“I must think it over,” Graheme said; “it is a serious step to take.  I had thought of his going to the court at London after he left the university, and of using our family interest to push his way there.”

“What is he to do in London?” Munro said.  “The old pedant James, who wouldn’t spend a shilling or raise a dozen men to aid the cause of his own daughter, and who thought more of musty dogmatic treatises than of the glory and credit of the country he ruled over, or the sufferings of his co-religionists in Germany, has left no career open to a lad of spirit.”

“Well, I will think it over by the morning,” Graheme said.  “And now tell me a little more about the merits of this quarrel in Germany.  If I am going to fight, I should like at least to know exactly what I am fighting about.”

“My dear fellow,” Hume laughed, “you will never make a soldier if you always want to know the ins and outs of every quarrel you have to fight about; but for once the tenderest conscience may be satisfied as to the justice of the contention.  But Munro is much better versed in the history of the affair than I am; for, to tell you the truth, beyond the fact that it is a general row between the Protestants and Catholics, I have not troubled myself much in the matter.”

“You must know,” Colonel Munro began, “that some twenty years ago the Protestant princes of Germany formed a league for mutual protection and support, which they called the Protestant Union; and a year later the Catholics, on their side, constituted what they called the Holy League.  At that time the condition of the Protestants was not unbearable.  In Bohemia, where they constituted two-thirds of the population, Rudolph II, and after him Mathias, gave conditions of religious freedom.

“Gradually, however, the Catholic party about the emperor gained the upper hand; then various acts in breach of the conditions granted to the Protestants were committed, and public spirit on both sides became much embittered.  On the 23d of May, 1618, the Estates of Bohemia met at Prague, and the Protestant nobles, headed by Count Thurn, came there armed, and demanded from the Imperial councillors an account of the high handed proceedings.  A violent quarrel ensued, and finally the Protestant deputies seized the councillors Martinitz and Slavata, and their secretary, and hurled them from the window into the dry ditch, fifty feet below.  Fortunately for the councillors the ditch contained a quantity of light rubbish, and they and their secretary escaped without serious damage.  The incident, however, was the commencement of war.  Bohemia was almost independent of Austria, administering its own internal affairs.  The Estates invested Count Thurn with the command of the army.  The Protestant Union supported Bohemia in its action.  Mathias, who was himself a tolerant and well meaning man, tried to allay the storm; but, failing to do so, marched an army into Bohemia.