was finally obtained. It can be stated generally that the policy of Vienna varied in accordance with the fluctuations of the Thirty Years' War. When the Imperial arms were successful, new rigorous measures were introduced in Bohemia. When the Protestant armies were victorious, the "Politicians" persuaded the Emperor to act with more moderation, and not to increase the number of his enemies.
Shortly after the first expulsions of Protestants from Bohemia, the extreme Romanists obtained a very zealous and powerful ally in the person of Carlo Caraffa, the new papal nuncio at Vienna. It is only of late years that the publication of his despatches, preserved in the archives of the Vatican, has proved how great a part Caraffa played in the Catholic Reformation of Bohemia. He visited Prague before proceeding to Vienna, and expressed strong displeasure at the tardiness with which, according to his opinion, the suppression of utraquism was being carried out. He was also very indignant when informed that in many churches of Prague communion was still administered in the two kinds. On the submission of the old-utraquist consistory[1] in 1587 and 1593, when it renounced all Hus's teaching, and somewhat later formally acknowledged the authority of the Pope, the Roman Church admitted communion in the two kinds in Bohemia, as it has indeed done in other countries also. Caraffa's demand was not, therefore, immediately granted. Through his influence, however, Prince Liechtenstein, the Austrian Governor of Bohemia, ceded to the Romanist priesthood numerous churches in Prague—besides those of which they had taken possession immediately after the battle of the White Mountain.
In the summer of the year 1621, Mansfeld's troops—as already mentioned—evacuated Bohemia, and the Austrian arms were at that time also successful in Germany. The result was a new decree—dated December 13, 1621—which expelled from Bohemia all priests and clergymen who did not conform to the Church of Rome. To avoid the displeasure of the Elector of Saxony, the Austrian government informed him that these priests were expelled not because they were opposed to the doctrine of Rome, but because they had taken part in the recent rebellion against the house of Habsburg. At the meeting of the Imperial Diet
- ↑ See Chapter VII.
