XVIII.
FROM THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE HILL TO THE PRESENT TIME.
Few crises in the history of a country are so dramatically complete, or mark so clear a division between past and future, as the Battle of the White Hill. Though Mansfeld still held out for a time in some towns of Bohemia, and though the victories of Gustavus Adolphus in 1631 led to a temporary return of the Protestants, such partial checks could not hinder the establishment of a stifling despotism, nor remove its traces when established. That Ferdinand II. desired only to crush rebellion, and to restore the orthodox Roman Catholic faith, may be true enough; but he soon found that civil and religious liberty were bound up together, and that a centralised despotism at Vienna was the only means of securing that outward appearance of orthodoxy which is all that the most energetic despot can produce. The first part of his efforts was no doubt naturally directed to the punishment of the insurgents. On the 21st of June, 1621, twenty-seven of the leaders of the insurrection were executed in the Great Ring of Prague, the noblest and best of them being old Wenceslaus of Budova; and many trials, confiscations, and fines followed, the last of them taking place in 1626.
But Ferdinand soon abandoned the pretext of repressing insurrection, and proceeded to the great work of restoring Catholic orthodoxy. At first his hostility was almost confined to the Protestant preachers, and his positive schemes were mainly directed to the exaltation of the Jesuits. Several preachers had been tortured and killed by the soldiers in the first heat of victory, and, in 1621, the great bulk of the Protestant clergy of Prague were ordered to sell their goods and to migrate to Saxony. Promises had, indeed, been made to the Elector of Saxony that the Lutherans should be gently dealt with. Moderate terms had been offered to the Utraquists, and Tabor had only surrendered on condition of its liberties being secured. But all these promises were swept aside by the eagerness of the Jesuits to recover their lost ground. They had been expelled and persecuted during the insurrection, and now their turn was come. Gradually all schools, books, and newspapers were placed under their care. The old liberties of Charles IV.’s University were crushed out, and at last the University itself was absorbed in a Jesuit college in which the name of Ferdinand was to be connected with that of Charles. The censorship of the press was to be enforced by the careful limitation of the number of printing-presses, and by the most rigorous inquiries into faith. Nor was the danger left unmarked which might arise from the reverence paid to the Protestant heroes of the past. The statues of Hus were either destroyed or turned into statues of John Nepomuc; Z̆iz̆ka’s dust was dug up from his grave at C̆aslau, and the figure above it was broken to pieces; a memorial of Rokycana shared the same fate; while the statue of King George protecting the Cup was removed from the Teyn Church, and a figure of the Virgin substituted for it.
PLACE IN FRONT OF TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF PRAGUE WHERE THE BOHEMIAN NOBLES WERE EXECUTED AFTER THE INSURRECTION.