The Cambridge modern history. Vol. IV, The Thiry Years' War / planned by the late Lord Acton ; edited by A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero, Stanley Leathes.

Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Cambridge modern history. Vol. IV, The Thiry Years' War / planned by the late Lord Acton ; edited by A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero, Stanley Leathes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1618] render impossible any further attempt on the part of Matthias and his advisers to tide over the Bohemian difficulty till the question of the Imperial succession should have been settled in favour of the House of Austria and the Catholic interest. He was resolved that the issue between the Reaction and Protestant liberties, which was also that between the Viennese Government and the Estates of the several Habs- burg lands, should be determined, not at Frankfort or at Ratisbon, but in Bohemia. Thus Klesfs peace policy was cast forth from the Hofburg when the myrmidons of the Reaction were hurled down from the Hradschin; and though the Apologia issued by the Bohemian Estates two days after the outrage insisted that not the Emperor, but only his evil counsellors, were chargeable with the oppression of the Protestants, Thum and his associates had established a solidarity between the Habs- burgs and reactionaries such as Martinitz and Slawata which must force friend and foe alike to make up their minds. The House of Austria, after violating chartered Protestant and national rights in Bohemia, would have to meet the first shock of the conflict which had long been preparing itself in the Empire, and of which Europe at large had been more or less consciously awaiting the outbreak. Yet for this outbreak hardly any Power or party in the Empire or in Europe, not even the Bohemian Assembly which had so audaciously provoked it, was actually prepared. The Bohemian Protestants, however, lost no time in organising what was now an open insurrection. On the day after the “ defenestration ” the Prague municipalities sent their representatives into the Protestant Assembly; and the other royal towns (except only Budweis and Pilsen) followed suit. A provisional government of thirty Directors, ten from each Estate, was named to defend the religious liberties of the kingdom, with Wenceslas William von Ruppa, one of the managers of the Hradschin demonstration, at its head, while Thurn as lieutenant-general assumed command of the mercenary army which had been hastily raised, the idea of a national levy having been soon abandoned. No change was introduced into the system of government beyond the dismissal of those held to have abused the royal confidence. The Archbishop of Prague, the Abbot of Braunau, and some other offending ecclesiastics were driven out, and the Jesuits banished the realm in perpetuum. But money flowed in slowly, and, after Thurn had set out in the middle of June with a force of not more than 3000 foot and 1100 horse to expel the Imperialist garrisons from Krummau and Budweis, a Diet had to be summoned to vote fresh supplies, and the Directors began to look anxiously for the support of the other Habsburg lands. But in Hungary, where Ferdinand was awaiting his coronation at 1 ressburg, the new Catholic Palatine sent the Bohemian agent in custody to Vienna. In Upper Austria the Protestant majority of the Estates, led by lschemembl, contented itself with menaces to the Empeior, and in Lower Austria it persisted in pressing its own