Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

It must be remembered that Utraquism had always been most powerful when it had been connected with efforts for Bohemian independence; and, unfortunately, the national feeling of Bohemia was generally closely connected with a hatred of all German influence. Pas̆ek had been able to appeal to this prejudice, in resisting the appointment of Karl of Münsterberg, who was not a Bohemian by birth; and, though the hatred of the tyranny of Lev and Pas̆ek had been strong enough for the moment to destroy the effect of this appeal, yet the dread of a German heresy was easily awakened in the citizens of Prague. Louis had already called on the Moravian Assembly to condemn the new doctrines; and that body, which had defended the national movement of the Bohemian Brotherhood, readily denounced the teaching of the monk of Wittenberg.

Pas̆ek soon succeeded in gaining help from an unexpected quarter. Cahera was a weak and unprincipled man, and his opponents were easily able to work upon his vanity. They proposed to him the splendid task of reconciling the Utraquists to the Pope; and Cahera was so dazzled by the prospect of the fame and dignity which such an undertaking promised him, that he quickly drifted away from his former friends and helped forward Pas̆ek’s intrigues. In vain did Luther remonstrate with Cahera on this desertion of his principles. The reaction steadily went on. Pas̆ek was re-elected to the Council; Louis, forgetful of his former distrust, encouraged the town in its new course; Karl of Münsterberg came over to the Catholic side; and the Assembly of Bohemia once more appealed to the Pope to ratify the Compacts of Basel.

But Pas̆ek was not yet satisfied. He and Lev of Roz̆mital were determined to recover the power which they had lost; and they found that the discovery and denunciation of heretics were the easiest means of obtaining this end. They therefore seized the opportunity of Cahera’s change of policy to pass laws to strengthen the position of the Administrator of the Consistory. At the same time some Lutheran sympathisers were expelled from Prague, and a regular organisation was formed in the Small Division to crush opposition. The Reformers soon began to complain of the armed men who were allowed to parade the streets. But these complaints were quoted by Pas̆ek’s friends as evidence of an heretical plot. Suspicion was stirred up against those reforming clergy who still remained in Prague, and at last a tradesman named Zika appeared before the Council to denounce all those leading councillors who were opposed to Pas̆ek. Hlavsa and his friends were seized and thrown into prison, and Pas̆ek endeavoured to obtain evidence against his leading opponents by putting their followers to the torture. Lev of Roz̆mital was restored to all his former power, and a system of terror was gradually established, under which the Brothers and all Lutheran sympathisers were subjected to various kinds of persecution. Karl of Münsterberg tried at first to check the progress of this tyranny; but the intriguers had succeeded for a time in winning to their side the king and the Hungarian bishops, and by their influence the opposition of the governor was silenced.

A general atmosphere of suspicion now began to dominate the city and its neighbourhood. Private avarice and vindictiveness found their opportunity under the plea of orthodoxy. Men stopping to speak to each other in the streets were accused of heretical conspiracies, and the enforcement of a more rigorous form of confession put a powerful weapon into the hands of the persecutors. Many workmen were deprived of their means of livelihood by the espionage to which they were subjected, and citizens coming to Prague to claim their debts were thrown into prison on a charge of heresy.

Such a tyranny necessarily overshot its mark. Many of the nobles were indignant at the power which Roz̆mital had gained, and he soon received a startling proof of their hostility. Remembering the bait by which they had drawn Cahera to their side, Pas̆ek and Roz̆mital despatched an embassy to the king, who was then at Presburg, to persuade him to second them in an appeal to the Pope to ratify the Compacts of Basel. The Rosenbergs seized this opportunity for a blow at the new rulers of Prague. They despatched a counter embassy to the king, in which they denied Roz̆mital’s right to speak in the name of the nobles of Bohemia.

A still more impressive protest followed. Hlavsa and one of his friends had escaped from prison, and they now appeared in Presburg to convince the king of the injustice of their imprisonment. They showed, too, that Roz̆mital and his friends had exceeded the powers granted to them, and had inflicted sentences which were greater than any that the king had permitted. Louis was impressed by these statements, and he at once wrote to Roz̆mital, ordering him to reverse his illegal sentences, to give Hlavsa and his friends a fair trial, and to restore order and justice in Prague.

Karl of Münsterberg and Lev of Roz̆mital combined to defy the king’s commands; and after vainly appealing to the Town Council of Prague to resist this act of rebellion, the king summoned a Bohemian Assembly to meet at the town of Kolin on the Elbe, and excluded from its deliberations Karl, Lev, and all their supporters. He then secured the trial and acquittal of Hlavsa and his friends, and punished Prague for its contumacy by depriving it of its civic rights. So far, however, were the Praguer from yielding that they now expelled from the city the wives of the men whom they had been ordered to recall; and they even imprisoned a citizen whom Louis had sent to Prague to recover the property of which the Town Council had deprived him.

But, absolute as was Roz̆mital’s rule within the walls of Prague, a curious story of the time reminds us of the formidable influences which were counteracting his power in other parts of Bohemia. Peter of Rosenberg had bequeathed to Roz̆mital the castle and town of Krumov; but Peter’s nephew, Henry of Rosenberg, maintained that such an alienation of the property was contrary to the settlements under which it was held. Lev thereupon summoned Henry to appear before the law court in Prague, to answer for his resistance to his uncle’s will. When the messengers appeared at Krumov with the letters of summons, Henry of Rosenberg at once threw them into prison. He then summoned them before him, made them eat the letters which they had brought, gave them wine to enable them to swallow this strange food, and then hunted them with dogs from the gates of his castle.

Although this story shows that Roz̆mital’s power was confined within certain local limits, yet, within those limits, he could not only resist the remonstrances and commands of Louis, but could even hamper in an important way his general schemes of policy. This power for evil was shortly to receive a terrible manifestation. While the Bohemians and Hungarians had been wrangling, the Turks had been steadily advancing in Europe. Soliman the Great had considerably increased the military prestige of his race; and Louis was startled, in the middle of his domestic troubles, by the news that Belgrade had been captured by the Turks. Then the young king appealed to the Bohemians to stand by him and his Hungarian subjects in their resistance to this terrible invader. The Rosenbergs and other nobles responded to this appeal; but Roz̆mital and the Council of Prague, while ashamed to give a direct refusal, yet succeeded in inventing all manner of delays, so as to prevent their troops from coming in time to the king’s help. Some of the Bohemian nobles wished to wait till their whole forces were gathered, but the Hungarians soon grew impatient of delay, and on the 29th of August, 1526, they insisted on joining battle with the Turks at Mohács. Louis, anticipating a certain defeat, fled from the field before the battle began; but, in his flight, his horse fell into a swamp, and his unfortunate life of failure was cut short at the age of twenty.

The result of the battle was as Louis had foreseen. The Hungarians were signally defeated, and the Turks speedily followed up their victory by the capture of the fortress of Buda. A long series of intrigues followed in Bohemia. The Austrian party were supported by the Rosenbergs, and the Saxon party were led by Lev of Roz̆mital; but the opposition of Lev was finally bought off, and the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor Charles, and brother-in-law of the unfortunate Louis, was elected king of Bohemia.