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

by C. Edmund Maurice

Ferdinand was now eager for action; but he found that Matthias still hindered his proceedings. This opposition the Archdukes attributed to the influence of Khlesl; and Maximilian was entrusted with the office of suppressing the Cardinal. For this purpose he paid a visit of apparent friendliness to Khlesl; but, when the cardinal returned the call, he found himself suddenly seized by Maximilian’s servants, stripped of his Cardinal’s robe, forced into a carriage, and driven off to Innsbrück, where he was kept a prisoner till the end of the Bohemian struggle.

But there were still other advisers, who claimed to be heard against the war. Both in Hungary and Upper Austria, the Estates, though unwilling to take active part with the Bohemians, urged Matthias to take peaceable measures for the restoring of order in Bohemia. In the Moravian Assembly, a resolution in favour of a similar policy was carried by Z̆erotin’s influence; though many of his colleagues would have preferred to give more active support to the Bohemians. The Protestant princes of Germany, however, and particularly the Elector Palatine, were eager for forcible resistance to Matthias; and a son of the Margrave of Brandenburg, who was also a prince of Silesia, persuaded his Silesian colleagues to assist the Bohemians. It was evident that war could no longer be avoided, and Matthias despatched Count Bucquoi to Bohemia. Count Mansfeld and the Elector Palatine had already sent troops to assist the Protestants; and Bucquoi was so thoroughly defeated at Lomnice, near Budejóvice, that he urged Matthias to make peace. The hopes of the Bohemians were further encouraged by Count Mansfeld’s capture of Pilsen; and Count Thurn resolved to invade Austria, and to attack Ferdinand at his headquarters. Now, however, there arose new difficulties. Tschernembl, indeed, tried to rouse the Austrians in defence of the Protestant cause; but he found only a very partial support; while an attempt to persuade the Moravians to assist the Bohemian invasion was defeated by the influence of Z̆erotin, who bitterly denounced Thurn and Ruppa for making a religious movement the cover for their political intrigues. These rebuffs impressed on the Bohemians the necessity of strengthening their alliances with the German Protestants; and Ruppa sent a message to the Elector Palatine, to invite him to become king of Bohemia. Frederick V. was unwilling to accept this proposal. He understood that the Duke of Savoy was likely to dispute his claim to the Bohemian throne; and he also believed that his father-in-law, James I. of England, would object to his acceptance of that dignity. He did not, however, directly refuse; and the necessity for decisive action was still further shown by two deaths which took place about this time; that of the Archduke Maximilian, the one conciliatory member of the House of Hapsburg, and that of the Emperor Matthias a few months later.

Ferdinand was now face to face with his enemies, without any check upon his purposes. The alarm among the Protestants was all the greater for these events. The Silesian Assembly joined with their princes in support of Bohemia; Lausitz followed their lead; in spite of the resistance of Z̆erotin, many of the Moravian nobles also joined the cause; and the citizens of Jíhlava welcomed Count Thurn into their town. Carl von Lichtenstein, who was generally on the winning side, joined the Protestants in their support of the Bohemians; two attempts on the part of colonels to carry off their troops to Ferdinand met with complete failure; and at last Z̆erotin was put under arrest in his own house, and a provisional government was proclaimed in Moravia, and entrusted with power to co-operate with the Bohemians. The hopes of the Austrian Protestants were roused by this new phase of the movement; and Tschernembl at last persuaded the Estates of Upper Austria to declare in favour of the insurgents.

Thurn’s opportunity now seemed to have come; in May, 1619, he entered Austria, defeated some of Ferdinand’s forces, and marched to Vienna. But Ferdinand remained undaunted. He summoned before him the representatives of the Lower Austrian Estates, appealed to their sense of patriotism, and tried to persuade them to resist the Bohemians. He had been arguing in vain for some time, when suddenly the scene was changed by the entrance into the Hall of four cornets of horse, who had been secretly summoned by Ferdinand. The resistance of the Protestants was suddenly paralysed; and, when Thurn appeared before Vienna the next day, he found the citizens so unwilling to help him that he was forced to abandon the siege, and hastened back to defend Bohemia. There the contest had continued with various fortune; but it is believed that Bucquoi might soon have carried the day, had not a new ally appeared on the Bohemian side.

Bethlen Gabor, the new Prince of Transylvania, saw from the first that the success of Ferdinand would naturally lead to those renewed invasions of Transylvania which had played so important a part in the policy both of Rudolf and Matthias. The Hungarian Assembly had been at first unwilling to co-operate with the Bohemians; but, during his expedition to Vienna, Count Thurn had made the acquaintance of a leading Hungarian Protestant, whom he had roused to sympathy with the Bohemian cause. When this leader returned to Hungary, he soon convinced his friends that the cause of Protestantism was bound up with the effort for Bohemian independence; and, when Bethlen Gabor openly declared war on Ferdinand, large districts of Hungary rose on his behalf, and he speedily found himself in occupation of Presburg.

This encouraging news reached the Bohemians just as they were entering on one of the most important stages of their movement. The representatives of all the Bohemian provinces had met at Prague, and, after a declaration in favour of the Protestant cause, had formally deposed Ferdinand from the throne of Bohemia. Three candidates for the throne now offered themselves—the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony, and the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. But the first of the three had very much cooled in his friendship towards the Bohemian cause, since he had found that neither France nor England would support his claim to the crown. The Elector of Saxony, though popular with a small minority of Bohemians, had never been a zealous supporter of their liberties; and he was suspected of being a tyrannical ruler in his own dominions. So, on the 26th of August, 1619, the Elector Palatine of the Rhine was chosen King of Bohemia.

But, during the discussions of the Assembly, a sign had been given which might have warned the leaders of the insurrection of one fatal weakness in their position. The unfortunate peasantry, pressed down by the burdens of serfdom, greatly feared the additional evils of war. They had hoped that the concession of spiritual freedom, which Budovĕc had won for them, would have been followed by the grant of other liberties, more directly improving their material position; and they were proportionately bitter with their favourite leader, whom they accused of deserting them from motives of selfish ambition. They now assured the Estates that they could not hope for a blessing on a movement which ignored the wrongs of the peasantry. The charge against Budovĕc seems to have been wholly unjust. He was now past seventy; and, though his name was still useful to the leaders of the insurrection, his influence on their policy was extremely small. Had it been otherwise, the Council might have taken a different view of this vital question. As it was, the wrongs of the serfs were again ignored; and not only did the Protestant leaders lose thereby a popular basis for their movement, but they soon provoked against them a most dangerous opposition. When the peasantry found that the mercenary troops which the Protestants employed were as dangerous to natives as to foreigners, they began to think that Ferdinand was preferable to Frederick; and peasant risings hindered the progress of the Protestant army.

Frederick, of course, knew nothing as yet of this cause of weakness in his new position. Nevertheless, it was with a hesitating mind that he had listened to the proposal of the Bohemian Assembly. He had wished to wait until he could have secured the approval of his father-in-law, King James of England; and he knew already that he had to encounter the opposition of France. A still more dangerous omen for his future career had been given only two days after this election. The Electors of the Empire on the 28th of August had chosen Ferdinand Emperor of Germany; and on that occasion the Elector Palatine had been the only one who voted in the minority.

But two powerful counsellors urged Frederick on to his fate—his wife Elizabeth, and Christian of Anhalt. The latter promised him the support of the Protestant Union; but, though that support was most welcome, it was believed in Bohemia that his wife’s opinion had more weight on Frederick’s final decision. Therefore, on September 28, 1619, he resolved on accepting the crown, without waiting further for the opinion of his father-in-law. The victories of Bethlen Gabor doubtless encouraged Frederick in his dangerous course; and the enthusiasm with which he was received in Prague must have raised his hopes still further. His queen, indeed, though publicly thanked for her influence on his decision, soon became unpopular from her English dress and ways, and her ignorance of the Bohemian language; but this unpopularity does not seem to have affected her husband’s position.

A more serious difficulty was the inability of the Assembly to raise money for the payment of the troops; an evil which drove the soldiers to mutiny and robbery, and eventually caused the rising of the peasants against them. These evils the Bohemian Government attempted to meet, partly by debasement of the coinage, and partly by borrowing money from foreign powers; but the great hope of the Bohemians still lay in the support of Bethlen Gabor.