In 1501, for the purpose of strengthening their northern frontier, the Swiss admitted Basel and Schaffhausen to the Confederation; and the addition of Appenzell, in 1513, brought up the number of the Confederate States to thirteen, a number which was not increased till the present century. The Swiss continued to be the mercenaries of Europe, and in 1502, and 1512, gained, as we have seen, further possessions to the south of the Alps (cf. p. 72). One thing at least Maximilian learnt from his defeats. He copied the arms, and to some extent the organisation, of the Swiss, and thus did much to form that formidable infantry which did Charles V. good service in Italy. Yet even this had its disadvantages; for the German landsknechts, finding themselves in request, sometimes adopted the mercenary habits of the Swiss, and took service with the enemies of their country. | The Policy of Maximilian towards the Empire and his Hapsburg | territories. | His success as a Hapsburg Prince. In spite of Maximilian’s attachment to the imperial name it may be said of him, as it was of an earlier Emperor, Charles IV., that he was ‘stepfather’ of the Empire. Further, it was his aim to humiliate the Electors. He had robbed the Palatinate of the succession to Landshut (cf. p. 113). He defrauded the Elector of Saxony of his claim to Berg and Julich by securing the succession, through marriage, to the Duke of Cleves, and of the tutelage of Philip of Hesse, by declaring the young Landgrave of age when only fourteen; and though he supported the house of Brandenburg (Hohenzollern) by approving of the election of Albert, a cadet of the house, to the Grand Mastership of the Teutonic Order in Prussia (1512), he irritated him by confirming the peace of Thorn of 1466, by which the knights had been forced to cede Western Prussia to Casimir of Poland, and to hold East Prussia as a fief of that king. To this he was induced by family reasons: Lewis,[40] the nephew of Sigismund, the reigning King of Poland, had recently married Maximilian’s granddaughter Mary, while Anne, the sister of Lewis, married his grandson Ferdinand, with the promise of succession to Hungary and Bohemia, should Lewis die without heirs. In short, the policy of Maximilian was mainly dynastic. To increase the power and the future prospects of his house was his main aim,--by the aid of the imperial position, if possible; if not, by conquest, by policy, and by successful marriages. His success in this design will be best realised by contrasting the position held by his house in 1485 with that which it enjoyed at his death in 1519.