III.: The King of the Romans (Römischer König).

It has been shewn above how and why, about the time of Henry II, the German monarch began to entitle himself ‘Romanorum rex.’ Now it was not uncommon in the Middle Ages for the heir-apparent to a throne to be crowned during his father’s lifetime, that at the death of the latter he might step at once into his place. (Coronation, it must be remembered, which is now merely a spectacle, was in those days not only a sort of sacrament, but a matter of great political importance.) This plan was specially useful in an elective monarchy, such as Germany was after the twelfth century, for it avoided the delays and dangers of an election while the throne was vacant. But it seemed against the order of nature to have two Emperors at once, and as the sovereign’s authority in Germany depended not on the Roman but on the German coronation, the practice came to be that each Emperor during his own life procured, if he could, the election of his successor, who was crowned at Aachen, in later times at Frankfort, and took the title of ‘King of the Romans.’ During the presence of the Emperor in Germany he exercised (unless by special delegation) no more authority than a Prince of Wales does in England, but on the Emperor’s death he succeeded at once, without any second election or coronation, and assumed (after the time of Ferdinand I) the title of ‘Emperor Elect.’ Before Ferdinand’s time, he would have been expected to go to Rome to be crowned there. While the Hapsburgs held the sceptre, each monarch generally contrived in this way to have his son or other near relative chosen to succeed him. But some were foiled in their attempts to do so; and, in such cases, an election was held after the Emperor’s death, according to the rules laid down in the Golden Bull.

The first person who was chosen to be king in the lifetime of an Emperor seems to have been Conrad, son of the Emperor Henry IV.

It was in imitation of this title that Napoleon called his son King of Rome.

There was a certain resemblance between the position in Hindostan of the Mogul monarchs who ruled at Delhi, Lahore, and Agra, from Akbar the Great to Aurungzebe, and that of the earlier Teutonic Emperors in Europe. And the supremacy which the British Crown now holds in India over all or nearly all the native potentates is not unlike that which mediaeval theory assigned to the Emperor among Christian princes. It suggested the creation by statute (39 & 40 Vict. cap. 10) of the title ‘Emperor of India’ now attached to the king of Great Britain and Ireland.