CH. XX.] SEASON OF PROSPERITY. 601 of the kind struck my mind to-day, when I began to usurp the province of God,-which is the province of conscience." The old decrees were again revoked. The Brethren for several years were left unmolested. The Bethlehem church, in which John Huss preached, was allowed to them as true followers of that faithful martyr, by the University of Prague. But they could not obtain possession of it. Three members out of twelve, however, were allowed them in the consistory of the university, and they were permitted to build themselves churches, and have advocates to maintain their rights. There were some, indeed, beside the papal party, who would have excluded them from toleration on the ground of their separation from the Calixtines, which might now be called-embracing as it did nearly two-thirds of the population-the national church; but the diet would not allow of their exclusion from the common privilege. In their prosperity, however, they were subjected to a new danger. "With the freedom of religion," says Comenius, their historian and bishop, "there sprang up freedom of the flesh." They were more disposed to a laxity of principle and to worldly conformity. But this danger was to be but of brief duration. 1 Pescheck, i. 126. CHAPTER XXI. PROTESTANTISM IN BOHEMIA, DOWN TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. FAVORABLE PERIOD. SPREAD OF PROTESTANTISM. - THE JESUITS. CATHOLIC LEAGUE. PERSECUTING MEASURES OF 1605.- RUDOLPH FORCED TO REPEAL THE EDICT.-MATTHIAS OF AUSTRIA. HIS DESIGNS.-THE DEMANDS OF THE STATES PRESENTED. THE EMPEROR AND THE STATES. THE LATTER DISSATIS FIED. DIET OF 1609. THE EMPEROR GRANTS THE DEMAND OF THE PROTESTANTS. GENERAL SATISFACTION. PROTESTANT PROGRESS.-JESUIT ENCROACH - CESSION OF MATTHIAS. DEATH OF RUDOLPH.-AC CHANGE OF POLICY. REJECTION OF THE COMPLAINTS FERDINAND II. MATTHIAS PROPOSES HIM AS HIS SUCCESSOR. RELUCTANCE OF THE STATES. CHARACTER AND POLICY OF FERDINAND. HIS PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS IN HIS STATES. HIS BIGOTRY. - PROVOCATION OF THE PROTESTANTS. - EXULTATION OF THE JESUITS. THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT OLMUTZ. A MEETING OF THE PROTESTANT STATES SUMMONED. IMPERIAL COMMAND. THE STATES MEET TO REPLY.THURN. MARTINITZ, SLAWATA, AND FABRICIUS THROWN FROM DOWS.- - VIOLENCE IN THE CITY. - LETTERS OF THE STATES TO ROR. THE WINTHE EMPETHE JESUITS EXPELLED. FERDINAND DEPOSED. THE ELECTOR PALATINE CHOSEN KING. FERDINAND CHOSEN EMPEROR. HE IS SUPPORTED BY THE LEAGUE. COMMENCEMENT OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. SCENES IN BOHEMIA. - BOHEMIA ABANDONED BY HER PROTESTANT ALLIES. FATE OF PROTESTANTISM. THE JESUIT CAMPIAN. -ACTS OF VIOlence. THE MAR TYRS. OUTRAGES COMMITTED. - PARDONS. FUGIFORCED CONVERSIONS. TIVES AND EXILES. THE RESULTS OF PERSECUTION. CONCLUDING OBSERVA 1602-1650. THE closing years of the sixteenth century were, to the Protestants of Bohemia, years at once of security and of danger. The lenient policy of their rulers had disarmed their fears, while the seed sown by Jesuit policy was springing up to its harvest. CH. XXI.] REVIVAL OF THE PAPACY. 603 Ferdinand had need of the aid of his Protestant subjects to meet the expenses of the Turkish war. Maximilian II. leaned from conviction toward the doctrines of the Brethren, and Rudolph II., though educated by the Jesuits, was not a promising pupil. A pedant rather than a king, he indulged his learned indolence in the arts of the laboratory rather than in the arts of statesmanship, and buried himself from the sight of his subjects in his museum of curiosities and antiques. But while the Protestants were almost unmolested, and were rapidly increasing in numbers, their Jesuit antagonists were not idle. If the first had acquired the ascendency in Austria, and to a large extent in Bohemia, the latter had seized upon the seats of learning, and presided over the education of those who were destined to wield the sceptre. Maximilian had tolerated both. The rival elements of future strife had been developed side by side. The papacy, moreover, was regaining its lost vigor. The tiara no longer rested on the brow of John XXIII., or on that of an Alexander VI. Paul IV. commenced the restoration. Pius IV., through the decisions of the council of Trent, reorganized if he did not regenerate the hierarchy. Pius V. exchanged the milder policy that had prevailed, for the sword and fagot, sanctioning, by precept and example, the cruelties of Alva in the Spanish Netherlands. Gregory XIII. conciliated favor as the representative of Jesuit learning, and Sixtus V. displayed the pomp of the old and undivided church. Protestant strength encouraged Protestant division. Henry IV., to secure him self against Spain, had sought the alliance of the Protestants of the German empire; but this hasty union was dissolved by his death, (1610,) while it had given occasion for the formation of a counter alliance, the "Catholic League," (July 11, 1609.) The meaning of this league was well understood at Prague, for at this juncture the Protestants had just succeeded in extorting from Rudolph important religious immunities. The persecution of 1602 was scarcely passed, when, at the instigation of the Jesuits, and through pontifical suggestion, it was proposed to renew it. The success of the Protestants, and the spread of their doctrines, had been such as to excite apprehension lest the Roman Catholic church should be utterly exterminated from the land. In 1605 the alarm was sounded at Prague by the archbishop, at the instigation of the pope. The principal nobles of Bohemia had joined the Lutherans, the Calvinists, or the Brethren, and the clergy became apprehensive lest their flocks should dwindle quite away. The archbishop, the Jesuits, the Capuchins, and the Roman Catholic nobility clamorously demanded of Rudolph severe and persecuting measures. They would have only "Catholics" and Utraquists tolerated in the kingdom. Their demand was granted. Rudolph forbade the meetings of the Protestants, and decreed the banishment of the Brethren and the Reformed. None but "Catholics" might hold office. Schools were demolished, and churches closed. The archbishop had been enjoined by the pope "to destroy and root out 1 Pescheck, i. 130-quotes from Pelzel. CH. XXI.] HARSHNESS AND CRUELTY. 605 heretical errors," and the work was now begun. Deeds of harshness and violence followed.1 Protestant preachers were expelled, or silenced. The ob servance of the commemoration days of Huss and Jerome was prohibited. Special tortures were devised against offenders. Some were thrown to the hounds to be worried. Others were deprived of their ears or tongues. Others were tortured in subterranean vaults by incessant showers of water. Property was confiscated. The wafer was thrust down the throats of the victims by force. Printers were forbidden to print Protestant books; and burial in the graveyards was denied to those of the evangelical faith." But this state of things could not long continue. Policy was forced to revoke what justice should have forbidden. The Bohemians refused to aid Rudolph in the Turkish war, and he was forced to conclude a disadvantageous peace. At this very juncture, Hungary, where the Protestants were decidedly in the ascendant, demanded and obtained freedom of relig ious worship. The grant had been made by the Archduke Matthias, brother of Rudolph, who witnessed with indignation the inefficiency of the emperor, and the impolicy of his administration. At a conference with the princes of the empire he was charged to interfere, and remedy the evils that had followed perverse counsels. Austria and Moravia were ripe for revolt, and were won to his banners by the promise of religious freedom. At the head of an army he pro |