receive him as king. The States of Bohemia, craftily summoned at a time when it was known many of the nobles could not attend, were able to offer only a feeble resistance to the emperor’s project. They, however, asserted the right of Bohemia to elect, and protested that they did not accept a king chosen by others. Ferdinand, moreover, had to pledge himself to non-interference in religious matters before he received the crown. Immediately thereafter, the Jesuitical Ferdinand showed his real character: oppression and persecutions were again set in operation.
The States, enraged at this treatment, held a full meeting in the Hradschin in 1618. It was at this meeting that the deputies or regents of the emperor, Slawata and Martinitz, with the secretary, Fabricius, were flung out from a window of the castle,—the event which is generally taken as the occasion of the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War.
The Bohemian States now elected a provisional government, and prepared for war. Matthias proposed to refer the differences between his Bohemian subjects and himself to the arbitration of two Protestant and two Catholic princes. The negotiations came to nothing; and before matters had time to develop further Matthias died in March, 1619. It then transpired that in his will he had presumed, failing Ferdinand, to bequeath the Bohemian crown to Spain. Actual hostilities could now no longer be avoided. “Rebellion was hallowed.” Ferdinand had been elected to the imperial throne at Frankfort; but both in Bohemia and Hungary the arms of the national parties had so far been successful, and thus encouraged, they resolved to throw off his yoke. The Bohemian Council, along with the states of Silesia, Moravia, and Lusatia, met in August and solemnly deposed Ferdinand, on the ground of his having violated his coronation oath, and unanimously elected Frederick V., the Elector Palatine, as their king. They declared that their new monarchy should be based upon religious toleration, and should be independent of priestly control. Frederick, as you are aware, was the son-in-law of our James the Sixth and First. His wife, Elizabeth, was the last personage of royal quality born in Scotland; but she is not, I fear, so well remembered by her countrymen as she deserves to be. The grand-daughter of Queen Mary, the grandmother of George the First,
