public inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment of his expenses.
His ostentation. A.D. 1536 From this lunniliating scene let us turn to the apparent majesty of the same Clharles in the diets of the empire. The golden bull, which fixes the (iernianic constitution, is promulgated in the style of a sovereign and legislator.[1] An hundred princes bowed before his throne, and exalted their own dignity by the voluntary honours which they yielded to their chief or minister. At the royal banquet, the hereditary great officers, the seven electors, who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed their solemn and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple kingdom were borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and Treves, the perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and Aries. The great marshal, on horseback, exercised his function with a silver measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground, and immediately dismounted to regulate the order of the guests. The great steward, the count palatine of the Rhine, placed the dishes on the table. The great chamberlain, the margrave of Brandenburg, presented, after the repast, the golden ewer and bason, to wash. The king of Bohemia, as great cup-bearer, was represented by the emperor's brother, the duke of Luxemburg and Brabant ; and the procession was closed by the great huntsmen, who introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of horns and hounds.[2] Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined to Germany alone ; the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the pre-eminence of his rank and dignity ; he was the first of the Christian princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the West;[3] to his person the title of
majesty was long appropriated ; and he disputed with the
- ↑ [Charles sacrificed the interests of Germany entirely to those of Bohemia, the interests of the Empire to those of his own house. The Golden Bull does not mention Germany or Italy. Mr. Bryce's epigram on Charles IV. is famous : "he legalized anarchy, and called it a constitution ". Mr. Bryce observes: "He saw in his office a means of serving personal ends, and to them, while appearing to exalt by elaborate ceremonies its ideal dignity, he deliberately sacrificed what real strength was left ";and:" the sums expended in obtaining the ratification of the Golden Bull, in procuring the election of his son Wenzel, in aggrandizing Bohemia at the expense of Germany, had been amassed by keeping a market in which honours and exemptions, with what lands the crown retained, were put up openly to be bid for".]
- ↑ .See the whole ceremony, in Struvius, p. 629.
- ↑ The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor at its head, was never represented with more dignity than in the council of Constance. See Lenfant's History of that assembly.
