Meeting with no opposition, Duke Leopold began to ascend the frozen side of the Morgarten; and here, as he advanced between high ridges, discovered himself in a death-trap. From the heights above, the Swiss of the Forest Cantons rained a deadly fire of stones and missiles that threw the horses below into confusion, slipping and falling on the smooth surface of the track. Then there descended from all sides small bodies of peasants armed with halberds, so sure-footed amid the snow and ice that they cut down the greater part of the Duke’s forces before they could extricate themselves and find safe ground. Leopold escaped, but he rode from the carnage, according to his chronicler, ‘distracted and with a face like death’. Swiss independence had been vindicated by his defeat; and round the nucleus of the forest republics there soon gathered others, bound together in a federal union that, while securing the safety of all, guaranteed to each their liberties. [Sidenote: Charles ‘the Bold’] Other campaigns still remained to be fought on behalf of complete Swiss independence; and one of the most important of these occurred towards the end of the fifteenth century, and was waged against a military leader of Europe, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, son and successor of that Philip ‘the Good’ who had played so great a part in the latter half of the Hundred Years’ War.[39] This Charles ‘the Bold’, sometimes called also ‘the Rash’ or ‘the Terrible’, was in many ways a typical mediaeval soldier. From his boyhood he had loved jousting--not the magnificent tourneys, in which as heir to the dukedom he could count on making a safe as well as a spectacular display of knightly courage, but real contests in which, disguised in plain armour, his strength and skill could alone win him laurels and avoid death. Strong and healthy, brave and impetuous, he loved the atmosphere of war with all its hazards and hardships. ‘I never heard him complain of weariness,’ wrote Philip de Commines, a French historian who was at one time in his service, ‘and I never saw in him a sign of fear.’ To qualities like courage and endurance Charles added failings that were often his undoing--a hot temper, impatience, and a tendency to under-estimate the wits of his opponents. His clever, ambitious brain was always weaving plans, but he did not realize that he had neither the skill nor the political vision to keep many irons in the fire without letting one get too hot or another over-cold. Like all mediaeval rulers of Burgundy, he was faced by the problem of his middle kingdom, with its large commercial population, whose trade interests must be considered alongside his own territorial ambitions. To the rulers of both France and the Empire he was tenant-in-chief for different provinces, and either of these potentates could cause him discomfort by stirring up trouble amongst his subjects, or else unite with him to his great advantage in order to defy the authority of the other.