The History of the Bohemian Persecution/Chapter 86
Chap. LXXXVI.
Wenceslaus de Betow a Knight.
I. OF their number was Wenceslaus Bitowski de Bitow, Lord of Prussiwick (one of the Governours of Moravia in the time of the vacancy: and when Frederick created him Captaine of the Order of Knight,) Who when he was taken in the Marquisate of Brandenburgh, in the yeare 1627. in the moneth of August, and sent back into Moravia, he was put to the torture by Cardinall Detrichsteine, (who hated him deadly) and being examined a long time, but in vain, concerning divers questions, at last he was condemned to be beheaded, and couragiously underwent it on a scaffold, at the Court of Brune.
2. If there had been leave given to any to have visited him, or accompanied him to his death wee should certainely have had something which might have been an example. For he was a stout man and exceeding couragious, and although formerly he was given to excesse, (as the custome is with such natures) yet in his banishment hee gave himself wholly to reading the Scripture, and meditation, and amending his life, so that nothing but piety and modesty and zeale for the glory of God, and his owne salvation, could bee observed in him. But because no man was admitted to him all the time of his imprisonment (except a foolish boy that was left to serve him) and a noise of drummes and Trumpets was made at his execution, his speeches could not be noted by any one: But his perseverance in the faith worthy of a Martyr, and the firmnesse of his hope did sufficiently appeare in his farewell letters to his wife, and his gestures of his comming forth and at his execution.