The German Order, by this time, also possessed an independent realm, the capital of which was established at Marienburg, not far from Dantzic. The distance of the territory it had conquered in Eastern Prussia from the rest of the Empire, and the circumstance that it had also acknowledged itself a dependency of the Papal power, enabled its Grand Masters to say, openly: "If the Empire claims authority over us, we belong to the Pope; if the Pope claims any such authority, we belong to the Emperor." In fact, although the Order had now been established for a hundred and fifty years, it had never been directly assisted by the Imperial power; yet it had changed a great tract of wilderness, inhabited by Slavonic barbarians, into a rich and prosperous land, with fifty-five cities, thousands of villages, and an entire population of more than two millions, mostly German colonists. It adopted a fixed code of laws, maintained order and security throughout its territory, encouraged science and letters, and made the scholar and minstrel as welcome at its stately court in Marienburg, as they had been at that of Frederick II. in Palermo. [Sidenote: 1386. THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH.] There could be no more remarkable contrast than between the weakness, selfishness and despotic tendencies of the German Emperors and Electors during the fourteenth century, and the strong and orderly development of the Hanseatic League and the German Order in the North, or of the handful of free Swiss in the South. King Wenzel (Wenczeslas in Bohemian) was only seventeen years old when his father died, but he had been well educated and already possessed some experience in governing. In fact, Karl IV.'s anxiety to secure the succession to the throne in his own family led him to force Wenzel's mind to a premature activity, and thus ruined him for life. He had enjoyed no real childhood and youth, and he soon became hard, cynical, wilful, without morality and even without ambition. In the beginning of his reign, nevertheless, he made an earnest attempt to heal the divisions of the Roman Church, and to establish peace between Count Eberhard the Whiner and the United Cities of Suabia.