ALBERTO VII DI MECLEMBURGO, DETTO IL BELLO

ALBERT VII of MECKLENBURG, called the HANDSOME. - B. 1486, d. 1547. From 1508 he ruled jointly with his brother Henry V the Pacific; from 1520, after a division of the duchy had been agreed upon, Albert governed alone over a part of the city, the clergy, and the nobility. At the appearance of Lutheran heresy, convinced of the need for Church reform, he showed himself a pious Catholic and refused to publish the Edict of Worms (1521), which placed the apostate friar under imperial ban; indeed, he permitted the preaching of heretics in his lands. In 1524 he married Anna, daughter of Joachim I of Brandenburg, who had been won over to Lutheranism; nevertheless, he remained faithful to the Roman Church and adhered to the anti-Lutheran policy of Charles V, even protesting against his brother, who had completely gone over to the innovators, for the temporal benefits he received from him. Finally, aspiring to the throne of Denmark, where a papist was not desired, he declared that he would follow his brother’s Lutheran policy. When his hope of the Danish crown failed, and it is said even earlier, Albert resumed granting protection and favor to the Catholic Church, to which he also brought back his wife. But his sons, after his death, went over to Protestantism, and the entire duchy became Lutheran.