alternatehistory.com

Recently, my new Chinese colleague asked me about European history and I told him a bit about the legend of Wilhelm Tell and early Swiss history. How landvogt Gessler forced him to shoot an apple off his son's head when he declined greeting the hat of the Habsburg ruler on a pole in the City.

But since we are both no native English Speakers, a misunderstanding happened, which I only noticed when he told me that he had understood "hat" as "head".

Now that's very different from the legend where Gessler is a character more similar to Robin Hood's Sheriff of Nottingham. But what if it happened like this? How could he have ended up putting the ruler's head on a pole and forcing People to greet it, and what would have happened afterwards?
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