Charles the Bold stands as the representative of this brute force. He was the mightiest of the French nobles. His ancestors, a younger branch of the royal family, had been made dukes of Burgundy, and by skilful alliances and rapid changes of side through the long Hundred Years' War, they had steadily added to their possessions and their powers. The father of Charles found himself stronger than his king, possessor not only of Burgundy, but of many other fiefs from Germany as well as France, and lord of the Netherlands as well.[8] Charles was thus the last of those great, overgrown vassals so characteristic of feudal times. Like Hugh Capet in France, like William the Conqueror in England, he hoped to establish himself as an independent king. He opened negotiations for this purpose with the Emperor Frederick, Maximilian's father. He made himself practically independent of France. He wielded a military power greater than that of any other prince of the moment, and he knew it and charged like a mad bull at whoever seemed to interpose in his designs. Over such a man Louis XI's cunning had full play. He involved Charles in fights with every neighbor. Finally he lured him into conflict with the Swiss, and those hardy mountaineers won the repute of being the best soldiers of Europe by defeating Charles again and again till they left him slain on the field of Nancy (1477).[9] Louis promptly seized most of his dead vassal's domains. Maximilian, having wedded Charles' daughter, inherited the remainder; and the old Burgundian kingdom, so nearly revived to stretch as a permanent dividing land between France and Germany, disappeared forever. What Louis had done with Burgundy he attempted with his other semi-independent duchies. The Hundred Years' War had almost destroyed central government in France. Louis, by means as secret and varied as his cunning could suggest, gradually reestablished an undisputed leadership above his lords. Fortunately for France, perhaps, England was prevented by a long series of civil wars from interfering in her neighbor's affairs. These wars, though they originated before Louis' time, were constantly fomented and kept alive by him, and England thus paid dearly for having become a source of danger to France.