Maximilian's reputation in the Empire was now perhaps higher than it had ever been before; the more so, that in the winter of 1504 death had removed his old opponent, Berthold of Mainz, and that the new Elector was a near relative of his own.[68] But when the future was all bright with hope, and when his coronation at Rome and an union of Spain and the Empire against the French and the Turks seemed at last on the point of realization, his golden dreams met with a rude awakening. The sudden and premature death of Philip, who had assumed in person the government of Castile, and was successfully defending himself against the spiteful intrigues of Ferdinand, put an end to the Emperor's projects of Hapsburg combination (Sep. 25, 1506). The Catholic King recovered the Regency, and was soon more powerful than ever in the Spanish Peninsula. Maximilian at first met with no better success in his attempt to {54} secure the government of the Low Countries. The Estates of the seventeen Provinces refused to recognize his claims to the Regency during the minority of his grandson Charles, and were encouraged by Louis XII. in the formation of a Council of Regency. But internal troubles, and the activity of Charles of Gueldres, pled his cause more eloquently than any measures of his own. On their voluntary submission to his rule, he appointed William de Croy, Lord of Chièvres, and Adrian of Utrecht[69] as Charles' tutors, and entrusted the administration to his daughter Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Savoy, who made her public entry into Mechlin in July 1507, and who throughout her rule justified his choice by her scrupulous integrity and brilliant statesmanship.