2 Thalers - John Frederick, Moritz and Philip Imprisonment of Henry II of Brunswick

This double thaler commemorates a remarkable act of Protestant solidarity: in 1545, Elector John Frederick of Saxony, together with his cousins Moritz and Philip of Hesse, arrested Henry II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and expelled him from his territories. Henry had been an aggressive Catholic opponent of the Schmalkaldic League, and his imprisonment — engineered just two years before the League's military collapse at Mühlberg — was treated as a political triumph worth commemorating in silver. The coin is unusual in that it names three rulers jointly as issuers, reflecting the cooperative nature of the action rather than any single sovereign authority.