They had a prescriptive claim to be consulted on all matters of importance, to be selected for the chief government posts, and to serve on military councils.

The knights were exempt from the jurisdiction of all courts, save that of their own chapter.
Philip died in 1467 and was succeeded by his son, Charles, who had already exercised for some years authority in the Netherlands as his father's deputy.

Charles, as his surname _le Temeraire_ witnesses, was a man of impulsive and autocratic temperament, but at the same time a hard worker, a great organiser, and a brilliant soldier.

Consumed with ambition to realise that restoration of a great middle Lotharingian kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, for which his father had been working during his long and successful reign, he threw himself with almost passionate energy into the accomplishment of his task.

With this object he was the first sovereign to depart from feudal usages and to maintain a standing army.