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 the solution of the unsolved problem of Swiss unity; and the Counter-Reformation made the difficulties greater. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, took a deep interest in Switzerland: he founded a Swiss College at Milan, introduced into the land the Jesuits (1574-81) and the Capuchins (1581-8), and procured a permanent nunciature at Luzern. After his death Luzern, under Ludwig Pfyffer, formed a league with Uri, Schwyz, Unterwaiden, Zug, Solothurn, and Freiburg to maintain offensively and defensively the Catholic Faith (1586): this was known as the Borromean League. Thus the division into two camps was crystallised, and the old Federal Constitution was almost dissolved: Diets-save those of the opposed Cantons held separately-became rare. The disputes about the Common Lands went on and with foreign influences intensified the differences due to faith. In the Thirty Years' War the Protestants expressly and the Catholics tacitly adopted neutrality, but could not hold entirely aloof. The country's importance to its neighbours lay in its provision of soldiers for hire, and for this reason they endured its independence. The neutrality adopted was not that advocated yet departed from by Zwingli: it resulted 'from the religious divisions due to him, combined with the foreign service he condemned.

The Reformation in Switzerland shows how largely the forms in which religious ideas express themselves are moulded by political forces. It was also more than elsewhere the centre of the national history. It was Zwingli who, by his religious influence, and his political mistakes, was the cause of this. Politically his dearest schemes miscarried; ecclesiastically his type of organisation and worship endured; doctrinally he was overshadowed by others. But the permanent division of the Cantons was due to him: not merely to the doctrines he taught, but on the one hand to the power with which he impressed them upon Zurich, and on the other, to the energy and violence with which, regardless of Federal liberties, he strove to force them upon the other Cantons.