While Bohemia was writhing beneath these woes, the emperor, to secure the succession, repaired in regal pomp to Prague, and crowned his son King of Bohemia.  He then issued a decree abolishing the right which the Bohemians had claimed, to elect their king, forbade the use of the Bohemian language in the court and in all public transactions, and annulled all past edicts of toleration.  He proclaimed that no religion but the Roman Catholic should henceforth be tolerated in Bohemia, and that all who did not immediately return to the bosom of the Church should be banished from the kingdom.  This cruel edict drove into banishment thirty thousand families.  These Protestant families composed the best portion of the community, including the most illustrious in rank, the most intelligent, the most industrious and the most virtuous, No State could meet with such a loss without feeling it deeply, and Bohemia has never yet recovered from the blow.  One of the Bohemian historians, himself a Roman Catholic, thus describes the change which persecution wrought in Bohemia: 

“The records of history scarcely furnish a similar example of such a change as Bohemia underwent during the reign of Ferdinand II.  In 1620, the monks and a few of the nobility only excepted, the whole country was entirely Protestant.  At the death of Ferdinand it was, in appearance at least, Catholic.  Till the battle of the White Mountain the States enjoyed more exclusive privileges than the Parliament of England.  They enacted laws, imposed taxes, contracted alliances, declared war and peace, and chose or confirmed their kings.  But all these they now lost.

“Till this fatal period the Bohemians were daring, undaunted, enterprising, emulous of fame; now they have lost all their courage, their national pride, their enterprising spirit.  Their courage lay buried in the White Mountain.  Individuals still possessed personal valor, military ardor and a thirst of glory, but, blended with other nations, they resembled the waters of the Moldau which join those of the Elbe.  These united streams bear ships, overflow lands and overturn rocks; yet the Elbe is only mentioned, and the Moldau forgotten.

“The Bohemian language, which had been used in all the courts of justice, and which was in high estimation among the nobles, fell into contempt.  The German was introduced, became the general language among the nobles and citizens, and was used by the monks in their sermons.  The inhabitants of the towns began to be ashamed of their native tongue, which was confined to the villages and called the language of peasants.  The arts and sciences, so highly cultivated and esteemed under Rhodolph, sunk beyond recovery.  During the period which immediately followed the banishment of the Protestants, Bohemia scarcely produced one man who became eminent in any branch of learning.  The greater part of the schools were conducted by Jesuits and other monkish orders, and nothing taught therein but bad Latin.