Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/67

 clerk of the city of Prague, and he was chancellor of the city in the momentous year 1546. Sixt’s book, entitled Acts and record-book of those troubled years 1546 and 1547, deals with the conflict between Ferdinand I and the Bohemian Estates caused by the troubles that broke out in Germany in 1546. The German Lutherans had risen in arms against the Emperor Charles, and his brother Ferdinand requested the Bohemians to aid the imperial cause. The Bohemians—mostly members of the Reformed Church—refused this request, and even entered into negotiations with the German Protestants, whose leader Frederick, Elector of Saxony, was a neighbour of Bohemia. While the Bohemians were still undecided, the battle of Mühlberg was fought on April 27, 1547, and the power of the German Protestants was for a time completely broken. The Bohemians, who had done nothing to aid the Elector of Saxony, but much to irritate Ferdinand, now decided to send a deputation—of which Sixt was a member—to their king to convey to him their congratulations on the victory of the imperial arms. The envoys met the King of Bohemia in the camp before Wittenberg, which the imperial forces were then besieging. Sixt’s account of the voyage of the envoys through the devastated lands of Saxony is very interesting; very curious also is his account of the meeting of the Bohemians with King Ferdinand, whom they first saw at a distance ‘walking among the tents while saying his hours or paternosters.’

The king returned an evasive answer, and shortly afterwards marched into Bohemia. After a short stay at Litoměřice, he advanced on Prague and occupied