Sigismund, in 1422, even went so far as to propose a partition of Poland between Hungary, the empire and the Silesian princes, a scheme which foundered upon Sigismund's impecuniosity and the reluctance of the Magyars to injure the Poles.
Here it need only be said that Sweden, during the course of the Great Northern War, had innumerable opportunities of obtaining an honourable and even advantageous peace, but they all foundered on the dogged refusal of Charles to consent to the smallest concession to his despoilers.
A second attempt of the king to mediate between them foundered on the suspicions of the estate of burgesses; and, on the 24th of February 1772, the nobility yielded from sheer weariness.
But all his efforts foundered on the jealousy and suspicion of the magnates headed by the chancellor.
The betrothal was actually fixed for the 22nd of September, when the whole arrangement foundered on the obstinate refusal of Gustavus to allow his destined bride liberty of worship according to the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church - a rebuff which undoubtedly accelerated the death of the Russian empress.
This project, which lacked neither ability nor audacity, foundered upon Louis XV.'s invincible jealousy of the growth of Russian influence in eastern Europe and his fear of offending the Porte.
By order of the privy council the lead was stripped off the roofs in 1567 and sold to Holland to pay the troops; but the ship conveying the spoils foundered in the North Sea.
Other connubial speculations foundered on the personal dislike of the princess for the various suitors proposed to her, so that on the death of her mother (May 1727) and the departure to Holstein of her beloved sister Anne, her only remaining near relation, the princess found herself at the age of eighteen practically her own mistress.
As empiricism had foundered on the difficulty of showing how our thoughts could be an object of sense experience, so Leibnitzian formalism foundered on that of understanding how the material of sense could be an object of thought.
To this the dietines, or local diets, of Great Poland, and Little Poland, agreed, but at the last moment the whole project foundered on the question who was the proper custodian of the new assessment rolls, and the king had to be content with the renewal of former subsidies, varying from twelve to fifteen groats per hide of land for three years.