After the death of Mary of Burgundy in March 1482, the Low Countries were thrust into a period of turmoil the likes of which they had not seen for around... five whole years. The reigning sovereign was dead and her heir, Philip, was not even four years old. In Flanders, the estates and particularly the city of Ghent, successfully set a course of obstruction against Maximilian, defying his attempts to hold the regency for his young son and stopping him from continuing waging war against France. Because of this, Maximilian was backed into a corner and forced to sign the embarrassing Treaty of Arras with the French king Louis XI in late 1482. One of the consequences of this was that Louis withdrew the support he had been giving to destabilising elements across the Burgundian realm. Although the defiance of Flanders had thwarted Maximilian’s plans against France, stopping the war also allowed him to put more energy into negating the prickly thorns of defiance that had risen in Liege and Utrecht. Within this context, the two most powerful bishops in the Low Countries would face some difficult between 1482 and 1483. One of them would be stabbed in the face and his body dumped in a river, while the other would find himself being taken prisoner and hauled off in a fertiliser cart to Amersfoort, literally sitting in a pile of poo.

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