Maurice (German: Moritz; 21 March 1521 – 9 July 1553) was Duke of Saxony from 1541 to 1553, who became Prince-Elector and Arch-Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire in 1547. Through shrewd political maneuvering, skillfully exploiting alliances and rivalries, he secured extensive territories and the electoral title for the Albertine branch of the Wettin dynasty.
Maurice succeeded his father as duke of Saxony in 1541. Though a Protestant, he initially backed Emperor Charles V in several wars, then in 1545 accepted the Emperor's promise of the Saxon electorship and turned against the rival Ernestine branch—helping seize Electoral Saxony. After John Frederick's defeat at Mühlberg (1547), Maurice was rewarded with the electoral title and large new lands.
He soon broke with Charles, angered by plans to restore Catholicism in Protestant territories and by the continued imprisonment of his father-in-law, Philip I of Hesse. Although sent to subdue Magdeburg in 1550, Maurice used the mission to raise an army and forge alliances with France and Protestant princes. In 1552, their campaign forced the Emperor to flee and Philip to be released, and the Treaty of Passau (1552) temporarily safeguarded Lutheran interests. Maurice later returned to the imperial side, but was killed in 1553 after defeating Albert Alcibiades at the Battle of Sievershausen.
Maurice was the fourth child but first son of the future Henry IV, Duke of Saxony, then a Catholic, and his Protestant wife, Catherine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Henry was the younger brother of George, Duke of Saxony.
In December 1532, Maurice, aged 11, came to live at the castle of his godfather, Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz. For two years, he lived a contemplative life until his uncle Duke George demanded his return to Saxony. George began the training of the future duke and educated him as a Catholic. But in 1536 Maurice's father converted to Protestantism, and when he succeeded George as Duke in 1539, he made the duchy Protestant.
Henry and Catherine took the education of their son into their hands. In 1539 Maurice, now 18 years old, went to live in Torgau with his older cousin John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, whom he despised; this led to a strong hatred between them. With another cousin, however, Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, whom he met in Dresden, Maurice struck up a lifelong friendship.
With Maurice now of age, his parents began to look for a wife for him. The favorite was Philip's eldest daughter, Agnes. The marriage plans threatened to fail, however, because of the illegal double marriage of the Landgrave. Without the knowledge of his parents, Maurice remained committed to his engagement with Agnes. The wedding, particularly disapproved of by his mother, took place in Marburg on 9 January 1541. Letters from that time illustrate the strong mutual devotion of the couple. Together they had two children:
Anna (b. Dresden, 23 December 1544 – d. Dresden, 18 December 1577), married on 24 August 1561 to Prince William I of Orange-Nassau. They divorced in 1574
Albert (b. Dresden, 28 November 1545 – d. Dresden, 12 April 1546) died in infancy.
1541–1548: The Wurzener Feud and the Schmalkaldic War
On 18 August 1541 Henry died, and Maurice, as the eldest son, succeeded him as duke of Saxony and head of the Albertine Line. He replaced most of his advisors, because they had been opposed to his marriage with Agnes from the very start. George von Carlowitz, one of the new confidants of the Duke, advised Maurice (in order to prevent a war with Emperor Charles V and his brother Ferdinand, at the same time King of the Romans and his neighbour as King of Bohemia) not to endanger the survival of the Protestant Movement.
Thus he participated in the emperor's army in the war against the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire (1542), William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg (1543), and Francis I of France (1544). At the same time, the duke confiscated the properties of the Catholic Church in his lands. From the wealth of dissolved monasteries in his country Maurice founded the princes' schools (Fürstenschulen) of Schulpforta (100 places), Meissen (60 places) and Grimma (70 places). The legal basis for this was the "New National Order" (Neue Landesordnung) of 1543.
Later, Maurice refused to join the Protestant Schmalkaldic League, although Philip of Hesse, his friend and father-in-law, was its leader. The principal reason for his refusal to do so is generally regarded as his hate for his Ernestine cousin John Frederick I and the Imperial promise of the Saxon electorship, then held by John Frederick. In the Holy Week of 1542, in the process of the Wurzener Feud (Wurzener Fehde) it nearly came to a fratricidal war, because John Frederick occupied the jointly administered "Wurzener Country". There had previously been a controversy between Maurice and John Frederick over the use of tax funds from this area. The intervention of the Landgrave Philip of Hesse and Martin Luther prevented the war.
Due to the energetic persistence of the Elector John Frederick in establishing the Protestant Faith, the Emperor Charles V, on 20 July 1546, imposed the Imperial Ban (Reichsacht) on him, with the agreement of the Catholic Imperial Estates, the enforcement of which was laid on Maurice after the Wurzener Feud. The emperor tried in this way to drive a still deeper wedge into the Protestant camp in order to prevent a further propagation of the Protestant Faith. In the case of a successful enforcement, Maurice hoped to be invested by the emperor with the electorship. Maurice hesitated for a long time, since by this punitive action his father-in-law Philip of Hesse would have been affected also. But when the brother of the emperor, Ferdinand I, himself wanted to initiate a campaign against the Electorate of Saxony, he had to call it off, in order not to lose the initiative in his own lands to the Habsburgs.
Maurice returned to Charles's camp. After initial successes — he occupied the Electorate of Saxony nearly without a fight — Maurice with his army was driven back by the Schmalkaldic League and retreated towards Bohemia. In the crucial Battle of Mühlberg on the Elbe, the Emperor and his brother Ferdinand, as well as Maurice, were able to defeat the Schmalkaldic League by capturing Landgrave Philip and John Frederick. According to contemporary chronicles, all of this happened on the same day, 24 April 1547. In order to escape being beheaded, John Frederick ceded the electorate and sizable lands to Maurice in the Capitulation of Wittenberg. In a brief ceremony in the field camp after the battle on 4 June 1547 Duke Maurice of Saxony was raised to the dignified position of elector of Saxony. The official appointment took place later, but at a high price: He had betrayed the Protestant Faith and had brought his father-in-law, Philip of Hesse, into a hopeless situation. Maurice assured him that he would not be imprisoned, if he would surrender to the emperor. However, Philip was taken prisoner and exiled, after he had fallen on his knees before Charles V.
1548–1553: The Diet of Augsburg and the Peace of Passau
Maurice, insulted after these incidents by his compatriots and called a "Judas", was also disappointed by the emperor's attitude (because now Charles V tried to reintroduce Catholicism into the Empire's Protestant territories and continued the imprisonment of his father-in-law, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, whose freedom Charles V had guaranteed), he hid his feelings from him up to the Diet of Augsburg on 25 February 1548, where the ceremony of the formal inauguration of Maurice as elector of Saxony took place.
Charles V hoped that, with Maurice's appointment as the elector of Saxony, with the signing of the agreement known as the Augsburg Interim, and with his own assistance, they could put an end to the religious strife that was splitting his empire.