in a grave with Karl on 8 June 1601. Historical assessments Historians have not been kind to Gebhard. E.A. Benians, in the Cambridge Modern History, was perhaps the most generous: "Few men personally insignificant have made more stir in the world." Walter Goetz described him in less complimentary terms: he "was impelled by no great idea, nor could he claim through virile activity the title to any high striving ambition" and was "wanting in both depth and tenacity". Goetz was not particularly kind to Ernst either: Ernst was not Gebhard's superior; the victory that placed him in the Electorate belonged to his brothers' influence and to that of the Curia (papacy), not to his own striving ambition; Ernst was, fundamentally, riding on the Counter Reformation tide that lifted all boats. Philip Motley described Gebhard thus: despite his swearing an oath to renounce his see if he should marry, "the love of Truchsess for Agnes Mansfeld had created disaster, not only for himself but for all of Germany." Like Goetz, he describes both Gebhard and Ernst as cut from the same cloth: "two pauper Archbishops without men or means of their own were pushed back and forth, like puppets, by the highwaymen" on either side, while murder and robbery, in the name of Catholicism and Protestantism, were the "for a time the only motive or result of the contest." Citations and sources Citations Sources Goetz, Walter, "Gebhard II and the Counter Reformation in the Lower Rhinelands" in Herzog (1909). Marriott, Charles Marriott (1911). Romance of the Rhine''. London: Methuen. Waldburger, Michaela, Waldburg und Waldburger – Ein Geschlecht steigt auf in den Hochadel des Alten Reiches 2009, accessed 15 October 2009. External links Entry at rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de The Truchsess or Cologne War in Bonn and the surrounding area 1547 births 1601 deaths People from Bodenseekreis Gebhard 02 Gebhard 02 16th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the Holy Roman Empire Converts to Calvinism from Roman Catholicism People excommunicated by the Catholic Church German Calvinist and Reformed Christians German people of the Eighty Years' War Gebhard 16th-century German people 16th-century Calvinist and Reformed Christians