♦The Empire becomes a Confederation.♦ In short, the Western Empire became a German kingdom; or rather it became a German Confederation with a royal head, a confederation which still kept up the forms and titles of the Empire. ♦1530.♦ As no German king received an Imperial coronation after Charles the Fifth, it might in strictness be said that the Empire came to an end at his abdication. ♦1556.♦ And in truth from that date the Empire practically became a purely German power. But, as the Imperial forms and titles still went on, the Western Empire must be looked on as surviving, in the form of a German kingdom or confederation, down to its final fall. ♦The German Kingdom represents the Empire.♦ The Kingdom of Germany then may be looked on as representing the Western Empire, as being what was left of the Western Empire after the other parts of it had fallen away. But the German kingdom itself underwent, though in a smaller degree, the same fate as the other two Imperial kingdoms. ♦Separation of parts of the Kingdom.♦ While all Italy and all Burgundy, with some very trifling exceptions, fell away from the Empire, the mass of Germany remained Imperial. Still large parts of Germany were lost to the Empire no less than Italy and Burgundy. A considerable territory on the western and south-western frontier of Germany gradually fell away. Part of this territory has grown into independent states; part has been incorporated with the French kingdom. The Swiss Confederation has grown up on lands partly German, partly Burgundian, partly Italian, but of which the oldest and greatest part belonged to the German kingdom. The Confederation of the United Provinces, represented by the modern kingdom of the Netherlands, lay wholly[12] within the old German kingdom: so did by far the greater part of the modern kingdom of Belgium. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In our own day the same tendency has been shewn in south-eastern as well as south-western Germany; several members of the ancient kingdom have fallen away to form part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ♦Extension of Germany to the north-east.♦ But on the northern and north-eastern frontier the tendency to extension, with some fluctuations, has gone on from the beginning of the kingdom to our own day. ♦Geographical contrast of the earlier and later Empire.♦ This tendency to lose territory to the west and south, and to gain territory to the east and north, had the effect of gradually cutting off the Western Empire, as represented by the German kingdom, from any close geographical connexion with the earlier Empire of which it was the historical continuation. The Holy Roman Empire, at the time of its final fall, contained but little territory which had formed part of the Empire of Trajan. It contained nothing which had formed part of the Empire of Justinian, save some small scraps of territory in the north-eastern corner of the old Italian kingdom. § 1. _The Kingdom of Germany._