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Rh and of their destruction. He therefore thought that the devil would fry him on a spit in hell. Berka then said that he hoped the Lord God would bless his beloved lord for this pledge; no toast had ever yet pleased him so much as this one, and his only wish was that that should happen to the Emperor Ferdinand, the greatest enemy of the Bohemians, which the Turkish ambassador had said; and he added, Amen! Amen! Amen!'

"The same Turkish envoy then exhorted the Bohemian nobles that they should never submit to the Emperor Ferdinand; if they were not sufficiently strong, his emperor would send 60,000 men to their aid. . . . Berka further said that he knew for a certainty that the Emperor Ferdinand would willingly give 50,000 ducats so that he might obtain his head; but that his friends would give the troops 200,000 ducats that they might fight Ferdinand till he was totally defeated and driven to despair. To this the Turkish ambassador answered that he would act wisely and justly in doing so, for Ferdinand had not held his word and promise, just as his predecessors of the House of Austria, Rudolph and Matthew, had not kept their promises to his Majesty, the Ottoman emperor.

"Berka then declared that the House of Austria had always been the ruin of Bohemia, because by its false Spanish practices it had sold the kingdom, his beloved fatherland, into perpetual servitude and made slaves and serfs of the Bohemians. Therefore the kind Lord God would not allow this any longer, nor permit that such tyranny and cruelty should be practised against them; but He in His great mercy had opened their eyes, and they had therefore taken up arms against