1500 and his cousins formally abdicated in 1508 in favour of Waldemar's son and heir Wolfgang, then sole ruler of Anhalt-Köthen. Prince Wolfgang met with Martin Luther at the 1521 Diet of Augsburg and implemented the Protestant Reformation in his territories; the second Prince of the Holy Roman Empire to do so after the Saxon elector Frederick the Wise. He also became a leading member of the Protestant League of Torgau and the Schmalkaldic League against the policies of the Habsburg emperor Charles V. Temporarily banned, his possessions were restored in the 1552 Peace of Passau. Without heirs, Wolfgang in 1562 ceded Anhalt-Köthen to his cousins Joachim Ernest and Bernhard VII of Anhalt-Zerbst. Upon Bernhard's death in 1570, all Anhalt territories were formally re-united under Joachim Ernest's rule. Second creation Prince Joachim Ernest died in 1586, and his sons first ruled jointly. In 1603, however, the five surviving brothers again divided their heritage, with Anhalt-Köthen recreated for Prince Louis I. The partition was consummated until 1606, while the Louis' eldest brother Prince John George I of Anhalt-Dessau formally remained the head of all Anhalt principalities. Louis turned out to be a capable ruler; in 1617 he founded the literary Fruitbearing Society and became its first president, he worked with Wolfgang Ratke to implement educational reforms and had Schloss Köthen rebuilt. When he died in 1650, his son and successor William Louis was still a minor with Prince Augustus of Anhalt-Plötzkau and, from 1653, his sons Leberecht and Emmanuel acting as regents. As William Louis' marriage with Elizabeth Charlotte had remained childless, he was succeeded by Leberecht and Emmanuel upon his death in 1665. From 1671 Emmanuel's son Emmanuel Lebrecht became sole rule of Anhalt-Köthen, initially under the guardianship of his mother Princess Anna Eleonore and Prince John George II of Anhalt-Dessau. He took over the government in 1692 and entered into a morganatic marriage with Gisela Agnes of Rath, elevated to a Reichsgräfin of Nienburg by Emperor Leopold I in 1694. When Emmanuel Lebrecht died in 1704, he was succeeded by his second-born but eldest surviving son Leopold. Also a minor at his father's death, his mother Gisela Agnes acted as regent, supervised by King Frederick I of Prussia. Leopold came of age in 1715; he was a great patron of the arts, founded the Köthen court orchestra and, in 1717, employed Johann Sebastian Bach as Kapellmeister. Bach stayed in