The History Book

166

The trio landed some 65 ft (20 m)

below in a dung heap stacked

against the castle walls. Known

as the Defenestration of Prague,

this event began the Thirty Years’

War, a series of conflicts that

devastated huge areas of Europe.

Religious differences

The Defenestration took place in

the wake of long-standing disputes

between Catholics and Protestants

about whether people should be

allowed to worship freely in their

own way. These differences affected

much of Europe, and before war

ignited Bohemia, there were violent

religious conflicts in several other

parts of the continent.

The disputes also involved

rivalries for power between royal

and aristocratic families who

favored the different sides and used

the conflicts to promote their own

interests. The Netherlands,

for example, were home to many

Protestants, but were ruled by

Catholic Spain, whose ruler Philip II

wanted to eliminate Protestantism.

The largely Protestant Seven

Provinces in the northern Low

Countries revolted against the

king’s rule. Religious clashes

escalated into violence against

the perceived repression of the

Habsburg Crown, leading to the

formation of the independent Dutch

Republic in the north of the region.

Philip also planned to conquer

England, which was moderately

Protestant under Elizabeth I,

and wanted to place a Catholic

monarch on the English throne. In

1588, he sent his famous Armada

to invade the country, but a

combination of superior English

THE DEFENESTRATION OF PRAGUE

Protestant nobles threw the imperial

regents from the council room window,

signaling the start of a revolt against

the Habsburg emperor and one of the

opening phases of the Thirty Years’ War.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The Wars of Religion

BEFORE

1562 The French Wars of

Religion begin a 36-year

period of conflict in France.

1566 The sack of the

monastery at Steenvoorde,

Flanders, leads to the

Dutch Revolt.

AFTER

1631 Gustavus Adolphus’

victory at Breitenfeld protects

German states from forcible

reconversion to Catholicism.

1648 The Peace of Westphalia,

a series of peace treaties, ends

the Thirty Years’ War (1618–

1648) in the Holy Roman

Empire, and the Eighty Years’

War (1568–1648) between

Spain and the Dutch Republic.

1685 Revocation of the

Edict of Nantes leads

to renewed persecution

of French Protestants.

I would rather

lose all my lands and a

hundred lives than be

king over heretics.

Philip II of Spain, 1566

I

n May 1618, a group of

Protestant leaders in Prague

met a number of councillors in

an upper room in Prague Castle. The

councillors were Catholics, working

as regents for Ferdinand, the new

king of Bohemia (now part of the

Czech Republic); the Protestants

wanted to be sure that the king

and regents would not remove the

religious freedoms that their former

rulers had granted them. When

the regents refused to give this

assurance, the Protestants threw

two of them, together with their

clerk, out of the castle window.

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167

naval tactics and stormy weather

foiled the attempt, and England

remained independent.

These religious differences

proved particularly devastating in

16th-century France, where the

substantial Protestant minority

generally known as the Huguenots

were widely persecuted. Many

Protestants, especially Calvinist

ministers, had their tongues cut

out, or were burned at the stake.

In the so-called St. Bartholomew’s

Day Massacre of 1572, a group of

targeted assassinations followed

by a wave of mob violence against

the Huguenots lasted several

weeks and left thousands dead.

There followed a series of so-

called Wars of Religion that lasted

some 36 years. After eight periods

of fighting, punctuated by uneasy

truces and broken agreements,

the wars came to an end in 1598

when the French king Henry IV, who

had been a Protestant leader before

taking the throne, promulgated the

Edict of Nantes. This agreement

gave the Huguenots certain rights,

including freedom of religion in

particular geographical areas. It

also maintained Catholicism as

the established religion in France,

and obliged Protestants to observe

Catholic holidays and pay church

taxes. Disputes between the two

sides still flared from time to time,

however, and many Huguenots

left France to seek safety in other

countries such as England and

the Netherlands.

Thirty Years’ War

The religious wars and disputes

in France, the Netherlands, and

England formed a troubled backdrop

to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.

Most people in Bohemia were

Protestants, but the area was part of

the large Holy Roman Empire, which

also included Germany, Austria, and

Hungary, and was ruled by Catholic

Habsburg emperors. The emperors

acted as overlords to local kings,

princes, and dukes. Some of them,

notably Matthias, who was on the

throne when the Defenestration

took place, granted their Protestant

subjects the right to worship as

they wished. Matthias achieved this

by ratifying the Letter of Majesty,

a charter that had been signed by

the previous emperor, Rudolf II,

which guaranteed Protestants

religious freedom and certain other

basic rights. However, Matthias’

successor, the ardently Catholic

Ferdinand, felt no obligation to

honor the Letter of Majesty. He

suppressed Protestant churches

and appointed Catholics to high

positions. This reignited a dispute

that had existed in Bohemia since

the first stirrings of the Protestant

Reformation in the 15th century.

After the Defenestration, both

sides began preparing for war,

but the process was accelerated

when, in 1619, Matthias died.

Ferdinand, who was already King

of Bohemia, then also became

Holy Roman Emperor. Bohemia’s

Protestant leaders tried to reduce

the Catholic emperor’s local

power by deposing him as King

of Bohemia and inviting their ❯❯

See also: The fall of Granada 128–29 ■ Christopher Columbus reaches America 142–47 ■

Martin Luther’s 95 theses 160–63 ■ The opening of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange 180–83

THE EARLY MODERN ERA

Protestant

interests

in Bohemia,

the Dutch

Republic, and

Sweden.

Mixed

religious

commitments

in German

states and

France.

Catholic

interests in

Spain and the

Habsburg

Empire.

Conflict escalates as multiple rulers

are drawn into a pan-European war.

Rulers’ ruthless repression of any opposition causes

widespread devastation in mainland Europe.

Religious tensions come to a head

at the Defenestration of Prague.

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