Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/94

 oath to keep all transactions secret, should have such a demand addressed to them. If the Estates wished to know who advised the Emperor in regard to the paper, it would be simpler and more appropriate to address the question directly to his Majesty. “Whether such a question,” said Thurn, “was ever addressed to the Emperor’s counsellors, or not, is a matter of indifference; we declare, however, that we shall not leave the place without a decisive answer—a yes or no.”

Upon these words followed a confused clamor among the nobility, in which were poured forth manifold charges against Martinitz and Slawata, with the threat of punishment to both as injurious to the commonwealth. A sudden horror seized all present, and they shrank back in indecision from the intended murder. In order to prevent the Estates from returning to calmer reflection, Thurn, Fels, and William von Lobkowitz repeated again, and nearly at the same instant, their question as to the authorship of the imperial letter, and what part the Regents had in it. After consultation, which took place under the influence of wild glances, threatening gestures, and the gleam of weapons, the chief Burggrave declared that, only yielding to the storm, he would so far violate the secret as to assure them that the paper was not drafted in Prague. This declaration, though true, did not satisfy the Estates. Thurn especially was disappointed, because he designed to have the guilt of the two hated Regents, in regard to the paper, affirmed, and then to proceed to the execution. But he had been thoughtful enough to foresee this issue and provide another justification of the sentence to be pronounced. This he found in the transactions in connection with the amnesty of 1609. When, nine years before, the Estates by threats