But the quarrel between Charles and Louis was not yet at an end. On the extinction of the line of the former Margraves of Brandenburg, the territory had been granted to Louis by his father, and he had remained in undisturbed possession of it for several years. Suddenly, in 1348, a claimant came forward to the Margravate. This man declared that his name was Waldemar; that he was son of the late Margrave of Brandenburg; that, since 1319, he had been supposed to be dead; that his death had been really pretended, in order to escape from a marriage, which, after its celebration, he had found to be illegal; and lastly that, his wife being now dead, he had come forward to claim his inheritance. The story was sufficiently absurd; and it might have been thought that, even if it were true, a prince who had pretended to be dead for nearly thirty years, might, in the interest of peace, consent to pretend a little longer. Charles’s excuse for crediting the imposture was that, as he was too young to remember the real Waldemar, he trusted in the evidence of the Duke of Saxony and other princes of the Empire, who, after investigating the case, declared their belief in the genuineness of the claim. Encouraged by this evidence, Charles only too gladly seized the opportunity for avenging his brother. He declared war on Louis, removed him from his Margravate, and established Waldemar in his place. Eventually it was proved that the so-called Waldemar was the subject and tool of the Duke of Saxony; and Charles, convinced of the imposture, was forced to reinstate Louis in Brandenburg. But, his attention once fixed on this province, he saw in it a new opportunity for aggrandising his House and Kingdom; and, in restoring it to Louis, he secured to his own son Wenceslaus the succession to the Margravate. But, if this unfortunate episode illustrates afresh the dangers which Charles had to encounter in combining his positions of German Emperor and Bohemian King, there was at least one side of his policy for which Germans, even more than Bohemians, have cause to thank him. It has already been mentioned that in the Golden Bull Charles had asserted the right of the Electors of the Empire to choose an Emperor without waiting for the confirmation of the Pope. This bold proposal was connected with that desire for a German rather than a Roman Empire, which Rudolf of Hapsburg and other wise rulers had cherished. Charles, as we shall see, had no desire to weaken the Papacy in spiritual matters, and he had been willing enough to go to Rome to be formally crowned in the sacred city; but he wished to free the German princes from that intolerable burden of the rule over Italy which was always involving the Emperors in useless expeditions, and at the same time to prevent the Popes from interfering in German affairs.