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

by C. Edmund Maurice

Conrad did not yet abandon the cause; and he persuaded Augusta to draw up an additional statement of their Faith for presentation to Ferdinand. In this copy the original Article about the Sacraments was modified, so as not to offend the Lutherans; and Luther himself expressed his approval of this second document. Conrad now hastened to Vienna, to entreat for the liberation of Zbornik and the young lords of Janovic. He dwelt much on the illegality of the proceedings connected with their imprisonment; but Ferdinand maintained the most despotic principles of authority, declared that he was only bound to protect the Catholics and the Utraquists, and told Krajek that the devil had led him to his present faith. Krajek retorted that it was Christ, and not the devil, who had led him there; and that, if Christ was a “Picard,” then he (Conrad) was so too. Yet, in spite of his defiant tone, Ferdinand seems to have been impressed by Conrad’s protest; for, in the following year, Zbornik and the young lords were released from prison.

This release, however, was rather a concession to the principle of legality than an abandonment by Ferdinand of his plans for ecclesiastical uniformity; and he fully hoped, by securing firmer support amongst the Utraquists, to crush the extreme Protestant sects. He had promised, at his coronation, to support the Compacts of Basel; and, in May, 1537, he appealed to the Bohemian Assembly so to enforce the Compacts as to suppress those sects who did not accept them. After a sharp discussion, the representatives of the Brotherhood were persuaded to withdraw from the Assembly; but it was soon found that the attempts at union had been brought no nearer to their realisation by this exclusion. Many of the Utraquists objected to the Compacts of Basel, as an attempt to substitute a new document for the words of Scripture. Others maintained that the Catholic bishops had violated the Compacts, and that they were still eager to suppress the Utraquists. Though, therefore, the Catholics and Utraquists agreed in hating the Brothers, they were not able to combine their forces for their suppression; and a new outbreak of the Turkish war still further hindered the designs of Ferdinand.

In the meantime Augusta had been trying to strengthen the union between the Brotherhood and the foreign Protestants. He had visited Bucer and Calvin at Geneva, had received a kindly welcome from them, and had accepted many of Calvin’s doctrines about Predestination. But his greatest hope and his strongest personal sympathies were always directed to Wittenberg; and his translation and eulogy of a pamphlet written by Luther excited Ferdinand’s indignant attention even during the Turkish war. Threatened with arrest and imprisonment in consequence of this publication, Augusta fled once more to Wittenberg. There he was again welcomed by Luther and Melancthon; and he complained to them of the growing corruptions of the Church in Bohemia, and of the increase of luxury, even in the Brotherhood. Finally, he implored Luther to interfere in these matters, and to establish a new system of church discipline in Bohemia. Some suggestion of the kind had apparently been made by other Bohemian exiles; but Luther was far too wise to listen to the proposal. He had been willing enough to discuss matters of doctrine with the Brothers, and to welcome them as friends and allies; but he had none of the national mania for Germanising other countries; and he recognised to the full the necessity for a variety of customs, and even for modifications in the expression of doctrine. “Do you,” He said to Augusta and his friends, “be the Apostles of the Bohemians; I and mine will be the Apostles of the Germans. Do you act according to the opportunities presented to you, and so will we.” If Joseph II., in the eighteenth century, had been half as wise as Luther was in the sixteenth, the relations of Germans and Bohemians to each other might even now be considerably more friendly than they are. After this interview Augusta returned to Bohemia, and devoted himself, for the next year or two, partly to a defence of the Brothers against the attacks of the Utraquists, partly to an effort to restore the Brotherhood itself to that simpler mode of life from which it was drifting away.

In the meantime, the progress of Protestant doctrine in Germany had produced considerable influence on many of the old-fashioned Utraquists in Bohemia; and they now offered fresh hindrances to Ferdinand’s efforts after uniformity. Mistopol, the Administrator of the Utraquist Consistory, and Mitmánek, a leading preacher, had been particularly prominent in their attacks on the Catholics; and when, in 1543, Ferdinand once more called together the Bohemian Assembly, he found that his offer to enforce the Compacts of Basel was met by a reaffirmation of the Four Articles of Prague in their simplest and extremest form. This roused him to great indignation; and he now insisted on further restrictions, both in ritual and preaching, and even forbade any general meeting of the Utraquists, under penalty to person and property. He insisted, however, that the celebration of the anniversary of the death of Hus should be maintained as one of the ordinary observances of the Church. But Mistopol succeeded in seizing the opportunity of this anniversary for a violent sermon against the Catholics, which he preached in the old Bethlehem chapel of Hus. For this defiance Mistopol was summoned before the Court of Prague; and though his sentence was deferred for a time, Mitmánek, his chief supporter, was banished from the country. The attempt to conciliate the Utraquists having thus failed, Ferdinand opened negotiations with the Pope, which were to lead to the calling of the Council of Trent. Such was the relation of parties to each other when, in 1546, the death of Luther removed the last hindrance to the outbreak which was to change the conditions both of Germany and Bohemia.

The formation of the Schmalkaldic League, in 1542, had already prepared the Protestants for collective action; and the threatening attitude of Charles V., coupled with the proposal for a Council, which would undoubtedly condemn Protestantism, seemed to many of the more eager spirits to justify immediate action. The Landgrave of Hesse and John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, determined to anticipate the attacks of Charles; and, not many months after Luther’s death, they marched into Bavaria and attacked the town of Ingolstadt. But, scarcely was this step taken, when it was discovered that Charles had provided against the attacks of his enemies, by bringing to his side one of the most formidable of them. Moritz of Saxony had been induced, by the promise of his cousin’s lands, to desert the cause of the Protestants, and to secure his new possession by force of arms. Ferdinand hoped to reconcile the Bohemians to Moritz by persuading him to renew a former treaty of hereditary alliance between Saxony and Bohemia.

But the Protestant feeling of Bohemia was too strong to be juggled with in this manner; and, on March 18, 1546, a League had already been formed for the protection of the civil and religious liberties of Bohemia. They even went so far as to appoint a Committee of Eight, who were to manage the affairs of the kingdom, and to raise arms and men without asking the leave of the king. When, then, John Frederick of Saxony suddenly entered Silesia, and seized on the monastery of Dobrilug, Ferdinand found that large numbers of the Bohemians refused to repel this invasion of Bohemian territory; and even those who went to the war were unwilling to fight. Though Ferdinand at once sentenced to death the leading mutineers, he could not hinder the citizens of Prague from further negotiations with John Frederick. From refusal to fight they rapidly passed into more active opposition; and at last they even enabled Caspar Pflug to raise forces for the assistance of the Elector.

As the struggle went on, the enthusiasm of the Bohemians rose; and on April 7, 1547, the fiercer spirits of Prague suddenly seized the Town Council Houses and bridges into their own hands, demanded a safe-conduct for one of the men whom Ferdinand had just condemned for mutiny, and insisted on the imprisonment of one of Ferdinand’s Councillors, and the recall to the Teyn Church of a preacher who had been expelled for heresy. They even compelled many of the Catholic leaders to give in their adherence to the League; and all seemed ready for an actual revolution. Suddenly, while the excitement was still at its height, the news came that John Frederick of Saxony had been completely overthrown at the battle of Mühlberg. Instantly the more timid of the conspirators deserted the League, and even sent congratulations to Ferdinand on his victory. But the fiercer spirits desired to fight it out; and, as the troops of Ferdinand and Charles advanced upon Prague, the citizens rang the alarm bell, and the peasants flocked in with their flails from the neighbouring villages, and repelled the first advance of the royal forces. The Burgomasters and leading Councillors had had no desire to resist the King; but they were completely overborne by the fiercer citizens; and, on the 6th of July, the anniversary of the death of Jan Hus, an appeal was sent round to the nearest Circles, calling on all the citizens to come to the defence of Prague. Yet, in spite of this apparent vigour, there was little real vitality in the movement; the leaders of the League had hoped for the help of the Saxons; and when that failed, they had had no desire to continue the struggle. The men who had now undertaken the defence were utterly unorganised, and without any capable leaders. The first forces, who came in from the neighbouring districts were defeated by the troops of Charles; and, on the 8th of July, the city consented to submit unconditionally to Ferdinand.

The first acts of Ferdinand on the recapture of Prague were marked by an unexpected moderation. Comparatively few of the conspirators were put to death; the great bulk of them were let off with fines, or the surrender of lands; and most of the liberties of Bohemia were confirmed. But it was felt, nevertheless, that all who had sympathised with the insurrection were in a difficult and dangerous situation; and the Utraquists, who had begun the movement, combined with the Catholics, who had in many cases yielded to it, to lay the whole guilt upon the Bohemian Brotherhood.

The Bunzlau district had no doubt been conspicuous in its refusal to send forces to the Saxon war. Three or four of the lords, who were condemned for their share in the insurrection, had been known for their protection of the Brothers; and some of the Elders of the Brotherhood had ordered a day for prayer and fasting during the insurrection. It was resolved, therefore, to seize this opportunity for crushing this unpopular sect, and the chief suspicion was directed against John Augusta. He had indeed protested against the insurrection from the first, but it was proved that he had come to Prague while it was still going on; a visit to Liegnitz in Silesia was also looked upon as suspicious; while undoubtedly the chief charges against him were his known influence in the Brotherhood and his connection with Wittenberg. Even the lords who had hitherto been favourable now disowned the accused; and the Captain of Moravia, himself a member of the Society, told Augusta that he ought to have prevented the insurrection.

The Archduke Ferdinand was ordered to take measures for carrying out the intended persecution; and in the following year a Commission was appointed, which reconstituted the Town Councils in various districts, and ordered the new Councillors to proceed rigorously against the Brothers. The chief persecution began at Litomys̆l, where several men were arrested for singing hymns at the funeral of a Brother. On their refusal to abandon the Brotherhood they were imprisoned in the White Tower of the Castle of Prague; and, when threats and entreaties were found to be of no avail, they were taken from the tower and thrust into a hole into which the filth from the castle discharged itself. After some months of this treatment several of them gave way; but the others remained firm, and were at last set free on condition of withdrawing into Prussia.