<P> Claiming to be the successor of David, John of Leiden was installed as king . He legalized polygamy and took sixteen wives, one of whom he personally beheaded in the marketplace . Community of goods was also established . After obstinate resistance, the town was taken by the besiegers on June 24, 1535, and then Leiden and some of his more prominent followers were executed in the marketplace . </P> <P> In 1529 under the lead of Huldrych Zwingli, the Protestant canton and city of Zürich had concluded with other Protestant cantons a defence alliance, the Christliches Burgrecht, which also included the cities of Konstanz and Strasbourg . The Catholic cantons in response had formed an alliance with Ferdinand of Austria . </P> <P> After numerous minor incidents and provocations from both sides, a Catholic priest was executed in the Thurgau in May 1528, and the Protestant pastor J. Keyser was burned at the stake in Schwyz in 1529 . The last straw was the installation of a Catholic reeve at Baden, and Zürich declared war on 8 June (First War of Kappel), occupied the Thurgau and the territories of the Abbey of St. Gall, and marched to Kappel at the border to Zug . Open war was avoided by means of a peace agreement (Erster Landfriede) that was not exactly favourable to the Catholic side, which had to dissolve its alliance with the Austrian Habsburgs . Tensions remained essentially unresolved . </P> <P> On October 11, 1531, the Catholic cantons decisively defeated the forces of Zürich in the Second War of Kappel . The Zürich troops had little support from allied Protestant cantons, and Huldrych Zwingli was killed on the battlefield, along with twenty - four other pastors . After the defeat, the forces of Zürich regrouped and attempted to occupy the Zugerberg, and some of them camped on the Gubel hill near Menzingen . A small force of Aegeri succeeded in routing the camp, and the demoralized Zürich force had to retreat, forcing the Protestants to agree to a peace treaty to their disadvantage . Switzerland was to be divided into a patchwork of Protestant and Catholic cantons, with the Protestants tending to dominate the larger cities, and the Catholics the more rural areas . </P>

How did power change hands in europe between 1560 and 1648 why did this change of power occur