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

by C. Edmund Maurice

During the early part of their imprisonment, Augusta, from his place of concealment, continually supplied them with money and letters of encouragement. But the organisers of the persecution were resolved, at all hazards, to make him their prisoner; and one of the most active of them persuaded a leader of the Brotherhood to secure him a private interview. Augusta had been taunted by some of the prisoners with taking too much care for his own safety, and he therefore resolved to risk the interview. Instead of the man who had appointed it, three others appeared, who at once arrested Augusta and his secretary Bilek, and carried them off to the White Tower of Prague. Thence he was speedily removed to a wine-cellar, where he was chained hand and foot. Soon after he was placed on the rack, and his side was burnt with boiling pitch. The Archduke Ferdinand himself doubted the legality of these proceedings; but the King was rigorous in the enforcement of his plans, and he wrote to his son suggesting further means of torture. Augusta, he said, was not to be allowed a moment for rest or sleep; and, as one means for obtaining this end, an insect was to be fastened near him which would worry him continually; or, as another means of causing the same misery, he might be allowed food, but never anything to quench his thirst. But, before the letter containing these barbarous instructions arrived, Augusta had been removed from Prague to Kr̆ivoklát, where he seems for a time to have fallen under a more humane gaoler.

Nor was the persecution directed solely against a few leaders of the Society. In the same month in which Augusta was arrested, a general Edict had been issued for the expulsion of the Brotherhood and the arrest of their clergy. As they were ordered to leave Bohemia within six weeks, the Brothers in Litomys̆l entreated that a longer time might be allowed for the sake of the sick and of the women who were in labour; and they pointed out that a similar relaxation had been granted in the case of the Jews and Anabaptists. This concession was, however, refused; and the unfortunate people gathered together at Rychnov to march over the Silesian hills. But though the lords, who had formerly posed as patrons of the Brothers, now deserted their cause and joined in the persecution, help for the journey was, nevertheless, provided by the richer members of the Society; and the members of the Brotherhood, who lived in those Silesian towns through which the exiles passed, guided them securely through the dangers of the hills; nay, even many of the Utraquists and Catholics were so touched by their sufferings that they joined in this assistance.

At last the procession entered Poland, and the Brothers settled for a time in the town of Posen. But, though many of the Polish nobles welcomed them heartily, the Bishop of Posen stirred up the King of Poland against them, and put them to such inconveniences, that many of the Brotherhood accepted the invitation of the Elector of Brandenburg to settle in his newly conquered province of Prussia. Not even in Prussia, however, were the troubles of the exiles at an end. Mitmánek, the Utraquist preacher who had been banished by Ferdinand, excited the suspicions of the Elector of Brandenburg against the new-comers, and even assured him that the Confession which Augusta had taken to Luther was not really the composition of the Brothers at all; but that, in truth, they were Arians and Novatians. An inquiry was set on foot into the real doctrines of the Brotherhood; and, though the decision of the inquisitors was mainly in favour of the Brothers, yet the restrictions placed on them by the Elector were so galling, and the pressure upon them to accept the Confession of Augsburg was so persistent, that many preferred to take their chance once more among their Slavonic kinsmen of Poland, rather than to accept the nominal protection of the Elector, when accompanied with so many practical inconveniences.

Ferdinand’s schemes, for the unification both of State and Church, seemed now ripe for further development. With regard to the question of civil government many difficulties had arisen during the Turkish wars, from the claims for local privileges put forward by various towns and districts of Bohemia. When Ferdinand had required money for the purposes of these wars, he had been forced to consider not merely the constitutional rights of the Assemblies of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and the Lausitz, but also the peculiar privileges of the district of Loket, the miners’ rights in Joachims Thal and Kutna Hora, and, above all, the extremely anomalous position of the town and district of Eger (Cheb), which had claimed, ever since the fourteenth century, to be more nearly connected with the German Empire than with the kingdom of Bohemia. And even more embarrassing than any of these legal privileges were the claims of the Assemblies of the Districts or Circles. These were perhaps the most important check, which still existed, on the power of the king. As the nobles gradually sank into mere courtiers, and as the towns became, in many instances specially dependent upon the King, that Order of Knights, which had played so important a part in the Utraquist struggles, found it more convenient to deliberate in their own districts, where they held an independent position, rather than in Prague, where they might be outvoted by lords and citizens, and overruled by officers of the King. These meetings of the Circles were gradually gaining a kind of legal authority; and, both in the Turkish and Saxon wars, they had formed an important check on the action of the Assembly at Prague, and had considerably hampered the designs of Ferdinand. They had even identified their interest at that time with the provincial claims of Moravia and Silesia; and they had maintained that an Assembly, composed only of those Bohemians who met at Prague, could not decide on so weighty a question as the war against John Frederick. Ferdinand, therefore, had come to look upon these Assemblies as his most dangerous opponents; and, though he could not at once suppress them completely, he contrived to limit their powers and control their actions.

But Ferdinand had a special device of his own for counteracting local independence and increasing the royal power. This was the creation of a Chamber of Finance, called in German “Hof-Kammer,” and in Bohemian “Komora Dvorska.” This institution was primarily introduced to meet the difficulties of the King’s private income. During the reigns of Ladislaus and Louis the royal lands had been heavily burdened with debts; and Ferdinand’s relations with the lords, to whom these estates had been mortgaged, had made it difficult for him to ascertain the exact state of the royal finances. The duty of the new Court was to inquire into the condition of the king’s Bohemian lands, and to base upon this inquiry an annual statement of his needs. This statement was to be followed by a demand from the various Assemblies of the exact amount required. When this central Chamber of Finance was supplemented by other chambers of a similar kind in the different districts of Bohemia, it was clear that an organisation had been formed which might bring considerable increase to the King’s power. The inquiry into the condition of his finances would be accompanied by questions about the inclination of each Assembly to concede the money required; and thus questions of taxation would be to a large extent settled before they had been submitted to the lawful authority. Such a scheme, however, could only come gradually into operation; and it was during the reigns of Ferdinand’s successors that the significance of the Hof-Kammer began to be realised. In the meantime the King did not forget to provide a more immediate security for the stability of the House of Hapsburg; and, in 1549, the Bohemian Assembly was persuaded to accept Maximilian as the future King of Bohemia.

But the union of the Church was as much a part of Ferdinand’s scheme as the centralisation of the royal power; and Ferdinand supposed that since the Catholics and Utraquists had united in persecuting the Brotherhood, they would have no objection to accept the same bishop as their spiritual ruler. But again he was mistaken. The Utraquists were as determined as ever to assert their independence; and they resented extremely the attempt to bring them under the rule of the Catholic bishop. Indeed, so strong was the opposition which was roused by this proposal, that many of the Utraquists began to repent of their persecution of the Brotherhood, and even to show signs of sympathy with them.

Ferdinand at once sprang to the conclusion that a new plot was on foot; and, with a suspiciousness little short of insane, he assumed that Augusta must be at the bottom of it. The torturers were sent down to the prison at Kr̆ivoklát; and both Augusta and his secretary were again stretched upon the rack. But, when no conspiracy was discovered by this method, Ferdinand had to look elsewhere for the source of opposition to his wishes; and it was now for the first time that he became conscious of a weak point in his plans, which till then he had strangely overlooked.

It will be remembered that, when Ladislaus was trying to coerce the Brotherhood, he had failed to obtain from the Moravian Estates that assent to his wishes which the Bohemians had been willing to grant. The consequence was that, while Ferdinand had been so successful in expelling the Brotherhood from his western province, the members of that society had still met undisturbed in the province of Moravia. A special circumstance had induced Ferdinand, for the time, to overlook this evasion of his commands. Wenceslaus of Ludanic, the Captain of Moravia, had been a member of the Brotherhood; but he had strongly opposed the revolt of 1547, had prevented the Moravians from joining in it, and had even rebuked Augusta for not opposing it more actively. Doubtless the loyalty of so influential a Brother had had for a short time its effect on Ferdinand. But the growing opposition which he encountered amongst the Utraquists, and his increasing fears of the Brotherhood, now led him to abandon this policy of compromise. He called together the Moravian Assembly at Brünn (Brno); and he ordered them, and especially their Captain, to take steps for the immediate suppression of the Brotherhood.

Ludanic answered by entreating Ferdinand not to put down those who had attained to the knowledge of the purified Gospel; and he assured the King that Moravia would sooner perish in fire and ashes than submit to violence in this matter. He then appealed to the members of the Assembly; and the main body of them confirmed his words in a loud voice. Ferdinand then asked if any, there present, were ready to obey him. Only seven members of the Assembly responded to this appeal—five of them lords and two knights. Then Ludanic once more rose, and read to Ferdinand the oath which the King had taken, as Margrave of Moravia, to defend the liberties of that province. Ferdinand indignantly answered that he had kept his oath, and intended to keep it; upon which Ludanic explained that he had not accused the King of having yet broken his oath; but that he had read it to him as a reminder for future use. Unable to accomplish his ends, Ferdinand was at last obliged to dismiss the Assembly, and to retire to his house. But, when he looked from his window a little later, he saw the members of the Assembly carrying Ludanic home in triumph. Thus, while crushed out in the province of Bohemia, the Bohemian Brotherhood grew and flourished in Moravia.

About this time, the Brothers were enabled to renew their correspondence with Augusta, by the help of one of his gaolers whom they had succeeded in bribing. Unfortunately, this correspondence did not strengthen the friendly relations between the prisoner and the Elders of the Society. Always of a rather imperious disposition, and now embittered by his sufferings, Augusta attempted to assert his authority in a way which the Elders often resented. Indeed, they had begun to think that the exclusion of Augusta from the outer world disqualified him for his office as Elder of the Brotherhood. They consented indeed, in deference to his earnest appeals, to retain him a little longer in his former dignity; and at one time there seemed a hope that this painful dispute might end in the release of the imprisoned Brother, and his return to his former life. The second treachery of Moritz of Saxony had overthrown the hopes of the Imperialists; the treaty of Passau had raised anew the Protestant expectations of religious liberty; and in 1552 the Catholic and Protestant leaders of the Moravian Assembly united in such an earnest appeal for mercy to Ferdinand, that he consented to consider the question of the release of his Protestant prisoners.