ABSTRACT
Joachim Frederick began his reign in the Mark with an entirely new Ministerial personnel, for with even greater ruthlessness than his father before him he dismissed practically all his predecessor’s advisers—Distelmeyer filsfirst of all—and replaced them by his Magdeburger councillors. As with John George, so with the elderly Joachim Frederick—after the first thorough innovations and fresh appointments to all the more important offices everything went on much as it had done in his father’s time. Remembrance of the difficulties which had attended his forcible seizure of the Electorate next moved Joachim Frederick to revise the conditions of succession in the House of Hohenzollern. Furthermore, Joachim Frederick, so speedily grown reasonable and tame, made the “Geheimer Rat,” or Privy Council, the most powerful governing body in the realm. Shortly before his sudden and unforeseen decease, Joachim Frederick set out on a little holiday journey to recuperate somewhat after the worries of ten years of government.
