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 feated by the invincible will of the nation. At length peace was restored by the election of King George of Podebrad, under whom Bohemia prospered as she had done under Charles IV. To quote Count Lützoff:— "King George has always dwelt in the minds of the Bohemian nation as the king, next to Charles IV, whose memory the Czechs treasure most. But, nevertheless, the fate of Bohemia was sealed. She could not sustain a struggle of indefinite duration against almost the whole of Europe, and her power of resistance was for the time weakened.

"At the battle of the White Mountain (1620), between the Catholic King of Germany, Ferdinand, and Frederic, the elected King of Bohemia, the latter was crushed and the party in Bohemia which had struggled so long for religious liberty suffered a defeat, and for three hundred years Bohemia was removed from the list of independent nations and had to suffer under the German yoke. Twenty-seven of the leading nobles of Bohemia who had not fled the country after this conclusive battle were executed in the market-place of Prague."

Gindely, a Roman Catholic historian, says of this event: "These melancholy executions mark the end of the old and independent Bohemia. Members of the most prominent families of the land, eminent citizens, in fact all the representatives of Bohemian culture died here, and with them their land. The history of the country henceforth was in the hands of foreigners who had neither comprehension of nor sympathy with its former institutions." 28