action of the Assembly at Prague, and had considerably hampered the designs of Ferdinand. They had even identified their interest at that time with the provincial claims of Moravia and Silesia; and they had maintained that an Assembly, composed only of those Bohemians who met at Prague, could not decide on so weighty a question as the war against John Frederick. Ferdinand, therefore, had come to look upon these Assemblies as his most dangerous opponents; and, though he could not at once suppress them completely, he contrived to limit their powers and control their actions. But Ferdinand had a special device of his own for counteracting local independence and increasing the royal power. This was the creation of a Chamber of Finance, called in German “Hof-Kammer,” and in Bohemian “Komora Dvorska.” This institution was primarily introduced to meet the difficulties of the King’s private income. During the reigns of Ladislaus and Louis the royal lands had been heavily burdened with debts; and Ferdinand’s relations with the lords, to whom these estates had been mortgaged, had made it difficult for him to ascertain the exact state of the royal finances. The duty of the new Court was to inquire into the condition of the king’s Bohemian lands, and to base upon this inquiry an annual statement of his needs. This statement was to be followed by a demand from the various Assemblies of the exact amount required. When this central Chamber of Finance was supplemented by other chambers of a similar kind in the different districts of Bohemia, it was clear that an organisation had been formed which might bring considerable increase to the King’s power. The inquiry into the condition of his finances would be accompanied by questions about the inclination of each Assembly to concede the money required; and thus questions of taxation would be to a large extent settled before they had been submitted to the lawful authority. Such a scheme, however, could only come gradually into operation; and it was during the reigns of Ferdinand’s successors that the significance of the Hof-Kammer began to be realised. In the meantime the King did not forget to provide a more immediate security for the stability of the House of Hapsburg; and, in 1549, the Bohemian Assembly was persuaded to accept Maximilian as the future King of Bohemia.