XVII.

FROM THE DEATH OF RUDOLF II. TO THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE HILL.

(1612-1620.)

Although Matthias seemed now to be securely seated on the throne of Bohemia, he was quite aware that his difficulties were by no means at an end. He had been put forward, originally, as the candidate rather of his family than of the Bohemian people; and his necessary concessions to popular feeling, in the matter of civil and religious liberty, had often roused the opposition of his kinsmen.

The difficulties of his position had been somewhat mitigated during his first triumphs in Moravia by the judicious statesmanship, administrative ability, and personal popularity of Z̆erotin. On the one hand he had persuaded his friends to keep in the background their extremer demands for religious liberty; and on the other hand he had contrived, by ingenious exercises of administrative power, to strain the actual concessions of the new ruler to such an extent that they proved a better check on the tyranny of nobles and priests than the (verbally) larger concessions of Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty. Illyezhazy and the Hungarian Protestants had consented to follow the lead of Z̆erotin in these matters; but in Austria Matthias had already had a foretaste of the embarrassments which were to be increased by his conquest of Bohemia.

Tschernembl, who led the Protestants of Upper Austria, was by no means disposed to be content with half measures, either in civil or religious liberty. He was a strong Calvinist; and while he had none of Z̆erotin’s scruples about religious wars, he was also far more indifferent than the Moravian noble to kings in general, and to the House of Hapsburg in particular. Under his leadership the Protestants of Upper Austria demanded the fullest securities for their liberties, before they would accept Matthias as their Duke; and they seized on a castle in Linz, as a pledge for future concessions. In Lower Austria the Protestants were, at this time, less numerous or less determined; for when, in September, 1608, Matthias summoned representatives of both the Austrian provinces to meet at Vienna, he found himself able to resist and defeat the demands of the Protestants. Upon this, Tschernembl and his friends at once left the city, and took up their quarters at Horn, from which step they became known as the “Horner.” This policy of Tschernembl’s produced some coolness between him and Z̆erotin; Tschernembl was in consequence thrown into closer relations with the German Protestants; so when, in November, 1608, Peter Vok von Rosenberg invited Christian of Anhalt to meet Z̆erotin and Tschernembl at Tr̆ebon̆, the Austrian consented to come, but the Moravian refused.

Z̆erotin, however, while anxious to hinder violent opposition to Matthias, had no wish to hinder the growth of Austrian liberty nor to break the link between the Austrian and Bohemian Protestants; so he strongly urged Matthias to concede the demands of Tschernembl and his friends, in a peaceable manner. This advice was the more important because Tschernembl was inclined, in a moment of irritation, to listen to advances from Rudolf; but he soon discovered the folly of that course, and at the same time he began to lose faith in the promises of Christian of Anhalt. Thus Z̆erotin was able once more to bring his king and his friend together; and in March, 1609, Matthias granted much wider liberties to the Austrian Protestants than he had yet conceded in Moravia.

But this triumph of Z̆erotin’s policy brought on him the fierce hostility of Bishop Khlesl, who even refused to give the Sacrament to Matthias and his councillors, on the occasion of the festival of reconciliation between the Duke of Austria and his subjects. Nor was Z̆erotin contented with Matthias’s own action; for the latter began to show signs, at that time, of an inclination to treat with Rudolph; and a proposal of the Moravian Assembly to disband some of its forces just before the outbreak of the Passau rising, was in vain resisted by Z̆erotin. When, then, Matthias finally succeeded in winning the crown of Bohemia, he found himself surrounded by Councillors who were bitterly opposed to each other, and who had each their own reasons for distrusting their King.

Nor were Matthias’s difficulties confined to those larger questions of civil and religious liberty which affected the whole kingdom. The reunion of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia under one king, at once reawakened controversies which had, for some time, fallen into the background. Silesia was by no means disposed to abandon that position of equal alliance with Bohemia which had been granted in the hour of danger; and Moravia did not desire to exchange the complete independence which she had gained by separation, for the subordinate condition in which the Bohemians wished to place her. Concessions therefore had to be made to the local feeling of the dependent provinces--concessions which might conceivably have worked well in a time of complete peace, but which, in a time of continual disorder and mutual suspicion, led necessarily to further difficulties.

But Khlesl saw that these local divisions, though they might at first sight seem to embarrass Matthias, could yet be made, by judicious management, to promote those schemes for the increase of the royal power which the ambitious bishop had been always devising. It was in Hungary that he specially hoped to lay the foundations of a firmer despotism; and the method by which he hoped to accomplish it was a war for the conquest and annexation of Transylvania. For this purpose he stirred up the Transylvanians against their Prince, and then backed the insurgents by an invasion of their territory. The suspicions of the Hungarian Protestants were, however, quickly aroused; and Matthias was deserted by his troops. Then he appealed to Moravia for help, on the ground of the dangers to which their province would be exposed by a Turkish invasion, and the consequent need of consolidating the Hungarian power for their protection.

Here again Khlesl was, for the time, defeated by Z̆erotin, who opposed the war on the ground that no Hungarian Assembly had sanctioned it; but when Z̆erotin followed up this victory by attempting to revive his scheme for a common Assembly of all Matthias’s subjects, he was successfully opposed by the Bohemians, who declined any close union with Austria or Hungary.

But if, for the time, Khlesl’s hopes for strengthening Matthias, by the divisions among his subjects, had been scarcely realised to the full, he soon found a new encouragement in the increased power and dignity which the King of Bohemia gained by his election to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Z̆erotin, indeed, had himself supported Matthias’s candidature in order to exclude a more dangerous claimant; but, nevertheless, the election was felt to be a distinct gain to the Catholic and despotic party; and Khlesl took advantage of it to renew his attacks on the Protestants. In these attacks he was backed by Dietrichstein, the Bishop of Olmütz, who hoped that Matthias would help him to increase his power over the clergy and their dependants.

But again Z̆erotin succeeded in resisting the clerical encroachments in Moravia; and his opposition so impressed the Archduke Maximilian that he used his influence with Matthias to obtain concessions to the Protestants. Matthias, however, soon found that no concessions would induce the Moravian Estates to sanction the Hungarian war; and even an appeal to the Presburg Assembly had no better success.

Imperial authority having thus failed, Matthias once more fell back on his old attempt to sow division among his subjects. This time, however, he appealed not to provincial jealousies, but to the old class rivalries between citizen and noble. He had, no doubt, heard how his original conquest of Moravia had been hindered by the opposition of the city burgomasters to the decision of the nobles; and he therefore hoped that, now that the nobles were his most dangerous enemies, the municipal authorities might be induced to rally round him. He was further strengthened in this belief by the recollection that his aristocratic supporters had been willing to abandon on behalf of the towns those religious liberties which they had claimed to exercise on their own estates.

This time he hit the mark. The Town Councils of Brünn and Olmütz readily responded to his appeal to support him against his rebellious nobles; and they even denounced to the King those citizens who had complained of the exclusion of Protestants from the government of the towns. Matthias encouraged these appeals, and disregarded the protest of Z̆erotin, who maintained that the towns could only approach the King through the Captain of Moravia.

Having secured this weapon, Matthias determined to use it to the uttermost. Hitherto, the houses of the nobles had been free from any interference, in the matter of religious worship; and citizens, who had been excluded from Protestant services elsewhere, had been allowed to attend them when celebrated in a nobleman’s house. Now, however, Matthias not only took away this liberty, but summoned to Vienna some of the citizens who attended these services.

Yet no threats nor tyrannies could induce the Estates to sanction the Transylvanian war; and Matthias’s insistence on this expedition only roused the suspicion of the German Princes, and once more drew Christian of Anhalt into alliance with the Protestants of Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary.

Had Matthias been a shrewder politician, he would have abstained from giving artificial stimulus to the local jealousies of his subjects, and would have suffered them to grow into importance of their own accord. It soon appeared that, whatever reaction might be exerted by the king’s mischief-making policy, the rivalry between Moravia and Bohemia was still an important force in national politics. It is not easy to estimate the exact force of all the considerations which influenced the leaders of the rival provinces. The name of liberty, for instance, could be appealed to, with some sincerity, on either side of the controversy. Z̆erotin, for his part, was thoroughly convinced that a centralised administration at Prague would hinder the free play of the local institutions of Moravia, and would also weaken the possibilities of that independent alliance between Austria, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary, which seemed to him the best protection for the Protestants against the encroachments of the Catholic party.

On the other hand, the Bohemians could justly maintain that Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty gave them, and all who united with them, wider liberties than any which were secured by the laws of Moravia; and, curiously enough, the most dependent classes of Moravia had been deprived by their separation from Bohemia of a right of appeal to a court at Prague which still gave them some slight protection against the power of their lords.

But, important as all these questions were, they were gradually driven into the background by one of more immediate interest to the rival leaders. Z̆erotin had, as already mentioned, a special feeling of loyalty to the House of Hapsburg, which was not shared in the same degree by the leaders of the Bohemian Protestants. So Budovĕc and his friends were rapidly arriving at the conclusion that the best security for their liberties was to be found, not in the substitution of one Hapsburg for another, but in the deposition of the whole family in favour of some king who had a real respect for religious liberty. To such a step Z̆erotin could not consent; and it was no doubt because he was aware of this difference, that Matthias now began to recognise the Bohemian leaders as his chief enemies, and to devote himself to the special oppression of their province.

In 1613, the freedom of the press was suspended in Bohemia, and a censorship was re-established. A Jesuit preacher denounced the Letter of Majesty, declaring that it had never been formally sanctioned by Rudolf. The Archbishop of Prague began to close Protestant churches and to turn out Protestant priests. But a still more ominous hint of the bitterness of the approaching struggle was to be found in the character of the man whom the Archdukes now chose as the representative of their family in the controversy. The conciliatory policy of the Archduke Maximilian seemed a hopeless failure. Matthias, in the opinion of his kinsmen, was becoming as incapable as Rudolf had been. They therefore resolved to choose from their family a man of strong and determined character, who would be willing if necessary to take the most extreme measures for enforcing their policy.

This champion of the family reaction was found in Ferdinand, Duke of Styria. He had been trained by the Jesuits in a fierce enthusiasm for the Catholic faith. He had carried out a ruthless policy in Styria against the Protestant preachers; and he had there compelled both citizens and peasants to attend the Catholic services. He had already been proposed by the extremer Catholics as a candidate for the Imperial throne; and it was to hinder his election that Z̆erotin supported the election of Matthias. Matthias, indeed, was now weary of his position, and he was particularly glad that Ferdinand should take his place in facing the hostility of the Moravian Assembly; but a new, and perhaps unexpected, opponent came forward at the next meeting of that Assembly, to resist the policy of the Emperor and his champion. Bishop Khlesl had never been popular with the main body of the House of Hapsburg. They considered that his personal influence over Matthias tended to separate the policy of that prince from the general schemes of the House. The Bishop therefore understood that the rise of Ferdinand to power would be the prelude to his own fall. His recent elevation to the rank of Cardinal encouraged him to venture on a more independent policy; and, with the help of Z̆erotin, he succeeded in defeating another proposal for a grant in aid of the Transylvanian war.

But Matthias’s old policy of ruling by dividing was at last to obtain an unexpected and signal success. It will be remembered that Silesia, like Moravia, had secured, after Matthias’s coronation in Prague, a much more independent position than had been conceded to it in earlier days; and it was one result of the new position of these provinces, that they were now able and eager to contend against each other, like independent kingdoms, for the possession of territory which might have been previously accepted by them as a part of their common Kingdom of Bohemia. The land specially in dispute was the district of Troppau, which appears to have had some separate Assembly of its own, but which some of the dukes of Silesia considered to be closely connected with their province. The Moravians, on the other hand, believed that Troppau more properly belonged to them; and, as they were more ready to recognise the rights of the Troppau Assembly, it seems probable that the popular feeling in that district would incline to the Moravian side. But Matthias, remembering that Moravia had successfully opposed his military projects, eagerly advocated the cause of Silesia; and, while securing to that province a more complete independence of the Bohemian Chancellor, he declared at the same time that the ruler of Troppau must be a prince of Silesia. To weaken the Moravians still further, by sowing division in their own ranks, he chose Karl von Lichtenstein as Duke of Troppau and Prince of Silesia. The bitter quarrel which followed this decision had an important effect on the future of the country; for Charles of Z̆erotin was thereby convinced that his hope for a peaceful league between the three provinces had become a vain dream; and, in February, 1615, he resigned his Captaincy of Moravia, and was succeeded by a member of the Catholic party.

While this increasing separation between the differing provinces was bringing further weakness to the Protestant cause, the Archdukes were being driven forward to an extremer Catholic policy. The new attitude of Khlesl had irritated against him even the moderate Maximilian, and had decided the Archdukes to demand the deposition of Khlesl’s patron and pupil, first from the Bohemian, and afterwards from the Imperial, throne; and the substitution of Ferdinand for him in both those dignities.

It is difficult to understand how it was that, in June, 1617, the Catholic party seem to have gained a power in Bohemia greater than they possessed either in the previous or the following year; though no doubt the surprise at Matthias’s decision, and the absence of any possible successor, had placed the Estates in a position of great difficulty. At any rate, so it was, that Count Thurn and Colonna von Fels were the only members of the Assembly who ventured to oppose Ferdinand’s election; while the majority not only raised no objection, but even abandoned that right of free election on which they had insisted in the time of Ferdinand I.; and they “accepted” their new sovereign as the necessary heir to the kingdom. Some little remnant of spirit, however, was shown in the demand that Ferdinand should confirm the privileges of the Estates before he was crowned; and, after consulting with his Jesuit advisers, he gave his approval, even to Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty.

But no sooner was Ferdinand seated on the throne, than he proceeded to violate the principle, if not the letter, of the promises which he had just made. He directed the judges of his chief tribunal to preside at the meetings of the Church Congregations in Prague; to inquire into all their accounts, and to allow no decision to be passed by them which the judges had not approved. Further they were to examine all the institutions connected with each church; to find out if they carried out the purposes of their founders and, if not, to compel them to do so. This decree was intended as a step towards the restoration to the Catholics of all the churches which had passed into Utraquist hands. At the same time, the Archbishop of Prague, who had already demanded the closing of a Protestant church at Hroby, now insisted that that church should be pulled down. Sometimes, as in the case of the monastery of Braunau, the encroachments of the Catholics were defended on the ground of some peculiar interpretation of Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty; but it was evident that the attacks on the Protestants would not long be limited by any legal pretences. The Defenders of the Protestants, who had been chosen during the struggle against Rudolf, still retained their offices; and they now summoned a Protestant Assembly to meet in Prague on March 5, 1618. The towns, however, would not venture to send representatives to this Assembly; and the nobles who did come decided to defer action until the Estates of all the Crown Lands could meet on the 21st of May.

The Royalist Party resolved to counteract this movement by every means in their power. They tried hard to separate the towns still further from the nobles; and they hoped to draw the representatives of the old Utraquists away from the other Protestants. The attempt to influence the towns had some partial success; but nevertheless six of them (including Kutna Hora and Mláda Boleslav) consented to send representatives to the new Assembly. The attempt to separate the Utraquists from their fellow Protestants was a complete failure, for all the parish clergy of Prague consented to announce from their pulpits the meeting of the Assembly.

It was now clear that a violent crisis was unavoidable; and no sooner did the Assembly meet in the Carolinum than two officials of the Emperor entered the building, and announced that Matthias forbad them to continue their discussions. The Protestants were seriously alarmed; and Count Thurn demanded that, as they had been summoned to the Castle to meet the representatives of the Emperor, they should be allowed to wear arms on that occasion. The official representative of Matthias consented to this proposal; and on May 22nd Count Thurn had a special meeting with Budovĕc, Colonna von Fels, and a few others, at which they resolved on their plan of action. A rumour rapidly spread that the Protestants were planning some violent attack; and one of the officials fled secretly to Vienna.

On May 23rd the Estates gathered in the great Hall of Assembly at the Castle; and, as soon as the letter of the Emperor had been read, the Protestants read their letter of protest against his prohibition of their meeting. Then they demanded to know who had advised the Emperor to threaten the Estates. Adam of Sternberg, who was now chief Burggraf of Prague, refused to answer this question, on the ground that Privy Councillors were not bound to reveal the advice which they had given to the Emperor. Count Thurn replied that the Estates would not leave that place till they had received an answer to their question. Then a number of charges were fiercely poured out against the advisers of the Emperor; and Martinic and Slavata were reminded of their resistance to the Assembly of 1609, and especially of their refusal to sign the Letter of Majesty. One of Count Thurn’s followers denounced them as enemies of the commonwealth; and this charge was received with shouts of applause by the other members of the Estates. Sternberg entreated the Assembly to be calm; but he was urged to retire from the Hall, and was at last forced out of it, with one of the other officials. Then William of Lobkovic suddenly seized upon Martinic, and, after a fierce struggle, flung him from the window down into the castle ditch, which was twenty-eight ells below; and Thurn threw Slavata after him. Their secretary, Fabricius, protested, and was in his turn thrown out of the window. Wonderful to say, none of the three were killed; and only Fabricius seems to have been seriously injured. They succeeded in taking refuge in the house of the Chancellor; and afterwards they escaped secretly from the city.

[Illustration: HALL IN THE CASTLE OF PRAGUE FROM WHENCE MARTINIC AND SLAVATA WERE THROWN.]

A provisional government was at once formed of thirty Defenders. Wenceslaus of Ruppa, who had taken a leading part in this plot, was chosen President, and Count Thurn was once more appointed General of the Bohemian forces. The towns now gathered courage to join the movement; and only Budweis (Budejóvice), Pilsen (Plz̆en), and Krumov remained on the side of the Emperor. Matthias would even now have wished to conciliate his opponents; and, on the 6th of June, a messenger arrived in Prague announcing the Emperor’s willingness once more to confirm the Letter of Majesty. But this message was speedily followed by a letter from Ferdinand, announcing that he would only observe the Letter of Majesty in the same way that he had done hitherto; and he further threatened punishment against all who would not keep the peace. The Assembly saw the significance of this letter, and continued their preparations for war.

Ferdinand was now eager for action; but he found that Matthias still hindered his proceedings. This opposition the Archdukes attributed to the influence of Khlesl; and Maximilian was entrusted with the office of suppressing the Cardinal. For this purpose he paid a visit of apparent friendliness to Khlesl; but, when the cardinal returned the call, he found himself suddenly seized by Maximilian’s servants, stripped of his Cardinal’s robe, forced into a carriage, and driven off to Innsbrück, where he was kept a prisoner till the end of the Bohemian struggle.

But there were still other advisers, who claimed to be heard against the war. Both in Hungary and Upper Austria, the Estates, though unwilling to take active part with the Bohemians, urged Matthias to take peaceable measures for the restoring of order in Bohemia. In the Moravian Assembly, a resolution in favour of a similar policy was carried by Z̆erotin’s influence; though many of his colleagues would have preferred to give more active support to the Bohemians. The Protestant princes of Germany, however, and particularly the Elector Palatine, were eager for forcible resistance to Matthias; and a son of the Margrave of Brandenburg, who was also a prince of Silesia, persuaded his Silesian colleagues to assist the Bohemians. It was evident that war could no longer be avoided, and Matthias despatched Count Bucquoi to Bohemia. Count Mansfeld and the Elector Palatine had already sent troops to assist the Protestants; and Bucquoi was so thoroughly defeated at Lomnice, near Budejóvice, that he urged Matthias to make peace. The hopes of the Bohemians were further encouraged by Count Mansfeld’s capture of Pilsen; and Count Thurn resolved to invade Austria, and to attack Ferdinand at his headquarters. Now, however, there arose new difficulties. Tschernembl, indeed, tried to rouse the Austrians in defence of the Protestant cause; but he found only a very

## partial support; while an attempt to persuade the Moravians to assist

the Bohemian invasion was defeated by the influence of Z̆erotin, who bitterly denounced Thurn and Ruppa for making a religious movement the cover for their political intrigues. These rebuffs impressed on the Bohemians the necessity of strengthening their alliances with the German Protestants; and Ruppa sent a message to the Elector Palatine, to invite him to become king of Bohemia. Frederick V. was unwilling to accept this proposal. He understood that the Duke of Savoy was likely to dispute his claim to the Bohemian throne; and he also believed that his father-in-law, James I. of England, would object to his acceptance of that dignity. He did not, however, directly refuse; and the necessity for decisive action was still further shown by two deaths which took place about this time; that of the Archduke Maximilian, the one conciliatory member of the House of Hapsburg, and that of the Emperor Matthias a few months later.

Ferdinand was now face to face with his enemies, without any check upon his purposes. The alarm among the Protestants was all the greater for these events. The Silesian Assembly joined with their princes in support of Bohemia; Lausitz followed their lead; in spite of the resistance of Z̆erotin, many of the Moravian nobles also joined the cause; and the citizens of Jíhlava welcomed Count Thurn into their town. Carl von Lichtenstein, who was generally on the winning side, joined the Protestants in their support of the Bohemians; two attempts on the part of colonels to carry off their troops to Ferdinand met with complete failure; and at last Z̆erotin was put under arrest in his own house, and a provisional government was proclaimed in Moravia, and entrusted with power to co-operate with the Bohemians. The hopes of the Austrian Protestants were roused by this new phase of the movement; and Tschernembl at last persuaded the Estates of Upper Austria to declare in favour of the insurgents.

Thurn’s opportunity now seemed to have come; in May, 1619, he entered Austria, defeated some of Ferdinand’s forces, and marched to Vienna. But Ferdinand remained undaunted. He summoned before him the representatives of the Lower Austrian Estates, appealed to their sense of patriotism, and tried to persuade them to resist the Bohemians. He had been arguing in vain for some time, when suddenly the scene was changed by the entrance into the Hall of four cornets of horse, who had been secretly summoned by Ferdinand. The resistance of the Protestants was suddenly paralysed; and, when Thurn appeared before Vienna the next day, he found the citizens so unwilling to help him that he was forced to abandon the siege, and hastened back to defend Bohemia. There the contest had continued with various fortune; but it is believed that Bucquoi might soon have carried the day, had not a new ally appeared on the Bohemian side.

Bethlen Gabor, the new Prince of Transylvania, saw from the first that the success of Ferdinand would naturally lead to those renewed invasions of Transylvania which had played so important a part in the policy both of Rudolf and Matthias. The Hungarian Assembly had been at first unwilling to co-operate with the Bohemians; but, during his expedition to Vienna, Count Thurn had made the acquaintance of a leading Hungarian Protestant, whom he had roused to sympathy with the Bohemian cause. When this leader returned to Hungary, he soon convinced his friends that the cause of Protestantism was bound up with the effort for Bohemian independence; and, when Bethlen Gabor openly declared war on Ferdinand, large districts of Hungary rose on his behalf, and he speedily found himself in occupation of Presburg.

This encouraging news reached the Bohemians just as they were entering on one of the most important stages of their movement. The representatives of all the Bohemian provinces had met at Prague, and, after a declaration in favour of the Protestant cause, had formally deposed Ferdinand from the throne of Bohemia. Three candidates for the throne now offered themselves--the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony, and the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. But the first of the three had very much cooled in his friendship towards the Bohemian cause, since he had found that neither France nor England would support his claim to the crown. The Elector of Saxony, though popular with a small minority of Bohemians, had never been a zealous supporter of their liberties; and he was suspected of being a tyrannical ruler in his own dominions. So, on the 26th of August, 1619, the Elector Palatine of the Rhine was chosen King of Bohemia.

But, during the discussions of the Assembly, a sign had been given which might have warned the leaders of the insurrection of one fatal weakness in their position. The unfortunate peasantry, pressed down by the burdens of serfdom, greatly feared the additional evils of war. They had hoped that the concession of spiritual freedom, which Budovĕc had won for them, would have been followed by the grant of other liberties, more directly improving their material position; and they were proportionately bitter with their favourite leader, whom they accused of deserting them from motives of selfish ambition. They now assured the Estates that they could not hope for a blessing on a movement which ignored the wrongs of the peasantry. The charge against Budovĕc seems to have been wholly unjust. He was now past seventy; and, though his name was still useful to the leaders of the insurrection, his influence on their policy was extremely small. Had it been otherwise, the Council might have taken a different view of this vital question. As it was, the wrongs of the serfs were again ignored; and not only did the Protestant leaders lose thereby a popular basis for their movement, but they soon provoked against them a most dangerous opposition. When the peasantry found that the mercenary troops which the Protestants employed were as dangerous to natives as to foreigners, they began to think that Ferdinand was preferable to Frederick; and peasant risings hindered the progress of the Protestant army.

Frederick, of course, knew nothing as yet of this cause of weakness in his new position. Nevertheless, it was with a hesitating mind that he had listened to the proposal of the Bohemian Assembly. He had wished to wait until he could have secured the approval of his father-in-law, King James of England; and he knew already that he had to encounter the opposition of France. A still more dangerous omen for his future career had been given only two days after this election. The Electors of the Empire on the 28th of August had chosen Ferdinand Emperor of Germany; and on that occasion the Elector Palatine had been the only one who voted in the minority.

But two powerful counsellors urged Frederick on to his fate--his wife Elizabeth, and Christian of Anhalt. The latter promised him the support of the Protestant Union; but, though that support was most welcome, it was believed in Bohemia that his wife’s opinion had more weight on Frederick’s final decision. Therefore, on September 28, 1619, he resolved on accepting the crown, without waiting further for the opinion of his father-in-law. The victories of Bethlen Gabor doubtless encouraged Frederick in his dangerous course; and the enthusiasm with which he was received in Prague must have raised his hopes still further. His queen, indeed, though publicly thanked for her influence on his decision, soon became unpopular from her English dress and ways, and her ignorance of the Bohemian language; but this unpopularity does not seem to have affected her husband’s position.

A more serious difficulty was the inability of the Assembly to raise money for the payment of the troops; an evil which drove the soldiers to mutiny and robbery, and eventually caused the rising of the peasants against them. These evils the Bohemian Government attempted to meet,

## partly by debasement of the coinage, and partly by borrowing money from

foreign powers; but the great hope of the Bohemians still lay in the support of Bethlen Gabor.

About three weeks after the coronation of Frederick, Bethlen had invaded Austria, and was on his march to Vienna. The Austrians were again panic-struck; and when the peasantry discovered that they suffered as much from the forces of Ferdinand as from the Hungarian army, they refused to bestir themselves on the side of the Emperor. Suddenly, however, the news arrived that a Roman Catholic nobleman, who had been defeated by Bethlen in the earlier part of the struggle, had now returned to Hungary at the head of a Polish force, and had gained a signal victory over some of Bethlen’s supporters. Bethlen thereupon hastened back to Hungary, and Ferdinand hoped to get rid of this formidable opponent on moderate terms. But this hope speedily disappeared. Bethlen’s return to the scene of action at once restored success to his supporters. In January, 1620, the Hungarian Assembly formally deposed Ferdinand, and declared Bethlen Prince of Hungary; nor could even the acceptance of this election by his deposed rival detach Bethlen from the Bohemian cause; and he refused to make terms with Ferdinand until the latter had abandoned his claim on Bohemia. This encouraged the Bohemians yet further in their resistance; and the Austrian Protestants also showed considerable zeal in their cause. Tschernembl even came to Prague and took an active part in the organisation of the war; but he saw plainly that the oppressed condition of the peasantry prevented the struggle from assuming that popular character which alone could make it successful. He therefore strongly urged upon his colleagues the abolition of serfdom, as a means of securing the sympathy of the peasantry. But it was one of the weaknesses of the movement that the Bohemian nobles were hampered throughout by their class prejudices; and Tschernembl’s proposals were rejected.

About the same time Ferdinand strengthened his cause by the complete union of his forces with those of the Catholic League. Maximilian of Bavaria, the founder of that League, had cherished for some time his hereditary suspicion and dislike to the House of Austria; and he had been even mentioned as a rival when Ferdinand was first proposed as Emperor. But the increase of the power of the Protestants gradually brought the Catholic rivals together; and towards the end of July, Maximilian had already consented to assist in suppressing an Austrian rising. Now, in September, he entered Bohemia; and his general, Tilly, became the chief person in the Imperialist army. This seems to have been the turning-point in the war. Christian of Anhalt, who had joined the Bohemian forces, was compelled to retreat to Moravia; while one of Ferdinand’s generals was despatched to Presburg to prevent Bethlen from marching to the assistance of the Bohemians. One of the ablest generals on the Bohemian side was Count Mansfeld, a lawless soldier of fortune. He, unable to pay his troops, had taken to plundering the Bohemian peasantry; and, finding that Frederick and Anhalt were both opposed to this method of warfare, he consented to accept a bribe from the Imperialists, which kept him quiet during their advance to Prague. This at once led Maximilian to hope for a speedy conquest; and, abandoning the siege of Pilsen, Bucquoi and Tilly at once marched forward to Prague.

Anhalt, who had been defending Pilsen, hastened to Rakonic, a town about thirty miles west of Prague, in order to cut off the advance of the Imperialists. But, in spite of his energy, the Imperialist forces came upon the Bohemians at Rakonic before they expected them, and utterly routed them. Frederick at once lost heart, and sent off a messenger to Elizabeth to tell her to fly from Prague, as all was lost. But the Queen seems to have inherited something of the courage, as well as of the beauty, of her unfortunate grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots; and she indignantly refused to accept this advice. Anhalt in the meantime had succeeded in rallying his forces, and holding the Imperialists in check before Rakonic. But on the 3rd of November, Maximilian received a new supply of provisions; and, encouraged by this refreshment, the Imperial army once more broke up their camp, and continued their march to Prague. Anhalt again attempted to anticipate their march; and, on the night of the 7th of November, he reached the White Hill, about an hour’s journey from Prague.

Some of the Hungarian forces, whom Bethlen had previously despatched to the aid of the Bohemians, remained at the village of Rusin, at the foot of the hill; but they were there attacked and driven into flight by the cavalry of the Imperialists, neither their German nor their Bohemian allies attempting to rescue them. Again the wretched King of Bohemia was seized with a panic; and this time he actually fled from the army, and did not stop till he reached Prague. Bucquoi desired to leave the enemy unattacked, and to advance straight to Prague; but Tilly did not think it safe to leave Anhalt’s army in the rear; and, while they were still discussing the point, Dr. Angelini, a chaplain of Maximilian’s, exhorted them to fight, as God would protect them. This at once decided the Generals; and, as Bucquoi was wounded, Tiefenbach took his place at the head of his forces. The first opening of the battle was favourable to the Bohemians. Count Thurn repelled an attack of the Imperialist cavalry, and Anhalt followed up this success by advancing in his turn. But Tilly came to the rescue, drove back Anhalt’s forces, and stormed the fortifications which had just been erected. Then a complete panic seized the Protestant army; the soldiers fled in confusion, and many were drowned in the Moldau in their endeavour to escape from the Imperialists. Anhalt did his best to rally the fugitives; but he soon found that further resistance was hopeless. Tschernembl, indeed, still wished to defend Prague, and even to organise a new attack; but the rest of the Council decided to open negotiations with Ferdinand. It was resolved, however, that the Queen and her child should at once be sent away into safety; and Frederick went to make arrangements for this purpose. But, with the departure of his wife, the wretched King had lost all remains of hope; and, no sooner had he despatched her on her journey, than he suddenly mounted his horse and galloped off after her, followed by Ruppa and other members of the Provisional Government. Count Thurn’s son endeavoured, indeed, to rally his forces once more for the defence of the Karlsbrücke; but the soldiers were too terrified to fight; the Imperialist army entered the town with little resistance; and on November 23rd Ferdinand received, at Vienna, a chest containing the charters of all the Bohemian privileges.

Of the causes of this final collapse of Bohemian independence there are three which stand out with special vividness: the first connected solely with the events of the insurrection; the second, with the condition of Bohemia ever since the fall of Tabor; the third, with a fatal weakness that had reappeared continually through the greater part of Bohemian history. The first was the character of the leaders who undertook to guide this movement. With the exception of Budovĕc and Tschernembl there seem to be none of those heroic figures at the helm of affairs which are indispensable for a struggle for independence; and, of these two exceptions, Budovĕc had been speedily thrust into the background by his more ambitious colleagues, and Tschernembl’s advice was disregarded in most vital points. Of the rest, Ruppa seems to have been cowardly and colourless; Count Thurn, rash and unscrupulous to the last degree; Christian of Anhalt, an ambitious self-seeker; Mansfeld, a mere soldier of fortune, with rather less principle than Dugald Dalgetty; and as for the Elector Palatine, the story has shown how deficient he was in every kingly quality.

The second cause of weakness was the fatally aristocratic character of the movement. The rejection of the petitions of the serfs was in only too faithful harmony with the course of Bohemian history since the fall of Tabor. The Brotherhood alone had witnessed for wider sympathies and a higher conception of humanity and religion; but, as we have seen, even the Brotherhood had often found it difficult to resist the encroachment of aristocratic principles on its own organisation. The cry for freedom for a class could not animate a nation to resist the enthusiasm of sincere bigots like Ferdinand of Austria and Maximilian of Bavaria, nor the military ability of Tilly.

The third error, which hastened the ruin of Bohemia, was the connection which the Bohemian leaders had formed with the alien policy and the unsympathetic schemes of the German intriguers.

From the time when Vratislav received his crown from Henry IV., to the time when Budovĕc and Thurn called Christian of Anhalt into their counsels, this seems to have been the fatal mistake running through the history of Bohemia. Doubtless both Vratislav and Vladislav meant well by their country, and they secured it a more brilliant position for a time; but they involved that country in many wars and disputes which hindered its progress, and which often encouraged unpatriotic intrigues. Doubtless, too, Wenceslaus and Ottakar promoted the trade and, for a time, even the freedom of Bohemia, by the introduction of German laws and German settlers into their towns; but this innovation, intended by them as a development of good government in Bohemia, was easily perverted by Otto of Brandenburg into a means of new tyranny. Still more unquestionably well-meant was the attempt of Charles IV. to combine the greatness of the German Empire with the growth of culture and learning in Bohemia; but, as unquestionably, it ended in failure, and its benefit chiefly consisted in the preparation that it afforded for the purely Bohemian movement which rose from its ruins. Hus in the fourteenth century, Peter of Chelc̆ic and his followers in the fifteenth and sixteenth, were the people through whom Bohemia was really able to develop a distinctive life, and thereby to do most essential service to the other nations of Europe; and we shall see, from the fragments of national history which still remain to be told, that it is through such representatives as these that Bohemia, even after the loss of its political independence, could still do some work, which other countries may be the better for studying.