The Duke had experienced this love of old institutions in his people, when he some few years back, by the advice of his council, for the purpose of bettering his finances, made an alteration in the public weights and measures. An organised insurrection of peasants, entitled, "The League of Poor Conrad," had made him reflect, and caused the Tübingen compact, which restored the old law, to be introduced. This feeling of attachment to long standing habits was also manifested towards him personally in a very touching manner, when the League entered the country with the intention of expelling the head of the ancient house of their prince. Their fathers and grandfathers having lived under the sway of the Dukes and Counts of Würtemberg, they were filled with dismay and consternation, when a foreign army entered their country to deprive them of their hereditary prince. Their hatred and revenge was excited against the League and their governors; and, though they were compelled by force to submit to their rule, they proved their love to their Lord in many instances of violence towards his enemies. When their hereditary prince, therefore, a Würtemberger, first returned from exile, the people flocked around him, under the impression that affairs would go on as heretofore. Under his sway they were willing to pay the taxes, to redeem all the state debts, and perform the service done in soccage. There was no murmuring about hard treatment, provided it was done according to ancient usage, and by their legitimate master. But now, the old laws having been expunged by the new oath of fidelity to which they were called upon to swear, the taxes being no longer levied according to old custom, and the whole system being changed, it was no wonder that the people looked upon the Duke as a new master, foreign to their habits, and loudly demanded a return to former rights. They consequently lost all faith in him; not because his hand lay heavier upon them than heretofore; not because he required considerably more from their purses than formerly, but because they regarded the new order of things with a suspicious eye. A prince, particularly when he lends his ear to such a man as Ambrosius Bolland, seldom learns the true tone of public opinion, and therefore cannot judge whether the measures which his council place before him have been wisely considered. In the present instance, however, the discontent of his people did not escape the penetrating eye of the Duke. He remarked, that he could no more depend upon them, in the event of an extreme difficulty, than he could upon the nobility of the country, who, since his return, had remained neutral spectators of the state of affairs.