The special risk attending such a constitution was that it provided almost exclusively for the wants of the princes and electors. In the Diet, in the circles, and in the Imperial Court, the princes and electors exercised a preponderating, if not quite an exclusive influence. In ordinary times there might be no danger. But if extraordinary times arose, if any great movement swept over the surface of the nation, it might very well be that the nation would be on one side and the princes and the electors on the other. And if this were the case there would be great difficulty in bringing the nation into harmony with its institutions. In England the sovereign could alter a hostile majority in the House of Lords by a fresh creation of peers, and the constituencies could alter a hostile majority of the House of Commons by a fresh election. In Germany there was no House of Commons, and an emperor who should try to create fresh princes out of the immediate vassals who were too weak to be summoned to the Diet would only render himself ridiculous by an attempt to place in check the real possessors of power by the help of those who had the mere appearance of it. SECTION II.--_Protestantism in Germany._ [Sidenote: § 1. The German people in favor of Protestantism; the Diet opposed to it.] When, in the sixteenth century, Protestantism suddenly raised its head, the institutions of the Empire were tried to the uttermost. For the mass of the nation declared itself in favour of change, and the Diet was so composed as to be hostile to change, as soon as it appeared that it was likely to take the direction of Lutheranism. In the Electoral House, indeed, the votes of the three ecclesiastical electors were met by the votes of the three lay electors. But in the House of Princes there were thirty-eight ecclesiastical dignitaries and but eighteen laymen. It was a body, in short, like the English House of Lords before the Reformation, and there was no Henry VIII. to bring it into harmony with the direction which lay society was taking, by some act equivalent to the dissolution of the monasteries, and the consequent exclusion of the mitred abbots from their seats in Parliament. To pass measures favourable to Protestantism through such a house was simply impossible. Yet it can hardly be doubted that a really national Parliament would have adopted Lutheranism, more or less modified, as the religion of the nation. Before Protestantism was fifty years old, in spite of all difficulties, ninety per cent. of the population of Germany were Protestant. [Sidenote: § 2. Most of the lay princes adopt it.] In default of national action in favor of Protestantism, it was adopted and supported by most of the lay princes and electors. A new principle of disintegration was thus introduced into Germany, as these princes were forced to act in opposition to the views adopted by the Diet. [Sidenote: § 3. The Emperor Charles V.]