We will never know the private arguments among the Electors – Maximilian may have been an appealing figure and a great and imaginative intellectual patron, but his rule had hardly been a success for the Empire even if it was a few notches up from the chaos of his father’s reign. There was certainly a case that the Habsburgs had tried and failed, but an at-heart German-speaking empire stomaching a French leader was even at this point a bit implausible and while Charles was young and untried this was also true of Francis.
