The objection to Albert of Austria rested on the considerable [Sidenote: Adolf of Nassau.] territories, both in the east and in Swabia, which he inherited from his father. The same motives which had induced the electors in 1273 to choose Rudolf, led them to look for a successor whose position should be still more humble than Rudolf’s had been. The influence of the Archbishop of Mainz, Gerhard von Eppenstein, secured the election of another ‘poor count,’ Adolf of Nassau (May 5, 1292). He had purchased votes by promises, which he could only fulfil by pawning the scanty remnants of the imperial domains. But Adolf’s ambition was greater than his material power, and he had no intention of reigning as the submissive puppet of the electors. No sooner had he received the crown at Aachen (June 24) than he led an army against Albert, and forced him to do homage and to surrender the royal insignia which he had retained on his father’s death. To repress the great princes, Adolf set himself to conciliate the towns and the lesser nobles. Taking advantage of the death of Frederick of Meissen and Thuringia, he claimed those territories as vacant imperial fiefs, and prepared to found there a hereditary principality as his predecessor had done on the Danube. Still more noteworthy was the attitude which he assumed towards France. The kingdom of Arles or Burgundy, [Sidenote: Relations with France.] founded by Rudolf I. (888-912) and enlarged by Rudolf II. (912-937) had, after the death of Rudolf III. (1032), fallen to the German king, Conrad II. Since then the crown of Arles had been regarded as one of the three crowns, with those of Germany and Italy, which passed on election to successive kings of the Romans. But as the German monarchy declined, the supremacy in Burgundy became more and more nominal, and many Emperors neglected the ceremony of coronation at Arles altogether. The kingdom split up into a number of quasi-independent provinces, of which the chief were the free county of Burgundy (Franche-comté), Savoy, Dauphiné, the Lyonnais, and Provence. These provinces, though in theory they were held as fiefs of the Empire, were gradually subjected to systematic aggressions from the side of France, and Philip IV. (1285-1314) pursued this policy of absorption more boldly and openly than any of his predecessors. Adolf sought to strengthen himself by posing as the champion of the unity of the Empire, and in 1294 concluded a treaty with Edward I. of England by which the two princes pledged themselves not to lay down their arms until Philip had withdrawn from the territories he was trying to wrest from both of them. But the war which followed only brought out clearly the disunion and military impotence of Germany. The German princes cared nothing for the border provinces as compared with their own interests and independence. It was easy for Philip IV. to stir up opposition to Adolf, and when peace was negotiated by Boniface VIII.