Notwithstanding this rebuff, Maximilian had gained a very distinct advantage from peace with France. So long as the question of investiture was pending, Louis could not interfere in the affairs of the Empire, and Maximilian was free to profit by the turn of events.
The death of George the Rich, Duke of Bavaria-Landshut (December 1, 1503), resulted in a disputed succession. In spite of a family agreement (Erbvertrag) which expressly nominated as his heirs Duke Albert IV. of Munich and his brother Wolfgang, the old Duke left his lands to his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Rupert, a younger son of the Elector Palatine. Both parties prepared to assert their rights, and Rupert, careless of the consequences, threw himself into Landshut, thus opening the war, and putting himself under the ban of the Empire.[[66]] The Estates refused allegiance to Albert, and called in Maximilian as mediator in the quarrel. The Emperor preferred to renounce his position of tertius gaudens, and to throw the whole weight of his support on Albert's side. Even had he not already, in 1497, recognized Albert's title, both justice and his own interests urged him to the Bavarian side. The Palatine House had ever been the foe of the Hapsburgs, and Duke Albert, as the Emperor's brother-in-law, would naturally seem the less dangerous of the two claimants. Maximilian at first offered Rupert a third of George's possessions, in the hope of averting hostilities; but, meeting with a curt refusal, he roused the forces of the Swabian League, and, assisted by Würtemberg, Brunswick and Hesse, took the field in person at the head of a considerable army. The sudden death of Rupert (August 20, 1504), closely followed by that of his masculine wife Elizabeth, did not put an end to the war, the Elector continuing the struggle in the name of his grandsons. A fierce encounter took place near Regensburg between the Imperialists and a large body of Bohemian mercenaries in the Elector's service. Maximilian himself led the right wing to the charge, and drove the enemy back to their laager, which, after the example of Zizka, they had constructed from their baggage waggons. A desperate sally for the moment broke the Imperialist ranks, and he was surrounded and dragged from his horse by the long grappling hooks attached to the Bohemians' lances. He owed his life to the distinguished gallantry of Eric of Brunswick, who scattered his assailants when all hope seemed lost. Rallying his troops, he led them on to victory, and defeated the enemy with heavy loss. This affray was followed up by the siege of Kufstein, in which the Emperor's artillery played an important part—especially two heavy pieces, which he had christened "Purlepaus" and "Weckauf von Oesterreich." The hesitation of the garrison, which at first made promises of surrender, and then decided upon resistance, so deeply incensed Maximilian, that when the inevitable capitulation came, he refused to show any mercy. It was only when half the scanty garrison had been executed that the intercession of the Princes prevailed to secure pardon for such as remained (October 17, 1504). The capture of Kufstein was the last serious incident of the war. A truce was concluded in February, 1505, and in August, when Maximilian appeared at the Diet of Köln, he was able to dictate his own terms to the discomfited Elector. With the exception of Neuburg, and some territory north of the Danube, which were formed into an appanage for Rupert's children, all the lands of George were made over to Bavaria. But the Emperor had not conducted the war solely from the kindness of his heart, and both claimed and secured a substantial reward for his services. From the Palatinate he acquired Hagenau and the Ortenau; from Bavaria, Kufstein, Rattenberg, and a number of petty lordships,[[67]] and, most important of all, the Zillerthal, which gave Tyrol a strong frontier to the north-east, and rounded off the territories to which he had succeeded in 1500 on the death of Leonard of Görz.
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 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.
In the same year, 1507, Maximilian made a fiery appeal to the Diet assembled at Constance, for assistance in his schemes of a journey to Rome and the expulsion of the French from Milan. After considerable delay he obtained a grant of 3,000 horse and 9,000 foot for six months, and received a further promise of 6,000 men from the Swiss envoys. But his sanguine expectations were once more doomed to disappointment. The majority of the promised troops never made their appearance; French gold won over his Swiss allies;[[70]] and the Estates of his own dominions outdid all previous occasions in their parsimony. Meanwhile his ardent preparations had roused the distrust of Venice, which refused him passage through her dominions, unless he restricted himself to a trifling escort. His army was too weak to force its way either through Milanese or through Venetian territory; and hence he was driven to an expedient which involved a break with the old mediaeval traditions of the Empire. On February 4, 1508, he had himself proclaimed with great pomp and solemnity, in the Cathedral of Trent, as Holy Roman Emperor. It was declared that for the future in all official documents he should be known by the title of "erwählte römischer Kaiser," but that for convenience sake he should commonly be called "Emperor." Julius II. raised no objection, partly because Maximilian fully acknowledged the Papal right to crown him, and still more because his arrival in Rome with an army would have been a most unwelcome event. Maximilian's step was the first departure from the immemorial custom of his predecessors; but with the exception of his grandson, Charles V., not one of his successors in the Empire received his crown at the hands of the Pope.
The refusal of Venice to grant a passage to the Imperial army accentuated the ill-feeling which had long existed between Maximilian and the Republic. Now that his ambitions could find no outlet to the South, he turned his gaze Eastwards, and rashly embroiled himself with his powerful neighbour. Within a month of his assumption of the Imperial dignity, his troops were advancing into Venetian territory from three different directions, threatening Vicenza, the valley of the Adige, and Friuli. Maximilian gives expression to his rosy dreams of victory in a letter to the Elector of Saxony: "The Venetians paint their lion with two feet in the sea, the third on the plains, the fourth on the mountains. We have almost won the foot on the mountains, only one claw is wanting, which with God's help we shall have in eight days; then we mean to conquer the foot on the plains too."[[71]] But the very day after this confident epistle was penned, Trautson, one of his best captains, was routed and killed by the Venetians, with a total loss of over 2,000. The Venetians now took the offensive in earnest, and, superior both in numbers and discipline, completely turned the tables on the Imperialists. Town after town fell before their advance, and by the end of June, Görz, Pordenone, Adelsberg, Trieste were in their hands; while the fleet seized Fiume and overawed the whole of Istria. As soon as the tide began to turn, Maximilian had hastened back to Germany, to rouse the Electors and the Swabian League, but from neither could he obtain any real assistance. The whole brunt of the defence fell upon the Tyrolese, who responded manfully to the call, and checked the Venetian advance at Pietra, on the way to Trent. But any prolonged resistance was hopeless; and Maximilian saw himself obliged to conclude a three years' truce with the Republic, by which the latter retained all her conquests except Adelsberg.
The Emperor's humiliation at the hands of Venice only served to augment the suspicion and dislike with which she was regarded by her other neighbours. The Pope felt an especial grudge against her, as the possessor of Ravenna and Rimini, which lawfully belonged to the Holy See. Already in the summer of 1507 he had been feeling his way towards a coalition, by an attempt to restore friendly relations between Louis and Maximilian; but the latter was then still too full of schemes for the recovery of Milan to entertain the proposal. When however he engaged in war with Venice, he sent agents of his own accord to Louis XII. The latter at first refused all accommodation unless Venice were included; but when the Republic neglected to include Gueldres in the truce, he availed himself of this flimsy excuse to negotiate with the Emperor. An active exchange of views followed between Margaret and her father, both as to an agreement with France, with regard to which he trusted largely to her judgment,[[72]] and the proposed marriage of Charles with Mary of England, to which he would only consent in return for a substantial loan.[[73]] Maximilian himself arrived in the Netherlands in August, but does not seem to have visited his daughter. When the crisis of the negotiations was reached he still remained in the background, and deputed Margaret and his councillor, Matthew Lang,[[74]] to receive the French envoys at Cambrai. D'Amboise raised so many difficulties that at length Margaret threatened to return home, declaring that they were merely wasting time.[[75]] This firm attitude brought the French envoys to reason, and on December 10, 1508, the memorable League of Cambrai was duly ratified. Ostensibly it was a renewal of the treaties of 1501 and 1504, with the exception of the betrothal of Claude and Charles. But its genuine aim was the complete partition of the Venetian land-Empire between the four arch-conspirators. The Pope was to receive the towns of the Romagna, Ferdinand the Apulian seaports. Maximilian was to recover all his lost territories and to supplement them by Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso and Friuli; while Louis XII. should occupy Brescia, Bergamo and Cremona. The Imperial conscience, which felt some scruples at so prompt an infringement of the truce, was salved by the commands of Julius II., who bade him, as protector of the Church, take part in the recovery of her lands. Further, to veil the iniquity of the agreement, the Pope excommunicated Venice and all its subject lands.
Though Maximilian thus isolated Venice, and made it possible to recover his lost territory, yet his adhesion to the League was an undoubted political error. Not only did his action assist the destruction of the only power in North Italy capable of resisting the foreigner, and thus directly lead to the establishment of French predominance in Lombardy; but it also implanted in the minds of the Signoria that irremovable distrust of his intentions which was responsible for many of his later misfortunes, and which the pursuance of a straightforward policy might have averted. Had he exercised but a moderate amount of foresight, he would have realized that Louis, with his vast superiority in power and resources, would sooner or later discard his needy ally and reserve the lion's share for himself. It is probable that the false glamour and vanity of the Imperial tradition obscured his eyes to the fact of his own weakness; and what from one point of view is his strength—his unquenchable hopefulness and buoyancy of spirit—here proved his weakness and egged him on to defeat and humiliation.
Leaving the Netherlands after a year's residence, Maximilian repaired to the Diet of Worms (April, 1509). Never before had the Estates been so unanimous in refusing all support and loading him with complaints. The cities were enraged at the practical supersession of the Council of Regency, the Princes at his negotiating without their consent. After mutual recriminations, they separated without effecting anything; and their dispersal marks the end of all genuine attempts at Reform. Even Maximilian's hereditary Estates voted far fewer men than he had expected, and qualified even this grant by making the troops liable to service only when he was personally in command. He thus found himself involved in a serious war, without having sufficient resources to execute his far-reaching designs, and was reduced to pledge tolls, mines, and other sources of revenue in order to raise money.