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