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INTROD.]

SWITZERLAND.-THE FOREST CANTONS.

33

nobles, raise taxes, &c. Duke Rudolf, who died in 1365, had indeed assumed the title of Archduke, but it had not been confirmed by the Emperor.

The history of Switzerland, originally part of the German Kingdom, is closely connected with that of the House of Austria. In 1308, when Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden' leagued together against the encroachments of the House of Habsburg, the land we now call Switzerland was divided into various small districts, with different forms of government. Among these States were four Imperial cities—namely, Zürich, Bern, Basle, and Schaffhausen; while the Cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, although from time immemorial enjoying a democratic form of government, were nevertheless also immediately subject to the Empire. There were besides a number of small principalities, among the most important of which were those of the House of Habsburg and of the Counts of Savoy, besides many ecclesiastical domains and baronial fiefs. After the insurrection of 1308 Albert marched an army against the patriots; but during the expedition he was assassinated by his nephew John, as already mentioned. Some years afterwards, Albert's son Leopold again attempted to reduce the three refractory Cantons, but was completely defeated by a much smaller force of the Confederates at the famous battle of Morgarten, November 16th, 1315. After this event the three Cantons entered into a perpetual union (1318), which was gradually joined by various other districts.

Under Albert and Otho, the two last surviving sons of Albert I., the House of Habsburg considerably extended their hereditary dominions. They obtained possession of Schaffhausen, Rheinfelden, and Breisach, as well as the town and county of Rapperschwyl; they were masters of Thurgau and nearly the whole of Aargau; they were lords paramount in Zug and Lucerne, in the district to the south of the Lake of Zürich, and of the town and Canton of Glarus; and their territories thus almost surrounded the confederated Cantons. By the death of Otho and his two sons all these possessions fell to Duke Albert II, in 1344. But the example of the three Cantons had

1 These cantons had confederated themselves before this time, as there is a document extant relating to the confederacy dated in August, 1291, the year in which Rudolf of Habsburg died (Planta, Hist. of Helvetic Confederacy, vol. i. p. 222). But 1308 is the date of the final rising under Melchthal, Stauffacher, and Faust, occa

awakened the spirit of liberty

sioned by the cruelties of Albert's bailiff Gesler, the builder of the fortress of Zwing Uri, near Altorf.

Besides Planta's book, Joh. von Müller, Gesch. d. Schweitzer. Eidgenossenschaft, and the works of Zschokke (Schweitz. Gesch. für die Schweitzer), may be consulted for the history of Switzerland.

34

THE FRENCH ATTACK BASLE.

[INTROD. in the neighbouring districts; Lucerne was the first to join them,1 after which the union was called the four Waldstädte, or Forest Cantons. Zürich was next admitted into the Confederacy (1351), which before the end of the following year was strengthened by the accession of Glarus, Zug, and Bern. In 1385, fresh dissensions arose between the League and Duke Leopold, then head of the House of Habsburg, who endeavoured to reduce Lucerne to obedience, but was completely defeated at the battle of Sempach (1386), in which he himself fell, with 2000 of his men, nearly a third of whom were nobles or knights. A desultory warfare was, however, still kept up; and in 1388 the Austrians were again defeated at the battle of Näfels. The Dukes of Austria now concluded a seven years' truce with the Confederates, which in 1394 was prolonged for twenty years; and from this period we may date the establishment of the eight first confederated Cantons, which enjoyed some prerogatives not shared by the five admitted soon after the wars with Burgundy. This confederacy was at first called the old League of High Germany. The names of "Swiss" and "Switzerland" did not come into use till after the expedition of Charles VII. of France in 1444, undertaken at the request of the Emperor Frederick III., with a view to defend the town of Zürich, which had claimed his protection, against the attacks of the other Cantons. The French King was not unwilling to employ in such an enterprise the lawless bands which swarmed in France after the conclusion of the truce with England. The French arms were directed against Basle, which, however, made an heroic defence: the Swiss died at their posts almost to a man; and though the siege of Zürich was raised, the French did not venture to pursue the retreating enemy into their mountains. It was during this expedition that the French began openly to talk of reclaiming their rights to all the territory on the left bank of the Rhine as their natural boundary; and though it was undertaken at the Emperor's request, Charles VII. nevertheless summoned the Imperial cities between the Meuse and the Vosges mountains to recognize him as their lord, alleging that they had formerly belonged to France. Verdun and a few other places complied; but as the Germans menaced him with a war, Charles was for the present obliged to relinquish these absurd pretensions. Zürich renounced the connection which it had

1 In 1332, according to Planta, vol. i. p. 297.

2 "Rumor est (Delphinum) petiisse ur

bem Basiliensem tanquam regni Franciæ sibi restitui."-Eneas Sylvius, Epist. 87.

INTROD.]

HUNGARY.

35

resumed with the House of Austria, and rejoined the Swiss Confederacy by the treaty of Einsiedeln in 1450.

In the course of the fifteenth century the Swiss began to adopt the singular trade of hiring themselves out to fight the battles of foreigners. Switzerland became a sort of nursery for soldiers, and the deliberations of their Diets chiefly turned upon the propositions for supplies of troops made to them by foreign Princes; just as, in other countries, might be debated the propriety of exporting corn, wine, or any other product. But these mercenary bands often proved fatal to their employers. If the price for which they sold their blood was not forthcoming at the stipulated time, they would often abandon their leader at the most critical juncture, and thus cause the loss of a campaign; instances of which will occur in the course of the following history. The peculiar arm of the Swiss infantry was a long lance, which they grasped in the middle; and the firm hold thus obtained is said to have been the chief secret of their victories.1

Closely connected with the Romano-German Empire were the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, and more remotely that of Poland. Albert, afterwards the Emperor Albert II., was the first Duke of the House of Habsburg who enjoyed the Crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, which he owed to his father-in-law, the Emperor Sigismund, whose only daughter, Elizabeth, he had married. Elizabeth was the child of Barbara of Cilly, Sigismund's second wife, whose notorious vices had procured for her the odious epithets of the "Bad" and the "German Messalina.” Barbara had determined to supplant her daughter, to claim the two Crowns as her dowry, and to give them, with her hand, to Wladislaus VI., the young King of Poland, who, though forty years her junior, she had marked out for her future husband.3 With this view she was courting the Hussite party in Bohemia: but Sigismund, a little before his death, caused her to be arrested; and, assembling the Hungarian and Bohemian nobles at Znaim, in Moravia, persuaded them, almost with his dying breath, to elect Duke Albert as his successor. day (December 9th, 1437).

Tillier, Gesch. des Freistaates Bern, B. ii. S. 510; ap. Michelet, Hist. de France, t. vii. p. 285. Hence their name of Lance knights; Germ. Lanzknechte, Fr. Lansquenets.

For the history of Bohemia, see Palacky, Gesch. von Böhmen: for Hungary, besides the collections of Schwandtner and

Sigismund expired the next

Katona, Pray, Annales veterum Hunnorum, &c.; Bonfinii, Historia Pannonica; Engel, Gesch. des ungarischen Reiches; Mailath, Gesch. der Magyaren; for Poland, Dlugossii, Historie Polonice; Jekell, Polens Staatsveränderungen.

3 Engel, Gesch. des ungarischen Reiches, B. ii. S. 362.

36

BOHEMIA.

[INTROD.

Albert was soon after recognized as King by the Hungarian Diet, and immediately released his mother-in-law Barbara, upon her agreeing to restore some fortresses which she held in Hungary. He did not so easily obtain possession of the Bohemian Crown. That country was divided into two great religious and political parties-the Catholics and the Hussites, or followers of the Bohemian reformer John Huss, who were also called "Calixtines,"1 because they demanded the cup in the sacrament of the Eucharist. The more violent and fanatical sects of the Hussites, as the Taborites, Orphans, &c., had been almost annihilated at the battle of Lipan in 1434, in which their two leaders, Prokop surnamed Holy, the bald, or shorn, and subsequently also called Prokop Weliky, or the Great, as well as his namesake and coadjutor Prokop the Little, were slain; and in June, 1436, a peace was concluded at Iglau between Sigismund and the Hussites. This peace was founded on what were called the Compactata of Prague, an arrangement made between the contending parties in 1433, and based on the "Articles of Prague," promulgated in 1420 by the celebrated patriot leader John Ziska.2 These Articles, which, however, were somewhat modified in the Compactata, were, 1. That the Lord's Supper should be administered in both kinds; 2. That crimes of clergy should, like those of laymen, be punished by the secular arm; 3. That any Christian whatsoever should be authorized to preach the word of God; 4. That the spiritual office should not be combined with any temporal command. But although the peace of Iglau secured considerable religious privileges to the Hussites, a strong antipathy still prevailed between that sect and the Catholics, of which the "Wicked Barbara" now availed herself. Albert was elected King of Bohemia by the Catholic party in May, 1438; but the Hussites, incited by Barbara, in a great assembly which they held at Tabor, chose for their King the youthful Prince Casimir, brother of Wladislaus, King of Poland; a subject to which we have already alluded in the account of the Turks. A civil war ensued, in which Albert's party at first gained the advantage, and shut up the Hussites in Tabor: but George Podiebrad compelled

From calix, a cup. For the same reason, they were also called Utraquists, as receiving the Eucharist in both forms. The Calixtines were that moderate section of the Hussites whose tenets had been at one time adopted by the University of Prague.

The popular tale of Ziska having

3

directed his skin to be made into a drum,
though retailed by some grave historians,
is a fable. The principal articles of the
peace of Iglau will be found in Palacky,
Gesch. von Böhmen, B. iii. S. 224 f.; whose
work, founded on many unpublished docu-
ments, is the best history of Bohemia.
3 Above, p. 18.

INTROD.]

HUNGARY.-POLAND.

37

Albert to raise the siege; and this was the first feat of arms of a man destined to play a distinguished part in history.

The short reign of Albert in Hungary was disastrous both to himself and to the country. Previously to his fatal expedition against the Turks in 1439, to which we have already referred, the Hungarian Diet, before it would agree to settle the succession to the throne, forced him to accept a constitution which destroyed all unity and strength of government. By the Decretum Alberti

Regis he reduced himself to be the mere shadow of a King; while by exalting the Palatine,' the clergy, and the nobles, he perpetuated all the evils of the feudal system. The most absurd and pernicious regulations were now adopted respecting the military system of the Kingdom, and such as rendered it almost impossible effectually to resist the Turks. By the twentysecond article in particular, it was ordained that the arrière ban, the main force of the Kingdom, should not be called out till the soldiers of the King and Prelates for the Barons seem to have shirked the obligation of finding troops-could no longer resist the enemy; the consequence of which was that a sufficient body of troops could never be assembled in time to be of any service.

On the death of Albert, Wladislaus VI., King of Poland, was, as already said, elected to the throne of Hungary. Poland had first begun to emerge into importance in the reign of Wladislaus Loktek,3 in the early part of the fourteenth century. Its boundaries were enlarged by his son and successor, Casimir III., surnamed the Great, who having ceded Silesia to the Kings of Bohemia, compensated himself by adding Red Russia, Podolia, Volhynia, and other lands to his dominions. Casimir, having no children, resolved to leave his Crown to his nephew Louis, son of his sister and of Charles Robert, King of Hungary, although some of the ancient Piast dynasty of Poland still existed in Masovia and Silesia; and with this view he summoned a national assembly at Cracow, which approved the choice he had made. This proceeding, however, enabled the Polish nobles to interfere in the succession of the Crown, and to render it elective, like

The Palatine was a magistrate next to the King in rank, who presided over the legal tribunals; and in the absence of the King discharged his functions. The office was instituted by King Ladislaus I. towards the end of the eleventh century. The Decretum of Albert will be found in Engel,Gesch. des ungar. Reiches, B. iii. S. 17.

2 Supra, p. 18.

3 We have retained the initial consonant in the names of the Polish Kings for the sake of distinguishing them from the Hungarian Kings of the same name. Wladislaus Loktek was crowned at Cracow in 1305. Dlugoss, Hist. Polon, lib. ix. tom. i. p. 971.

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