mind. These, in the late anarchies, had set up for a kind of kings
in their own right: they had their feuds; made war, made peace,
levied tolls, transit-dues; lived much at their own discretion in
these solitary countries;--rushing out from their stone towers
("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any herd of "six hundred
swine," any convoy of Lubeck or Hamburg merchant-goods, that had
not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and mechanic
fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful? Arbitrary
rule, on the part of these Noble Robber-Lords! And then much of
the Crown-Domains had gone to the chief of them,--pawned (and the
pawn-ticket lost, so to speak), or sold for what trifle of ready
money was to be had, in Jobst and Company's time. To these
gentlemen, a Statthalter coming to inquire into matters was no
welcome phenomenon. Your EDLE HERR (Noble Lord) of Putlitz, Noble
Lords of Quitzow, Rochow, Maltitz and others, supreme in their
grassy solitudes this long while, and accustomed to nothing
greater than themselves in Brandenburg, how should they obey
a Statthalter?

Such was more or less the universal humor in the Squirearchy of
Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf Friedrich. But the chief
seat of contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes,
above spoken of; big Squires in the district they call the
Priegnitz, in the Country of the sluggish Havel River, northwest
from Berlin a fifty or forty miles. These refused homage, very
many of them; said they were "incorporated with Bohmen;" said this
and that;--much disinclined to homage; and would not do it.
Stiff surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is
above them and what is not:--a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in
buff leather; minds also cased in ill habits of long continuance.