KING FERDINAND AND THE BOHEMIAN REBELS

 

While Charles gave law to the Germans like a conquered people, Ferdinand treated his subjects in Bohemia with still greater rigor.

That kingdom possessed privileges and immunities as extensive as those of any nation in which the feudal institutions were established. The prerogative of their kings was extremely limited, and the crown itself elective. Ferdinand, when raised to the throne, had confirmed their liberties with every solemnity prescribed by their excessive solicitude for the security of a constitution of government to which they were extremely attached.

He soon began, however, to be weary of a jurisdiction so much circum scribed, and to despise a scepter which he could not transmit to his posterity; and notwithstanding all his former engagements, he attempted to overturn the constitution from its foundations; that, instead of an elective kingdom, he might render it hereditary.

But the Bohemians were too high-spirited tamely to relinquish privileges which they had long enjoyed. At the same time, many of them having embraced the doctrines of the reformers, the seeds of which John Huss and Jerome of Prague had planted in their country about the beginning of the preceding century, the desire of acquiring religious liberty mingled itself with their zeal for their civil rights; and these two kindred passions heightening, as usual, each other's force, precipitated them immediately into violent measures.

They had not only refused to serve their sovereign against the confederates of Smalkalde, but having entered into a close alliance with the elector of Saxony, they had bound themselves, by a solemn association, to defend their ancient constitution; and to persist, until they should obtain such additional privileges as they thought necessary towards perfecting the present model of their government, or rendering it more permanent.

They chose Caspar Phlug, a nobleman of distinction, to be their general; and raised an army of thirty thousand men to enforce their petitions. But either from the weakness of their leader, or from the dissensions in a great unwieldy body, which having united hastily, was not thoroughly compacted, or from some other unknown cause, the subsequent operations of the Bohemians bore no proportion to the zeal and ardor with which they took their first resolutions. They suffered themselves to be amused so long with negotiations and overtures of different kinds, that before they could enter Saxony, the battle of Muhlberg was fought, the elector deprived of his dignity and territories, the landgrave confined to close custody, and the league of Smalkalde entirely dissipated.

The same dread of the emperor's power which had seized the rest of the Germans, reached them. As soon as their sovereign approached with a body of Imperial troops, they instantly dispersed, thinking of nothing but how to atone for their past guilt, and to acquire some hope of forgiveness by a prompt submission. But Ferdinand, who entered his dominions full of that implacable resentment which inflames monarchs whose authority has been despised, was not to be mollified by the late repentance and involuntary return of rebellious subjects to their duty. He even heard, unmoved, the entreaties and tears of the citizens of Prague, who appeared before him in the posture of suppliants, and implored for mercy.

The sentence which he pronounced against them was rigorous to extremity; he abolished many of their privileges, he abridged others, and new-modeled the constitution according to his pleasure. He condemned to death many of those who had been most active in forming the late association against him, and punished a still greater number with confiscation of their goods, or perpetual banishment. He obliged all his subjects, of every condition, to give up their arms to be deposited in forts where be planted garrisons; and after disarming his people, he loaded them with new and exorbitant taxes. Thus, by an ill-conducted and unsuccessful effort to extend their privileges, the Bohemians not only enlarged the sphere of the royal prerogative, when they intended to have circumscribed it, but they almost annihilated those liberties which they aimed at establishing on a broader and more secure foundation.

 

THE MURDER OF THE SON OF THE POPE