Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/81

 Matthias, after this decisive utterance, desired still further to pursue the way he had entered upon, and so contented himself no longer with simply supplying his parishes with Catholic priests, but would force the occupants of his domains into Catholicism, thus violating the chief concession of the Royal Charter—the freedom of the individual conscience. In consequence of the oppression of the Protestants, many of those who had lived upon the royal domains removed from them and filled the land with their wails, and the irritation increased day by day. Not enough: the administration issued an order which cannot indeed be deemed unreasonable in itself, to the effect that all the royal cities should be required to receive Catholics into their citizenship, by which the decision of some cities not to admit the accession of Catholics was annulled. To this provision was added the further innovation that the royal chamberlain should appoint the city counsellors, upon whom the government depended, and these places were filled more or less by Catholics.

Thus far had reactionary measures progressed under Matthias; it is perceived that their working was chiefly upon the domains of the crown and the Church; for in the royal cities no essential right of the Protestants was abridged. After the elevation, however, of Ferdinand to the Bohemian throne, it was determined to advance more rapidly and make preparations for gradually restoring all the royal cities to the Catholic Church. The suspicion, that Ferdinand not only knew of this plan but furthered it, is not unfounded. In order to accomplish the desired end, the first attempt was to be made in Prague. If success should attend the measure in this, the most populous and important city of the land, the