The despairing citizens, thus deserted by their sovereign, and with a victorious foe at their very walls, had no alternative but to throw open their gates and submit to the mercy of the conqueror.  The next day the whole imperial army, under the Duke of Bavaria, with floating banners and exultant music, entered the streets of the capital, and took possession of the palaces.  The tyrant Ferdinand was as vengeful and venomous as he was vigorous and unyielding.  The city was immediately disarmed, and the government intrusted to a vigorous Roman Catholic prince, Charles of Lichtenstein.  A strong garrison was left in the city to crush, with a bloody hand, any indications of insurrection, and then the Duke of Bavaria returned with most of his army to Munich, his capital, tottering beneath the burden of plunder.

There was a moment’s lull before the tempest of imperial wrath burst upon doomed Bohemia.  Ferdinand seemed to deliberate, and gather his strength, that he might strike a blow which would be felt forever.  He did strike such a blow—­one which has been remembered for two hundred years, and which will not be forgotten for ages to come—­one which doomed parents and children to weary years of vagabondage, penury and woe which must have made life a burden.

On the night of the 21st of January, three months after the capitulation, and when the inhabitants of Prague had begun to hope that there might, after all, be some mercy in the bosom of Ferdinand, forty of the leading citizens of the place were simultaneously arrested.  They were torn from their families and thrown into dungeons where they were kept in terrific suspense for four months.  They were then brought before an imperial commission and condemned as guilty of high treason.  All their property was confiscated, nothing whatever being left for their helpless families.  Twenty-three were immediately executed upon the scaffold, and all the rest were either consigned to life-long imprisonment, or driven into banishment.  Twenty-seven other nobles, who had escaped from the kingdom, were declared traitors.  Their castles were seized, their property confiscated and presented as rewards to Roman Catholic nobles who were the friends of Ferdinand.  An order was then issued for all the nobles and landholders throughout the kingdom to send in a confession of whatever aid they had rendered, or encouragement they had given to the insurrection.  And the most terrible vengeance was threatened against any one who should afterward be proved guilty of any act whatever of which he had not made confession.  The consternation which this decree excited was so great, that not only was every one anxious to confess the slightest act which could be construed as unfriendly to the emperor, but many, in their terror, were driven to accuse themselves of guilt, who had taken no share in the movement.  Seven hundred nobles, and the whole body of Protestant landholders, placed their names on the list of those who confessed guilt and implored pardon.