all knights and nobles, who had been merely misled by others; of the townsmen no mention was made. On July 2 Ferdinand arrived at Prague, and first occupied the Hradcany Castle without resistance. His army, consisting principally of Spaniards and Walloons, then surrounded the old and new towns, committing great depredations in the outskirts of Prague. Some fighting took place, and the lower order of the Praguers began to arm, and decided to defend the bridge. The counsels of the wealthier and wiser citizens, who knew that resistance was hopeless, however, soon prevailed, and the cities surrendered. Ferdinand summoned the more important citizens to appear before him at the Hradcany Castle. On July 8 he received the deputies, about 600 in number, in the hall of Vladislav. With the King were the great dignitaries of Bohemia and Moravia, the Bishops of Olmütz and Breslau, and Prince Augustus, brother of Maurice of Saxony.
It is a proof of the importance of the town of Prague that it was customary that the Bohemian King should give his hand to the magistrates of the city when they appeared before him. On this occasion, however, Ferdinand omitted to do this, and, indeed, turned his back on the citizens as a mark of displeasure. Some time elapsed before he ordered a paper that contained the grievances against the citizens of Prague, who were accused of being the principal instigators of the recent disturbances, to be read to the deputies. The townsmen attempted no defence, and, in their name, Sixt of Ottersdorf declared that the citizens surrendered unconditionally to their Sovereign. The King ordered Ludanic, Captain of Moravia, to inform the citizens that he would shortly convey his decision to them. He had meanwhile ordered Jacob Fikar, burgomaster of the old town, and one of the town councillors, who had both not appeared before him, to be arrested. Then only were the citizens informed of the conditions under which they would be pardoned. They were to abandon all confederacies, even those between the Prague cities, to surrender all papers dealing with their negotiations with the Elector of Saxony, to submit for revision all the papers containing the ancient privileges of the Prague cities, to give up all arms, and to return to the Crown all landed estates that belonged to it, but had been temporarily granted to the citizens. The last paragraph, in a somewhat veiled manner, stipulated the confiscation of considerable estates that had long belonged to the Prague cities. The citizens were, however, obliged to accept all the King’s demands.
The King then convoked the Estates for August 22, but he resolved that, as a deterrent example, the execution of the four most prominent national leaders should immediately precede this meeting of the Diet, which has ever since been known as the Krvavy Snem (i.e., bloody Diet). On August 20 two knights and two citizens, one of whom was Fikar, were decapitated on the market-place before the Hradcany Castle. Other less severe punishments were inflicted on some of the members of the nationalist leaders, particularly on those who were members of the community of the Bohemian Brethren, who were suspected of having strongly favoured an alliance with the German Protestants. The head of that community, John Augusta, was arrested at Litomysl, imprisoned in the ‘White Tower’ on the Hradcany, and cruelly tortured there.
The ‘bloody Diet’ accepted all the King’s proposals, though they largely limited its powers, and comparative quiet continued in Prague during the remaining years of Ferdinand’s rule.
Ferdinand died in 1564, and the news of his death reached Prague on July 28. His eldest son, Maximilian, who had already been crowned King of Bohemia, succeeded his father without any opposition. His well-known inclination to Protestantism rendered the Utraquist majority of the Estates favourable to him, while the Romanists were traditionally partisans of the House of Habsburg.
Little need in this sketch of the story of Prague be said of the twelve years (1564-1576) during which Maximilian reigned over Bohemia. He visited Prague and held Diets there in 1567, 1571 and 1575. On these occasions the proceedings were similar and, it may be added, monotonous. Maximilian invariably demanded grants of money to enable him to carry on war against the Turks, and the Estates, with equal regularity, claimed that further concessions should be made to the Utraquists, or rather Protestants as they should now be called. At the Diet of 1575 the Lutherans and Bohemian brethren jointly drew up a profession of faith which is known as the ‘Confessio Bohemica.’ The King did not indeed recognise it, but he granted the Protestants, now the great majority of the population, independence from the old Utraquist consistory. They were allowed to choose fifteen ‘defenders,’ five from each Estate, to whom the government of the Protestant Church was to be entrusted. No doubt, largely in consequence of this concession, the Estates accepted Maximilian’s eldest son, Rudolph, as heir to the throne, and consented to his coronation during the lifetime of his father. Some objections were raised with regard to Rudolph’s ignorance of the Bohemian language, and it was stipulated that he should, in the absence of his father, reside in Prague, that he might thoroughly learn the language and the laws of the country over which he was once to rule.