STAUFF.

The assassins reap no profit by their crime;
But we shall pluck with unpolluted hands
The teeming fruits of their most bloody deed. 
For we are ransomed from our heaviest fear;
The direst foe of liberty has fallen,
And, ’tis reported, that the crown will pass
From Habsburg’s house into another line;
The Empire is determined to assert
Its old prerogative of choice, I hear.

FUeRST and several others.

Is any named?

STAUFFACHER.

The Count of Luxembourg’s
Already chosen by the general voice.

FUeRST.

’Tis well we stood so staunchly by the Empire! 
Now we may hope for justice, and with cause.

STAUFF.

The Emperor will need some valiant friends. 
He will ’gainst Austria’s vengeance be our
shield.

[The peasantry embrace.  Enter SACRISTAN with Imperial messenger.]

SACRIST.

Here are the worthy chiefs of Switzerland!

ROeSSELMANN and several others.

Sacrist, what news?

SACRISTAN.

A courier brings this letter.

ALL (to WALTER FUeRST).

 Open and read it.

FUeRST (reading).

“To the worthy men
Of Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwald, the Queen
Elizabeth sends grace and all good wishes!”

MANY VOICES.

What wants the queen with us?  Her reign is done.

FUeRST (reads).

“In the great grief and doleful widowhood,
In which the bloody exit of her lord
Has plunged the queen, still in her mind she bears
The ancient faith and love of Switzerland.”

MELCH.

She ne’er did that in her prosperity.

ROeSSEL.

Hush, let us hear!

FUeRST (reads).

“And she is well assured,
Her people will in due abhorrence hold
The perpetrators of this damned deed. 
On the three Cantons, therefore, she relies,
That they in nowise lend the murderers aid;
But rather, that they loyally assist,
To give them up to the avenger’s hand,
Remembering the love and grace which they
Of old received from Rudolph’s royal house.”

[Symptoms of dissatisfaction among the peasantry.]

MANY VOICES.

The love and grace!

STAUFF.

Grace from the father we, indeed, received,
But what have we to boast of from the song
Did he confirm the charter of our freedom,
As all preceding emperors had done? 
Did he judge righteous judgment, or afford
Shelter, or stay, to innocence oppress’d? 
Nay, did he e’en give audience to the men
We sent to lay our grievances before him? 
Not one of all these things did the king do,
And had we not ourselves achieved our rights
By our own stalwart hands, the wrongs we bore
Had never touch’d him.  Gratitude to him! 
Within these vales he sowed no seeds of that;
He stood upon an eminence—­he might
Have been a very father to his people,
But all his aim and pleasure was to raise
Himself and his own house:  and now may those
Whom he has aggrandized, lament for him;