New ventures
Unfortunately, Jerzy's decision of converting to the protestant faith was his last one. Just a few days after being baptized again he fell ill, and after several weeks of weakness he passed away in his sleep. He was succeeded by his son, Filip (Philipp), on May 11, 1531. The young King wasn't as talented as his father and grandfather, but had nevertheless been carefully educated at the university in Heidelberg. He was married to a Saxonian princess Maria, the granddaughter of Friedrich III the Wise of Saxony, to whom Bogusław X had granted the lands taken before by the Brandenburgians. Filip was protestant even before his father, and was wed to Maria by Martin Luther himself.
Upon Filip's ascension of the throne, Pomerania was destabilised and didn't have allies - his father's conversion resulted in leaving the alliance with Poland, Prussia, Saxony and Anhalt. Fortunately enough the Poles quickly began, in their own fashion, warring against the Habsburg Austria and most of their allies deserted them, making it possible to return under Pomerania's protection. This, however, had been preceded by several proposals of entering the alliance with Lithuania - all of them rejected. The eastern country was, depite it's territorial vastness, unstable, poor and weak - factors which would make the alliance with Lithuania more of a burden than a help in case of war.
Filip was a zealous man, when it came to his faith. He wanted to be the leader of a religiously homogenous country, to which goal he dedicated much of the 1530's, together with about three quarters of the state treasury. A move not really required, as most of northern Germany, now in Pomeranian hands, was very positive toward the protestant religion, and two of the three cities he had ordered to convert, converted spontaneously after no more than a year of missionary activities. The third city, Holstein, was finally converted to lutheranism in 1539.
A year earlier, however, strange news had approached the royal court in Szczecin: Sweden, a country ruled by the protestant king Gustav Vasa since 1521, returned to catholicism! Her situation was looking grim, as Sweden was almost constantly at war with her powerful neighbour, Denmark, a conflict from which the poor and destabilised Sweden couldn't emerge victorious.
By 1540, an alliance with Brandenburg, Saxony and Meissen - Anhalt had been annexed in a war against Bohemia - had been forged by Filip. A year later another war erupted in Sweden, this time against Denmark and the Livonian Order to the east. The rich city of Novgorod was cut away from Sweden by Ingermanland, taken by the Livonians in the war, disabling Swedish troops from retaking it from the rebels. Thus, after some time, the Russians from Novgorod deposed the Swedish government and, after a short period of independence, pledged allegiance to the Livonian Order. More disturbing, however, were the news of the ever growing Habsburg empire - in 1541 the Austrian rulers were able to annex Bohemia, after 15 years of its vassalisation to them.
To counter the catholic thread to the south and southeast, Filip was trying to improve the relations with the western Germans, like the reformed Hannover and protestant Hesse, by sealing non-aggression pacts with both of them. This, however, was all he could handle, as their alliance with catholic Cologne, Munster and Berg seemed a strong one.
In the 1540's a new plan for the future was born in Filip's head: he wasn't much of a warmonger, and intended for Pomerania to become more of an economic power. Therefore, he started gathering money in order to employ some Dutch sailors and explorers, so that Pomerania could become a naval and colonial power, just like Spain and Portugal in southern Europe. Using gold granted to him by the Italian bankers from Gdańsk, he ordered the construction of ten warships in Pomeranian shipyards in 1550, just after the Dutch people he had employed arrived in Szczecin. During that time, Filip didn't neglect Pomerania's diplomacy: on April 21, A.D. 1550, he incorporated the lands of the Hohenzollern family straight into Pomerania, adding three rich cities: Berlin, Magdeburg and Stendal to the domains of the Gryfite family.
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Here's the promised update. Hope you like it - I'm a bit more satisfied with the style (of the language) than with the one before. Anyway, read, enjoy, comment!
Wow. The pictures are huge in this one, I haven't even noticed this until after I submitted this update
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