Manchurian Books

Meantime, all petitions to the Emperor being in vain, the
merchants gave up the fight. They were a commercial, not a warlike
people. They discharged their servants and underlings, and starvation
slowly settled down upon the distressed city.
After the maritime disaster on the Rhine, some of the merchants made a
futile attempt to amend matters, for which their leaders paid dearly.
They appealed to the seven Electors, finding their petitions to the
Emperor were in vain, asking these seven noblemen, including the three
warlike Archbishops of Cologne, Treves, and Mayence, to depose the
Emperor, which they had power to do, and elect his son in his stead. But
they overlooked the fact that a majority of the Electors themselves, and
probably the Archbishops also, benefited directly or indirectly by the
piracies on the Rhine. The answer to this request was the prompt hanging
of three leading merchants, the imprisonment of a score of others, and a
warning to the rest that the shoemaker should stick to his last, leaving
high politics to those born to rule.


Pages:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25