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.

Slawata, a Bohemian Protestant, who had converted himself to the Roman Church in order to marry a rich widow, and who converted his peasants by hunting them to mass with his hounds, and Martinitz, the two stadholders who at Ferdinand’s coronation had endeavoured to prevent him from including the Majesty-Letter among the privileges he was swearing to support, and who were considered the real authors of the royal letters revoking all religious rights of Protestants, were the most obnoxious of all.  They were hurled from the council-chamber window of the Hradschin.  The unfortunate secretary Fabricius was tossed out after them.  Twenty-eight ells deep they fell, and all escaped unhurt by the fall; Fabricius being subsequently ennobled by a grateful emperor with the well-won title of Baron Summerset.

The Thirty Years’ War, which in reality had been going on for several years already, is dated from that day.  A provisional government was established in Prague by the Estates under Protestant guidance, a college of thirty directors managing affairs.

The Window-Tumble, as the event has always been called in history, excited a sensation in Europe.  Especially the young king of France, whose political position should bring him rather into alliance with the rebels than the Emperor, was disgusted and appalled.  He was used to rebellion.  Since he was ten years old there had been a rebellion against himself every year.  There was rebellion now.  But his ministers had never been thrown out of window.  Perhaps one might take some day to tossing out kings as well.  He disapproved the process entirely.

Thus the great conflict of Christendom, so long impending, seemed at last to have broken forth in full fury on a comparatively insignificant incident.  Thus reasoned the superficial public, as if the throwing out of window of twenty stadholders could have created a general war in Europe had not the causes of war lain deep and deadly in the whole framework of society.