JOHN FREDERICK ( ,1529-1595), called der Mittlere, duke of Saxony, was the eldest son of John Frederick, who had been deprived of the Saxon electorate by the emperor Charles V. in 1547. Born at Torgau on Jan. 8, 1529, he received a good educa tion, and when his father was imprisoned in 1547 undertook the government of the remnant of electoral Saxony left to the Ernes tine branch of the Wettin family. After the death of John Fred erick the elder in 1554 his three sons ruled Ernestine Saxony to gether until 1557, when John Frederick was made sole ruler. This arrangement lasted until 1565, when John Frederick shared his lands with his surviving brother, John William (153o-1573), re taining for himself Gotha and Weimar. The duke was a strong, even a fanatical, Lutheran, but his religious views were gradually subordinated to the one idea of regaining the electoral dignity then held by Augustus I. He lent a willing ear to the schemes of Wil
helm von Grumbach (q.v.), who offered to regain the electoral dignity and even to acquire the empire for his patron. In 1566 his obstinacy caused John Frederick to be placed under the imperial ban. The execution of the imperial sentence was entrusted to Augustus, who, aided by the duke's brother, John William, marched against Gotha with a strong force. The town surrendered in April 1567, and John Frederick was imprisoned in Vienna, his lands were given to his brother, and he remained in captivity until his death at Steyer on May 6, 1595. His wife Elizabeth, daughter of the elector palatine, Frederick III., shared her husband's im prisonment for 22 years.