Charles IV., the greatest ruler of the fourteenth century, had clearly grasped both the dangers of the situation and [Sidenote: Policy of Charles IV.] the only remedies which could be applied. Either Germany must be organised as a federation which should combine some measure of local independence with joint action for common interests, or a single family must collect such an aggregate of territories in its hands as might become the nucleus of a new territorial monarchy. Charles had kept both expedients before him. He had laid the foundations of a federal organisation by conferring corporate powers and privileges upon the electors. At the same time he had made the Luxemburg family the strongest in Germany, and had placed it in a position to do for Germany what the Capets had done for France. It is a common error to maintain that Charles IV.’s policy was a complete failure; that what he meant to be a temporary expedient proved permanent, while his ultimate aims were never achieved. It is true that a territorial monarchy was not established, and that such unity as Germany has since possessed has been federal rather than monarchical. But what really held Germany together from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century was not the federal system, but the territorial power of the house of Hapsburg. And that territorial power was, in the main, founded by Charles _IV._ It is as the heirs of the Luxemburg family that the Hapsburgs assumed their unique position in Germany. Charles IV. achieved more lasting results than he has been credited with, but the fruits of his policy were gathered by others than his own descendants.