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