The Golden Bull, with which his name is specially connected, shows in many respects these noble aims. The disorderly state into which the Empire had fallen had been largely due to the uncertainty of the Electorate. The titles which carried with them a right of voting for the Emperor, had been so often shared by different claimants, and the lands which originally marked these titles had been so often divided, that few could tell who had really the right of choosing the ruler of Europe; while the irregularity of many elections had given opportunity for the assertion of spurious claims, like those of the Dukes of Bavaria. Charles fixed the Electorate on a clear basis, and settled the lands which gave the right of voting. He also sternly prohibited those private feuds which had done such evil in Germany. Lastly, he boldly asserted the right of the Electors to choose the Emperor, without waiting for confirmation of their choice by the Pope. But, at the same time, he secured for the King of Bohemia the leading position among the Electors of the Empire; he declared his independence of the Imperial courts; and he asserted the right of the Bohemians to choose their own king, as soon as the House of Luxemburg was extinct. Obviously there was here much to provoke opposition. The smaller princes, fierce at the restriction on their rights of quarrelling, broke into fresh disorders; the dukes of Bavaria took up arms to reassert their suppressed electoral rights; the dukes of Austria were indignant that their claims to the Bohemian succession, founded on the decree passed in King Rudolf’s Assembly, were now definitely repudiated. Charles dealt in different ways with these sets of opponents. The turbulent rioters he forcibly suppressed, but readily admitted to favour when repentant. From Bavaria, however, he thought it necessary to take stronger securities. After he had defeated the Dukes in battle, he succeeded in persuading them to sell to him lands and cities, which he added to the kingdom of Bohemia, and thereby extended that kingdom as far as Nürnberg. It might be plausibly urged that Bohemia needed securities for peace against so turbulent a neighbour as Bavaria; but it was evident, from the additions to his kingdom which Charles carried out at a later time, that this was but part of his scheme for securing to Bohemia that predominance in the Empire which was hinted at in the Golden Bull. Bavaria and the smaller princes being brought to reason, there remained still the struggle with Austria. Here one might have expected that the long-standing feud between Bohemian and Austrian, and between the House of Luxemburg and the House of Hapsburg, would have made the contest deadly in its course and crushing in its results. Strange to say, it ended in a settlement which must, even at the time, have startled some Bohemians, though no doubt they could never have expected that the following century would see the claim then legalised grow into practical results.