ALBERT, archbishop of Mainz, a dignity granted him by Pope Leo X. at the ransom of L15,000, which he was unable to pay, and which, as the Pope needed it for building St. Peter’s, he borrowed, the Pope granting him the power to sell indulgences in order to repay the loan, in which traffic Tetzel was his chief salesman, a trade which roused the wrath of Luther, and provoked the German Reformation (1450-1545).

ALBERT, the last Grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, who being “religious in an eminent degree and shaken in his belief” took zealously to Protestantism and came under the influence of Luther, who advised him to declare himself Duke of Prussia, under the wing of Sigismund of Poland, in defiance of the Teutonic order as no longer worthy of bed and board on the earth, and so doing, became founder of the Prussian State (1490-1568).

ALBERT, markgrave of Brandenburg, defined by Carlyle “a failure of a Fritz,” with “features” of a Frederick the Great in him, “but who burnt away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary shine for the able editors, and never came to anything, full of fire, too much of it wildfire, not in the least like an Alcibiades except in the change of fortune he underwent” (1522-1557).

ALBERT, PRINCE, second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, born Aug. 26, 1819, an accomplished man with a handsome presence, who became the consort of Queen Victoria in 1840, and from his prudence and tact was held in the highest honour by the whole community, but died at Windsor of typhoid fever, Dec. 14, 1861, to the unspeakable sorrow of both Queen and country.

ALBERT, ST., bishop of Liege, was assassinated by the emissaries of the Emperor Henry VI. in 1195.  Festival, Nov. 21.

ALBERT EDWARD.  See WALES, PRINCE OF.

ALBERT I., emperor of Germany from 1298 to 1308, eldest son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, “a most clutching, strong-fisted, dreadfully hungry, tough, and unbeautiful man, whom his nephew at last had to assassinate, and did assassinate, as he crossed the river Reuss with him in a boat, May 1, 1308.”

ALBERT II., a successor, “who got three crowns—­Hungary, Bohemia, and the Imperial—­in one year, and we hope a fourth,” says the old historian, “which was a heavenly and eternal one,” for he died the next year, 1439.

ALBERT III., elector of Brandenburg.  See ACHILLES OF GERMANY.

ALBERT MEDAL, a medal of gold and of bronze, instituted in 1866, awarded to civilians for acts of heroism by sea or land.

ALBERT THE BEAR, markgrave of Brandenburg, called the Bear, “not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his shield, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the shining figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since,” says Carlyle, “and which grows more so in our late times” (1100-1175).