184 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
§ 47. The Death of Zwingli.
MoKiKOFER, II. 414-420. — Egli, quoted on p. 179. — A. Erichson: Zwingli's Tod und dessen Beurtheilung durch Zeitgenosen. Strassburg, 1883.
Zwingli himself died on the hattle-field, in the prime of manhood, aged forty-seven years, nine months, and eleven days, and with him his brother-in-law, his step-son, his sonin-law, and his best friends. He made no use of his weapons, but contented himself with cheering the soldiers.^ " Brave men," he said (according to BuUinger), "fear not! Though we must suffer, our cause is good. Commend jom: souls to God : he can take care of us and ours. His will be done."
Soon after the battle had begun, he stooped down to console a dying soldier, when a. stone was hurled against his head by one of the Waldstatters and prostrated him to the ground. Rising again, lie received several other blows, and a thrust from a lance. Once more he uplifted his head, and, looking at the blood trickling from his wounds, he exclaimed : " What matters this misfortune ? They may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul." These were his last words.^
He lay for some time on his back under a pear-tree (called the Zwingli-Baimi) in a meadow, his hands folded as in prayer, and his eyes steadfastly turned to heaven.^
The stragglers of the victorious army pounced like hungry vultures upon the wounded and dying. Two of them asked Zwingli to confess to a priest, or to call upon the dear saints
1 " Zwingli blieb in nachster Nahe bei den Kampfenden stehen, machte aber nack dem Zeiigniss i-on Freund und Feind i-on seinen Waffen keinen Gebrauch." Morikofer, II. 417.
2 According to Osw. Myconius (J^ta H. Zwingli, ch. 12), who gives the report of an eye-witness: "Prostnitum, ajebat, premenlium multitiidine jam tertio, sed in pedes semper restitisse : quarto Ji. rum cuspide sub mento et in genua prolapsutn dixisse : ' Ecquid hoc infortunii ? Age, corpus quidem occidere possunt, animam non possunt.' Atque his dictis mox obdormivisse in Domino."
3 BuUinger, III. 136: "und verharret mitt sinem Gesicht zu stunen am hijmel." According to Tschudi, he lay on his face. Salat also says (" Archiv," etc., I. 310) : " Zwingli ward funden ligend xif sim angsicht." But this is not necessarily a contradiction, as the d^-ing man may have changed his position.
§ 47. THE DEATH OF ZWINGLI. 185
for their intercession. He shook his head twice, and kept his eyes still fixed on the heavens above. Then Captain Vokinger of Unterwalden, one of the foreign mercenaries, against whom the Reformer had so often lifted his voice, recognized him by the torch-light, and killed him with the sword, exclaiming, " Die, obstinate heretic." ^
There he lay during the night. On the next morning the people gathered around the dead, and began to realize the extent of the victory. Everybody wanted to see Zwingli. Chaplain Stocker of Zug, who knew him well, made the remark that his face had tlie same fresh and vigorous expression as when he kindled his hearers with the fire of eloquence from the pulpit. Hans Schonbrunner, an ex-canon of Fraumiinster in Zurich, as he passed the corpse of the Reformer, with Chaplain Stocker, burst into tears, and said, " Whatever may have been thy faith, thou hast been an honest patriot. May God forgive thy sins." ^ He voiced the sentiment of the better class of Catholics.
But the fanatics and foreign mercenaries would not even spare the dead. They deci-eed that his body should be quartered for treason and then burnt for heresy, according to the Roman and imperial law. The sheriff of Luzern executed the barbarous sentence. Zwingli's ashes were mingled Avith the ashes of swine, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.^
1 Salat says that the man who did this cowardly act, was " ehi redlicher alter Christ," but does not name Vokinger (also spelt Fuckinger, or Fugginger).
2 Morikofer, II. 418.
^ According to an uncertain and improbable tradition, the heart was, as it were, miraculously saved, and brought to Zurich, but thrown into the river to prevent idolatry. Myconius ( Vita Zw., c. 12) reports : " Hostibus digressis, pout diem tertium accedunt amantes Zwinglii, si quid reliquiarum eius qffenderent, et ecce cor (rnirahile dictu) se offert e mediis cineribus integrum et illassum , . . Venit non multo postea vir mihi notissi7nus, sed et familiarissimus [^Thomas Plater ?], rogans an portionem cordis cupiam videre Zwingliani, quod secum ferat in loculo : quia propter sermonem hunc inopinatum horror quidam latum corpus pervaserat, negaram, alioquin et huius rei posse m esse testis oculatus."