‘Then,’ Skála writes, ‘Count Thurn rapidly approached Slavata and seized him by the hand, while Ulrick Kinsley seized Martinic. . . . Then Thurn and Kinsky led them through the crowd of nobles, and then only did every one know that they were to be thrown from the windows. . . . Martinic mournfully entreated that he might be granted a confessor; he received the short answer that he should commend his soul to God. Slavata did not ask for a confessor, but prayed to the Lord to be with him.
‘No mercy was granted them, and first Martinic was dragged to the window, near which the secretaries generally worked, for Kinsky was quicker and had more aid than Count Thurn, who had first seized Slavata. They were then both thrown, dressed in their cloaks and with their swords and decorations, just as they had been found in the chancellor’s office, one after the other, head foremost, out of the westward window into the moat beneath the palace, which by a wall is divided from the other deeper moat. They loudly screamed “Alas! alas!” and attempted to hold on to the window-frame, but were at last obliged to let go, as they were struck on the hands.’
Skála gives us an interesting account—obviously founded on documentary evidence—of the attempts of the Bohemian government to obtain aid in its struggle against the House of Habsburg. The Austrian party displayed an equally great and more successful energy, and Bohemia became for a time the centre of European diplomacy. As I am addressing an English audience, it will, I think, be appropriate if I mention Skála’s remarks on the English policy with regard to the Bohemian question. After mentioning that Frederick founded
