Prelude
Under Charles's father, Philip the Good, the Duchy of Burgundy had allied itself to the cause of the newly elected Archbishop of Cologne, Ruprecht. Ruprecht proved immensely unpopular, and by 1471 several major towns in the archbishopric, as well as the Kölners themselves, were on the verge of revolt. Attempts by the Emperor Frederick III to mediate the conflict failed, and in 1474 Charles the Bold signed a treaty with Ruprecht which stipulated that Charles would subdue the rebels and serve as Ruprecht's lifelong protector in return for 200,000 florins a year. To secure his western border, Charles concluded a treaty with Louis XI of France and then prepared to march into the Rhine valley; contemporaries suspected his real motive was the eventual reconquest of all of Alsace.
Read more about this topic: Siege Of Neuss
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—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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