The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618

Insurrection 147

by Budowetz. In the court hearing which took place three years later

he confessed that he had decided upon the defenestration, together

with Count Thurn and Albrecht Smiˇrický.

This information Gindely attributes not to Budowetz’s actual testimony,
which was not then and is not now extant, but to a ‘note in his own
handwriting made by the Bohemian chancellor Lobkowitz, which is in
the archive at Raudnitz’.^28 This is the key document upon which all
else in this thesis hangs, and although Gindely gave no other details
it has been possible to track it down in the Lobkowitz family archive,
which as he says was then at Raudnitz (Raudnice). The note is brief,
no more than jottings for personal use, and is a section of one of
a number of ‘Concepts for various reports and confidential advice to
His Majesty, including consultation on the sentences on the leading
Bohemian rebels’, which were being reviewed by the Imperial privy
council in May 1621. The first part, which is the relevant one, reads
as follows:^29

14 Venceslaus Budoueß

Citauit Defensores. 23 fuit

in Collegio in Erictiae.

Fatetur se Coniurasse cum Turno

et Smirzickio tamen non

alio respectu quam Religionis

in Turri Smirzicki Domus

Consensit in Arma

Conscripsit Apologiam cum Aliis

Suleuauit Incolas

Jurauit personaliter feud[an]do

Lobkowitz was fluent in a number of languages, and he apparently
wrote in Czech, German or Latin with equal facility. Due to the brevity
and limited punctuation of his notes, evidently intended only as an
aide-mémoire, they require some expansion and interpretation as well as
direct translation. ThusCitauit Defensoresindicates that Budowetz took
part in the summoning of the meeting of defensors and other Protestant
representatives in May 1618 in defiance of the emperor’s order.23 fuit
in Collegiomeans that he was in the Collegium in Prague, their meeting
place, on 23 May, rather than present at the defenestration, and indeed
none of the accounts mention him being there. Further down,Consensit
in Armameans that he agreed to the rebels taking up arms and recruiting