FREDERICK II. (1411-1464), called "the Mild," elector and duke of Saxony, eldest son of the elector Frederick I., was born at Leipzig on Aug. 22, 1411. He succeeded his father as elector in 1428, but shared the family lands with his three brothers, and was at once engaged in defending Saxony against the attacks of the Hussites. He obtained the burgraviate of Meissen in and some part of Lower Lusatia after a struggle with Brandenburg about the same time. In 1438 it was decided that Frederick, and not his rival, Bernard IV., duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, was entitled to exercise the Saxon electoral vote at the elections for the German throne. On the death of their cousin Frederick, margrave of Thuringia, the brothers Frederick and William divided Fred erick's territory, but this arrangement was not satisfactory, and war broke out between them in 1446. After a struggle known as the Briiderkrieg peace was made in Jan. 1451, when William received Thuringia, and Frederick Altenburg and other districts. He died at Leipzig on Sept. 7, 1464. By his wife, Margaret (d. 1486), daughter of Ernest, duke of Styria, he left two sons and four daughters. In July 1455 occurred the celebrated Prinzenraub, the attempt of a knight named Kunz von Kaufungen (d. 1455) to abduct Frederick's two sons, Ernest and Albert. Having carried them off from Altenburg, Kunz was making his way to Bohemia when the plot was accidentally discovered and the princes restored. See W. Schafer, Der Montag vor Kiliani (i855) ; J. Gersdorf, Einige Aktenstiicke zur Geschichte des sdchsischen Prinzenraubes (1855) ; and T. Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. iv. (1899).