The states of the Burgundian dukes were composed of two sections, separated from each other by independent principalities. In the south, they possessed the duchy of Burgundy and the county of the same name, also called Franche-Comté; in the north, Belgium and a large part of the Dutch provinces were in their hands. From 1469 on, Charles tried patiently but relentlessly to bring together both parts of his state. He took Lorraine by force and got in _engagère_ Alsace, Brisgau, and other minor principalities. In the north he succeeded, in 1472, in winning, by the testament of the late Arnold of Gueldre, the duchy of that name and the county of Zutphen. Adopting the plan which his father had devised, but enlarging it considerably, he began negotiations with the Emperor for the reconstitution of the former mediaeval kingdom of Burgundy, and for his appointment as King of the Romans and successor to the Empire. He failed where Philip the Good had failed. He intended next to conquer the country of his enemy, Louis XI. After the conquest he planned to divide France between himself and his brother-in-law, Edward of England. In order to avoid the danger, the French King cleverly entangled his vassal in a war with the Swiss. Charles fought the battle of Nancy under very unfavorable circumstances. His army was severely defeated and he himself killed. His body was discovered in the ice of a frozen pool, pierced by three deadly wounds and half devoured by wolves. His young daughter Mary took on her shoulders the heavy burden entailed upon her as his successor. The territorial federation of all the Belgian principalities by the Burgundian dukes involved as a consequence the political unification of these provinces. Having but one prince, they also had but one government. It was necessary, of course, that the individual institutions of each principality should disappear, and the political life of the country was subjected to the centralizing tendency of a common monarchy. Above the local institutions were established central institutions, common to all the territories: the council of the duke, an advisory body; the chancellor of Burgundy, a kind of prime minister; the Grand Council, a governmental body, which Charles the Bold, more autocratic than his father, divided into two new colleges, with distinct functions--the Council of State, a political college, and the Parliament of Malines, a supreme court of justice (1473).