The confederation grew out of an "Everlasting League," as it was called, which was formed shortly after the death of that Rudolph, the first Habsburg ruler of Austria, to resist the political claims of the Habsburgs. Apparently the founders of the League did not dispute the right of the Habsburgs as owners of extensive lands. The Habsburgs might deal with the land and any profits they might derive from it as they would. What the confederates disputed was their claim to govern.
The Swiss cantons
Nearly all through the fourteenth century this claim was being disputed, sometimes diplomatically, and sometimes by active war. Twice the Habsburgs raised an army to go against these audacious rebels, as they deemed them. The story of William Tell shooting the apple on his son's head belongs to this period. We need not accept it as actual historical fact, but rather as a legend expressive of the patriotism of the Swiss cantons. The confederates were very few in numbers, but they had the courage common among mountaineers, and in their mountainous country they could defend themselves against a far larger force of invaders. The numbers of the opposing armies that met in these conflicts were curiously unequal. In one great battle, that of Morgarten, early in the century, the attacking force is estimated at anything between 15,000 and 20,000, and the defending force at between 1,300 and 1,500. Yet the larger force, charging up the mountains and being beset with huge stones hurled at them by the defenders on the ridges, were utterly defeated. The same thing happened again towards the end of the century at the battle of Sempach. After that the Habsburgs made little further attempt to enforce their claims, but it was not till towards the end of the following century that the claim was formally renounced in a treaty called the "Ever-lasting Compact."
The Swiss seem to have been fond of that dangerous word, as applied to leagues and compacts, "ever-lasting."
In the course of the fifteenth century other cantons were taken into the confederacy.
In the contest between Louis XI. of France and his great vassal the Duke of Burgundy, the Swiss were brought into alliance with the French, the winning side, and they were consistently successful in a series of battles with the Burgundians. Maximilian, the Habsburg, was on the other, the Burgundian, side, for he had married the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Their alliance with the French added to the strength of the Swiss, and by the end of that century they had succeeded in throwing off any authority that the Emperor might still claim to wield over them, just as they had thrown off the claim of the Habsburgs at the end of the century before.
But the power of the Emperor was growing more and more nominal, and less and less real, and many States and cities were shaking off its burden. It was a time when authority both of Church and State was in dispute. John Huss, a Bohemian preacher, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, had taken up, as we have seen on [p. 195], the doctrines of our Wycliffe and preached eloquently against the evil practices which had come into the Church. He had a very large following. Just as had happened in England, the Hussite attack on the authority of the Church became associated with an attack on the civil authority too. But this latter attack was checked in England by the defeat of Wat Tyler's rebellion and by the cruel measures taken to put down the Lollards, who carried on the doctrines of Wycliffe. Huss was burnt, as a heretic, at Rome, whither he had been summoned to give an account of his doings, in spite of an assurance of safe-conduct made to him by the King of the Romans. This made Huss a martyr in the eyes of his followers, and his popular movement in Bohemia gained great force. A regular Hussite army was formed. The Bohemians were akin to the Slavs rather than the Teutons, and this revolutionary force became a menace not only in Bohemia itself but in other States of the Empire. When armies were sent against the Hussites, the latter, fired, like the Puritans later, with religious zeal, always had the advantage. But they do not seem to have tried to take possession of territory. They fought for what may be shortly called reformation in the Church. The great Reformation, under Luther's lead, was still to come, in the following century, but we may regard our own Wycliffe as its forerunner, with Huss as his disciple, preparing the way for Luther.
The Hussite rising
The Hussite revolution was set to rest by a compact, made in 1436, to which the Church of Rome itself was a party. Larger freedom in religious ceremonies, and relinquishment by the clergy of their worldly wealth, were the two principal points agreed in the compact. But the agreement was not very faithfully carried out.