The nun’s prediction to Rudolf was duly fulfilled, for the priest who had received his steed, having become chaplain to the Bishop of Mayence, used his influence to such good purpose that he secured Rudolf’s election to the imperial crown of Germany, in 1273. Schiller, in his poem “The Count of Habsburg,” claims that at the coronation feast at Aix-la-Chapelle an aged minstrel brought tears to the eyes of all the guests by singing a touching ballad, describing the good deed performed by the new emperor, when he was only a count.
Rudolf proved as successful as ambitious while seated on the German throne, but as the imperial crown was elective and not hereditary, he secured for his descendants Austria, Styria, and Carinthia. These lands were won during a war with the king of Bohemia, and have ever since formed the patrimony of the Hapsburg race, which has provided many rulers for Europe, America, and India.
When Rudolf died in 1291, the imperial crown was disputed by two candidates, until, by the death of one of them, it finally fell into the hands of Albert of Hapsburg, Rudolf’s son. As grasping and tyrannical as any of his race, Albert refused to let his nephew John—the son of an older brother—have the Castle of Hapsburg, which was his by right of inheritance. Embittered by this act of injustice, and despairing of redress since the wrong was committed by the emperor himself, John began to plot with several malcontents, biding his time until he could take his revenge by slaying his uncle.
John was not the only one who complained of injustice. The freemen of Helvetia also had good cause for resentment. On mounting the imperial throne, Rudolf had refused to confirm Uri’s charter, and his bailiffs and stewards ruthlessly exerted the power entrusted to them. Thus, they gradually alienated the peaceful peasants, and drove them to the verge of despair. Mindful of their former independence, and weary of tyranny and extortion, the principal citizens of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald met, seventeen days after Rudolf’s death, and on the 1st of August, 1291, took a solemn oath to stand by each other and resist all foreign intervention, until they had recovered their former freedom. This oath—the corner-stone of the Swiss Confederation—was duly sworn by all the principal inhabitants, among which figure men whose names are noted in legend as well as in history.
Tradition has richly supplemented the meagre historical data of this epoch, thus giving us one of the most romantic, if not authentic, chapters of Swiss history. The legend, which gradually arose, has been the theme of Schiller’s tragedy of “William Tell,” of Rossini’s opera of the same name, and a source of inspiration for countless poems, pictures, and statues. Such is the popular belief in the tale, that all the most famous places mentioned in it are always pointed out to strangers, and kept alive in the memory of the public by more or less picturesque monuments.
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The famous Tell legend runs as follows: The stewards and bailiffs of the House of Austria, encouraged by immunity, daily grew more and more cruel, until, under the slightest pretext, they thrust Swiss freemen into damp and dark prisons, keeping them there for life. Fearful stories of the heartlessness of these bailiffs were noised abroad, and no one could speak strongly enough of their greed, cruelty, and total lack of principle.
The Swiss bore this oppression as patiently as they could, and until their position became so unbearable that they perceived they must assert and maintain their rights to freedom, or they would soon be reduced to a state of such abject slavery as to be deprived of all power of resistance. Walter Fürst, Arnold von Melchthal, and Werner Stauffacher, the wealthiest and most respected citizens of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald, therefore met to discuss the advisability of an uprisal, and, in support of their views, quoted recent acts of wanton cruelty perpetrated by Austrian bailiffs. For instance, one of these men had grievously insulted the wife of a peaceful citizen, who, to defend her, slew the oppressor and was now a hunted fugitive.
A young man of Uri was told he must surrender the fine team of oxen with which he was ploughing, because the bailiff wanted them. As the messenger coolly proceeded to taunt him and unyoke his oxen, the young peasant, in a frantic effort to save the cattle, dealt a blow which raised a terrible outcry among the bailiff’s servants. Knowing that such an offence would be punished by life-long imprisonment in some foul dungeon, if not by prolonged torture and cruel death, the young man hastily fled. But the blow so thoughtlessly given was visited upon his aged father, whose eyes were put out by order of the vindictive bailiff.
Countless other examples of fiendish cruelty and wanton oppression were not lacking, and when the three men parted, it was with the understanding that they were to ascertain how many of their countrymen were willing to help them. They furthermore arranged to meet again, October 17, 1307, on the Grütli or Rütli, a plateau at the foot of the Seelisberg, close by the Mythenstein, on the Lake of Lucerne.