15. Jörg Jenatsch, the Swiss diplomat who was assassinated at a party by a bear wielding his own axe
Prominent Swiss nationals are rather lacking in European history. But Jörg Jenatsch was both Swiss and a very influential individual indeed. He played a key role in shaping European politics during the Thirty Years’ War. While he was a skilled and wily diplomat, Jentasch was also not afraid to use violence. Indeed, he was guilty of a brutal, politically motivated murder himself. Which makes his demise, in one of the most infamous assassinations in all of Medieval history, all the more compelling.
Jentash was originally a man of the church. He started his career as a Protestant pastor in a small town in Switzerland in 1617. But before long, he threw himself into politics. This was a time when tensions between Protestants, backed by the power base of Vienna, and Catholics, backed by the Spanish. Jentash was a prominent voice in the Protestant camp. But in 1621, he did more than just argue and debate: he took an axe and killed his rival, Pompeius von Planta, in his own castle.
By the 1630s, Jentash had switched sides. He converted to Catholicism and headed a small, private army. In January 1639, he was celebrated Carnival in his home town of Chur. A group of men joined the party, all in costume, as was – and remains – the tradition. Suddenly, one of the group, dressed as a bear, took an axe and attacked Jentash. He had no chance. The assassins were never caught. However, it’s widely believed that the assassin was Rudolf von Planta, the son of the man Jentash had murdered 18 years before. What’s more, some accounts add that von Planta used the same axe that killed his father (and that Jentash left embedded in the floor of the castle) to exact his bloody revenge.