engeance.

[The peasantry embrace. Enter SACRIST, with imperial messenger.

SACRIST.
Here are the worthy chiefs of Switzerland!

ROSSELMANN and several others.
Sacrist, what news?

SACRISTAN.
A courier brings this letter.

ALL (to WALTER FURST).
Open and read it.

FURST (reading).
"To the worthy men
Of Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwald, the Queen
Elizabeth sends grace and all good wishes!"

MANY VOICES.
What wants the queen with us? Her reign is done.

FURST (reads).
"In the great grief and doleful widowhood,
In which the bloody exit of her lord
Has plunged her majesty, she still remembers
The ancient faith and love of Switzerland."

MELCHTHAL.
She ne'er did that in her prosperity.

ROSSELMANN.
Hush, let us hear.

FURST (reads).
"And she is well assured,
Her people will in due abhorrence hold
The perpetrators of this damned deed.
On the three Cantons, therefore, she relies,
That they in nowise lend the murderers aid;
But rather, that they loyally assist
To give them up to the avenger's hand,
Remembering the love and grace which they
Of old received from Rudolph's princely house."

[Symptoms of dissatisfaction among the peasantry.

MANY VOICES.
The love and grace!

STAUFFACHER.
Grace from the father we, indeed, received,
But what have we to boast of from the son?
Did he confirm the charter of our freedom,
As all preceding emperors had done?
Did he judge righteous judgment, or afford
Shelter or stay to innocence oppressed?
Nay, did he e'en give audience to the envoys
We sent to lay our grievances before him?
Not one of all these things e'er did the king.
And had we not ourselves achieved our rights
By resolute valor our necessities
Had never touched him. Gratitude to him!
Within these vales he sowed not gratitude.
He stood upon an eminence--he might
Have been a very father to his people,
But all his aim and pleasure was to raise
Himself and his own house: and now may those
Whom he has aggrandized lament for him!

FURST.
We will not triumph in his fall, nor now
Recall to mind the wrongs we have endured.
Far be't from us! Yet, that we should avenge
The sovereign's death, who never did us good,
And hunt down those who ne'er molested us,
Becomes us not, nor is our duty. Love
Must bring its offerings free and unconstrained;
From all enforced duties death absolves--
And unto him we are no longer bound.

MELCHTHAL.
And if the queen laments within her b