The antiquarian theories as to the origin of the Swiss people are quite as baseless as the legends, and not nearly so interesting. They have varied sometimes in their form, but their object has always been to show that the Forest Cantons, the earliest members of the league, had some special race origin and some peculiar independence, apart from the rest of Germany. They were founded, it is said, by settlers from Norway and Sweden, who left their homes for fear of losing their liberties, and swore to maintain them in a foreign land. All such stories are absolutely without foundation. Modern researches have proved, not only that the Forest Cantons were members of the Empire like their neighbours, but that various lords, spiritual and temporal, held different rights over them at various times. Their constant effort was to get rid of the authority of these feudal lords, and to vindicate a position of direct dependence upon the Empire alone. It was this effort which led to the first formation of a league. The Lake of Luzern, on the shores of which the original Swiss cantons are situated, lies within the limits of the old duchy of Swabia. The extinction of the line of dukes left a number of individuals and corporations in Swabia without any intermediate lord between them and the Emperor. But as the imperial authority declined, and especially during the Great Interregnum, the chief families in Swabia set themselves to reduce their weaker neighbours to subjection. The most successful of these [Sidenote: The Hapsburgs in Swabia.] families was that of Hapsburg, whose original estates were in the district of Brugg, at the junction of the Aar and the Reuss. By the middle of the thirteenth century the family had vastly extended their possessions. In addition to their lands in the Aargau, they had large territories in the Breisgau and in Elsass. Rudolf III., born in 1218, set himself to extend his power by every possible means—by war, negotiation, and purchase. His avowed object was to restore the territorial unity of Swabia under Hapsburg rule. And if the old duchy had been revived, it would have been difficult to intrust it to any other family.