The Battle of Grandson (March 2nd, 1476) is one of the most celebrated and decisive battles in Swiss history, and a key battle of the Burgundian Wars (1474–1477).
The Battle of Grandson (March 2nd, 1476) is one of the most celebrated and decisive battles in Swiss history, and a key battle of the Burgundian Wars (1474–1477). At Concise in present-day northwestern Switzerland, the Swiss Confederates dealt the Burgundians a crushing defeat from which they would never recover. For the Swiss, Grandson signalled their emergence as an integral player in wider European affairs. It is popularly remembered as the battle in which the Swiss won the “Burgundian booty,” which enriched the soldiers who fought in the battle. Dreaming of the creation of a kingdom to rival France and the Holy Roman Empire, set between the North Sea and the Mediterranean, Charles the Bold was a despot eager to secure a promising future for Burgundy built on political reform and military conquest. The son of Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal, he had a noted interest in statecraft and in warfare, and he witnessed firsthand his father’s efforts to strengthen and consolidate