Austrian Emperor Is Assassinated

The Emperor’s assassination became the decisive opening through which the Swiss Revolution and Independence could proceed without a check from imperial power. Reported as a sudden killing on the road, it altered the balance between the Emperor’s successor and the Swiss people: while the successor faced the men who had killed his father, the Swiss grew too strong to attack.

The News and Its Source

The report arrives in a brief exchange: the news is met first with disbelief and then with questions about how the Emperor died. John Muller of Schaffhausen is identified as the messenger, and his truthfulness is offered as grounds for accepting the account. The conversation gives the event the form of news received and tested, rather than a scene witnessed directly by the listeners.

The Killing on the Road

The account places the attack during the Emperor’s ride from Stein to Baden. The lords of Eschenbach and Tegerfelden fell upon him with spears; their jealousy of his power is given as the reported motive, with the qualification that this was what people said. The Emperor had just crossed a stream, leaving his bodyguard on the opposite side, unable to reach him in time. He died instantly. The stream’s position made the separation between ruler and protection immediate and fatal.

Political Consequences

The death removed the obstacle that had prevented the revolution in Switzerland from proceeding unchecked. The successor had too much to do defending himself against his father’s slayers to turn his attention to attacking the Swiss. By the time he was free to act, the Swiss people had become too strong to be attacked. The account states the result plainly: the Swiss became free. The assassination thus shifts the story’s outcome not through a direct victory over the Emperor, but through the crisis his death creates for the power that might have intervened.