Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/87

 of Skála’s book, namely, those chapters that deal with the affairs of Bohemia from 1602 to 1623. Professor Tieftrunk writes in his introduction: ‘These years can be considered as a closely-connected period, and as the melancholy conclusion of the more glorious days of Bohemian history.’

I can only quote a few passages from Skála’s work that refer to these memorable years, and will first translate some portion of his account of the defenestration; he writes: ‘On the twenty-third of May, the day that is the beginning and opening of all the misery and misfortunes that followed, the representatives of the cities met at 8 in the morning at the Hradčany palace. Then Joachim Andrew Count Šlik meeting the representatives of the town of Slary, seized them both by the hand, and after carefully looking around the room (for at that time many Romanists were spying in all parts of the palace) he said: “I know that the estate of the townsmen is honourable and noble-minded, and that its members are honourable and noble-minded men, useful to their cities Therefore do I place my trust in you that you will keep to yourselves what I shall tell you. You well know that the Romanists wish to deprive us of the Letter of Majesty, which through the grace of God we obtained, with difficulty enough, and this with God’s help we will not permit. You will see and hear to-day terrible and unheard-of things, such as neither your ancestors nor mine ever saw or heard; things that will not please those who communicate in one kind. For the lords intend sin-