Insurrection 145As theTheatrumdrew heavily for its material on the press of the day,
including commercial flysheets and the propaganda publications of
both sides, this suggests that premeditation was not widely alleged at
the time.^23 Khevenhüller’s silence on the point is also significant, as he
was a long-serving Habsburg councillor who in his retirement became a
semi-official historian of Emperor Ferdinand II’s career and reign, with
access to the relevant Imperial archives. Although he angrily describes
the defenestration as ‘against all divine and human law’, and even
‘against the customs of all heathens and pagans’, he nevertheless does
not suggest that the attempted assassination was the result of a plot.
Moreover Thurn is not among the four principal perpetrators he names.
On the contrary he states that Thurn was one of the three men who,
immediately before Slavata and Martinitz were attacked, had led the
other two regents ‘through the rebellious mob out of the chancellery
and accompanied them to their homes’.^24
Two hundred years later the great German historian Leopold Ranke
was still of the opinion that the defenestration was an act of ‘thoughtless
violence’.^25 However the pro-Habsburg Austrian historian Hurter, writ-
ing shortly before Gindely, had a somewhat different view, concluding
that ‘from this whole course of events it stands out unmistakeably that
the mob went up to the castle with murderous intentions, and that the
outcome was not first initiated by the exchange of words’. This, he said,
was ‘scarcely to be doubted’, effectively admitting that it was pure sup-
position, as he made no attempt to supply any form of proof.^26 Nor
indeed did he contend that it was a conspiracy, his wording suggesting
more a potentially violent mob than a cabal with a prepared plan. It was
left to Gindely to make this latter claim, and hence it is necessary to
examine the reliability of the evidence he offered.
Referring to Thurn’s ‘carefully thought-out attack aimed at smashing
the Imperial power’, Gindely says that he was ‘determined to give the
signal for the outbreak of revolt and to take his place at its head’, by
means of an action ‘through which a return to the old order would
become as impossible for the Protestant estates as it would for himself.
The most effective method of achieving such an irreparable breach was
the murder of the regents, and that plan originated in Thurn’s head.’^27
Gindely goes on to state:
The final decision over the fateful deed was made in the course of
22 May, at a meeting held at the palace of the rich Albrecht Smiˇrický
inthePragueLesserTown....This took place in a tower room situated
on one side, and the participants are known from a statement made