James Bryce

“ The German sovereign, therefore, though he exercised, as soon as chosen, full imperial powers both in Germany and Italy, called himself merely “King of the Romans” (Romanorum rex semper Augustus) until he had received the sacred crown in the sacred city. ”

“ According to mediæval theory, there was and could be only one emperor in the world, the direct vicegerent of God, who represented the unity of mankind and of the Christian people on its temporal side as the pope did on its Spiritual. Hence during those ages the Western monarch and Western writers did not admit in principle, though they sometimes recognized in fact, the title of the emperor who reigned at Constantinople; and the Easterns in like manner denied the existence of an emperor in the West, and maintained that the heads of the Holy Roman Empire were merely German intruders. ”

“ In the cases of Germany, Austria, and Britain in respect of India, it may perhaps be taken to denote that general over-lordship which their sovereigns exercise over minor princes and over their various territories, and which is distinct from their position as sovereigns of one or more particular kingdom or kingdoms, the German emperor being also king of Prussia, as the emperor of Austria is king of Hungary, and the empress of India queen of Great Britain and Ireland. ”