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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. XLL 



SWISS INDEPENDENCE. 



ONE night in the spring of the year 1307, thirty-three men met 

 in a field, known to this day as the Griitli meadow, on a spot over 

 looking the Swiss lake of the four cantons, and solemnly swort 

 to assert the common cause of the liberties of the three cantons, 

 Schweitz, Uri, and Unterwald, and yet "to do no wrong to the 

 Counts of Hapsburg !" These men were but the representatives 

 of thousands more who, accustomed ever since human memory 

 reported anything of the history of the country to share the 

 freedom of the air they breathed, were moved to the very bottom 

 of their hearts by the appearance of an oppression which 

 threatened to go the length of enslaving them. What came of 

 their vow thus made will be declared in this sketch, but let us 

 first see what the circumstances were under which they felt con- 

 strained to bind themselves by the oath at all, and what claim 

 the Counts of Hapsburg had to be so considerately treated in 

 this purely non-aggressive sort of rebellion. 



When, about the middle of the eleventh century, Europe in 

 all its parts was beginning to settle down out of the confusion 

 resulting from the overthrow of the western Roman Empire into 

 a general etate of feudalism, there was one country among the 

 rest where the feudal conditions could not be enforced with the 

 customary severity. That country was Switzerland. There was 

 not found among the warrior chiefs who carved duchies, counties, 

 and kingdoms for themselves out of the debris of the empire, 

 one bold enough to try his hand at subjugating Switzerland for 

 his own possession. The mountainous character of the ground, 

 the utter absence of communication from place to place, except 

 by paths dangerous to any but expert climbers, the unattractive- 

 ness, nnrichness of the land, and the stubborn, independent 

 character of its inhabitants, suggested to princes on the look- 

 out to go further afield, and no one pretended to claim rights of 

 sovereignty there. The Emperor of Germany claimed a sort of 

 supremacy over it, but he did not practically urge it, and the 

 people, of whom the majority never heard of his pretension, 

 went on without consulting him or troubling their heads about 

 him. But though there was not any actual King of Switzerland, 

 the country was included within the kingdom of Aries or Bur- 

 gundy, and the Dukes of Burgundy down to Charles the Bold 

 claimed lordship over it, a claim that was allowed to about the 

 same extent as that of the emperor's was to be feudal lord para- 

 mount. In the country, however, there had established them- 

 selves many soldier chiefs, who built castles on their estates, 

 and kept up some feudal rules, governing within their own 

 domain almost as sovereign princes, but acknowledging for 

 themselves allegiance to no one. Some of the ecclesiastical 

 dignitaries came within this category. They had enormous 

 estates belonging to their convents, and they governed as lords 

 over such parts of God's inheritance as came under their power, 

 though there existed at the same time in the breasts of the 

 people a spirit of original independence which tempered the 

 severity of the feudal regime. In the towns also the spirit of 

 freedom burned with considerable brilliancy, at least until the 

 aristocratic element imparted by the country nobles invaded 

 them, and even then there were found many hundreds of men 

 who never bowed the knee save to God only. 



Chief among the lay nobles of the country were the Counts of 

 Zahringen, Toggenburg, Kyburg, and Hapsburg ; while their 

 ecclesiastical rivals in power and influence were the Bishop of 

 Coire, the Abbot of St. Gall, and the Abbess of Seckingen. 

 Besides these, there were many lesser nobles who depended on the 

 greater or professed a sort of informal allegiance direct to the 

 imperial crown ; but all of these, the greater and the less, had 

 been wise in time, and had at their own solicitation become 

 " citizens " of some one or other of the towns, which in return 

 often conferred upon them the honour and title of their " advo- 

 cate" or protector. The religious houses adopted the like 

 method to obtain the protecting services of some great noble. 

 The existence of the "noble" class on the basis mentioned 

 above was not found to be inconsistent with the existence of a 

 purely democratic class in the towns. On the contrary, the 

 modified character of the aristocracy, the community of interests 

 between it and the democracy, proved to be a source of strength 

 to both parties, and a strong love of country, which was common 

 to both classes, prevented that strength ever being used in the 

 wrong direction. By degrees the wealthier townsmen assumed 



the rank, though not the title, of nobles, and extended yet 

 farther the element of democratic aristocracy. Switzerland was 

 not, however, a united country in the sense of being one 

 dominion ; it was not governed by any one set of laws, nor 

 bound together by any formal ties or treaties ; each town, each 

 village, each noble, was self-governing and independent; the 

 bond which knitted the several parts into a whole was the 

 natural bond of necessity, which operated without any prescribed 

 form. 



The Counts of Hapsburg were the most considerable of the 

 Swiss nobles, and by virtue of their rank were appointed 

 "advocates" of many religious houses. They possessed large 

 estates themselves, not only in Switzerland but on .the Rhine 

 also, so that what with their own property and that which they 

 held in trust for the convents, they wielded a formidable in- 

 fluence either for good or evil. For many years this influence 

 had never been used but for the furtherance of Swiss prosperity, 

 and the people having learnt to love their strong counts, placed 

 themselves to some extent in their hands; or to speak more 

 precisely, the people of Schweitz and of part of Unterwald 

 had made them their " advocates," an office which necessarily 

 bestowed upon them the right to interfere in the administration 

 of affairs, though it did not convey any proprietary or sovereign 

 right. 



Rudolph of Hapsburg had carried the fortunes of his family 

 to their maximum height, and was possessed unquestionably of 

 the ascendancy in Switzerland, when he was chosen by the 

 electors to fill the vacant throne of the empire. This was in the 

 year 1273. It so happened that at this time the right of suc- 

 cession to the Duchy of Austria, with several other valuable 

 political fees, became free for disposal, and the new emperor, 

 with the consent of the other princes of the empire, gave the 

 Duchy of Austria to his own son Albert. 



Duke Albert was for some reason or other, which appears to> 

 have been warranted by facts, hated by the Swiss. He was 

 insolent, overbearing, and disposed to plume Iiimself upon his 

 family grandeur and his wealth rather than upon his Swiss 

 nationality. The Swiss held him to be not their friend, and it 

 was with lively concern that they saw him about to succeed to 

 his father's Swiss estates while he lived in his new duchy, 

 uncontrolled by residence among his countrymen, and powerful 

 to do them harm by means of his German subjects. It was 

 probably at his suggestion that the defunct claim of the Imperial 

 Diet or Parliament to bind Switzerland by its laws was revived 

 during Rudolph's tenure of the throne. Certain it is that after 

 his own election* to the empire, on the death of his father's 

 successor, Adolphus of Nassau, he tried to assert the imperial 

 supremacy over Switzerland as part of Germany, and, abusing 

 the privileges which, as Count of Hapsburg and as "advocate" 

 of certain convents, he possessed, he sent imperial commissioners 

 into the valleys of Schweitz, Unterwald, and Uri, to administer 

 criminal justice and to act as stewards on his own and the con- 

 vents' behalf. These persons were not native Swiss, but Germans 

 who had no sympathy with the people, who despised the sim- 

 plicity of their life and manners, and who made no secret of 

 their contempt for them generally. 



It was not likely such men would get on with the free- 

 minded, high-spirited, and dominion-hating mountaineers. They 

 did the work with which they were charged, disagreeable as it 

 was by its nature, with studied harshness and brutal indifference 

 to the popular feelings ; they set aside the customary laws of 

 the district, and introduced their own, which they administered 

 in the most tyrannical fashion. The people were required to 

 perform acts of homage to the Counts of Hapsburg which would 

 have been reckoned degrading to "villeins" born and bred to 

 feudalism ; they were made to yield obedience to commands 

 which were an affront to their freo understandings, and to con- 

 tribute towards the expense of riveting the imperial yoke upoa. 

 their own necks. It was under these circumstances that the- 

 meeting took place in the Griitli meadow, and that Stauffacher of 

 Schweitz, Furst of Uri, and Melchthal of Unterwald, bound them- 

 selves and their friends by the simple, solemn oath to do them- 

 selves right and the Count of Hapsburg no wrong. The people 

 of the three districts flew to arms, and with an ease they little 



* The imperial dignity in Germany was elective, the principle of 

 hereditary succession not being recognised. Generally a German was 

 elected, but not always. Francis I. of Trance and Henry VIII. of 

 England were both candidates in their time. 



