Bartholomew Sastrow: Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster. Bartholomäus Sastrow
and children, who expected at every moment to have their home invaded by the mob.
On the Monday of St. John they elected two burgomasters, namely, Joachim Prütze, the erewhile town clerk, an honest and sensible man, and Johannes Klocke, the actual town clerk and syndicus. Seven burghers were elected councillors; with the exception of Secretary Johannes Senckestack, who had had no hand in the thing, they were all honest, uninteresting folk, as simple-minded as they were upright and virtuous. Johannes Tamme, for instance, a worthy and straightforward man, replied to the artizans and others who came to complain of the bad state of business: "Make your mind easy; it will change now that seven capable people form part of the council." Antique simplicity indeed. Nicholas Baremann boasted of earning ten marks each time he left his home. One day he went into the cellar to look at a barrel of salt-fish, he was accompanied by a servant who was not altogether right in his head. In those days men wore round their necks a very narrow collar of pleated tulle. While the master was bending over the fish, the servant with one blow of his hatchet clean cut his head off. Instead of taking flight he quietly went back to his work. When interrogated about the motive of his crime, he replied that his master presented his neck so gently as to make the operation merely child's play. In spite of his unquestionable mental state, the murderer was broken alive on the wheel.
My father was practically imprisoned for fifteen months in his own house, whence resulted an enormous loss to his own business, for in view of the coming herring-fair at Falsterbo, in the province of Schonen,[23] his cellar and hall were packed with Luneburg salt; there was also a considerable quantity of dried cod, besides a big assortment of cloth, and amidst all this he was forbidden to cross the threshold of his house and no one was allowed to come and see him. My mother was, moreover, pregnant at the time, and as the date of her confinement drew near my father asked for leave to take up his quarters with a neighbour until it was over. His petition was refused, and at the critical moment he found himself compelled to get into the adjoining house by the roof. He was also prevented from personally inviting the godparents.
George Wullenweber and his undisciplined followers opened the hostilities by sea and by land. In this bitter struggle the Duke of Holstein preserved the advantage, though he fought as one against two, but the Almighty was on his side. Humiliated by these reverses, with their prestige diminished and threatened with an ignominious fall, the fribbling authors of the war expected to save everything by substituting another chief for Wullenweber. After a week of negotiations the emissaries of Lubeck, Rostock, and Stralsund assembled at Wismar offered to Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg the throne of Denmark. The act, drawn up in due form and signed and sealed by Lubeck, Rostock and Wismar was dispatched to Stralsund, the signature and seal of which was wanting to it. The fine phrases of the Lubeckian message got the better of the opposition of the council; the Forty-Eight broke open the casket containing the great seal, affixed it to the document and sent it back to Wismar.
Every rule had been strictly observed; the Duke of Mecklenburg invited the representatives of the cities for the next day to a banquet, at which the act was to be handed to him. But during the morning itself the delegates of Stralsund, under the pretext of wishing to examine the parchment, asked to look at it, and Christopher Lorbeer, borrowing a pocket-knife of his colleague, Franz Wessel, cut the strings of the Stralsund seal, after which they made off as far as their carriage would let them. They were half-way to Rostock while the other ambassadors were still waiting for them with dinner. Undeterred by this, Albrecht, accompanied by his wife, her ladies, servants, horses and dogs, took the road to Copenhagen, like a legitimate sovereign.
Lorbeer himself, his children, and the rest of his relations have sung in all manner of keys the resolute--others would say, the audacious--conduct he displayed on that occasion; nobody, whether townsman, rustic or alien was to remain ignorant of the feat; and to this day people keep repeating that Burgomaster Lorbeer, scorning all danger (non enim sine periculo facinus magnum et memorabile), made himself illustrious by this signal act, by this heroic exploit. If, however, we turn the leaf, what do we read? Qui periculum amat peribit in eo; real courage will never be confounded with reckless audacity. That the act was provided with the great seal of Stralsund is a fact known to the representatives of Lubeck, Rostock and Wismar, who handled the document on the strength of which, when ratified by the Forty-Eight, Duke Albrecht went and shut himself up in Copenhagen, where he sustained a siege, and practically obliged Stralsund to make the same sacrifices for him the other cities had made. Consequently, one has the right to ask: "Where was the advantage of detaching the seal?" If Lorbeer had utilized his energy in keeping in port vessels, soldiers and ammunition, then he would have rendered a signal service, and, besides, prevented the waste of much money. Do Lorbeer's admirers imagine that Duke Albrecht would not have avenged the outrage when once his throne was consolidated? The least he would have done was to close the Sound against us, and to hamper our commerce everywhere. Verily they are right, the citizens who keep on praising the mad trick of Lorbeer.
Burgomaster Smiterlow bore his enforced retirement with admirable patience. Instead of meddling with public affairs, he assiduously read the Holy Scriptures, and spent most of his time in prayer. He finally knew by heart the Psalms of David. As a daily visitor to his home, I can say that no bitter word ever fell from his lips. He often repeated, "They are my fellow-citizens; the Lord will move their spirit. It is my duty to suffer for the love of my children."
Our gracious prince, Duke Philip, sent to request the liberation of the burgomaster. The envoys were told that the answer would be sent to them to the hostel. The discussion was a very long one, after which they deputed the very host of the envoys, Hermann Meier, together with Nicholas Rode, the one as illiterate as the other, and both densely ignorant on every subject. Hermann Meier, who was a native of Parow, had amassed much property in cash, in land, and in houses. Being the owner of the two villages of Parow, he had practically for his vassals his uncles and his cousins, whom he ruled at his will. Nicholas Rode was a well-to-do merchant, but who had never associated with people of condition. Hermann Meier had undertaken to address the envoys, but he began to stumble at the first sentence, and finally, stricken dumb altogether, he left his colleague behind, rushed from the room, and went helter-skelter down the stairs. When he reached the yard, he fell altogether ill with excitement. Nevertheless, he plucked up his courage and went back--to apologize, as one would suppose. Not at all. Scorning all exordium, and without even giving the envoys their titles, he went straight to the point. "The council and the Forty-Eight," he said, "have decided in the name of the citizens that we should signify to you as follows: Inasmuch as they did not consult the prince to inflict the confinement, they shall not consult him to annul it." Verily, a speech worthy of the orator and of those who sent him, similes habent labra lactucas. I wonder what would happen if somebody took it into his head to-day to address a prince in that manner. Considering that all the magistrates of that period were of most mediocre capacity (I am using a mild term), two suppositions are admissible. It was either the intention of the Forty-Eight to make the young duke ridiculous by choosing such delegates, or the three or four intelligent members of the council declined this foolish mission.
The embassy had, however, one result. My father was summoned to the Town Hall, where he was told that he could recover his freedom in consideration of a fine of a hundred marks. He wished to know what fault he had committed, and was told not to "argufy." "Hundred marks or the collar. You can take your choice." As a matter of course my father chose the former, although the only crime that could be imputed to him was his marriage with the niece of Burgomaster Smiterlow. The same mode of procedure was applied to the case of Joachim Rantzow, an honest and honoured citizen, who subsequently became a member of the council.
Shortly after this Councillors Nicholas Rode and Nicholas Bolte came to enjoin Burgomaster Smiterlow, in conjunction with two of his relatives, to sign a document already engrossed and provided with the wax for three seals. According to them it was the only means to end his captivity and to avoid all further and even more serious dangers. In this piece of writing Burgomaster Smiterlow confessed to having been a traitor to the city, a perjurer, guilty of the most infamous conduct, and to have forfeited all his rights. The two councillors made it their special business to paint the situation in the most sombre colours. Terror-stricken and dissolved in tears, the burgomaster's wife implored her husband to accede to the request of these two fanatics until the Lord Himself could come to his aid. Unmanned by all this, Smiterlow