the Emperors had in the last resort decided of themselves,
if the case were trifling, and in conjunction with the princes,
if it were important; or they determined them by the advice of imperial judges
who followed the court. This superior jurisdiction they had, in the end
of the fifteenth century, assigned to a regular and permanent tribunal,
the Imperial Chamber of Spires, in which the Estates of the Empire,
that they might not be oppressed by the arbitrary appointment of the Emperor,
had reserved to themselves the right of electing the assessors,
and of periodically reviewing its decrees. By the religious peace,
these rights of the Estates, (called the rights of presentation
and visitation,) were extended also to the Lutherans,
so that Protestant judges had a voice in Protestant causes,
and a seeming equality obtained for both religions in this supreme tribunal.

But the enemies of the Reformation and of the freedom of the Estates,
vigilant to take advantage of every incident that favoured their views,
soon found means to neutralize the beneficial effects of this institution.
A supreme jurisdiction over the Imperial States was gradually and skilfully
usurped by a private imperial tribunal, the Aulic Council in Vienna,
a court at first intended merely to advise the Emperor in the exercise
of his undoubted, imperial, and personal prerogatives; a court,
whose members being appointed and paid by him, had no law but the interest
of their master, and no standard of equity but the advancement of
the unreformed religion of which they were partisans.
Before the Aulic Council were now brought several suits originating between
Estates differing in religion, and which, therefore, properly belonged to
the Imperial Chamber. It was not surprising if the decrees of this tribunal
bore traces of their origin; if the interests of the Roman Church
and of the Emperor were preferred to justice by Roman Catholic judges,
and the creatures of the Emperor. Although all the Estates of Germany