Unterwalden is one of the three communities at the heart of the play’s struggle over who may govern the Forest Cantons. Its significance lies not in a detailed portrait of its settlements or boundaries, which the text does not provide, but in its place within a shared political order: local laws and customs, a limited imperial authority, and a collective resolve to resist the governors who have exceeded their power.

Mountain Setting

The play identifies the people of Unterwalden with the mountains, naming them as the men of the mountains of Unterwald in the document that records the three communities’ bond. This gives the canton a clear alpine association, but not a precise map of its valleys, settlements, or borders.

Elsewhere, the drama surrounds its communities with volatile natural imagery: green meadows lie beneath vapor, clouds cast moving shadows, and rumbling and cracking sounds come from the mountains. During a storm, thunder and wind accompany the rising lake. These passages establish the physical force of the wider landscape, though they do not identify those particular scenes as occurring in Unterwalden. The setting is therefore more atmospheric than cartographic: mountain, weather, and water define the world in which the communities must act, without fixing the canton’s exact location within it.

Local Rule and Imperial Authority

In the play’s account of the Forest Cantons, the communities had freely sought the protection of the Empire, and that protection had been freely granted in Emperor Frederick’s charter. Their relationship to imperial authority is not represented as an unconditional surrender of self-government. The discussion emphasizes that the communities continued to rule themselves peacefully at home, under their own laws and ancient customs.

The emperor’s stated right was narrower: to adjudge the penalty of death. For that purpose, he appointed a powerful noble as his delegate. The arrangement makes Unterwalden’s political position part of a layered system of authority: local custom governs ordinary life, while imperial jurisdiction and its delegated officers stand above it in defined matters. The conflict arises as the governors’ rule comes to be treated not as legitimate protection, but as an intolerable domination.

The Three-Canton Alliance

Unterwalden’s political identity is repeatedly joined to that of the Canton of Uri and the Canton of Schwyz. In the deliberation over resistance, the communities seek to preserve their ancient rights and decide to do only what necessity demands. Their stated aim is to drive out the tyrants and their adherents and bring down their strongholds. The plan is framed as a defense of inherited rights, not a rejection of every higher authority: the discussion distinguishes the Empire from the governors acting in its name.

The alliance also appears in formal and diplomatic terms. A message from Queen Elizabeth addresses the worthy men of the Canton of Uri, the Canton of Schwyz, and Unterwalden together, recognizing them as a collective audience. The bond read near the end likewise names the men of the Dale of Uri, the community of Schwyz, and the mountain people of Unterwald. This written act gives the three communities a shared presence in the play’s political record, complementing the earlier debate about their rights and the means of defending them.

Narrative Significance

Unterwalden is not individualized through a single resident or a separate local storyline. Instead, it matters as one constituent community in a three-canton alliance: its inclusion enlarges the struggle beyond any one valley and makes resistance a common undertaking. The contrast between freely granted imperial protection and the coercive conduct of delegated rulers is central to that significance. Unterwalden belongs to a political community that claims both its own laws and a place within a larger order, and whose people join together when that balance is violated.