Tells of Emperor Sigismund, King of Bohemia, his rare and troubled
visits to this country. Of an emigration from Prague University, and the
founding of another at Leipzig. Of the two Habsburgs who followed
Sigismund, and more about another great Bohemian already mentioned in
this book, George Podiebrad. King George's Peace League. Of Vladislav of
Poland as King of Bohemia; how he resided at the Hrad[vs]any and
beautified it. We go with Vladislav along the route he follows to his
coronation; we note many features by the way which Vladislav may or may
not have seen, and discuss these features as we go along. Of the end of
the Jagoilla dynasty on the throne of Bohemia when Vladislav's son Louis
was drowned after the battle of Moha[vc]. Of how Ferdinand of Austria
married Anna, daughter of Vladislav, and became King of Bohemia. Of
great doings in the Hall built by Vladislav on the Hrad[vs]any. Of the
beautiful Belvedere which Ferdinand caused to be built for Anna, his
Queen. Of other Habsburgs on the throne of Bohemia, particularly that
lonely bachelor Rudolph II; of his hobbies and the guests and visitors
he welcomed to the castle. Of King Matthias and the "Winter King," and
how Bohemia's independence was lost on the battlefield of the White
Mountain.
Let us return to our terrace, I to mine, you to yours if it gives you
the right point of view, for we will now take the foreground into
consideration, the Mala Strana and its "Crown of Glory," the Royal
Castle, the Hrad[vs]any. We have watched Charles IV in his labours to
beautify the capital of the land he loved, and among those labours was
the restoration of the Hrad[vs]any. His son, however, found attraction
elsewhere, and neglected the Royal Castle. Sigismund resided by
preference at Kutna Hora whenever his imperial duties gave him time to
visit Bohemia. This, his choice of residence, was probably dictated by
the troubled times through which Bohemia was passing. Prague was full of
tumult and of fierce religious controversy. The Hussites, as we have
seen, were out and bent to warfare in the cause they held sacred, and
the King had no liking for their views or regard for their opinions. We
have also noted the value of that Emperor's given word. In Kutna Hora
Sigismund found himself surrounded by a strongly German population,
zealous in the cause of Rome and the Empire, hostile to the freedom of
thought for which Bohemia was fighting. Racial animosity between Slav
and Teuton was running high; its immediate result had been the
emigration of several thousand professors and students of German
nationality to Leipzig, where a new university arose which was inclined
to consider its Alma Mater, Prague, a stepmother.
Then followed the Habsburgs, Albert and his posthumous son Ladislas.
Albert succeeded as Sigismund's son-in-law, and reigned for two troubled
years of civil war in Bohemia, leaving a disrupted State to Ladislas,
his unborn son. During the infancy of this child arose a strong man from
out of Bohemia, who served Ladislas so faithfully that the young King on
his deathbed sent for him to bid him farewell in touching terms. Then
was this strong man, George Podiebrad, unanimously chosen King by the
Estates.
George Podiebrad was a native of the country which called him to the
throne by reason of his integrity and intelligence. He was also of the
faith held by the majority of his subjects, the followers of Master John
Hus. His lot was cast in troubled times. Bohemia had been ruled by a
succession of monarchs of alien race, at first sympathetic but later
unable to see eye to eye with their subjects on religious and other
questions. In the time of trial, when the soul of the people called out
for guidance and support in the struggle for faith and freedom, those
rulers were too much bound by the ties that held them to Western Europe
as to champion Bohemia's cause whole-heartedly. They failed to
understand that Central Europe was ripe for a new orientation, though
there were sufficient indications to point out the way. Above all, a
great danger threatened; the Turks were extending their conquests in
Eastern Europe, the Byzantine Empire was going under before them, and
the fall of Constantinople was imminent.
It was shortly before this latter event that George Podiebrad was called
to the throne. He found his country distracted by internal dissensions,
exhausted by the Hussite wars and threatened by powerful neighbours. His
first task was to set his house in order; in this he achieved complete
success, and soon found himself reigning over a strong, happy and united
country. He next attended to his country's foreign relations, and
succeeded in securing peace without his frontiers by means of a network
of treaties. The King of Poland was won over by George Podiebrad's tact
and ability, and Matthias Corvinus, King of a Hungary with fluctuating
boundaries but including a deal of present-day Roumania, was also a
ready ally of Bohemia's King. Within his immediate neighbourhood in
Central Europe, George Podiebrad's wisdom and uprightness had brought
him many requests to act as arbitrator or intermediary in disputes. His
fame spread farther afield, his vision extended as he witnessed the
growing importance of his country, and from these circumstances arose an
ideal of a great Christian Peace League.
The state of Europe in the fifteenth century was not unlike that of the
present day. There was strife, turmoil and dissension everywhere, a
mighty power--that of Rome--opposing all free expression of opinion, an
obsolete shibboleth called the Holy Roman Empire, and a ruthless enemy
active in the East. In the midst of all this trouble George Podiebrad
worked diligently at his League; he gained the adhesion of King Louis of
France; Burgundy and Bavaria also joined, and Venice, remembering what
good business could be made out of crusades, was also inclined to agree.
England, it appears, was not particularly interested, at least is not
mentioned in connection with this League. George Podiebrad endeavoured
to win over the Holy Father, but in vain. Rome had turned a deaf ear
even to the despairing cry of the Eastern Church.
The League was to hold its first council at Bale, and subsequent ones in
different countries. Its statutes are worth noting; they are drawn up
on much the same lines as those of the present-day League of Nations.
When the plans of the League were sufficiently advanced to be put into
effect it was found that the forces against it were too powerful. Rome
would have none of it, and France, though friendly to the scheme,
chiefly out of antagonism to Rome, held back in the end, leaving the
King of Bohemia with none but his neighbour, Poland, to support him.
That the League should have failed of its purpose is regrettable. It was
a genial idea. That it originated in Central Europe and that it gained
the adherence of nations farther removed from Western influence is of
lasting importance, for it seems to have given a definite direction to a
group of Central and Eastern European Powers. Perhaps this direction was
subconscious in King George's mind; he may have been actuated only by
his desire for peaceful reconstruction behind a united front towards an
eastern enemy. However this may be, the idea did not die with George
Podiebrad, but has had two revivals, of which I hope to tell you
something in time.
George Podiebrad died in 1471, after having ensured the succession to
the throne of Bohemia of Vladislav, son of Casimir, King of Poland. King
George's reason for going outside his country for a successor instead of
finding one among his own sons was his concern for the safety of
Bohemia, which, he seems to have considered, would have been endangered
by a scion of his own family or nation under the conditions under which
he was to leave his country. He was moved towards Poland by reason of
the great plan he had formed far in advance of his age, namely, that of
the League of Peace.
[Illustration: THE POWDER TOWER.]
George Podiebrad, according to Luetzow, has always remained, next to
Charles IV, the sovereign whose memory the Bohemians treasure most.
Bohemia's great historian, Palacky, gives to this King a place of honour
among the rulers of his country which is only equalled by that assigned
to the great Luxemburger. His last years were clouded by the
increasing distressful state of Europe, by a painful illness, and by the
faithlessness of his one-time friend and ally, Matthias of Hungary. This
latter had broken with King George, and had carried war into the lands
of the Bohemian Crown, and though defeated and driven out of Moravia,
still held several towns in that country. This seems to have served
Matthias Corvinus as a pretext for disputing the claim of Vladislav to
the throne of Bohemia. There was also another claimant with a certain
following, namely, Duke Albert of Saxony, but in the end the crown
remained with Vladislav of Poland, who then made his way to Bohemia, and
entered Prague on August 19, 1471.
I like to conjure up a picture of the reception given to Vladislav by
the good people of Prague. Vladislav, coming from Poland, would probably
enter by the gateway where now stands that beautiful "Powder Tower,"
built under his aegis; I have already pointed it out to you. There he
would be received by all manner of "grave and reverend seigniors," among
them, of course, the doctors of the University, who, I gather, presented
Vladislav with a "neatly bound and printed copy of the Bible, so that he
might read it and direct himself and his subjects according to the Will
of God": thus writes the chronicler. The good citizens of Prague were
evidently pleased to welcome Vladislav, so we can imagine him, three
days after his entry into Prague, moving, amidst popular rejoicings, to
the Hrad[vs]any for coronation. A glittering pageant, no doubt, as it
moved along under the shadow of the Church of Our Lady of Tyn, past the
Old Town Hall, where the man to whom he owed the throne, George
Podiebrad, had been called to rule Bohemia. Then along the Karlova
Ulice, under the tower built by Wenceslaus, and over the Charles Bridge
up the steep slope of Castle Hill.
I cannot imagine that the aspect of the Mala Strana which Vladislav got
while proceeding to his coronation was very different from that of
to-day. The Bridge Street on the left bank was possibly narrower and
ill-paved, but I am certain that the general aspect of arcaded houses
was much the same as it is to-day. I cannot imagine the Mala Strana
changing very much, nor will you when once you have seen it. Though many
houses, palaces and churches have been rebuilt or added, I should say
that the Mala Strana has always preserved a certain independence, a
conservative aloofness, from other quarters of the capital. From little
glimpses, from snatches of conversation and chance remarks, I am
inclined to the idea that the aborigines of the Mala Strana, while
admitting the existence of other parts of Prague, such as the Old Town,
yet do not consider them quite fit to associate with. There must be in
the quaint little backwaters of Mala Strana a certain indigenous type
which considers it bold and venturesome to cross the Charles Bridge, a
proceeding smacking of foreign travel.
The block of buildings including the tall Church of St. Nicholas, which
fills up the middle of that irregular place, the Mala Stranske
Nam[ve]sti, or Place of the Small Side, would be new to Vladislav were
he to repeat his progress to-day. There was a church--a very old one--on
this spot, dating back to the thirteenth century; it is said that the
martyrs of 1621 communicated here _in utraque_ on the morning of their
execution. The tall, imposing Church of St. Nicholas replaced the older
edifice--a typical monument this of Jesuit pride of conquest over the
fallen National Church of Bohemia. Seen from my terrace, the copper dome
of St. Nicholas, its tall and slender campanile, stand up dominant over
sleepy red-tiled roofs where linger memories of much earlier days. It is
indeed a splendid building, this master-work of Ignatius and Kilian
Dienzenhoffer. I must admit this, little as I admire _baroque_ and for
all my loathing of the spirit of triumphant intolerance and bigotry
which informed the builders of this great monument to the enslavement of
a nation's soul.
In former years, before the war, there stood here in the narrowest part
of this place, a monument to another triumph over Bohemia's freedom, a
monument to Field-Marshal Radecky, whose figure was supported by types
of Austrian soldiery of his time. This monument has been
removed--destroyed, I believe, by the Pragers when they regained their
freedom in October 1918. The removal of this monument leaves a blank,
not a sentimental one, merely an artistic one, and has led to an
unexpected and probably undesired effect. It has given undue prominence
to a little building that stands some way up the place, a building of
strict utility with no pretensions to architectural consideration, a
building which now stands out exposed as it were, trying to hide its
confusion under a mask of gaudy advertisement posters.
The singularly characteristic houses on the north side of this square,
with their deep arcades, were probably rebuilt or renovated in the
seventeenth century; they must be of considerable antiquity, for one of
them, a corner house called "Montagu," has its place in history. The
name, by the way, is not derived from the Italian, but from the simple
German _Montag_, Monday; and it has by way of embellishment a Slavonic
suffix. It was in this Montagu House that the discontented members of
the Bohemian Estates were wont to meet in 1618, and here they hit upon
the bright idea of throwing the two lieutenants, go-betweens or whatever
they were, of their Habsburg ruler, out of a window. So here on this
Mala Stranske Nam[ve]sti you may see the very spot from which the War of
Thirty Years started.
This Mala Stranske Nam[ve]sti is divided into an upper and a lower part
by the block of buildings I have already mentioned. The palaces all
round here are probably different of aspect from the burgher houses
which stood here before the _baroque_ irruption of the seventeenth
century, so Vladislav on his way to coronation would have been greeted
by a homelier sight; neither could he have seen the plague memorial. The
plague commemorated visited Prague in 1715; the man who committed this
pyramid, dedicated to Holy Trinity, was one Giovanni Battista
Alliprandi, an Italian architect, but not of the Renaissance spirit.
This peculiar group of sculpture fails to impress me; the figures, of
saints, I believe, are not convincing; they are seen holding emblems of
piety, but only for decorative purposes, not as if they in the least
knew what to do with them; one or other would have appeared much happier
with a knife and fork.
[Illustration: THE HRAD[vC]ANY FROM THE NEBOZIZEK GARDEN.]
Vladislav's farther way would take him up that steep road that leads
past Strahov out into the country. It was formerly called the Street of
Spurs, I believe; it has since been named Nerudova T[vr]ida, after John
Neruda, the father of Bohemian literature, who spent his early days
here. This street has rather a reputation for mild-mannered men of
letters and lights of learning, patrons of art and science. There was,
for instance, Baron Brettfeld, who entertained young Mozart, da Ponte
and Casanova. But all this happened well after the days of Vladislav of
Poland, King of Bohemia, who wound up by the narrow streets of Prague's
Mala Strana to his coronation on the Hrad[vs]any. The Royal Castle had
not been regularly inhabited by royalty for nearly a century, and as
Vladislav chose to make it his residence, he found much to do in putting
the place in order. The part that still shows strong traces of
Vladislav's work is beyond the view from my terrace. You may recognize
it some way off by a number of heavily mullioned windows in contrast to
the very plain setting of the endless rows of other windows all along
the front of the castle buildings. This palatial part of the castle--it
is that nearest to the cathedral--was begun by Vladislav as soon as he
had settled down to his kingship, and was finished in 1502. The chief
feature of this building was a vast hall, which you may see still. It
has suffered, of course, has been damaged by fire and also by restorers;
just at present some archaeologist is at work upon it, and he is, I
believe, discovering all sorts of beauties in the decorative Gothic
style peculiar to this King of Polish descent and exquisite taste. It
seems to me that Gothic in Prague is of finer spiritual quality than the
German variant, is of that noble sincerity of which you find many
instances in France, in several examples in Portugal, and when it
became decorated, never went into the excesses of the Manuelesque style
such as you may see it in old Lusitania. Successive Habsburgs who
followed on these Polish rulers of Bohemia, Vladislav and his son Louis,
benefited by the magnificent work which these two scions of the Royal
House of Jagoilla left to posterity. Louis, we know, was drowned just
after the battle of Moha[vc], and the short-lived Polish dynasty made
way definitely for Kings of the House of Habsburg. Ferdinand, Archduke
of Austria, having married Anna, daughter of Vladislav II, laid claim to
the throne of Bohemia. He was not alone in this ambition; in fact, there
was a greater number of aspirants to the vacant seat than there had ever
been before--thirteen in all, among them Francis I of France. However,
Ferdinand secured the throne, and reigned as King of Bohemia right
royally it would seem. His coronation took place in the great hall built
by Vladislav, and the solemn ceremony was followed by a tournament, also
held in the same hall--a tournament on horseback, mind you, and ending
up with a melee in which thirteen knights a-side took part. There was a
banquet too, and the waiting was done by squires on horseback. A great
ball brought the festivities to an end. The great fire in Prague in
1541, which destroyed all the State documents, may have been the one
which also did much damage to Vladislav's great hall, and Ferdinand's
restoration of the same probably did something towards impairing its
original beauty. We have reason, however, to be grateful to this
Ferdinand, first of the name, for another building which graces the
neighbourhood of the Hrad[vs]any. This is the Belvedere which stands at
the far end of a lovely garden called the Chotkovy Sady. Ferdinand built
this Belvedere for Anna, his Queen, with its airy loggias, its wrought
architraves and long domed roof. It is one of the most beautiful works
of early Renaissance spirit that I have ever seen. All honour to its
architect, Giovanni di Spazzio.
Ferdinand I proved to be no such moody bigot as his brother Charles V,
yet he was bent on stemming the tide of Protestantism, the floods of
which flowed over from the Germany of Luther's way of thinking to mingle
with the growing religious sects in Bohemia. This was not done without
torture and bloodshed, so the Hrad[vs]any witnessed the sufferings,
under the rack, of Augusta, the Bishop of the Unity of Bohemian
Brethren, and the execution of several prominent citizens of Prague for
defying royal authority in matters of conscience. Ferdinand, on the
abdication of his father, succeeded him as Emperor, and left his son
Maximilian to rule his turbulent Bohemian subjects. Maximilian stands
out in history as a picturesque figure, but I cannot see that he did
Bohemia any useful service. The fact that he had inherited the old
dominions of the House of Habsburg, Upper and Lower Austria, and was
also King of Hungary, kept him away from Bohemia a good deal. He called
occasionally upon the Diet of this his richest possession for support
against the Turks. The Diet thereupon called for religious freedom, and
no interference with their spiritual affairs. The discussions that
ensued seem to have led to no results. So we find one Habsburg after
another on the throne of Bohemia, trying to coerce its people, and each
one reducing the country to a state of greater discontent and disorder,
until the crash came in 1618, when King Matthias had roused the Bohemian
Estates to such a pitch of desperation that they proceeded to the act
which precipitated the Thirty Years' War.
The Hrad[vs]any did not see much of Matthias, whereas his predecessor on
the throne of Bohemia, Rudolph II, lived in the Royal Castle as a matter
of habit. True he was dethroned occasionally by his younger brother
Matthias, and no doubt Rudolph as King was hopelessly ineffective. He
was probably rather mad. Nevertheless, a certain amount of interest can
be drawn out of this Habsburg's connection with Prague, and the
Hrad[vs]any can show you some traces of his peculiarities. So, for
instance, you will find a quaint little alley of tiny houses scooped out
of the stout north wall of the castle to eastward of St. George's
Church.
Rudolph was unmarried; perhaps it was this fact that enabled him to
waste money on all sorts of hobbies instead of going to his office with
his little black bag and behaving generally as a "weel tappit" husband
and king would do. Rudolph's hobbies were alchemy and astronomy. The
chief object of the former extremely inexact science seems to have been
to make gold by the synthetic process. Any charlatan who came along with
a declared conviction that he could produce gold was welcomed by the
King. It was for these his guests that Rudolph prepared those tiny
dwellings in the narrow alley called "The Alchemists" or the "Gold
Makers." They are snug, those tiny dwellings, so small that you should
be able to open your front door without getting out of bed; you look
down out of the deep embrasure of your window on to the tree-tops in the
"Stag's Moat." The height of the wall from your window to the ditch does
not invite you to try a leap by way of escape, so Rudolph's alchemist
guests had to produce something or suffer from the King's displeasure.
This, for instance, happened to two gentlemen from the British Isles,
Dr. John Dee and Mr. Kelly. Both these visitors were going to supply
Rudolph with wonders of alchemy, gold in profusion. They failed to give
satisfaction, and were imprisoned--another injustice to Ireland! Did the
fairy chorus that thrilled the listeners at the foot of Dalibor's strong
dungeon chant that plaintive cry, "Has anyone here seen Kelly"?
Another of Rudolph's hobbies was astronomy, and he certainly assembled
some eminent scientists in that line about him. Prominent among these
lights of learning was one whom I have already mentioned, Tycho de
Brahe. It appears that this turbulent scientist had made his own
country, Denmark, too hot to hold him; he and his family were
practically exiled from home, and in his wanderings Tycho turned to the
Court of Prague, was kindly, generously entreated by King Rudolph, and
no doubt did good work in return. You may see Tycho's effigy over his
tomb in the Tyn Church; you may remark that his effigy shows little
trace of a nose to his face. Tycho went without one for many years, as
he lost his when young, in a duel. Keppler was also one of Rudolph's
guests, a man of very different calibre, and certainly one of the most
eminent astronomers of all times. There were, no doubt, any number of
lesser lights in that line during those quaint old days when men turned
to the starry heavens to learn the fate in store for them. Astronomy and
alchemy were often mixed up together in those days, or rather astronomy
seemed to get mixed up with one's daily life to such an extent that no
princely household was complete without its pet astronomer. If things
had gone a bit wrong of a morning, perhaps that "tired feeling" mixed
with a touch of gout, and the evening had brought a domestic worry or
two, you just walked round to your astronomer's for some indication
concerning the future. After bumping about in dim religious gloom among
stuffed crocodiles and such-like accessories to science of those days,
you discovered your astronomer deeply engaged in describing cabalistic
figures on parchment; he would raise his eyes with a far-away look, as
if no henchman had hurried round a few minutes earlier to say that "the
old man was carrying on something awful," your astronomer would descend
to earth for a space and then at his master's command reascend to get
thoroughly mixed up with the stars.
To those days of the later sixteenth century we may trace all manner of
quaint customs, beliefs and observances. People were getting thoroughly
into the way of thinking for themselves instead of believing what they
were told, and they started many ingenious conceits whereon to pin their
faith or perhaps strengthen it. I do not know that those quaint conceits
were particularly helpful; personally I could not derive comfort from a
belief popular in Bohemia, that King David sits in the moon playing on
the harp. My sympathy would go out too strongly for my own comfort,
towards David evoking melody in such a lonely spot, far from all his
lady friends; I might even imagine him sighing for Saul's hurtling
javelin to break the monotony. To these days belongs also the
institution of the rosary by Pope Gregory XII, in memory of the victory
of Christendom at Lepanto in 1571. The rosary was indeed known as early
as the eleventh century, but not in universal use.
While Rudolph was busy with his alchemy, astronomy, and, I am happy to
say, with literature as well, he resided in the Hrad[vs]any most of his
time, and so the Mala Strana enjoyed all the amenities of a Court, the
"certain liveliness" that pertains thereto having shifted from the Old
Town to the left bank of the river. I have sought vainly for something
interesting in the way of local colour, but can find nothing that even
suggests the ingerence of a "fardingale" into the local history of
Rudolph's reign. Instead of the gentler influence, I find only
descriptions of swashbucklers, lackeys and bottlewashers, "ruffling" it
in imitation of their masters. Here again we have indication of Italy's
refining influence, a new invention which came rapidly into vogue, and
unlike most of them, came to stay--the facciolette. What though the
roystering pseudo-gallant had no shirt to which he might attach a fine
collar, he must have his "facilet," as the chronicler spells it--in
short, a handkerchief. Then again the tooth-pick came in for serious
observation; it was considered an outward and visible sign of internal
creature comfort, and was worn behind the ear when not in action.
Tooth-pick practice is still going strong in Prague.
By way of attributing something good to Rudolph, I will make him
responsible for a garden, said to have been very beautiful, which
occupied some ground at the higher westward end of the "Stag's Moat."
Here was a pleasance, where gallants and fair ladies disported
themselves and watched the antics of wild animals. It was in this garden
that Schiller placed the little drama he describes in _Der Handschuh_.
Schiller gives the Spanish version of the story, where the gallant
smacks the lady's face with the glove he had retrieved for her from
among the lions, and then struts away for evermore. Romantic, but
ill-tempered, whereas the local version here is that the gallant married
the lady--perhaps she became insistent; anyway, a useful if commonplace
ending.
I gave you an instance of Rudolph's statecraft in that little matter of
the "Passauer," and am not inclined to give you any more. His doings and
those of his Habsburg successors brought so much suffering to Bohemia
and Prague that I would rather be excused from giving any account of
them. We have heard of Rudolph's brother Matthias, and how under him the
strain put upon the people of Bohemia grew too severe, and how the
Estates cut the Gordian Knot by throwing the King's lieutenants out of a
window on the Hrad[vs]any. They happened to fall soft, on a midden, and
got away unhurt. As a diplomatic action, this measure taken by the
Estates lacked finesse, but it had one advantage over the usual
diplomatic transactions in their devious course, that it was direct and
final in its effect, namely, to precipitate a great devastating war, and
to leave Bohemia hopelessly enchained for close on three centuries.
We have seen the "Winter King"[1] pass this way with his English wife,
pause here to be crowned, and then after a short year's reign, fly from
the country that trusted him when his army and the cause he was called
upon to stand for went under in a sea of blood on the White Mountain. It
is only about an hour on foot to the battlefield where the army of
Protestant Bohemia, after retiring before the Imperialist host, made its
final, fatal stand. After all, Frederick's short reign was only an
interlude: the hand of the Habsburg had closed over Bohemia when
Ferdinand I ascended its throne in 1526 by virtue of his marriage with
Anna, and also, as I have said, by the free use of Austrian gold; and
the victory won by Charles V at Muehlberg in 1547 had almost crushed the
cause of Protestantism out of existence.
[Footnote 1: Frederick, Count of the Palatinate, was called the "Winter
King," probably because he came to Prague one winter and left the next
one.]
The battlefield where the independence of Bohemia was lost in November
1620 lies on a plateau, as background to which stands a peculiar
building. Surrounded by a park and overlooking undulating country stands
the "Star." It is a former royal hunting-box, built several centuries
before the battle and planned as a six-pointed star. It has no
architectural beauty; it is in appearance a somewhat ungainly landmark
and must have been pretty uncomfortable to live in, even for the less
exacting royalties of the Middle Ages, but it stands on what, for the
Bohemian, should be holy ground. The forces of the Holy Roman Empire,
aided by Bavarians and Spaniards, were arrayed against the army of
Frederick, the "Winter King," which stood for religious freedom. Perhaps
the Protestant forces were not united, they were composed of Czechs,
Moravians, Germans and Hungarians, perhaps that their King had left
them somewhat hurriedly, at any rate the spirit of the old covenanters,
Hus and [vZ]i[vs]ka, no longer informed the Bohemian Army. The first to
break were the Hungarians, and the conduct of the others was not up to
tradition; only a small force of Moravians under Count [vS]lik refused
to yield. They took their stand against the wall of the Star Park, along
which the dead at some places lay ten or twelve high, according to
contemporary writers.
Then the Jesuit-ridden Habsburg entered Prague and laid his heavy hand
on all Bohemia, almost to the undoing of its people. But it is a
wonderful thing, that power of a strong race to survive treachery and
oppression until the time comes when it can reassert itself.
There are many accounts of this battle, most of them obviously biassed,
so, for instance, the Imperialists declare that victory was won in the
space of an hour, whereas Bohemian historians say that the fighting
continued without a break from morning till late afternoon. The
Imperialists ascribed their victory to the intervention of Our Lady.
Some fifty years after their defeat the Bohemians erected a church and
monastery to St. Mary on the White Mountain. You may see this church,
looking somewhat dilapidated--I should say ashamed of itself--as it
stands there a monument to the Bohemian nation's self-abasement.
We have witnessed the sequel to the defeat of Bohemia on the White
Mountain, the execution of Bohemian nobles and other leaders on the open
space between the Old Town Hall and the Church of Our Lady of Tyn. In
the words of Gindely the historian: "These melancholy executions mark
the end of the old and independent development of Bohemia. Members of
the most prominent families of the Bohemian nobility, eminent citizens
and learned men, in fact all the representatives of the culture of the
land, ended here, and with them their cause. The destiny of the country
was henceforth in the hands of foreigners, who had neither comprehension
of nor sympathy with its former institutions."