Ferdinand I., who like all the German sovereigns after him was recognized as emperor without being crowned by the pope, made it a prime object of his short reign to defend and enforce the religious peace of Augsburg for which he was largely responsible. Although in all probability numerically superior at this time to the Romanists, the Protestants were weakened by divisions, which were becoming daily more pronounced and more serious, and partly owing to this fact the emperor was able to resist the demands of each party and to moderate their excesses. He was continually harassed by the Turks until peace was made in 1562, and connected therewith were troubles in Bohemia and especially in Hungary, two countries which he had acquired through marriage, while North Germany was disturbed by the wild schemes of Wilhelm von Grumbach (q.v.) and his associate John Frederick, duke of Saxony. With regard to the religious question efforts were made to compose the differences among the Protestants; but while these ended in failure the Roman Catholics were gaining ground. Ferdinand sought earnestly to reform the church from within, and before he died in July 1564 the Counter-Reformation, fortified by the entrance of the Jesuits into Germany and by the issue of the decrees of the council of Trent, had begun. Administrative changes. Under Ferdinand's rule there were some changes in the administration of the Empire. Lutherans sat among the judges of the _Reichskammergericht_, and the Aulic Council, or _Hofrat_, established by Maximilian I. for the Austrian lands, extended its authority over the Empire and was known as the _Reichshofrat_. Side by side with these changes the imperial diet was becoming more useless and unwieldy, and the electors were gaining power, owing partly to the _Wahlkapitulation_, by which on election they circumscribed the power of each occupant of the imperial throne. Maximilian II.