[14] Oechsli, _Quellenbuch zur Schweizergeschichte_, pages 49, 199-202, 261-266. The second of these passages, especially page 200, proves that so late as 1481 no Swiss Federation had been made, but each canton was an independent state, managing its foreign relations for itself: the third shows that by 1512 a central body had been established which received ambassadors sent by foreign powers to the Swiss, and settled what answers the Swiss League should give them. It has been remarked already that the large political communities of the middle ages were not thoroughly coherent or consolidated. A want of coherence was exhibited both in France and in England by the frequent recurrence of rebellions or civil strife, in France under John II. and Charles VI., in England under Edward II., Richard II. and Henry VI.; still more clearly was it made visible in France in 1356-1360 and 1415-1422 by the inability of the French to act unitedly in resistance to an invading enemy, and by the ease with which portions of French territory were detached from the dominions of the French king and transferred to the victorious invaders. The danger of civil discord was great enough in the fifteenth century when it arose mainly from the armies of retainers kept by ambitious noblemen: but it became still greater in the sixteenth, when differences of creed divided each people into two hostile camps. The disruptive forces at length became so strong that both France and England seemed to be in danger of losing the character of political communities and of lapsing into masses of heterogeneous elements; and accordingly each country adopted that kind of government which is best suited to hold heterogeneous elements together, namely, a monarchy with almost unlimited power. The subsequent histories of the two countries, though dissimilar in general character, were in one respect alike: in both countries civil war actually occurred, in France in the sixteenth century, in England in the seventeenth; and in each country experience of the miseries of war brought a love for the blessings of peace, with the result that France from 1700 to 1789 and England from 1745 to this day present very perfect examples of united nations.