JOHN GEORGE II, ELECTOR OF SAXONY (1613-1680).
Letter to agents in Dresden, 1670.

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION NUMBER 025

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CITATION: John George II, Elector of Saxony Letter to agents in Dresden, MSS 025, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University. 

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) began as the rebellion of the independent Protestant states of John George I (1611-1656), Elector of Saxony; Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden (1611-1632); and Frederick William of Brandenburg (1640-1688) against the attempted imposition of Roman Catholicism by the Habsburg Ferdinand II, Holy Roman emperor (1619-37).  Denmark and the newly independent United Netherlands joined the Protestant side and with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the nations of the former Holy Roman Empire were granted sovereignty, thus dashing any hopes of a united Roman Catholic Europe.

The legacy of the Thirty Years' War was widespread devastation to the German states in which the majority of it was fought and the ascendancy of Brandenburg over Saxony.  Nine years after the Treaty of Westphalia, John George II (1657-1680) ascended the throne as Elector of Saxony.  He engineered a rapprochement with both the Roman Catholic Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) and the Habsburg emperor Leopold I (1658-1705) of Austria and made his court at Dresden a haven to artists.

This letter is written by John George II, Elector if Saxony, to his "best and most highly learned" chancellors and advisors in Dresden concerning a rental contract they were negotiating with Count Franz Mansfeld and refers to the advisors' letter of July 11, 1670.  Written on July 26, 1670, the letter is written in an ornate German script in ink on paper.  The letter has been encapsulated.