A subsequent popular court in the region's capital, Chur, rejected the Thusis verdicts, and the Republic of the Grisons slid towards anarchy in what became known as the Bündner Wirren or the Confusion of Graubünden.

After the murder of Planta and several other violent incidents, Jenatsch also lost his position as a pastor, and henceforth acted solely as a soldier and military entrepreneur.

During the next two years, Jenatsch pushed forward the negotiations with Spain and Austria for the return of the Valtellina under Grisons sovereignty, as well as seeking a noble title for himself.

Jenatsch's career is of general historical importance as one aspect of the long conflict between France and Spain for control over the Valtellina, which forms one of the most tumultuous episodes in the Thirty Years' War.

[1] Although interest in Jenatsch waned rapidly after his burial in the Chur cathedral, still wearing the bloodied clothes he had been murdered in, later historians and literary figures took up his story again.

In the nineteenth century, he became the subject of numerous plays and biographical studies, which tended to emphasize his fiery character as well as his allegedly deep attachment to his fatherland.

A key feature of Meyer's novel, picked up by later literary versions, was that his murderer was 'Lucrecia' von Planta, daughter of Pompeius and Jenatsch's lover.

In Meyer's adaptation of the story, Lucrecia kills Jenatsch, using the same axe he had used on her father, when his self-love and ambition overpower his desire to serve his fatherland.

In fact, Meyer changed Jenatsch's birthdate in the novel to make such a relationship possible; earlier authors had already renamed the real Katherina von Planta as 'Lucrecia', a name for which there is no historical foundation.