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 by the Empire and not by the Emperor, its members retained their independence.

A measure which ultimately proved to be of more importance than the reorganisation of these two institutions was the partition of the Habsburg inheritance. One of the most cherished projects of Ferdinand of Aragon had been the creation in northern Italy of a kingdom for the benefit of the younger of his two grandsons, which would have left Charles free to retain his Austrian lands. That scheme had failed; but the younger Ferdinand, especially when he became betrothed to the heiress of Hungary and Bohemia, could not decently remain unendowed while his brother possessed so much; and on April 28, 1521, a contract was ratified transferring to Ferdinand the five Austrian duchies, of Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, Styria, and Tyrol. This grant formed the nucleus of ^the present so-called Dual Monarchy; it was gradually extended by the transference to Ferdinand of all Charles V's possessions and claims in Germany, and the success with which the younger brother governed his German subjects made them regret that Ferdinand had not been elected Emperor in 1519 instead of having to wait thirty-seven years for the prize.

Soon after the conclusion of the Diet of Worms Charles left Germany, which he was not to see again until nine years later; and long before then the attempt of the central government to control the disruptive forces of political and religious separatism had hopelessly broken down. A pathetic interest attaches to the intervening struggles of the Reichsregiment as being the last efforts to create a modern German national State co-extensive with the medieval Empire, a State which would have included not only the present German Empire, but Austria and the Netherlands, and which, stretching from the shores of the Baltic to those of the Adriatic sea, and from the Straits of Dover to the Niémen or the Vistula, would have dominated modern Europe; and a good deal of angry criticism has been directed against the particularist bodies which one after another repudiated the authority of the government and brought its work to nought. But particularism had so completely permeated Germany that the very efforts at unity were themselves tainted with particularist motives; and one reason alike for the favour with which Princes like Frederick of Saxony regarded the Reichsregiment, and for its ultimate failure, was that, with its ostensible unifying purpose, the government combined aims which served the interests of Princes against those of other classes.

The great Princes of the Empire present a double aspect, varying with the point of view from which they are itegarded. To Charles they were collectively an oligarchy which threatened to destroy the monarchical principle embodied in the person of the Emperor; but individually and from the point of view of their own dominions they represented a monarchical principle similar to that which gave unity and strength to