of the Zwinglian teaching with regard to the Lord's Supper, and
Traheron states (1548) that England at large was inclined towards the
Zwinglian view. In 1550 King Edward sent an envoy to ask the state
of Zurich to unite with England with regard to a Church Council, and,
curiously enough, with regard to reconciling that country with
France.[63]
[Pg 298]
A charming episode in the life of Bullinger was the springing up of the
friendship with Lady Jane Grey, then a young and studious girl of
fourteen. Three letters written by her hand, and still treasured up at
Zurich, bear witness to this friendship. Of the treatise on "Christian
Marriage" dedicated to her, she translated a portion into Greek, and
presented it as a Christmas present to her father. Bullinger's sermons
and letters were a delight to her, and were to her "as most precious
flowers from a garden." She asked his advice as to the best method
of learning Hebrew, and regarded him as particularly favoured by the
grace of God. He it was whose teaching quickened her love for
Christ, and gave her and her family such support in their great trials
later on. Even at her last hour her thoughts were of him, for at the
block she took off her gloves and desired that they should be sent on
to her Swiss friends.[64]
It was on the Continent, among the Reformed Churches, that Hooper
and others gained their taste for a simple form of religious worship.
When Hooper was made Bishop of Gloucester, in 1550, he refused
both the oath and the episcopal vestments, and was sent to prison for
his refusal. His opposition, indeed, sowed the germs of that religious
development which so strongly agitated the Church under Elizabeth,
and which, breaking into open schism, resulted in the rise of
Puritanism, and, later on, of the dissenting movements generally.
And, as is well known, the Puritans fled to New England
[Pg 299]
rather than give up their religious liberty. Hooper was exempted from
taking the oath, but had to give way in the matter of the vestments.
During his episcopacy Bullinger was ever his faithful and wise
counsellor, and when the martyr's death overtook him, he
recommended his persecuted country to his Swiss friends. "Of all
men attached to thee," he assures Bullinger in 1554, "none has been
more devoted than myself, nor have I ever had a more sincere friend
than thee."
Many other Marian exiles settled in Zurich, to whom, however, only a
passing word can be devoted. Bullinger alone accommodated often
as many as twenty guests at a time, and both ministers and
magistrates—Gualter, Lavater, and others—received the English
exiles "with a tenderness and affection that engaged them to the end
of their lives to make the greatest possible acknowledgment for it," to
quote the words of one Englishman. The correspondence between
the Swiss hosts and their English guests proves how close were the
friendships formed between them. Amongst these correspondents we
find the English archbishops, Grindal and Sandys, Bishop Pilkington,
the Earl of Bedford, and other notable men. Other proofs without
number might be given of the close connection between Switzerland
and England in religious matters in the sixteenth century, but what
has been said must suffice.
Enough has been said to show how the influence of the Reformed
Swiss Churches was brought to bear on English Protestantism; on
the Anglican Church in respect of doctrine; and on the dissenting
Church, that
[Pg 300]
is, Puritanism, in respect of both doctrine and form of worship. The
Reformed Church is the result of an amalgamation between the two
mother Churches of Geneva and Zurich, the union being brought
about by the desire of the leaders Calvin, Farel, Beza, Bullinger, who,
anxious for peace and concord, made mutual concessions.[65] Thus in Switzerland the narrowness of Calvinism has been tempered by an
admixture of the broader and more enlightened teachings of
Zwinglius, or rather the basis of the teaching is Zwingli's, and Calvin
has confirmed, intensified, and completed it. Over France, England,
Scotland, Holland, and North America the reformed faith spread its
roots "to grow up to trees of the same family, but of different shape
and size according to the soil from which they started up." That
Switzerland, with the exception of Geneva, inclined strongly to
Zwinglianism we have already shown. To deal adequately with the
question of the religious influence of Switzerland on other European
countries would be impossible within the limits of this work. But that
its influence was very great needs no saying. And not in Europe
alone, for the Puritan spirit was carried beyond the ocean, and the
reformers of Switzerland had their disciples in far-away New England.
Even modern Unitarianism is, in a sense, the direct descendant of the
reformation of Zurich, and its apostles—Williams, Channing, Parker—
are so far the successors of Zwingli and Bullinger.
The revival of learning witnessed by the sixteenth
[Pg 301]
century had its full effect in Switzerland. The thirst for knowledge was
so great that men would undergo almost any privations in their pursuit
of it. Thomas Platter—to cite but one instance out of many—rose
from the humble position of goatherd to be a prominent master of
Hebrew and the classics at Basel. In early life he laboured at rope-
making, or turned serving-man, or even begged in the streets. His
son Felix was a notable physician. The great reformers have already
been spoken of. Besides the above,[66] we may just mention among the Catholics, Glarean, the foremost classical scholar of his country,
crowned poet-laureate by the Emperor Max. I.; and Tschudi, of
Glarus, the brilliant narrator, author of the national epic, Tell, and for
centuries the first authority on Swiss history; Paracelsus of
Einsiedeln: of Protestants, Manuel (Bern), the satirical poet, and
painter of the Todten Tänze à la Holbein; and, above all, Gessner, of
Zurich, scholar, philosopher, naturalist, the "Pliny of Germany."
Kleinkunst, lesser or practical art, also made brilliant progress in
Switzerland. Painting on glass, wood-carving, manufacture of
painted-tile stoves developed into industries almost peculiar to the
country in their excellence. This is shown by an inspection of the
magnificent specimens of these arts with which the country
abounds—splendid painted windows, beautiful wainscots, exquisite
relievi, beautiful tiled stoves, and so forth.
A few words respecting affairs in Geneva must close our account of
the sixteenth century. The
[Pg 302]
Dukes of Savoy, unwilling to renounce their claims, continued to
harass the city. Henry IV., of France, came forward as a protector,
and Elizabeth, of England, addressed to the Swiss cantons and
reformed cities letters remarkable for the noble sentiments and clear
judgment displayed in them.[67] She urged them not to throw away the key of Switzerland. However, on the night of the 21st of December,
1602, Duke Charles Emmanuel ventured on a treacherous coup de
main on the city known as the famous "Escalade." Eight thousand men had been drawn up before her gates, and some three hundred
had already scaled her walls, when the sudden firing by a watchful
guard roused the citizens to a sense of their danger. A fierce conflict
took place in the streets, and the intruders were fortunately
overpowered. This event caused the greatest indignation throughout
Europe, but it sealed the independence of the Republic. The
anniversary of the victory is still regarded by the Genevans.
FOOTNOTES:
This still exists in connection with the episcopal seminary.
Faustus Socinus, the nephew of this Laelius Socinus, formed into a regular
system the ideas of his uncle, and really prepared the way for modern
Unitarianism.
The Zurich archives are remarkably rich in materials relating to the
Reformation period. The Simmler collection contains copies of eighteen
thousand authentic letters. The "Epistolæ Tigurinæ," published by the
Parker Society, London, in 1842, contain copies of original letters from the
Marian exiles to Zurich divines. At Zurich are preserved original letters
from Erasmus, Henry the Fourth of France, Lady Jane Grey, &c.
Pestalozzi's "Life of Bullinger," Zurich.
Pestalozzi's "Life of Bullinger."
In England the general name Calvinistic is applied to certain doctrines of
the Reformed Churches, but not altogether appropriately, seeing that
Calvin was only one of the teachers of these doctrines.
Glarean and Tschudi were Catholics, Manuel a Protestant.
Copies are preserved among the Zurich letters.
[Pg 303]
XXVI.
THE ARISTOCRATIC PERIOD.
(1600-1712.)
In the life of nations no less than of individuals there are vicissitudes,
alternations of prosperity and adversity. If the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries witnessed the glorious rise of the Swiss people, the
seventeenth and eighteenth saw the political decline of the Republic.
Even the Reformation itself led the way to this decline by lodging all
power—political, fiscal, moral, and educational—in the Protestant
cantons in the hands of the governments. Patriotism was on the
wane, and the old mania for foreign service as a means of securing
foreign gold was again breaking out. Even Zurich, which for well-nigh
a century had steadfastly borne in mind the patriotic maxims of
Zwingli, now yielded to the persuasions of France. Indeed the Swiss
Commonwealth was rapidly becoming a mere vassalate of that
country, under the despotic Louis XIV. Swiss rule was taking that
tinge of absolutism which was colouring the governments of almost
all European states.
[Pg 304]
Louis, the personification of absolute rule, had stamped the century
with his cachet, and aristocracies and oligarchies were taking the
place of the old democratic governments. This seems incompatible
with the old Swiss republican tenets. Yet, drawn within the influence
of the monarchical states, how could Switzerland escape the effects
of that influence any more than Venice or Genoa?
The political and religious passions and animosities of the previous
century now found vent in the terrible Thirty Years' War, which from
1618 to 1648 convulsed Europe. Thanks to its good fortune and far-
sightedness, Switzerland was not drawn into the conflict, save as to
its south-eastern corner, close as it was to the theatre of the great
struggle. Most anxiously was the neutrality of the country maintained,
yet its territory was not unfrequently violated. To give one instance,
General Horn led his Swedes into Swiss territory to besiege
Constance.
Germany
and
Sweden—Gustavus
Adolphus
especially[68]—did all they could to draw Switzerland to their side, but the Swiss had the good sense to resist all blandishments, and bear
patiently with vexatious intrusions. The terrible scenes that were
taking place across the Rhine were enough to quell all intestine
disputes in Switzerland itself, and the comparative peace and
prosperity found within its borders was the envy of the neighbouring
lands. A German traveller chronicles his surprise at finding in
Switzerland neither rapine nor murder, but security and content.
However
[Pg 305]
rough and rugged its surface, the little republic seemed to him an
earthly Paradise.
Different, however, was the experience of Graubünden, then a
separate free state, and a connection only of the Confederation. In
truth, the history of that old Rhætian land at that time forms a striking
pendant as it were to the great drama of the European struggle. The
Latin-German inhabitants, combining northern prudence with
southern passion, had since the middle of the sixteenth century been
steeped in internal dissension, owing to the religious divisions caused
by the Reformation. The Protestant party under Von Salis, and the
Catholics headed by Von Planta, were at deadly enmity with each
other, and sided with France and Venice, and with Austria and Spain
respectively. John von Planta, head of his clan, and solicitor-general
of the Papal see, was suspected of intending to reintroduce Popery
into the Grisons. The mountaineers accordingly descended from their
Alps in crowds, and flocked to Chur. There they brought to trial Planta
and sentenced him to death, and his fall struck the keynote to the
tragedy that followed. With the opening of the seventeenth century
the conflict grew fiercer, national interests and foreign policy being
now inextricably mixed. Mistress of the beautiful Italian Signory
Valtellina, Bormio, Chiavenna, and the Alpine passes commanding
the entrance into the Tyrol and Italy, Graubünden became the apple
of contention between the southern states of Europe. Austria and
Spain possessing Milan were not without hopes of joining hands
across Graubünden, and France was sanguine of her success
[Pg 306]
HIGH ALTAR, CHUR CATHEDRAL.
(From a Photograph.)
[Pg 307]
in preventing it. This latter state with Venice had effected an alliance
with Protestant Bünden, and that party strongly opposed the Spanish
union for which the energetic but headstrong Rudolf von Planta was
working. Fuentes, a Spaniard, Governor of Milan, furious at the
resistance offered, erected a chain of strong forts on Lake Como, with
the view of cutting off the Valtellines. Before long, George Jenatsch
from the Engadine, Tschusch, and other high-minded and patriotic
Protestants, began to decry the Spanish scheme, and tumults arose.
An attack on Planta's manor, Zernez (1618), having failed through the
escape of Rudolf, Zambra, Landammann in Bregaglia, and Rusca, a
priest in the Valtellina, both greyheaded old men, were seized. They
were sentenced to death by a new court which had been set up at
Thusis, a court which raged against popery and spread terrorism for
some months. In the Engadine a strange thing happened. The
respective chiefs of the hostile clans were the two brothers Von
Travers, and a hand-to-hand fight between the opposing parties
having begun, suddenly the wives, daughters, and sisters of the
combatants rushed amongst them like the Sabine women of old, and
checked them. Foremost amongst these noble women was the
spirited Anna Juvalta. The Plantas were now in exile, and were
conspiring with Austria. Their cousin Robustello (Valtellina) at a given
signal broke into the houses of the Protestants, and, with the help of
hired assassins, put the inmates to the sword. This was on the 19th
of July, 1620, and throughout the whole valley no quarter was given.
Zurich and Bern on hearing of this shocking
[Pg 308]
massacre—the "St. Bartholomew of the Valtellina"—sent troops, but
they were defeated at Tirano by the Spanish forces and adherents.
The Plantas returned from exile and asked the Forest Cantons to give
their countenance to their party, and these were not unwilling; but the
plot itself was opposed by the Protestant Grisons with scorn and fury.
Jenatsch penetrated to the castle of the Plantas at Rietberg, and
Pompejus fell by his hands (1621). The Catholics were defeated at
Valendas, and the country was cleared of the troops of the Forest
Cantons and of Spaniards. However, Jenatsch failed to take
Valtellina.
The Austrians still claimed supremacy over part of the
Zehngerichte,[69] and we find them, from 1620 to 1629, twice invading and occupying Graubünden. The most dreadful cruelties marked the
passage of their general, Baldiron, and Catholicism was reintroduced
by force. In 1629, the Emperor Ferdinand had reached the height of
his success and greatness, and Bünden with all its dependencies lay
prostrate at his feet. France came to the rescue. Richelieu pursued
the policy of Henry IV. to re-establish the balance of power by
breaking down the prestige of the Habsburgs. With the view of
gaining supremacy for France, he had drawn Sweden into the Thirty
Years' War; and on the death of Gustavus Adolphus, when the zeal
was somewhat flagging, he revived it by sending French troops into
Alsace, South Germany, and the Grisons. The command of the
Franco-Grison army was entrusted to Duke Henry
[Pg 309]
de Rohan, godson of Henry IV. of France (and godfather to Charles I.
of England), one of the noblest characters of his age. De Rohan was
also appointed ambassador to the Eidgenossen states in 1631. He
had been leader of the Huguenots, and had supported the Edict of
Nantes in opposition to Louis XIII. Becoming obnoxious to the king in
consequence, he withdrew to Venice. There he wrote a treatise on
the strategical importance of the Grisons, as if he foresaw his future
mission.[70] During his residence in Switzerland he watched zealously over its interests, smoothing over difficulties in the Diet to avoid war.
Richelieu sent him neither money nor help, but left him to extricate
himself as best he could from his position in that isolated mountain
fastness; yet Rohan was the idol of his soldiers and of the people of
the Grisons, and was always spoken of by them as the "good duke."
In 1635, when France was doing its utmost to oust Austria, open war
broke out, and Rohan gained four brilliant victories in succession—
Jenatsch serving as local guide and combatant in advance, his
superior tactics proving too much for the Austro-Spanish forces. Yet
the "good duke" was soon to fall a victim to the perfidious policy of Richelieu, and the treachery of Jenatsch. This latter was a strange
mixture of the noble and the vile—fierce, and ambitious, a seeker of
gain, yet a man of honour,
[Pg 310]
full of a wild patriotism and thirst for freedom. Eager to free his
country from the grasp of the stranger, he and the hot-tempered
Bündner, at whose head he was, suddenly found that they were but
exchanging masters. Sticking at nothing to gain his ends Jenatsch
entered into a secret understanding with Austria and Spain, and even
turned Catholic to win more favour with them. Then, forgetting the
many kindnesses he had received from his friend Rohan, he betrayed
him to his enemies. It should be observed, parenthetically, that the
question in dispute was that of the Valtellina, and Rohan had had no
instructions from Richelieu to return that territory. Suddenly the
French general found himself surrounded by hostile troops from the
Grisons, and was compelled to capitulate (1637). Unable to bear the
sight of France again, he fought for her under the banner of Bernhard
von Weimar, and fell at Rheinfelden, in Aargovy, seeking rather than
fearing death. Jenatsch, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of his
guilty action. Two years later he was stabbed at an officers' banquet,
during the carnival, by some masked figure. Rudolf Planta, son of
Pompejus, was said by some to have done the deed, whilst another
story has it that the avenger was Rudolf's sister, Lucretia, who was
burning for vengeance on the slayer of her father.[71] One of the first German novelists of our time, Ferdinand Meyer, of Zurich, has
worked these thrilling episodes into his fine story, "Jenatsch." The
hero was buried
[Pg 311]
with pomp at Chur, but his murderer remained unpunished. Thus
Graubünden, after a struggle of nearly a hundred years, recovered
both its independence and its lost territory.
That memorable event of the seventeenth century, the signing of the
Peace of Westphalia, which concluded the Thirty Years' War, whilst,
on the one hand, it sanctioned the dismemberment of the German
Empire, yet ratified the independence and autonomy of the Swiss
republics. This result was chiefly due to the noble efforts of two
men—Wettstein, Burgomaster of Basel, who most effectively
championed Swiss interests at the Congress; and Henry d'Orleans
Longueville, count and reigning prince of Neuchâtel, the French
representative at the same conference, who supported the Swiss
claims.
The religious strife of Villmergen in 1656, which ended in the defeat
of the Protestants, cannot be gone into here. Suffice it to note that
this defeat was fully repaired by the second war of that name in 1712.
A more important matter was the Peasants' Revolt, in 1653. It
promised to grow to alarming dimensions, but was put down by the
Government. This rising, however, is noteworthy, as marking the vast
chasm which had formed between the labouring and the governing
classes. The peasantry were now in a state of complete subjection,
and patiently awaited the dawn of a brighter day, which nev