Page 585

Ch. XVI THE GERMAN CRUSADE ON THE BALTIC 585 
existence until 1561, because of the energy of its provincial master Walter
of Plettenberg (1499—1535) in saving Livonia from Russia. It was to
end like the Prussian branch. The last master of Livonia, Gotthard Kettler,
would be permitted to transform Kurland and Zemgalia into a secular duchy
of Courland with its capital at Mitau, to be held by Kettler and his family
under the suzerainty of PolandLithuania. The remainder of Livonia would be
incorporated into Poland-Lithuania as the principality of Transdaugava. Its
extent, however, would by then have been reduced by neighboring states struggling
for that control of the Baltic which the order had failed to establish: by
a Denmark which had acquired the estates of the bishop of Osel; by a Sweden
which had taken Reval; and by a Russia which had taken Dorpat and eastern
Estonia.