scale, to thy perdition." Ferdinand commanded the drums to roll, to silence him. The victim turned with a lofty resignation to the block, and laying his head down: "Strike," said he to the execu tioner, "I speak not again, till the last trumpet calls yon tyrant to his judg

ment,"

The axe severed the brave neck at a blow. The stroke fell successively on three others; but when the executioner turned to the fourth, the hoary-headed Krapak; who, like the British Cranmer in almost a similar cause, had repented his momentary apostacy, and declared with the others for the protest, his aged eyes were closed. Those strokes on his colleagues, and one was his own son, had broke the over-strained strings of his heart. His blood, indeed, was spared; but the life so destroyed was one day to sit heavy on the soul of Ferdinand.

At the close of this massacre, the diet opened. The high chancellor then

declared, in the King's name, that on account of the late premeditated rebellion, few there deserved more favour than had been shown to the five traitors who had just expiated their treason with their lives; but that in signal mercy, the representatives of the towns and cities, and their adjacent magnates now assembled, were not only pardoned by their offended monarch, but allowed to take their places in that great council of the kingdom. Those who heard it, took this affected amnesty according to their different dispositions; but every man received it in silence. Their privileges were then examined, and those only restored which suited their new master's convenience. After the dismissal of the assembly, the artillery, arms and ammunition, with the fortress of the city, were all delivered into Austrian charge; and thus was Presburgh for a time despoiled of its honour and its independence.

CHAP. II.

BUT ill did Ferdinand calculate on the characters of the Bohemians, when he supposed so bloody a tragedy, acted in their so near neighbourhood, was likely to make him be more readily admitted amongst them. Matthias had indeed been induced to prepare his way, though not with any idea of the process his successor was dictating to the heralds of his government. The Emperor, by way of

conciliation with the Protestants of the country, had accepted the services of the Elector of Darmstadt, who, during the last reign, preferring a scholastic residence at Prague to the duties of his own capital, had fallen under the influence of the Jesuits, and was now fluctuating between two faiths; but yet, the benevolent Matthias did not doubt that he, if

named a coadjutor with the regency, would have it in his power to essentially ameliorate every measure against the professors of the reformed ritual. The regency consisted of twelve persons, at the head of which were the Barons Slavata and Martinitz, with the state secretary Fabritius. These three men, more avaricious than bigotted, yet making the latter a pretence for obeying the dictates of their master-passion, no sooner were apprised of Ferdinand's successful oppressions in Hungary, than, without further orders than his example, they began the same system of extortion and violence, under the excuse of sequestration and penalties for persisted heresy. Indeed, the emissaries of these law-givers were accused of hunting the poor Lutherans of the hamlets, even with dogs, from their places of worship; and forcing them, at the point of the bayonet, either to embrace popery, or pay the value of all their little store for the support of

their families, into the coffers of the regency. Partial oppositions were made to these outrages, wherever they appeared. But when encouraged by the growing wealth in their treasury, thus accumulated, the rapacious triumvirate began to attack Prague itself, then they trod upon a sleeping serpent; and soon it recoiled with stings in every quar ter!

Count Thurn, a nobleman of large Bohemian possessions, though originally from Hungary, and whose brother the brave magnate, had perished in the massacre at Presburgh, was prepared in soul and arms, if need were, to oppose at every step these threatening emissaries of a similar decree; and encouraging the citizens of Prague to make a stand against the first attack on their privileges, by sending an immediate deputation of remonstrance to the regency, he went himself in their train; resolving to make up, by an address of his own, any deficiency