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Updated: May 18, 2025
Morat had been for ten days holding out against the whole army of the Burgundians; the confederate Swiss were arriving successively at Berne; and the men of Zurich alone were late. Their fellow-countryman, Hans Waldmann, wrote to them, "We positively must give battle or we are lost, every one of us.
On the 13th, at sunset, we quitted Morat; and after a winding march among the hills for five hours, we arrived at a broad valley, surrounded by high mountains and abounding in doum trees, the first we had seen since we quitted the river. This place is called "El Medina."
Charles VIII. had soon collected a magnificent army and crossed the Alps in August 1494; it was composed of lances, archers, cross-bow men, Swiss mercenaries, and arquebusiers. These last used a kind of hand-gun which had only been in common use for about twenty years, since the battle of Morat.
The rout was so complete that many of the Burgundians, in terror and despair, threw themselves into the Lake of Morat, the banks of which were strewed with the bodies of the slain. The battle of Morat lives in history with the victories of Marathon and Bannockburn. In each, freedom for the nation was secured, and liberty for man was preserved and transmitted.
But at the long tables below, as the feast thickened, and ale, mead, pigment, morat, and wine circled round, the tongue of the Saxon was loosed, and the Norman knight lost somewhat of his superb gravity.
As happened in our own day with Duke Charles of Burgundy, who, when beleaguering Morat, a town of the Swiss, was by them attacked and routed; or as happened with the French army encamped against Novara, which was in like manner defeated by the Swiss.
She wished to spend the first night at her own house, at Pregny; but even this slight gratification was forbidden her. The police were instructed to watch her carefully all the way. At Morat she was even arrested, and detained a prisoner two days, until instructions should be received from the distant authorities. At last she reached the city of Constance.
"The Duke of Burgundy is here with all his forces, his Italian mercenaries and some traitors of Germans," said the letter written to the Bernese by the governor of Morat, Adrian of Bubenberg; "the gentlemen of the magistracy, of the council, and of the burgherhood may be free from fear and hurry, and may set at rest the minds of all our confederates: I will defend Morat;" and he swore to the garrison and the inhabitants that he would put to death the first who should speak of surrender.
Writhing under his disgrace, and vowing revenge, the duke raised a much more numerous army, and again invaded Switzerland. He advanced by the way of the lake of Neufchatel, and paused a few days to capture the fortress on the banks of Lake Morat. While the siege was going on the Swiss army concentrated, and marched to meet their foes.
It is a fact that the Swiss reinforcements were a different and far less efficient body than the volunteers of Granson and Morat had been. French gold, scattered freely, had done its work in exciting the cupidity of every man who could bear arms. There were some staunch leaders, like Waldemar of Zurich and Rudolph de Stein, but their kind was in the minority.
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