Heinrich Bullinger, who had been a teacher at Kappel and since 1523 an outspoken supporter of Zwingli's, at the time of the war was pastor at Bremgarten. Following the Battle of Kappel, Bremgarten was re-catholicized. On 21 October, Bullinger fled to Zürich with his father, and on 9 December was declared Zwingli's successor as leader of the Reformed movement. In anticipation of the
Cuius regio eius religio principle of the 1555
Peace of Augsburg, the Second Peace of Kappel confirmed each canton's right to determine the denomination of its own citizens and subjects, but favored Catholicism in the Confederacy's
common territories. With the restoration of the
Princely Abbey of Saint Gall, Zürich's territorial ambitions in eastern Switzerland came to an end. The peace treaty determined the dissolution of the Protestant alliance. It also allowed communes or parishes that had already converted to remain Protestant. Only strategically important places such as the
Freiamt or those along the route from Schwyz to the Rhine valley at
Sargans (and thus to the alpine passes in the Grisons) were forcibly re-Catholicised. One result of the treaty—probably not anticipated by its signatories—was the long-term establishment of religious coexistence in several Swiss subject territories. In both the territories of
Thurgau and
Aargau, for example, Catholic and Protestant congregations began worshiping in the same churches, which led to further tensions and conflicts throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The treaty also confirmed each canton's right to practice either the Catholic or Reformed faith, thus defining the Swiss Confederation as a state with two religions, a relative exception in Western Europe. The outcome of the war also cemented the main denominations in each of the
thirteen cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy: after later settlements in Glarus and Appenzell, seven full and two half cantons remained Catholic (Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Fribourg, Solothurn, and half of Glarus and Appenzell), while four and two halves became firmly Swiss Reformed Protestant (Zürich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, and half of Glarus and Appenzell). With the exception of
Western Switzerland, the religious geography of the country has remained largely unchanged since the Second Peace of Kappel. An unsuccessful effort by the Protestant cantons, especially Zürich, to change the terms of confessional coexistence in 1656, the
First War of Villmergen, led to a reaffirmation of the status quo in the
Dritter Landfrieden (Third Territorial Peace). A second religious civil war in 1712, the
Second War of Vilmergen, ended in a decisive Protestant victory and major revisions in the fourth Landfrieden of 1712. == See also ==