expansion in the Low Countries, and by intervention in the politics of the German Empire. The annexation of the duchy of Brabant and the counties of Hainault, Holland, Namur, and Luxemburg between 1428 and 1443 began a series of Burgundian incursions into areas which lay in the Francoimperial borderland. Philip's son, Charles the Bold, carried these ventures to their conclusion by invading Alsace-Lorraine ( 1474-7) and attempting to secure a marriage alliance between his house and that of Habsburg so that he might succeed to the empire or, at the very least, carve out a kingdom for himself between France and imperial territory to the east of the Rhine.

There was a chance of success for Charles's ambitions and grandiose schemes because some German princes were not averse to the concept of a Burgundian kingdom, held by a ruler unlikely to interfere with their autonomous regimes and well able to support himself from his own resources. The contrast with the shabby and penurious Emperor Frederick III could hardly have been more marked. But Charles the Bold possessed little of his father's political tact and diplomatic caution. He succeeded in alienating many of the towns which bolstered his rule, provoked René II of Lorraine into an alliance with the Swiss Confederation which led to Charles's defeat and death at Nancy in 1477, and lost the financial support of the Medici bank at Bruges. The re-creation of a 'middle kingdom' on the pattern of the ancient Carolingian kingdom of Lotharingia proved impossible in fifteenth-century political conditions. There were too many obstacles and entrenched interests opposed to Charles. Not least was the hostility of Louis XI of France ( 1461-83), of great towns such as Strasbourg, allied to the city of Berne and the Swiss Eidgenossen, as well as resistance from Lorraine and its allies in the German Empire. Charles was killed in battle and his lands were divided between the Habsburgs and the kingdom of France. The marriage of his daughter Mary and the future Emperor Maximilian I ensured that the Netherlandish territories (which had attained a certain degree of autonomy by 1477) passed into imperial hands while the southern Burgundian duchy reverted to the French crown

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