A still more impressive protest followed. Hlavsa and one of his friends had escaped from prison, and they now appeared in Presburg to convince the king of the injustice of their imprisonment. They showed, too, that Roz̆mital and his friends had exceeded the powers granted to them, and had inflicted sentences which were greater than any that the king had permitted. Louis was impressed by these statements, and he at once wrote to Roz̆mital, ordering him to reverse his illegal sentences, to give Hlavsa and his friends a fair trial, and to restore order and justice in Prague.
Karl of Münsterberg and Lev of Roz̆mital combined to defy the king’s commands; and after vainly appealing to the Town Council of Prague to resist this act of rebellion, the king summoned a BohemianAssembly to meet at the town of Kolin on the Elbe, and excluded from its deliberations Karl, Lev, and all their supporters. He then secured the trial and acquittal of Hlavsa and his friends, and punished Prague for its contumacy by depriving it of its civic rights. So far, however, were the Praguer from yielding that they now expelled from the city the wives of the men whom they had been ordered to recall; and they even imprisoned a citizen whom Louis had sent to Prague to recover the property of which the Town Council had deprived him.
But, absolute as was Roz̆mital’s rule within the walls of Prague, a curious story of the time reminds us of the formidable influences which were counteracting his power in other parts of Bohemia. Peter of Rosenberg had bequeathed to Roz̆mital the castle and town of Krumov; but Peter’s nephew, Henry of Rosenberg, maintained that such an alienation of the property was contrary to the settlements under which it was held. Lev thereupon summoned Henry to appear before the law court in Prague, to answer for his resistance to his uncle’s will. When the messengers appeared at Krumov with the letters of summons, Henry of Rosenberg at once threw them into prison. He then summoned them before him, made them eat the letters which they had brought, gave them wine to enable them to swallow this strange food, and then hunted them with dogs from the gates of his castle.
Although this story shows that Roz̆mital’s power was confined within certain local limits, yet, within those limits, he could not only resist the remonstrancesand commands of Louis, but could even hamper in an important way his general schemes of policy. This power for evil was shortly to receive a terrible manifestation. While the Bohemians and Hungarians had been wrangling, the Turks had been steadily advancing in Europe. Soliman the Great had considerably increased the military prestige of his race; and Louis was startled, in the middle of his domestic troubles, by the news that Belgrade had been captured by the Turks. Then the young king appealed to the Bohemians to stand by him and his Hungarian subjects in their resistance to this terrible invader. The Rosenbergs and other nobles responded to this appeal; but Roz̆mital and the Council of Prague, while ashamed to give a direct refusal, yet succeeded in inventing all manner of delays, so as to prevent their troops from coming in time to the king’s help. Some of the Bohemian nobles wished to wait till their whole forces were gathered, but the Hungarians soon grew impatient of delay, and on the 29th of August, 1526, they insisted on joining battle with the Turks at Mohács. Louis, anticipating a certain defeat, fled from the field before the battle began; but, in his flight, his horse fell into a swamp, and his unfortunate life of failure was cut short at the age of twenty.
The result of the battle was as Louis had foreseen. The Hungarians were signally defeated, and the Turks speedily followed up their victory by the capture of the fortress of Buda. A long series of intrigues followed in Bohemia. The Austrian party were supported by the Rosenbergs, and the Saxonparty were led by Lev of Roz̆mital; but the opposition of Lev was finally bought off, and the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor Charles, and brother-in-law of the unfortunate Louis, was elected king of Bohemia.
Although Ferdinand was known, and to some extent feared, as a stern and rigid Spaniard, yet a belief in his desire for justice, and a wish to secure any strong protector against the champions of disorder in Bohemia, quite overbalanced any fears that might be caused by his Catholic tendencies. Indeed, although many stipulations were made before he was accepted as king, the fears of his subjects were far less excited about those religious liberties for which they had so long struggled than about questions of national independence. The dangers which seemed most to threaten Bohemian liberty were the possibility of Ferdinand’s election to the throne of Spain, and the extreme probability of his election to the throne of Hungary; while the subjects which ranked next in importance to these were the maintenance of the right of the Assembly to elect their future King, and the preservation of the supremacy of Bohemia over the dependent crown lands.
Never, perhaps, did the controversies at the beginningof a reign more completely fail to foreshadow the events which should make it memorable. Ferdinand himself was as blind to the issues before him as were the people whom he came to rule. He thought that in the local independence of Moravia and Silesia, which had been so much increased by their frequent separation from Bohemia in the late wars, he would find an admirable opportunity for strengthening his position at the expense of the Bohemians. At first his theory appeared plausible enough; for the Moravians and Silesians, indignant at not being consulted in the first election of Ferdinand, were easily flattered by his apparent tenderness for their provincial feelings; and they consented to a concession to his wishes, which the Bohemians had refused to make; for while the Bohemians would only recognise Ferdinand as their freely elected King, the Moravians and Silesians consented to admit his hereditary claim to the throne, and consequently fixed the crown more permanently on the House of Hapsburg. But even the Bohemians finally agreed that, if Ferdinand should find himself incapacitated by old age or ill-health, he might commit the task of government to his son Maximilian. Ferdinand doubtless hoped that both these concessions would tend to consolidate the power of the House of Hapsburg, and to strengthen his personal influence, as well as his legal claims; but before the end of his reign he had cause to regret most bitterly the increase of the Moravian independence, and to grudge the power which he had conferred on a son, who seemed determined to reverse the most important points of his father’s policy.
For the moment, however, his own thoughts and those of the country which he governed were concentrated on the struggle in Hungary. John Zapolya, the Voyvode of Transylvania, had begun, even before the death of Louis, to show signs of an ambition which would carry him far beyond the limits of his small principality; and he was strongly suspected of having intrigued with the Turks at the battle of Mohács. After the death of Louis, the intrigues and claims of Zapolya rapidly increased, and he was at last crowned king of Hungary. Ferdinand, however, as brother-in-law of Louis, was resolved to dispute Zapolya’s claim; nor was this desire due to a mere greed of territory. The growing power of Soliman the Great was becoming a serious danger to the peace and liberty of Europe; and Ferdinand felt that the possession of the crown of Hungary would enable him to protect his hereditary dominions, and, indeed, the whole Empire, against the aggressions of the Turk. It must be owned that, considering Zapolya’s evident inclination to intrigue with Soliman, Ferdinand’s conception of duty was not by any means unreasonable.
On the other hand, the feeling in Bohemia was considerably divided. In spite of the dislike of the Turk, which was then common to all Christian nations, the Bohemians looked with alarm on any increase in those burdens of taxation which already weighed so heavily upon them; and, as already hinted, they dreaded the rule of a King, who might find it more convenient to reign at Presburg than at Prague. So strong was this feeling, that theBavarians, who had hoped to win the crown of Bohemia for their Duke, now believed that they could form a Bohemian party, which should commit itself openly to the side of Zapolya. On the other hand, the men of Prague, who groaned under the tyranny of Pas̆ek and Cahera, had reason for hoping that Ferdinand would come to deliver them from their sufferings. He had already set free a friar who had been imprisoned by Pas̆ek for denouncing his government; and he had given the citizens good reason to believe that nothing but the Hungarian war was preventing him from doing justice and restoring order in Prague. Those citizens, therefore, eagerly desired his success; and as long as the struggle was mainly between Ferdinand and Zapolya, the victory seemed likely to fall to the Austrians.
Ferdinand returned in triumph to Prague; and, as the first step towards the restoration of order, he deposed the Councillors, who had been governing the city, and restored the separate jurisdictions of the Old and New Towns. In previous times, indeed, the union of the different quarters of the city had been looked upon as a means of securing the liberties of Prague; but Pas̆ek and Cahera had turned this union into so effective a means of tyranny over the freer spirits of the New Town, that the citizens of the latter district hailed the separation with enthusiasm; and they declared that their beloved King Charles had returned to earth in the form of their new ruler. This exultation was soon cut short by a new, and far more dangerous, outbreak of the Hungarian war. Soliman, no longer relying mainly on the intrigues of Zapolya,poured his forces anew into Hungary, reconquered all the territory which had been lost, marched into Austria, and rapidly approached Vienna. Even now, though they sent troops to the defence of Vienna, the help of the Bohemians was grudgingly given, and was hindered by their old suspicion of the power of the Germans. Nevertheless, they joined in the war. The Viennese were roused to an heroic resistance; and, after a fierce struggle, the Turks were driven back from the walls of Vienna. The ships which Soliman had brought into the Danube were destroyed; and he was compelled, for a time, to make peace.
Ferdinand now hastened back to Prague, and found that Pas̆ek and Cahera had recovered their power in the city. Although Hlavsa and his friends had been allowed by Ferdinand to return from exile, Pas̆ek’s party had succeeded in hampering their freedom and annoying them in various ways. Knowing the King’s strong Catholic feelings, Pas̆ek had hoped to conciliate his favour by giving a religious colouring to his persecution; and several of the Bohemian Brothers had been singled out for torture and burning. But Ferdinand seems to have thoroughly understood the self-seeking character of the intriguers who were governing Prague; and, resolving to show that he was not to be trifled with, he banished Pas̆ek and Cahera from Prague, and pronounced the formal acquittal of Hlavsa and his friends. Even those against whom there was reasonable suspicion of heresy were allowed to escape by the use of elastic formulæ; and it seemed for the moment as if a happier and better government were really to be introduced into Bohemia.
But his Catholic training, strengthened by the circumstances of his brother’s struggle against the German Protestants, had produced in Ferdinand two strong aspirations, which had been enormously strengthened by the difficulties of the Turkish wars. These were the desire for the consolidation of the power of the Hapsburgs, by the union of the different hereditary dominions of their House; and the desire for union of the Church by the crushing down of the various sects. These two objects were to be carried out side by side, and each was to be brought into prominence as opportunity occurred. It was to the latter object that he first desired to address himself; and certain circumstances had at this time specially directed his attention to the Bohemian Brotherhood.
The peasant rising in Germany had produced great dread of the teaching of the Anabaptists; and, after the peasants had been crushed, many of this sect had fled to Bohemia to escape persecution. The Brotherhood had noticed that the new-comers agreed with them on the question of the necessity of a second baptism; and Lukas and other leaders of the Brotherhood had desired, on this ground, to negotiate further with the Anabaptists. A closer inspection proved that no two bodies had less of spiritual sympathy than the fiery revolutionists who followed Thomas Münzer and the peaceable and orderly inheritors of the traditions of Peter of Chelc̆ic. But this negotiation had called unfriendly attention to the proceedings of the Brothers; and the alarm which it excited was further increased by the action of one of those noblemen who had begun to patronise theBrotherhood. This was Conrad of Krajek, the member of a family who had defended the Brotherhood against Ladislaus. Conrad had granted to the Brotherhood a church on his estate, which had long been left without a pastor, and the new clergyman had removed from it the ornaments which the Brothers considered idolatrous. Ferdinand demanded the restoration of the ornaments, and Conrad refused to obey. The Turkish wars hindered Ferdinand from pressing his demand at this time; but Conrad felt his danger, and resolved to take further steps for the protection of the Brotherhood. He saw that the German Protestants had greatly strengthened their position by their recent publication of the Confession of Augsburg; and it occurred to him that, if a similar publicity were given to the doctrines of the Brotherhood, they also might be placed in a better position in the eyes of the world.
JOHN AUGUSTA.
JOHN AUGUSTA.
The drawing up of this Confession brought into prominence a man whose career was to have an important influence, both on the history of the Brotherhood and on the policy of Ferdinand. This was John Augusta, the son of a hatter in Prague. He had been born in 1500; and, though without any regular learned education, he had acquired a useful knowledge of Latin. He speedily made his mark in the Society; and in 1532 he was admitted into the smaller governing council. It was just at this time that Conrad of Krajek had been convinced of the need of a formal Confession of Faith for the Brotherhood; and Augusta was appointed to undertake this work. This document was not only intended forcirculation among the immediate friends and acquaintances of the Brotherhood; but it was also hoped that it would attract the sympathies of the German princes, and particularly of the Margrave of Brandenburg. There was also another ally whom Augusta was particularly anxious to win to the side of the Brothers. Luther, as it will be remembered, had, in the early period of his public career, made somewhat eager advances towards the Utraquists; but, when the treachery of Gallus Cahera had disgusted and repelled him, he had turned for sympathy to the Bohemian Brotherhood. Lukas and other leaders had been well disposed to meet his advances; but, on closer contact, they found three barriers apparently insurpassable. The Brothers, like many other people, had been startled and shocked by Luther’s doctrine of Justification by Faithalone. They believed their fears of this doctrine to be justified by personal observation; for it seemed to be leading, in many cases, to carelessness and even immorality of life, however much it might seem to Luther to be the assertion of a more spiritual creed against the belief in mere dead works. Secondly, the Brotherhood came far nearer to the Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacrament than Luther could at all approve; and, thirdly, the same ascetic tone which induced them to shrink from the Lutheran laxity of life, made the Brothers unwilling to accept a married priesthood. The contention had become so sharp between Lukas and Luther, that Luther, who showed himself the more moderate of the two disputants, had felt it better to break off the correspondence.
Nevertheless, there were many, both in the ranks of the Brotherhood and of the German Protestants, who desired a renewal of this intercourse; and, as Lukas was now dead, there seemed less difficulty in beginning a new correspondence. Augusta, therefore, went to Wittenberg, and presented the Confession to Luther. Luther seems throughout to have shown a generosity and breadth of sympathy towards the Brothers which were not always characteristic of him. He readily praised a great part of the Confession; he rejoiced in their agreement about the main doctrines of Christianity and the rejection of many Papal superstitions; and he declared that their mistakes about the Sacraments and the question of Faith and Works were to be attributed partly to differences of language, and partly to a want of clear perception on their part of the points at issue. With regard to the married clergy, it soon became clear that the difference between Luther and the Brothers was not one of doctrine; but that it was due partly to circumstances arising out of the persecution which the Brotherhood had suffered, partly to a certain ascetic tendency which inclined them to look upon celibacy as the higher state. Luther therefore consented readily and warmly to recommend the study of the Confession to his friends; and a few years later he even agreed that it should be printed and published for them at Wittenberg.
Encouraged by Luther’s sympathy, both Krajek and Augusta thought that the time had come for presenting their Confession of Faith to Ferdinand himself, and asking for a milder judgment than hehad at first been disposed to pass upon them. But the temporary retirement of Soliman from Europe had now left Ferdinand at liberty to carry out his plans of uniformity. Although the Brotherhood had now broken off their intercourse with the Anabaptists, yet Ferdinand still remembered that attempt against them; and he was even more embittered by the recollection of Krajek’s disobedience. He therefore not only refused to consider the Confession, but early in 1535 he issued an order for the expulsion of the Brothers from all the towns immediately dependent on the king’s authority. The Utraquists eagerly seconded the Catholics in this persecution; and the towns of Vodnian, Klattov, and Taus (Domaz̆lic̆e) were the first to carry out the order. The expelled Brothers were also summoned before the royal Court in Prague to answer for their offences. Amongst others, two young lords of Janovic, who had been known as patrons of the Brotherhood, were summoned to Prague, and condemned to imprisonment in the Black Tower of the Castle. A Brother named John Zbornik, generally known as John the Hermit, was summoned at the same time. Conrad of Krajek, however, maintained that Zbornik was his serf, and that the young lords of Janovic were not responsible for him. Then Conrad was ordered to appear himself, to answer for his interference with the law, and at the same time to produce Zbornik. Conrad came with Zbornik, and also with a large attendance of knights and lords; but, in spite of their protests, Zbornik was condemned without any regular trial, and imprisoned in the Castle for three years.
Conrad did not yet abandon the cause; and he persuaded Augusta to draw up an additional statement of their Faith for presentation to Ferdinand. In this copy the original Article about the Sacraments was modified, so as not to offend the Lutherans; and Luther himself expressed his approval of this second document. Conrad now hastened to Vienna, to entreat for the liberation of Zbornik and the young lords of Janovic. He dwelt much on the illegality of the proceedings connected with their imprisonment; but Ferdinand maintained the most despotic principles of authority, declared that he was only bound to protect the Catholics and the Utraquists, and told Krajek that the devil had led him to his present faith. Krajek retorted that it was Christ, and not the devil, who had led him there; and that, if Christ was a “Picard,” then he (Conrad) was so too. Yet, in spite of his defiant tone, Ferdinand seems to have been impressed by Conrad’s protest; for, in the following year, Zbornik and the young lords were released from prison.
This release, however, was rather a concession to the principle of legality than an abandonment by Ferdinand of his plans for ecclesiastical uniformity; and he fully hoped, by securing firmer support amongst the Utraquists, to crush the extreme Protestant sects. He had promised, at his coronation, to support the Compacts of Basel; and, in May, 1537, he appealed to the Bohemian Assembly so to enforce the Compacts as to suppress those sects who did not accept them. After a sharp discussion, the representatives of the Brotherhood werepersuaded to withdraw from the Assembly; but it was soon found that the attempts at union had been brought no nearer to their realisation by this exclusion. Many of the Utraquists objected to the Compacts of Basel, as an attempt to substitute a new document for the words of Scripture. Others maintained that the Catholic bishops had violated the Compacts, and that they were still eager to suppress the Utraquists. Though, therefore, the Catholics and Utraquists agreed in hating the Brothers, they were not able to combine their forces for their suppression; and a new outbreak of the Turkish war still further hindered the designs of Ferdinand.
In the meantime Augusta had been trying to strengthen the union between the Brotherhood and the foreign Protestants. He had visited Bucer and Calvin at Geneva, had received a kindly welcome from them, and had accepted many of Calvin’s doctrines about Predestination. But his greatest hope and his strongest personal sympathies were always directed to Wittenberg; and his translation and eulogy of a pamphlet written by Luther excited Ferdinand’s indignant attention even during the Turkish war. Threatened with arrest and imprisonment in consequence of this publication, Augusta fled once more to Wittenberg. There he was again welcomed by Luther and Melancthon; and he complained to them of the growing corruptions of the Church in Bohemia, and of the increase of luxury, even in the Brotherhood. Finally, he implored Luther to interfere in these matters, and to establisha new system of church discipline in Bohemia. Some suggestion of the kind had apparently been made by other Bohemian exiles; but Luther was far too wise to listen to the proposal. He had been willing enough to discuss matters of doctrine with the Brothers, and to welcome them as friends and allies; but he had none of the national mania for Germanising other countries; and he recognised to the full the necessity for a variety of customs, and even for modifications in the expression of doctrine. “Do you,” He said to Augusta and his friends, “be the Apostles of the Bohemians; I and mine will be the Apostles of the Germans. Do you act according to the opportunities presented to you, and so will we.” If Joseph II., in the eighteenth century, had been half as wise as Luther was in the sixteenth, the relations of Germans and Bohemians to each other might even now be considerably more friendly than they are. After this interview Augusta returned to Bohemia, and devoted himself, for the next year or two, partly to a defence of the Brothers against the attacks of the Utraquists, partly to an effort to restore the Brotherhood itself to that simpler mode of life from which it was drifting away.
In the meantime, the progress of Protestant doctrine in Germany had produced considerable influence on many of the old-fashioned Utraquists in Bohemia; and they now offered fresh hindrances to Ferdinand’s efforts after uniformity. Mistopol, the Administrator of the Utraquist Consistory, and Mitmánek, a leading preacher, had been particularly prominent in their attacks on the Catholics; and when, in 1543, Ferdinandonce more called together the Bohemian Assembly, he found that his offer to enforce the Compacts of Basel was met by a reaffirmation of the Four Articles of Prague in their simplest and extremest form. This roused him to great indignation; and he now insisted on further restrictions, both in ritual and preaching, and even forbade any general meeting of the Utraquists, under penalty to person and property. He insisted, however, that the celebration of the anniversary of the death of Hus should be maintained as one of the ordinary observances of the Church. But Mistopol succeeded in seizing the opportunity of this anniversary for a violent sermon against the Catholics, which he preached in the old Bethlehem chapel of Hus. For this defiance Mistopol was summoned before the Court of Prague; and though his sentence was deferred for a time, Mitmánek, his chief supporter, was banished from the country. The attempt to conciliate the Utraquists having thus failed, Ferdinand opened negotiations with the Pope, which were to lead to the calling of the Council of Trent. Such was the relation of parties to each other when, in 1546, the death of Luther removed the last hindrance to the outbreak which was to change the conditions both of Germany and Bohemia.
The formation of the Schmalkaldic League, in 1542, had already prepared the Protestants for collective action; and the threatening attitude of Charles V., coupled with the proposal for a Council, which would undoubtedly condemn Protestantism, seemed to many of the more eager spirits to justify immediateaction. The Landgrave of Hesse and John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, determined to anticipate the attacks of Charles; and, not many months after Luther’s death, they marched into Bavaria and attacked the town of Ingolstadt. But, scarcely was this step taken, when it was discovered that Charles had provided against the attacks of his enemies, by bringing to his side one of the most formidable of them. Moritz of Saxony had been induced, by the promise of his cousin’s lands, to desert the cause of the Protestants, and to secure his new possession by force of arms. Ferdinand hoped to reconcile the Bohemians to Moritz by persuading him to renew a former treaty of hereditary alliance between Saxony and Bohemia.
But the Protestant feeling of Bohemia was too strong to be juggled with in this manner; and, on March 18, 1546, a League had already been formed for the protection of the civil and religious liberties of Bohemia. They even went so far as to appoint a Committee of Eight, who were to manage the affairs of the kingdom, and to raise arms and men without asking the leave of the king. When, then, John Frederick of Saxony suddenly entered Silesia, and seized on the monastery of Dobrilug, Ferdinand found that large numbers of the Bohemians refused to repel this invasion of Bohemian territory; and even those who went to the war were unwilling to fight. Though Ferdinand at once sentenced to death the leading mutineers, he could not hinder the citizens of Prague from further negotiations with John Frederick. From refusal to fight they rapidly passed into more activeopposition; and at last they even enabled Caspar Pflug to raise forces for the assistance of the Elector.
As the struggle went on, the enthusiasm of the Bohemians rose; and on April 7, 1547, the fiercer spirits of Prague suddenly seized the Town Council Houses and bridges into their own hands, demanded a safe-conduct for one of the men whom Ferdinand had just condemned for mutiny, and insisted on the imprisonment of one of Ferdinand’s Councillors, and the recall to the Teyn Church of a preacher who had been expelled for heresy. They even compelled many of the Catholic leaders to give in their adherence to the League; and all seemed ready for an actual revolution. Suddenly, while the excitement was still at its height, the news came that John Frederick of Saxony had been completely overthrown at the battle of Mühlberg. Instantly the more timid of the conspirators deserted the League, and even sent congratulations to Ferdinand on his victory. But the fiercer spirits desired to fight it out; and, as the troops of Ferdinand and Charles advanced upon Prague, the citizens rang the alarm bell, and the peasants flocked in with their flails from the neighbouring villages, and repelled the first advance of the royal forces. The Burgomasters and leading Councillors had had no desire to resist the King; but they were completely overborne by the fiercer citizens; and, on the 6th of July, the anniversary of the death of Jan Hus, an appeal was sent round to the nearest Circles, calling on all the citizens to come to the defence of Prague. Yet, in spite of this apparent vigour, there was little real vitality in the movement; the leaders of theLeague had hoped for the help of the Saxons; and when that failed, they had had no desire to continue the struggle. The men who had now undertaken the defence were utterly unorganised, and without any capable leaders. The first forces, who came in from the neighbouring districts were defeated by the troops of Charles; and, on the 8th of July, the city consented to submit unconditionally to Ferdinand.
The first acts of Ferdinand on the recapture of Prague were marked by an unexpected moderation. Comparatively few of the conspirators were put to death; the great bulk of them were let off with fines, or the surrender of lands; and most of the liberties of Bohemia were confirmed. But it was felt, nevertheless, that all who had sympathised with the insurrection were in a difficult and dangerous situation; and the Utraquists, who had begun the movement, combined with the Catholics, who had in many cases yielded to it, to lay the whole guilt upon the Bohemian Brotherhood.
The Bunzlau district had no doubt been conspicuous in its refusal to send forces to the Saxon war. Three or four of the lords, who were condemned for their share in the insurrection, had been known for their protection of the Brothers; and some of the Elders of the Brotherhood had ordered a day for prayer and fasting during the insurrection. It was resolved, therefore, to seize this opportunity for crushing this unpopular sect, and the chief suspicion was directed against John Augusta. He had indeed protested against the insurrection from the first, but it was proved that he had come to Prague while it wasstill going on; a visit to Liegnitz in Silesia was also looked upon as suspicious; while undoubtedly the chief charges against him were his known influence in the Brotherhood and his connection with Wittenberg. Even the lords who had hitherto been favourable now disowned the accused; and the Captain of Moravia, himself a member of the Society, told Augusta that he ought to have prevented the insurrection.
The Archduke Ferdinand was ordered to take measures for carrying out the intended persecution; and in the following year a Commission was appointed, which reconstituted the Town Councils in various districts, and ordered the new Councillors to proceed rigorously against the Brothers. The chief persecution began at Litomys̆l, where several men were arrested for singing hymns at the funeral of a Brother. On their refusal to abandon the Brotherhood they were imprisoned in the White Tower of the Castle of Prague; and, when threats and entreaties were found to be of no avail, they were taken from the tower and thrust into a hole into which the filth from the castle discharged itself. After some months of this treatment several of them gave way; but the others remained firm, and were at last set free on condition of withdrawing into Prussia.
During the early part of their imprisonment, Augusta, from his place of concealment, continually supplied them with money and letters of encouragement. But the organisers of the persecution were resolved, at all hazards, to make him their prisoner; and one of the most active of them persuaded aleader of the Brotherhood to secure him a private interview. Augusta had been taunted by some of the prisoners with taking too much care for his own safety, and he therefore resolved to risk the interview. Instead of the man who had appointed it, three others appeared, who at once arrested Augusta and his secretary Bilek, and carried them off to the White Tower of Prague. Thence he was speedily removed to a wine-cellar, where he was chained hand and foot. Soon after he was placed on the rack, and his side was burnt with boiling pitch. The Archduke Ferdinand himself doubted the legality of these proceedings; but the King was rigorous in the enforcement of his plans, and he wrote to his son suggesting further means of torture. Augusta, he said, was not to be allowed a moment for rest or sleep; and, as one means for obtaining this end, an insect was to be fastened near him which would worry him continually; or, as another means of causing the same misery, he might be allowed food, but never anything to quench his thirst. But, before the letter containing these barbarous instructions arrived, Augusta had been removed from Prague to Kr̆ivoklát, where he seems for a time to have fallen under a more humane gaoler.
Nor was the persecution directed solely against a few leaders of the Society. In the same month in which Augusta was arrested, a general Edict had been issued for the expulsion of the Brotherhood and the arrest of their clergy. As they were ordered to leave Bohemia within six weeks, the Brothers in Litomys̆l entreated that a longer time might be allowed for the sake of the sick and of the women who were inlabour; and they pointed out that a similar relaxation had been granted in the case of the Jews and Anabaptists. This concession was, however, refused; and the unfortunate people gathered together at Rychnov to march over the Silesian hills. But though the lords, who had formerly posed as patrons of the Brothers, now deserted their cause and joined in the persecution, help for the journey was, nevertheless, provided by the richer members of the Society; and the members of the Brotherhood, who lived in those Silesian towns through which the exiles passed, guided them securely through the dangers of the hills; nay, even many of the Utraquists and Catholics were so touched by their sufferings that they joined in this assistance.
At last the procession entered Poland, and the Brothers settled for a time in the town of Posen. But, though many of the Polish nobles welcomed them heartily, the Bishop of Posen stirred up the King of Poland against them, and put them to such inconveniences, that many of the Brotherhood accepted the invitation of the Elector of Brandenburg to settle in his newly conquered province of Prussia. Not even in Prussia, however, were the troubles of the exiles at an end. Mitmánek, the Utraquist preacher who had been banished by Ferdinand, excited the suspicions of the Elector of Brandenburg against the new-comers, and even assured him that the Confession which Augusta had taken to Luther was not really the composition of the Brothers at all; but that, in truth, they were Arians and Novatians. An inquiry was set on foot into the real doctrines ofthe Brotherhood; and, though the decision of the inquisitors was mainly in favour of the Brothers, yet the restrictions placed on them by the Elector were so galling, and the pressure upon them to accept the Confession of Augsburg was so persistent, that many preferred to take their chance once more among their Slavonic kinsmen of Poland, rather than to accept the nominal protection of the Elector, when accompanied with so many practical inconveniences.
Ferdinand’s schemes, for the unification both of State and Church, seemed now ripe for further development. With regard to the question of civil government many difficulties had arisen during the Turkish wars, from the claims for local privileges put forward by various towns and districts of Bohemia. When Ferdinand had required money for the purposes of these wars, he had been forced to consider not merely the constitutional rights of the Assemblies of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and the Lausitz, but also the peculiar privileges of the district of Loket, the miners’ rights in Joachims Thal and Kutna Hora, and, above all, the extremely anomalous position of the town and district of Eger (Cheb), which had claimed, ever since the fourteenth century, to be more nearly connected with the German Empire than with the kingdom of Bohemia. And even more embarrassing than any of these legal privileges were the claims of the Assemblies of the Districts or Circles. These were perhaps the most important check, which still existed, on the power of the king. As the nobles gradually sank into mere courtiers, and as the towns became, in many instancesspecially dependent upon the King, that Order of Knights, which had played so important a part in the Utraquist struggles, found it more convenient to deliberate in their own districts, where they held an independent position, rather than in Prague, where they might be outvoted by lords and citizens, and overruled by officers of the King. These meetings of the Circles were gradually gaining a kind of legal authority; and, both in the Turkish and Saxon wars, they had formed an important check on the action of the Assembly at Prague, and had considerably hampered the designs of Ferdinand. They had even identified their interest at that time with the provincial claims of Moravia and Silesia; and they had maintained that an Assembly, composed only of those Bohemians who met at Prague, could not decide on so weighty a question as the war against John Frederick. Ferdinand, therefore, had come to look upon these Assemblies as his most dangerous opponents; and, though he could not at once suppress them completely, he contrived to limit their powers and control their actions.
But Ferdinand had a special device of his own for counteracting local independence and increasing the royal power. This was the creation of a Chamber of Finance, called in German “Hof-Kammer,” and in Bohemian “Komora Dvorska.” This institution was primarily introduced to meet the difficulties of the King’s private income. During the reigns of Ladislaus and Louis the royal lands had been heavily burdened with debts; and Ferdinand’s relations with the lords, to whom these estates had been mortgaged,had made it difficult for him to ascertain the exact state of the royal finances. The duty of the new Court was to inquire into the condition of the king’s Bohemian lands, and to base upon this inquiry an annual statement of his needs. This statement was to be followed by a demand from the various Assemblies of the exact amount required. When this central Chamber of Finance was supplemented by other chambers of a similar kind in the different districts of Bohemia, it was clear that an organisation had been formed which might bring considerable increase to the King’s power. The inquiry into the condition of his finances would be accompanied by questions about the inclination of each Assembly to concede the money required; and thus questions of taxation would be to a large extent settled before they had been submitted to the lawful authority. Such a scheme, however, could only come gradually into operation; and it was during the reigns of Ferdinand’s successors that the significance of the Hof-Kammer began to be realised. In the meantime the King did not forget to provide a more immediate security for the stability of the House of Hapsburg; and, in 1549, the Bohemian Assembly was persuaded to accept Maximilian as the future King of Bohemia.
But the union of the Church was as much a part of Ferdinand’s scheme as the centralisation of the royal power; and Ferdinand supposed that since the Catholics and Utraquists had united in persecuting the Brotherhood, they would have no objection to accept the same bishop as their spiritual ruler. But again he was mistaken. The Utraquists were asdetermined as ever to assert their independence; and they resented extremely the attempt to bring them under the rule of the Catholic bishop. Indeed, so strong was the opposition which was roused by this proposal, that many of the Utraquists began to repent of their persecution of the Brotherhood, and even to show signs of sympathy with them.
Ferdinand at once sprang to the conclusion that a new plot was on foot; and, with a suspiciousness little short of insane, he assumed that Augusta must be at the bottom of it. The torturers were sent down to the prison at Kr̆ivoklát; and both Augusta and his secretary were again stretched upon the rack. But, when no conspiracy was discovered by this method, Ferdinand had to look elsewhere for the source of opposition to his wishes; and it was now for the first time that he became conscious of a weak point in his plans, which till then he had strangely overlooked.
It will be remembered that, when Ladislaus was trying to coerce the Brotherhood, he had failed to obtain from the Moravian Estates that assent to his wishes which the Bohemians had been willing to grant. The consequence was that, while Ferdinand had been so successful in expelling the Brotherhood from his western province, the members of that society had still met undisturbed in the province of Moravia. A special circumstance had induced Ferdinand, for the time, to overlook this evasion of his commands. Wenceslaus of Ludanic, the Captain of Moravia, had been a member of the Brotherhood; but he had strongly opposed the revolt of 1547, had prevented the Moravians from joining in it, and had even rebukedAugusta for not opposing it more actively. Doubtless the loyalty of so influential a Brother had had for a short time its effect on Ferdinand. But the growing opposition which he encountered amongst the Utraquists, and his increasing fears of the Brotherhood, now led him to abandon this policy of compromise. He called together the Moravian Assembly at Brünn (Brno); and he ordered them, and especially their Captain, to take steps for the immediate suppression of the Brotherhood.
Ludanic answered by entreating Ferdinand not to put down those who had attained to the knowledge of the purified Gospel; and he assured the King that Moravia would sooner perish in fire and ashes than submit to violence in this matter. He then appealed to the members of the Assembly; and the main body of them confirmed his words in a loud voice. Ferdinand then asked if any, there present, were ready to obey him. Only seven members of the Assembly responded to this appeal—five of them lords and two knights. Then Ludanic once more rose, and read to Ferdinand the oath which the King had taken, as Margrave of Moravia, to defend the liberties of that province. Ferdinand indignantly answered that he had kept his oath, and intended to keep it; upon which Ludanic explained that he had not accused the King of havingyetbroken his oath; but that he had read it to him as a reminder for future use. Unable to accomplish his ends, Ferdinand was at last obliged to dismiss the Assembly, and to retire to his house. But, when he looked from his window a little later, he saw the members of the Assemblycarrying Ludanic home in triumph. Thus, while crushed out in the province of Bohemia, the Bohemian Brotherhood grew and flourished in Moravia.
About this time, the Brothers were enabled to renew their correspondence with Augusta, by the help of one of his gaolers whom they had succeeded in bribing. Unfortunately, this correspondence did not strengthen the friendly relations between the prisoner and the Elders of the Society. Always of a rather imperious disposition, and now embittered by his sufferings, Augusta attempted to assert his authority in a way which the Elders often resented. Indeed, they had begun to think that the exclusion of Augusta from the outer world disqualified him for his office as Elder of the Brotherhood. They consented indeed, in deference to his earnest appeals, to retain him a little longer in his former dignity; and at one time there seemed a hope that this painful dispute might end in the release of the imprisoned Brother, and his return to his former life. The second treachery of Moritz of Saxony had overthrown the hopes of the Imperialists; the treaty of Passau had raised anew the Protestant expectations of religious liberty; and in 1552 the Catholic and Protestant leaders of the Moravian Assembly united in such an earnest appeal for mercy to Ferdinand, that he consented to consider the question of the release of his Protestant prisoners.
But once more the tide turned against the unfortunate Augusta. In February, 1553, his correspondence with the Brotherhood was suddenly discovered. Again Ferdinand was seized with an attack of hisconspiracy-mania; Augusta and Bilek were once more hurried off to Prague, and chained together in the White Tower. When no treasonable sense could by any means be extorted from their letters, they were allowed to return to their prison in Kr̆ivoklát; but all further correspondence with the outer world was forbidden; and the Elders of the Brotherhood, having heard that Augusta had been put to death, elected a new Elder in his place.
Nevertheless, the hopes which had been raised by the treaty of Passau were considerably strengthened at this time, by the rumour, which was rapidly gaining ground, that Maximilian, the future king of Bohemia, was opposed to the policy of his father. Ernest of Krajek, a member of that family which had already offered such opposition to Ladislaus and Ferdinand, eagerly welcomed back the Brothers to their old quarters at Mláda Boleslav; and at the same time he despatched a messenger to Vienna, to make sure of the sympathies of Maximilian. This messenger was John Blahoslav, a writer and artist, who was afterwards to attain some celebrity as an historian of the Brotherhood. When he arrived at Vienna he found Maximilian in active sympathy with the Lutherans; and he received much encouragement for the Brotherhood from the preacher who had most influence with the prince.
On the other hand, however, Blahoslav soon discovered that a new power had sprung up in Europe, more dangerous to the hopes of the Protestants than any kings or generals. This was the Order of the Jesuits, who had recently settled in Vienna, and whohad gained great influence over the mind of Ferdinand. That powerful body had soon directed their attention to Bohemia; and, a few years after Blahoslav’s visit to Vienna, they secured a settlement in Prague. Even before that time, the persecution of the Brotherhood had again been renewed. The death of Ernest of Krajek gave Ferdinand an opportunity for venting his hatred on the sons of his late opponent; and they were forced, after a vain opposition, to close those meeting-houses of the Brotherhood which their father had re-opened. Blahoslav and other influential Brothers were once more forced to hide themselves; and many Protestants, who had been favourable to them, were gradually persuaded to desert their cause.
Unfortunately, it was during this period of persecution that the relations between Augusta and the Brotherhood became once more severely strained. He had succeeded in finding another messenger, through whom he re-opened the correspondence with his colleagues; and he sent the Elders some Commentaries which he had just written upon the Gospels. These he begged them to use as part of the teaching of the Brotherhood. The Elders answered that they had no time properly to examine the book; and the bitterness caused by this ungracious answer was further increased by their subsequent publication of the book in a somewhat altered form. In addition to these causes of disagreement, Augusta now heard, for the first time, of his deposition from the office of Elder; and, when he remonstrated with the Brotherhood on the subject, they refused to reconsider their decision.
Whether Ferdinand heard of this controversy or not, something prompted him at this time to renew his efforts for the conversion of Augusta; and he offered to release him on condition of his joining either the Catholics or the Utraquists. To the first of these proposals Augusta returned an unhesitating refusal; to the suggestion of a reunion with the Utraquists he gave at first a more evasive answer. When, indeed, he was asked for a more definite statement, he drew up a declaration of his firm adherence to the Brotherhood; but an unexpected event prevented him from sending off this declaration, and brought about a change in his position, which was ultimately to produce the most painful results.
Phillippina, the beautiful wife of the Archduke Ferdinand, was anxious to act as a moderating influence in the counsels of the family. She visited Augusta in prison, and expressed a wish to serve him. He eagerly asked that he and Bilek might be allowed to spend Easter with their friends; and he mentioned that they had been now about twelve years in prison, and that he had not seen Bilek for eight years. Phillippina succeeded in persuading King Ferdinand to yield to this proposal; and both she and her husband hoped that, by this means, they might pave the way for Augusta’s conversion to the Catholic Faith. With this view, after his Easter visit was over, he was sent to a Jesuit convent in Prague. There, while well treated in other respects, he was not allowed to see any one but the chiefs of the Order; and they carried on daily theological arguments with him. Their first propositions they managed to state in so colourless aform, that he was forced to agree to them; but, when they raised the question of the possibility of error in the Church, they found that they and their intended disciple were hopelessly at variance. Finding that the Catholics had failed, the Utraquists now summoned him before their Consistory, and tried to persuade him to join their organisation. At first he absolutely resisted their attempts; but he consented at last to use expressions, which were afterwards strangely perverted by some of his opponents. He admitted that “he belonged to the Utraquistic Bohemian Church, and that he agreed with them in all those essential doctrines which they had derived from Scripture.” These expressions were, very likely, a greater concession to the Utraquists than he would have made at a previous time; but it is abundantly clear, from his subsequent action, that he did not intend his words to imply the abandonment of any doctrine which he had formerly held. Nor did the authorities so consider them; for, though Bilek was shortly afterwards set free, Augusta was sent back to his prison at Kr̆ivoklát.
But the Elders of the Brotherhood chose to treat these utterances as a complete abandonment of their cause; and they wrote a fierce and taunting letter to Augusta, in which they accused him of first attempting to exercise Papal power over the Brotherhood, and then abandoning them in order to obtain his release. Even this injustice did not drive Augusta to abandon his convictions. When, two years later, he was again required to make submission to the Utraquists, he refused to admit that he had held any hereticaldoctrines; nor would he accept the Utraquistic view of the Sacraments; and, in 1563, he explicitly declared that he believed the teaching of the Brotherhood to be nearer to Holy Scripture than that of either the Lutherans or the Utraquists. But the release, which he would not obtain by concession, was shortly to be granted to him gratuitously. In the year following this declaration, Ferdinand felt that his end was approaching; and, as if seized with remorse for his injustice, he consented to set Augusta free, without any further conditions. A few months later the king died; and the accession of Maximilian produced a further change in the fortunes of Bohemia.