Early Modern Era and the Akarusian Interregnum
Series of political and religious conflicts in following centuries continued to divide the Empire, Emperors increasingly failing to assert control over their far flung territories.
The death of Keizer Ijsbrand I in 1557 left his infant son Martin I as heir to the throne, beginning the period known as the Akarusian Interegnum. In the ensuing regency the Regent Edward II van Chevemont usurped the throne and executed the child. Edward II would be murdered several months later, and one of his former conspirators Reinaerd I van Kasteren would take the throne. The youngest brother of Ijsbrand I, Lutbert I, would overthrow the usurpers and restore the van Hertain dynasty to the throne. However during the following year Lutbert would be killed in a "hunting accident", with his older brother Renate I taking the throne. Renate too would soon die after a period of illness. Neither he nor his brothers would leave any surviving legitimate sons, and on his death the van Hertain dynasty would become extinct. While their supporters would attempt to declare their half-sister Beatrice I as Empress her claim would not be widely recognized, and Akarus entered a period of interregnum as a new Emperor was sought. Pretenders rose up across the Empire in an attempt to cross throne, though none would recieve recognition by the Bondsdag. During this period the states of the Empire were largely ruled directly by their respective nobles. The interregnum would only end in 1599 when the Bondsdag would elect Charles I van Hussenberg as Emperor.
Keizer Roeland I further fractured the Empire in 1643, dividing the three Imperial Kingdoms between his sons to ease administration of the Empire.
By the 1700s Imperial authority had largely been reduced to territories under direct Imperial control within the Kingdom of Andler. The four kingdoms had become their own autonomous entities within the Empire, under the nominal leadership of the Emperor. The territories of the Empire continued to remain highly decentralized, with estimates of at least 200 states within the Empire during most of the century.