226 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
policy to be reported as showing such concern. What is certain is that he
then promptly left on a minor pilgrimage, writing to urge Liechtenstein
to press on with the executions so that they should be over and done
with well before his return, when he proposed finally to visit Prague.^58
Historians have commented upon an apparent class distinction in
the punishments, with many more of the 27 men eventually executed
coming from the citizenry than from the nobility, but this is rather mis-
leading. Of the original thirty directors, ten from each estate, twelve
were executed, two lords, four knights and six citizens, but six of the
other lords were either already dead or had escaped abroad, against only
two of the citizens. One lord and two knights who later held office
were also executed, and only six of the directors who were actually
apprehended escaped death, two from each of the three estates. Of the
remaining twelve who were executed but had not been directors, all
but one were indeed from the citizenry, but this reflects the fact that
the participation of the nobility in the management of the revolt was
principally as directors, while the next level was manned by the lower
orders.
The one exception in this latter group was the most unfortunate, the
Catholic knight who had commanded the Prague castle guard on the
day of the defenestration, who was blamed for allowing the Protestant
estates to enter, despite his defence that he was acting on orders from the
regent Sternberg.^59 The most fortunate, on the other hand, was Wilhelm
Lobkowitz, who was, as indicated in Chapter 7, clearly one of the most
guilty at the defenestration, but managed to secure the commutation
of his original death sentence because of the influential position of
other members of his family in the Habsburg administration. PaulˇRíˇcan,
another lord who had been prominent at the defenestration, was simi-
larly fortunate, while the lawyer Fruewein cheated the axe by escaping
his guards and either falling or jumping from the wall of Prague Castle a
few days beforehand. Nevertheless his head and his right hand were cut
off and his dead body was quartered by the executioner on the White
Mountain two days later (and he is included in the number of citizens
noted above as executed).^60
Ferdinand had originally insisted that the condemned men should
only be allowed the religious comfort of Catholic priests, despite the
fact that all but one were Protestants, but following representations
from Liechtenstein he eventually conceded first that they could receive
Lutheran pastors in prison beforehand and then that these could
accompany them to the scaffold, although Calvinist ministers remained
excluded.^61 On the morning of 21 June 1621 the executions themselves