Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/95

] shuffling and loss of honour, to avoid war for sixteen years. He now saw himself dragged into a hopeless contest by the folly of his son-in-law, the elector of the Palatinate. Frederick, the elector, was a protestant of the Calvinistic school, and the protestants of Bohemia, anxious to prevent the catholic emperor of Austria acquiring their crown, offered it to him, which he was imprudent enough to accept. James was thunderstruck by the news, and instantly avowed that the elector had entered on an enterprise which would involve him in utter ruin. To enable the reader, however, to understand the question, we must take a brief review of the antecedents of the case. Bohemia, a country inhabited by a branch of the great Selavonic race called CtechcsCzechs [sic], had early imbibed the doctrines of protestantism. These protestants had been visited by the vengeance of the pope, and their most distinguished leaders, Stekna, Milicz, and Janowa, had, in the fourteenth century, been compelled to escape into Poland. But persecution there, as everywhere else, only augmented the zeal and numbers of the protestants. At the close of that century, Anne, queen of Richard II. of England, a Bohemian princess, dying, many of her countrymen who had attended her in this country returned, carrying thither the Bible and the principles of Wycliffe. John Huss set about to translate all the writings of our great reformer into Bohemian, and is supposed to have been assisted in this by Hieronymus, or, as he is more commonly called, Jerome of Prague, who had studied in Oxford. These distinguished men were burnt at the stake in 1414, but their death only added fresh intensity and fresh disciples to their doctrines. In 1526, Bohemia, which had till then been an independent kingdom, became united to Austria by the marriage of Ferdinand I. to the daughter of Lewis II. From that moment there were bitter persecutions, for the house of Austria was bigotedly catholic. The people resisted the imposition of the papal yoke by the Austrian princes, and insurrection and carnage were the consequences. At length the emperor Rudolph was obliged to cede to the sturdy Bohemians the right of enjoying their own religious faith; and it was stipulated that they should be at liberty to erect churches on the crown lands. The Calvinists, the most resolute sect of the Bohemian protestants—for they were divided into Calvinists and Lutherans—declared the church lands were, in fact, crown lands, and began to build churches on estates belonging to the archbishop of Prague and the abbot of Braunau. These prelates appealed to the emperor Matthias, who decided against the protestants; and an order was issued to pull down again the churches both at Prague and Braunau. At Braunau the people made resistance, and some of their leaders were thrown into prison. This created a great excitement, and count Henry Matthias von Thurn, the head of the evangelical church, called an assembly of the protestants at Prague, on the 6th of March, 1618, to take measures for the maintenance of their privileges; but the enthusiasm with which this step was attended, from all parts of the country, greatly alarming the Austrians, menaces of punishment were issued by imperial brief against those who took part in it. This roused the wrath of the people, who, headed by count Thurn, on the 23rd of May, 1618, marched to the royal palace, and seized Martinitz and Slawata, the viceroys, and their secretary Fabricius, and hurled them out of the window of the council chamber, which was eighty feet from the ground. These men, and Martinitz especially, had been the servile tools of the Austrian court, and had thereby excited the hatred of the people. They refused the rites of marriage, baptism, and burial to all who would not consent to become catholics; they were accused of having drawn up the menacing letter which came signed by the emperor, and of hunting the protestants into the catholic churches with dogs. Luckily for them there was plenty of mud in the palace ditch, and they escaped with their lives.

This bold deed kindled a flame throughout all Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia, and Silesia. Thurn sent forth a proclamation, assuring the protestants that the die was cast; that they had nothing but vengeance and oppression to expect from Austria; and therefore the time was come to throw off the Austrian yoke, to resume the independence of Bohemia, and make common cause with the protestants of Germany and the Netherlands. The people flocked to Prague; the palace was occupied by the troops of the different provinces; an oath was taken from the magistrates and officials to obey the states alone; the taxes were ordered to be paid only to those appointed by them; the Jesuits were chased from the country; a council of thirty members was elected to assume the government, and Thurn placed at their head. All this passed with lightning rapidity, and caused the utmost consternation in Vienna.

Matthias was sickly and feeble both in body and mind, but his cousin Ferdinand, who was named as his successor to the empire, a bigot of the very first water, and whose name soon became the rallying cry of all bigotry in Europe, caught at the opportunity as one sent by Heaven, to enable him to exterminate protestantism in Austria. Aided by the archduke Maximilian, the brother of the emperor Matthias, he sent off to the Spanish court in the Netherlands demands for co-operation in this great work, and armies were prepared in Austria; whilst Thurn and the Bohemians, on their part, mustered with all eagerness their forces. Matthias, the emperor, proposed to settle the difference by arbitration, but Ferdinand and Maximilian rejected any such means, seized cardinal Klesel, the emperor's adviser, and sent him prisoner into the Tyrol, so that the poor invalid Matthias remained a puppet in their hands. He died in March, 1619. Ferdinand, the prince of bigots, to whom whole nations of lives were only as so much dust in comparison with the sacredness of his dogmas, mounted the throne, being elected emperor in August of that year; and all Europe stood in expectation of the bloody decision of this quarrel,—a quarrel which was destined to spread over all Germany, draw into its vortex Sweden, Denmark, Holland, France, and England, and to be forever remembered in the world as the most terrible of contests, the "Thirty Years War."

At this moment, when all the protestants of Germany were united in a Union for the maintenance of their principles, but were opposed by the far more powerful League of the catholic princes, when Ferdinand, emperor of Austria, supported by the able and active elector Maximilian of Bavaria, the head of the League in Germany, and by the arch-duke of Austria, was promised the co-operation of Spain,