The Roman Catholics, on hearing of this new alliance of the Protestants, were filled with alarm and indignation. The five, or forest cantons, Lucerne, Zug, Schweitz, Uri, and Unterwalden, remained firm in their fidelity to Rome. The herdsmen of those mountains, long wedded to their habits, their traditions, and their religion, heard with grief and dismay of the terrible wickedness of the heretics in the plains below. As priests and monks arrived in the Oberland from those scenes of daring impiety, and told their wondrous stories to the excited mountaineers, they were inflamed to madness. This cannot be borne with! this pestilent heresy must be exterminated by fire and sword, was their first thought; and they burned with desire to light the fagots.
Almost entirely ignorant of the meaning of the word Reform, we can easily imagine their feelings when messenger after messenger came running to tell them that the altars at which their fathers had worshipped were being cast to the ground, that the images were ignominiously burnt in the public squares, that mass was abolished, and that the holy priests and monks were driven into exile. Their fanatical zeal being thus raised to the highest pitch, and fanned by the artful monks, they were ready for anything desperate; and they were only restrained from proceeding immediately to open violence by the superiority, both in numbers and power, of the Protestant cantons. The bishop of Constance also appealed to them by letter, entreating them to act with firmness, or all Switzerland would embrace the Reform.
What is to be done? was now the important question. We can sit still no longer! To form an alliance with a foreign power without the consent of all the other cantons would be a violation of the fundamental principles of the Helvetic Confederation, and of the league of brotherhood. Nevertheless, allies we must have, and the claims of the church are higher far than fidelity to the nation. And knowing that Ferdinand, brother of Charles V., and Archduke of Austria, was distinguished for his hatred of the Protestants, they entered into an alliance with this prince for the extirpation of Reform, and the maintenance of Romanism.
This was unconstitutional, unnatural, and cruel. Austria was the ancient oppressor and the natural enemy of the Swiss nation-the last quarter from which a Swiss canton might have been expected to seek help. "Had they forgotten," exclaims a modern writer, "the grievous yoke that Austria made them bear in other days? Had they forgotten the blood it cost their fathers to break that yoke? Were they now to throw away what they had fought for in the gory fields of Morgarten and Sempach? They were prepared to do this. Religious antipathy overcame national hatred. Terror of Protestantism suspended their dread of their traditional foe." The alliance was so contrary to all national feeling and prejudice, that the Austrians had some difficulty in believing it to be in good faith. "Take hostages," said the mountaineers, "write the articles of treaty with your own hands; command, and we will obey!" The league was concluded, and sworn to on both sides, the 23rd of April, 1529, at Waldshut. It decreed, "that all attempts at forming new sects in the five cantons should be punished with death. And in case of emergency, Austria shall send into Switzerland six thousand foot soldiers, and four hundred horse, with all requisite artillery. And if necessary, the Reformed cantons shall be blockaded, and all provisions intercepted."
The report of these negotiations excited great distrust and alarm even among the enemies of the Reformation. By leaguing themselves thus with a foreign power, it was said, they were compromising the independence of Switzerland, and, instead of an ally, they would find a master. But these feelings, as the first blush of their patriotism, were soon extinguished by their hatred of the Zwinglians. The men of Unterwalden and Uri, in their fanatical zeal, suspended the arms of Austria with their own, and decorated their hats with peacocks' feathers-the badge of Austria. This gave rise to the following lines which expressed the national feeling:
"Wail, Helvetians, wail,
For the peacock's plume of pride
To the Forest-canton's savage bull
In friendship is allied."
The eight cantons not included in this alliance, with the exception of Friburg, united in sending deputies to their mountain confederates, with a view to reconciliation. But they were everywhere disrespectfully treated. Feeling that they had the imperial army to fall back upon, the papists offered every kind of insult to the doctrines and persons of the Reformers. "No sermon, no sermon!" they cried; "would to God that your new faith was buried forever!" The deputies, retiring in astonishment, were still further shocked in passing the door of the secretary of state, where they saw the arms of Zurich, Berne, Basle, and Strasburg, hanging from a lofty gibbet.