34; Waddington, Grand Électeur, vol. 1, pp. 68–9.
52. Karl Spannagel, Konrad von Burgsdorff. Ein brandenburgischer Kriegs-und Staatsmann aus der Zeit der Kurfürsten Georg Wilhelm und Friedrich Wilhelm (Berlin, 1903), pp. 265–7.
53. For Kleve taxation figures see Sidney B. Fay, ‘The Beginnings of the Standing Army in Prussia’, American Historical Review, 22 (1916/17), pp. 763–77, here p. 772; McKay, Great Elector, p. 132. Report from Johann Moritz: Carsten, ‘Resistance of Cleves and Mark’, p. 235. On the impact of the Northern wars on conditions in Kleve, see Haeften (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 773–93. On the arrest of activists, see Frederick William to Jacob von Spaen, Cölln an der Spree, 3 July 1654, in ibid., pp. 733–4; Carsten, ‘Resistance of Cleves and Mark’, p. 231.
54. McKay, Great Elector, p. 62; Volker Press, ‘Vom Ständestaat zum Absolutismus: 50 Thesen zur Entwicklung des Ständewesens in Deutschland’, in Baumgart (ed.), Ständetum und Staatsbildung, pp. 280–336, here p. 324.
55. Fay, ‘Standing Army’, p. 772.
56. McKay, Great Elector, pp. 136–7; Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst, vol. 2, p. 165; Otto Nugel, ‘Der Schoppenmeister Hieronymus Roth’, FBPG, 14/2 (1901), pp. 19–105, here p. 32.
57. Roth and Schwerin produced radically divergent accounts of what transpired during the meeting; see Otto von Schwerin to Viceroy and Supreme Councillors of Prussia, Bartenstein, 21 October 1661 and Private Circular of the Alderman Roth [early November 1661], in Kurt Breysig (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, Preussen, pp. 595, 611, 614–19. For a detailed narrative, see Nugel, ‘Hieronymus Roth’, pp. 40–44; Andrzej Kamieński, Polska a Brandenburgia-Prusy w drugiej połowie XVII wieku. Dzieje polityczne (Poznan, 2002), esp. pp. 61–4. For an account much less sympathetic to Roth, see Droysen, Der Staat des Grossen Kurfürsten, vol. 2, pp. 402–3.
58. Cited in Nugel, ‘Hieronymus Roth’, p. 100.
59. The execution was of Christian Ludwig von Kalckstein, who had served in the Polish army and been exiled to his estates in 1668 for plotting the Elector’s assassination. On the Kalckstein affair, see Josef Paczkowski, ‘Der Grosse Kurfürst und Christian Ludwig von Kalckstein’, FBPG, 2 (1889), pp. 407–513 and 3 (1890), pp. 419–63; Petersdorff, Der Grosse Kurfürst (Gotha, 1926), pp. 113–16; Droysen, Der Staat des Grossen Kurfürsten, vol. 3, pp. 191–212; Opgenoorth, Friedrich Wilhelm, vol. 2, pp. 115–18; Kamieński, Polska a Brandenburgia-Prusy, pp. 65–71, 177–9.
60. Thus the complaint of a local official cited in McKay, Great Elector, p. 144.
61. Dietrich (ed.), Die politischen Testamente, p. 185; Erdmannsdörffer, Waldeck, p. 45; Rachel, Der Grosse Kurfürst, pp. 59–62; Peter Bahl, Der Hof des Grossen Kirfürsten. Studien zur höheren Amtsträgerschaft Brandenburg-Preussens (Cologne, 2001), pp. 196–217.
62. McKay, Great Elector, p. 114. On the decline in noble financial power and influence, see Frank Göse, Ritterschaft – Garnison – Residenz. Studien zur Sozialstruktur und politischen Wirksamkeit des brandenburgischen Adels 1648–1763 (Berlin, 2005), pp. 133, 414, 421, 424.
63. On this distinction, applied to a very different German region, see Michaela Hohkamp, Herrschaft in Herrschaft. Die vorderösterreichische Obervogtei Triberg von 1737 bis 1780 (Göttingen, 1988), esp. p. 15.
64. See, for example, Konrad von Burgsdorff to Privy Councillor Erasmus Seidel, Düsseldorf, 20 February 1647, in Erdmannsdörffer (ed.), Politische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, p. 300; Kleve Government to Frederick William, Kleve, 23 November 1650, in Haeften (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, vol. 1, pp. 440–41; Spannagel, Burgsdorff, pp. 257–60.
65. See, for example, Otto von Schwerin to Frederick William, Bartenstein, 30 November 1661, where Schwerin urges the Elector to drop the excise in the face of protest from the Estates, in Breysig (ed.), Ständische Verhandlungen, Preussen, pp. 667–9.
66. Protocols of the Privy Council, in Meinardus (ed.), Protokolle und Relationen. On traffic in complaints from the Estates see Hahn, ‘Landesstaat und Ständetum’, p. 52.
67. Peter-Michael Hahn, ‘Aristokratisierung und Professionalisierung. Der Aufstieg der Obristen zu einer militärischen und höfischen Elite in Brandenburg-Preussen von 1650–1725’, in FBPG, 1 (1991), pp. 161–208.
68. Cited in Otto Hötzsch, Stände und Verwaltung von Kleve und Mark in der Zeit von 1666 bis 1697 (=Urkunden und Aktenstücke zur inneren Politik des Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, Part 2) (Leipzig, 1908), p. 740.
69. See Peter Baumgart, ‘Wie absolut war der preussische Absolutismus?’, in Manfred Schlenke (ed.), Preussen. Beiträge zu einer politischen Kultur (Reinbek, 1981), pp. 103–19.
70. Otto Hötzsch, ‘Fürst Moritz von Nassau-Siegen als brandenburgischer Staatsmann (1647 bis 1679)’, FBPG, 19 (1906), pp. 89–114, here pp. 95–6, 101–2; see also Ernst Opgenoorth, ‘Johan Maurits as the Stadtholder of Cleves under the Elector of Brandenburg’ in E. van den Boogaart (ed.), Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, 1604–1679: A Humanist Prince in Europe and Brazil. Essays on the Tercentenary of his Death (The Hague, 1979), pp. 39–53, here p. 53. On Soest, see Ralf Günther, ‘Städtische Autonomie und fürstliche Herrschaft. Politik und Verfassung im frühneuzeitlichen Soest’, in Ellen Widder (ed.), Soest. Geschichte der Stadt. Zwischen Bürgerstolz und Fürstenstaat. Soest in der frühen Neuzeit (Soest, 1995), pp. 17–123, here pp. 66–71.
71. King Frederick William I attempted to overrule this arrangement but the local election of Landräte was restored under Friedrich II; see Baumgart, ‘Wie absolut war der preussische Absolutismus?’, p. 112.
72. McKay, Great Elector, p. 261.
73. This is reported by the British envoy Stepney to Secretary Vernon, Berlin, 19/29 July 1698, PRO SP 90/1, fo. 32.
74. Dietrich (ed.), Die politischen Testamente, p. 189.
75. Ibid., p. 190.
76. Ibid., pp. 190, 191.
77. Ibid., p. 187.
78. Ibid., p. 188.
79. Cited in McKay, The Great Elector, p. 210. On ‘powerlessness’ see also Droysen, Der Staat des grossen Kurfürsten, vol. 2, p. 370, Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst, vol. 2, p. 238; Waddington, Histoire de Prusse (2 vols., Paris, 1922), vol. 1, p. 484.
1. For descriptions and analyses of the coronation, see Peter Baumgart, ‘Die preussische Königskrönung von 1701, das Reich und die europäische Politik’, in Oswald Hauser (ed.), Preussen, Europa und das Reich (Cologne and Vienna, 1987), pp. 65–86; Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Das preussische Königtum von 1701 und der Kaiser’, in Heinz Duchhardt and Manfred Schlenke (eds.), Festschrift für Eberhard Kessel (Munich, 1982), pp. 89–101; Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Die preussische Königskrönung von 1701. Ein europäisches Modell?’ in id. (ed.), Herrscherweihe und Königskrönung im Frühneuzeitlichen Europa (Wiesbaden, 1983), pp. 82–95; Iselin Gundermann, ‘Die Salbung König Friedrichs I. in Königsberg’, Jahrbuch für Berlin-Brandenburgische Kirchengeschichte, 63 (2001), pp. 72–88.
2. Johann Christian Lünig, Theatrum ceremoniale historico-politicum oder historischund politischer Schau-Platz aller Ceremonien etc. (2 vols., Leipzig, 1719–20), vol. 2, pp. 96.