His policy of imperial aggrandisement had been in progress.
When at the very height of power, all his schemes of aggrandisement came to sudden ruin through a succession of disastrous defeats at the hands of the Swiss at Grandson (March 2, 1476), at Morat (June 22, 1476) Austria.
Indistinguishable from his personal ambition was his passion for the aggrandisement of the church and its predominance in the state.
She then married Prince Louis of Taranto, and strong in the double support of the papal court at Avignon and of the Venetian republic (both of whom were opposed to Magyar aggrandisement in Italy) questioned the right of Louis to the two Sicilies, which he claimed as the next heir of his murdered brother.
William, however, speedily opened secret negotiations with France in the hope of securing the armed assistance of that power for the carrying out of his ambitious projects of a war of aggrandisement against the Spanish Netherlands and of a restoration of his brother-in-law, Charles II., to the throne of England.