Note 170 — Chapter II · THE REGALIA, OR RIGHTS OF ROYALTY.
Reading edition
Deut. Staatsr. i. 422, § 297. He cites an instruction of Margrave Albrecht of Brandenburg an. 1462, which contains this Christian-like provision:—“When a Roman emperor and king is crowned, he has a right to take all they possess throughout his realm, yea and their lives also, and to slay them, until only a little number of them be left, to serve as a memorial.” Kings and populations, without being heads of the holy Roman empire, assumed a similar right only too often.