HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (Stanhope Historical Essay 1901) WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS R. W. SETON-WATSON Commoner of New College Oxford "Mein Ehr ist deutsch Ehr und deutsch Ehr ist mein Ehr" WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS 1902 BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON. PREFATORY NOTE No apology seems necessary for illustrating such an essay as the present, save that it is an innovation. No one now denies the value of portraits in rend

There is a peculiar difficulty in bridging over long periods of history, and in clearing our minds of the habits and prejudices of to-day, before we criticize characters and events which belong to distant periods and other lands. This difficulty, in spite of the strange charm which encourages us to surmount it, makes itself all the more felt in a Transition Period, such as the close of the fifteenth, and the dawn of the sixteenth century. The breath of new ideas is in the air. "The old order cha

To describe the events of Maximilian's political career with any sort of detail would be to narrate the history of Europe during one of its most fascinating and complicated phases. To an essay such as the present such a scheme must be entirely alien; and for its purposes Maximilian's life may be broadly divided into two periods. In the first, which ends with 1490, his ambitions are directed towards the West; and Burgundy, the Netherlands, and the French frontier claim his whole attention. But in

Das liebe heil'ge Röm'sche Reich, Wie hält's nur noch zusammen?—Faust. With the Breton incident we reach the close of Maximilian's Western career, and are free to examine the events which engaged his attention while Charles VIII. was robbing him of his bride. The exigencies of Hapsburg policy and of his imperial office now draw him into all the various currents of European diplomacy, and it is hardly to be wondered at, if his personality is sometimes lost sight of in an attempt to connect the in

"The essence of Humanism is the belief ... that nothing which has ever interested living men and women can wholly lose its vitality."— Walter Pater . It is with a certain sense of relief that we pass from the tragi-comedy of Maximilian's political life to those realms where lies his real claim to fame and gratitude. Great ambitions thwarted by the sordid details of poverty are never a pleasant subject of contemplation; and there have been few monarchs in whose lives they have played a more promi

The wideness of Maximilian's interests, and the variety of spheres in which those interests led him to take a part, enhance the difficulty of estimating or defining his character as a whole, and each different attitude demands discussion before any general conclusion can be drawn. His political career, however, despite all its intrigues and complications, is comparatively easy to estimate; for his persistence in controlling his own policy and his dislike of associates and confidants throw the en

APPENDIX I Though some reference to Maximilian's relations to the question of Imperial Reform was unavoidable, a detailed account must be sought for rather in an authoritative history of Germany than in an essay which centres round an individual. Hence an appendix seems the most fitting place for dealing with the subject. When Maximilian was elected King of the Romans (1486), it had long been evident that, if a new or reformed constitution was to be secured, the initiative must be taken by the E