separate kingship, merged in the rulers of the Mark of Brandenburg, a
somewhat more German but still mixed district lying also in the Baltic
plain, but more towards the west, and the official title of the
Prussian ruler somewhat more than two hundred years ago was the
Elector of Brandenburg. These rulers of the Mark of Brandenburg were a
family bearing the title of Hohenzollern, a castle in South Germany,
by which name they are still distinguished. The palace of these
Hohenzollerns was henceforward at Berlin.

Now, much at the same time that the civil wars were being fought in
England--that is, not quite three hundred years ago--the Reformation
had produced in Germany also very violent quarrels. Vienna, which was
the seat of the Imperial House, stood for the Catholic or traditional
cause, and most Germans adhered to that cause. But certain of the
Northern German principalities and counties took up the side of the
Reformation. A terrible war, known as the Thirty Years' War, was
fought between the two factions. It enormously reduced the total
population of Germany. In the absence of exact figures we only have
wild guesses, such as a loss of half or three-quarters. At any rate,
both from losses from the adherence of many princes to the Protestant
cause and from the support lent to that cause for political reasons by
Catholic France, this great civil war in Germany left the Protestant
part more nearly equal in numbers to the Catholic part, and, among
other things, it began to make the Elector of Brandenburg with his
Prussians particularly prominent as the champion of the Protestant
cause. For, of all the warring towns, counties, principalities, and
the rest, Prussia had in particular shown military aptitude.

From that day to this the advance of Prussia as, first, the champion,
then the leader, and at last the master of Northern Germany as a whole