Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/83

 The Protestants immediately rose in arms. On May 23, 1618, the Austrian officials were thrown from the windows of the Hradčany palace, and a provisional government was formed. On August 26, 1619, the Count Palatine Frederick was elected King of Bohemia. His want of military talent and even of courage rendered him quite unable to resist the Romanist coalition that was speedily formed, and which included Austria, Bavaria, Spain, and Poland. The defeat of the Bohemian forces at the battle of the White Mountain ended the existence of Bohemia as an independent country, and for a time it appeared probable that even the national language would disappear. A melancholy epilogue to these tragic events were the executions at Prague on June 21, 1621.

Of these stirring events we have two contemporary accounts, both written in the national language by men who themselves played a part in these events. Of these writers one, William Count Slavata, was one of the most trusted councillors of the Emperor Ferdinand II; the other, Skála ze Zhoře, a Protestant and a government official of King Frederick.

William Count Slavata, Lord of Chlum and Košumberk, is well known to all students of the Thirty Years’ War. He enjoyed high favour at the court of Vienna during the reigns of both Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III. Born in 1572 as a member of the Bohemian Brotherhood, he joined the Church of Rome in 1597, to the great indignation of the members of his family, who all belonged to the Brotherhood. Probably in con-