In the history of the religious Reformation, his name seems hardly to deserve the commendations of Grotius.
As the schism yawns, more and more ominously, throughout Christendom, the Emperor naturally trembles.

Anxious to save the state, but being no antique Roman, he wishes to close the gulf, but with more convenience to himself: He conceives the highly original plan of combining Church and Empire under one crown.

This is Maximilian's scheme for Church reformation.

An hereditary papacy, a perpetual pope-emperor, the Charlemagne and Hildebrand systems united and simplified--thus the world may yet be saved.

"Nothing more honorable, nobler, better, could happen to us," writes Maximilian to Paul Lichtenstein (16th Sept.