Niklaus Leuenberger  Niklaus Leuenberger (c. 1615 – 27 August 1653) was a leader of the Swiss peasant war of 1653. He signed the Treaty of Mellingen along with Christian Schybi on 4 June 1653. After the defeat of the peasants at Herzogenbuchsee in the same month, he was delivered to the Bernese authorities. He was executed by decapitation and drawn and quartered on 27 August. His head was nailed to the gallows, and the four parts of his body exhibited on the four highways out Bern. In 1903, on the 250th anniversary of his death, a monument was erected to him in the Emmental municipality of Ruderswil.