The original account
OF THE MANDATE PUBLISHED AGAINST THE ANABAPTISTS IN THE DUCHY OF PRUSSIA (BUT NOT UNTO DEATH), ON THE 12TH OF NOVEMBER, A. D. 1586.
Second Part. · ENLARGED AND IMPROVED FROM VARIOUS CREDIBLE CHRONICLES, MEMOIRS, TESTIMONIES, ETC.
When on account of the terrible burning and scorching of the pious witnesses of Jesus that were called by the name of Anabaptists, many of them went from papistic regions, where the distress was greatest, to the Prussian countries, in the hope that the rulers there, who boasted of greater discretion and mercy than those of general popery, should grant them liberty to live according to their conscience, it came to pass, that when they came there they found themselves deceived in their opinion, inasmuch as the Prince of that country, who then reigned at Brandenburg, ordered them, by a public mandate, to leave.
Concerning this, P. J. Twisck has given this account:
George Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg, commanded in a public mandate, on the 12th of November, A. D. 1586, that the Anabaptists must leave this whole Duchy of Prussia. Chron. van den Ondergang, edition 1620, 2d part, 16th book, for the year 1586, p. 1401, col. 1.
