History of the Crusades

the Crusades episode 309. Episode 309, the Baltic Crusades, the Lithuanian Conflict Part 14, Michael and the Emperor.

Hello again.

Last week we saw Grandmaster Heinrich von Plowen

battle intrigue and suspicion inside the Judonic Order as he fought against the

influence of the Lizard League and its plan to oust Grandmaster Heinrich and replace him with Georg of Versburg, a man who had accidentally

promised to hand pressure over on a platter to King Wenz-Lass of Bohemia.

The upshot of all of these shenanigans was that the Lizard League plot was uncovered and condemned and in the middle of it all Grandmaster

Heinrich managed to scrape together enough money to pay the second installment due under the piece of torn.

We also saw Sigismund of Hungary become the new Holy Roman Emperor. We left last week's episode with Grand Master

Heinrich wringing his hands wondering how an earth he was going to come up with enough funds to cover the hefty final

installment of the ransom money.

The only solution which presented itself was to somehow convince the new Emperor Sigismund to assist the order to come up with the needed funds.

So Grandmaster Heinrich directed the

Marshal of the Order, Michael Kugmeister, to travel to the kingdom of Germany,

to negotiate with Sigismund to secure some sort of assistance to cover the final

installment. Now do you recall the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk? It goes a little something like this.

Jack's mom has completely run out of money and in desperation she hands her son Jack one of the

family's few remaining assets their cow. She tells Jack to take the cow to market and sell it for a hefty sum of money, but Jack ends up getting swindled into trading the cow for a magic bean.

Jack's mom ends up throwing the bean away in disgust.

It grows into a giant beanstalk, which Jack then climbs.

The beanstalk leads to a giant's castle.

...