The Dukes of Munich immediately appealed to Max, and the newly-constituted royal Kammergeridit speedily issued a decision in their favour. All the dominions of Duke George were to go to the Dukes of Munich, except those in which the King had an interest. Maximilian at once put Rupert and his wife under the ban of the Empire, and prepared to vindicate by arms the decision of his lawyers. For the first time since his accession the young princes of Germany flocked to his standard. It was in vain that the Elector Palatine appealed to his French and Swiss allies to help his son. A few French nobles fought on his side; but Louis XII preferred to profit by Maximilian’s need to obtain recognition as Duke of Milan. The struggle was too one-sided to be of long duration, and the death of Rupert and his wife made its termination the more easy. The mass of the Landshut dominions was now secured to the Dukes of Munich, henceforth the sole lords of the Bavarian duchy. But Maximilian himself appropriated considerable districts for himself, while he compensated the Elector Palatine by the region of Sulzbach and Neuburg-the so-called Junge Pfalz. With Maximilian’s triumph in the Landshut Succession War died the last hopes of the constitutional reformers of the Empire. Their best chance had ever been the necessities of their King’s enterprising foreign policy; but these years also saw the realisation of the brightest dreams of the House of Austria. The Archduke Philip was wedded to Joanna, the heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. On Isabella’s death in 1504 Philip became King of Castile. To this great dignity was added the prospect of the inheritance of the aged Ferdinand in Aragon and in Naples. With such an extension of his European influence it seemed unlikely that Maximilian would again come before his Estates the helpless suitor that he had been of old.
The history of the Diet of Cologne of 1505 brings out clearly the different position now attained by King and Estates respectively. To this Diet Maximilian came triumphant from his hard-earned victory in Gelderland, attended by a great crowd of enthusiastic nobles and soldiers. He had no longer to face his ancient enemies. Berthold of Mainz had died in the midst of the Landshut troubles, worn out with disease and anxiety, and already conscious of the complete failure of his plans. His former ally, John of Baden, Elector of Trier, had died before him in 1503. Their successors, Jacob of Liebenstein at Mainz and Jacob of Baden, at Trier, were mere creatures of the King, and the latter Maximilian’s near kinsman. Hermann of Hesse, the Elector of Cologne, had never been of much personal importance, and was now quite content to float in the royalist tide. The Count Palatine Philip, the chief of the secular opposition since his reconciliation with Berthold, had suffered so severely during the Landshut Succession War that he dared no longer raise his voice against the King. The young Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, who had succeeded to his dignity in 1499, was eager to put his sword at the service of Maximilian. Of the old heroes of the constitutional struggle only Frederick the Wise of Saxony remained, and without Berthold’s stimulus Frederick was too passive, too discreet, and too wanting in strenuousness to take the lead. Yet his pleading for the disgraced Elector Palatine, unsuccessful as it was, was the only sign of opposition raised from among the Electors in this Diet. Even more devoted to the Crown were the princes who had won their spurs in the Bavarian War, and the prelates who owed their election to Court influence. Well might the Venetian ambassador report to his Republic, that his imperial Majesty had become a true Emperor over his Empire.
Encouraged by the prospect of the unwonted support of his Estates, Maximilian took a real initiative in the question of imperial reform. In a speech in which he could not conceal his bitter hatred of the dead Elector of Mainz, he urged the establishment of a new Council of Regency, dependent upon the Crown, resident at the imperial Court, and limited to giving the King advice and acting under his direction. But the Diet had had enough of new-fangled reforms. “Let his Majesty,” said the Estates, “rule in the future as he has ruled in the past.” They also rejected the scheme when Maximilian put it before them in a modified form, which allowed the Electors and princes a large voice in the appointment of the Council. Equally averse was the Diet to the novel method of taxation. Maximilian soon withdrew a proposal for a new Common Penny, and cheerfully contented himself with the proffer of an army of 4000 men, which he proposed to employ to protect his ally Ladislas of Hungary from the revolted Hungarian nobles under John Zapolya. For the expenses of this and for other supplies, money was to be raised by the matricula, that is by calling upon the various Estates of the Empire to pay lump sums according to their ability. The matricula ignored the union of the Empire and the obligation of the individual subject, which had been emphasised by the Common Penny. But King and subjects had alike ceased to look upon the Empire as anything but a congeries of separate States.
Save in the matters of the Council of Regency and the Common Penny, the Augsburg reforms were once more confirmed by King and Estates. The Landfriede of 1495 was solemnly renewed, and orders were given to revive the Kammergericht, which had ceased to meet during the recent troubles. For two years, however, the restoration remained on paper, until at last the Diet of Constance of 1507, which in more than one way completed the work of the Diet of Cologne, approved of an elaborate scheme for its reconstitution. By this ordinance the imperial Chamber took its permanent shape. At its head was still to be a Kammerrichter chosen by the King, and sixteen assessors representative of the Estates. But while at Worms in 1495 the assessors had been appointed by the King with the counsel and consent of the Estates, the method by which their election was now arrived at was particularist rather than national. The assessors were henceforth to be nominated by the chief territorial powers. Two were named by Maximilian as Duke of Austria and Lord of the Netherlands. The six Electors similarly had each a nomination to a seat, and the remaining eight assessors were to be appointed by the rest of the Estates, grouped for the purpose into six large Circles. The place for the session of the Court was still to be fixed by the Estates. After a year at Regensburg it was to be established at Worms. To please Maximilian, who preferred an ecclesiastic, the Bishop of Passau was the first Kammerrichter. His successor, however, was to be a count or a secular prince. The judge was to be paid by the King, and the assessors by the authorities that presented them to their offices. Thus the Kammergericht became a permanent institution, which, after various wanderings and a long stay at Speyer, finally settled down at Wetzlar, where it remained until the final dissolution of the Empire. But no care was taken to secure that the Court should administer a reasonable law or adopt a rapid or an economical procedure. The delays of the Kammergericht soon became a bye-word, and the ineffectiveness of its methods very materially attenuated the permanent gain accruing from the establishment of an imperial High Court. Nor were any efficient means taken at Cologne or Constance to secure the execution of the sentences of the imperial Chamber. Max himself was not chiefly to blame for this. He renewed at Constance a wise proposal that had fallen flat at Cologne. This was a plan for the nomination by the King of four marshals to carry out the law in the four districts of the Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Elbe and Danube respectively. Each marshal was to be assisted by twenty-five knightly subordinates and two councillors. An under-marshal, directly dependent on the Chamber, was to execute criminal sentences. But the princes feared lest this strong executive should intrench upon their territorial rights. Now that the Emperor and not the Estates controlled the Empire, a prince had every inducement to give full scope to his particularistic sympathies. Very weak, however, was the system of execution that found favour at Constance. It was thought enough that the Kammerrichter should be authorised to pronounce the ban of the Empire against all who withstood his authority. If the culprit did not yield within six months, the Church was to put him under excommunication. If this did not suffice, then Diet or TSmperor was to act. In other words, there was no practical way of carrying out the sentence of the Chamber against over-powerful offenders.
The Diet of Constance placed on a permanent basis the closely allied questions of imperial taxation and imperial levies of troops. Brilliant though the prospects of the House of Austria now seemed, Maximilian’s personal necessities only increased with the widening of his hopes. It cost him much trouble to maintain Wladislav of Hungary on his throne, though in the end he succeeded;