He believed that the jealousy of Russian aggrandizement and the dread of Russian power were absurd exaggerations.
His foreign policy aimed at the aggrandizement of his family, but his plans were prudent as well as ambitious, and Hungary benefited by them, greatly.
In his youth and early manhood there was no prospect of his ascending the Danish throne, and he consequently became the instrument of his father's schemes of aggrandizement in Germany.
Seriously disturbed at the prospect of Russian aggrandizement, the idea occurred, almost simultaneously, to the courts of Berlin and Vienna that the best mode of preserving the equilibrium of Europe was for all three powers to readjust their territories at the expense of Poland.
On his return home Snorri sent his son to the king as a hostage, and made peace between Norway and Iceland, but his power and influence were used more for his own enrichment and aggrandizement - he was logsogumaar again from 1222 to 1232 - than for the advantage of the king.