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The mountaineers of the cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden recognized no authority but that of the emperor; while the peasants of the neighboring valleys were at the mercy of local tyrants the great nobles and their allies. In order to carry out his project of subjecting all to the same yoke, Albert of Austria appointed governors to rule over the semi-free provinces or cantons.
The confederates, in order to oppose this formidable invasion, occupied a position in the mountains bordering on the convent of Our Lady of the Hermits. Four hundred men of Uri, and three hundred of Unterwalden, had effected a junction with the warriors of Schwytz, who formed the principal force of the little army.
In the twelfth century the cities Zuerich, Basel, Berne, and Freiburg began to be centers of trade, and gained municipal privileges. The three mountain cantons Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwalden cherished the spirit of freedom. The counts of Hapsburg, after the beginning of the thirteenth century, exercised a certain indefinite jurisdiction in the land.
It was preordained that the three lands of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden should unite for protection of common interests against the encroachment of a common enemy the ambitious house of Hapsburg. The lake formed at once a bond and a highway between them.
Uri called on Schwytz and Unterwalden for help, and on Zurich also, although it was not then included in the confederacy. The allies marched out and pressed on to Faido, spreading universal terror. The General Vicar of Como mediated a peace; but from that time forth we find the confederates continually entangled in the affairs of Upper Italy.
Scarcely had he arrived, on the 4th of March, when he learned that, on the day but one before, Duke Charles had been tremendously beaten by the Swiss at Granson; the squadrons of his chivalry had not been able to make any impression upon the battalions of Berne, Schwitz, Soleure, and Fribourg, armed with pikes eighteen feet long; and at sight of the mountaineers marching with huge strides and lowered heads upon their foes and heralding their advance by the lowings of the bull of Uri and the cow of Unterwalden, two enormous instruments made of buffalo-horn, and given, it was said, to their ancestors by Charlemagne, the whole Burgundian army, seized with panic, had dispersed in all directions, "like smoke before the northern blast."
Long after the time of this Ulrich, the last reigning Graf of Lenzburg, shortly after the Swiss Union had been renewed, at the instance of Walther of Attinghausen, in 1206, Unterwalden chose Rudolph, Count of Hapsburg, for Bailiff.
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