cities.  Rather reign over a wilderness than over heretics was the device of the Archduke, in imitation of his great relative, Philip II. of Spain.  In short space of time his duchies were as empty of Protestants as the Palatinate of Lutherans, or Saxony of Calvinists, or both of Papists.  Even the churchyards were rifled of dead Lutherans and Utraquists, their carcasses thrown where they could no longer pollute the true believers mouldering by their side.

It was not strange that the coronation as King of Bohemia of a man of such decided purposes—­a country numbering ten Protestants to one Catholic—­should cause a thrill and a flutter.  Could it be doubted that the great elemental conflict so steadily prophesied by Barneveld and instinctively dreaded by all capable of feeling the signs of the time would now begin?  It had begun.  Of what avail would be Majesty-Letters and Compromises extorted by force from trembling or indolent emperors, now that a man who knew his own mind, and felt it to be a crime not to extirpate all religions but the one orthodox religion, had mounted the throne?  It is true that he had sworn at his coronation to maintain the laws of Bohemia, and that the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise were part of the laws.

But when were doctors ever wanting to prove the unlawfulness of law which interferes with the purposes of a despot and the convictions of the bigot?

“Novus rex, nova lex,” muttered the Catholics, lifting up their heads and hearts once more out of the oppression and insults which they had unquestionably suffered at the hands of the triumphant Reformers.  “There are many empty poppy-heads now flaunting high that shall be snipped off,” said others.  “That accursed German Count Thurn and his fellows, whom the devil has sent from hell to Bohemia for his own purposes, shall be disposed of now,” was the general cry.

It was plain that heresy could no longer be maintained except by the sword.  That which had been extorted by force would be plucked back by force.  The succession of Ferdinand was in brief a warshout to be echoed by all the Catholics of Europe.  Before the end of the year the Protestant churches of Brunnau were sealed up.  Those at Klostergrab were demolished in three days by command of the Archbishop of Prague.  These dumb walls preached in their destruction more stirring sermons than perhaps would ever have been heard within them had they stood.  This tearing in pieces of the Imperial patent granting liberty of Protestant worship, this summary execution done upon senseless bricks and mortar, was an act of defiance to the Reformed religion everywhere.  Protestantism was struck in the face, spat upon, defied.

The effect was instantaneous.  Thurn and the other defenders of the Protestant faith were as prompt in action as the Catholics had been in words.  A few months passed away.  The Emperor was in Vienna, but his ten stadholders were in Prague.  The fateful 23rd of May 1618 arrived.