Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/162

 Hall. The Estates, who, by their bold action, sought to frighten the King to yield, were not in their turn without anxiety, lest they should receive a sudden blow at the hands of the Catholic party. They had been warned of this before they entered the castle; some journeymen mechanics in a country-house had besought them, in the name of God, not to enter the castle, as they would there be seized, and that their execution was a settled matter. This rumor, so far as concerns its origin, may have been due to the excitement of the Protestants, who perhaps felt that their efforts designed for the overthrow of Ferdinand might be paid back in the same coin. The sudden galloping up of a cavalry troop, which they could see from the window of the Audience Hall, might be so interpreted, and in fact the Protestants saw in it an evil omen. Some at once ran in fright as if all was over with them. Their language, which a moment before was bold even to daring, changed suddenly, and as if by magic the usual forms of intercourse between prince and people resumed their sway. With a few utterances answering to this state of things, the deputation took their leave. Their appearance in the street quieted their friends, for in the city it was already thought that evil had befallen them.

It was in the following night that Thurn reached Vienna; but the expectation, that with the aid of the party hostile to the King he would be able to force his entry into the city, was not realized. What ground there was, however, for this expectation cannot now be certainly known. It is known only that Thurn himself repeatedly expressed such hopes, and that the Catholics of the time charged the Protestants with having made treasonable propositions, and that in the judicial proceedings instituted, after the victory by the imperial government, a citizen of