Richer Than All His Tribe 43time being, males taking precedence. Although enormously wealthy,
however, the family was gradually dying out, and by 1614 only four
surviving children of the deceased Sigmund Smirˇický were left in the
direct line, together with a couple of more distant relatives, one of
whom was Wallenstein. Sigmund left only money to his two daughters,
although he had imprisoned the elder one following an embarrassing
love affair, a confinement which the family continued after his death.
His two sons should have shared the freely transferable property, while
the entail should have gone to the elder, Heinrich Georg, but he was
permanently mentally incapacitated. Relying on this, the younger son,
Albrecht Jan, bypassed the legalities and had the whole inheritance
entered in his name in the Bohemian land registry, although it was
unclear whether this was claimed to be in his own right or in part as his
brother’s guardian.
This Albrecht Jan Smirˇický later became one of the principal
Bohemian rebels, took part in the defenestration, raised a regiment, fell
ill and died on campaign. A bitter dispute between the two sisters
followed. The elder, having escaped her confinement and married,
forcibly seized some of the properties, but the younger obtained orders
from the Bohemian courts during the revolt, requiring their return and
appointing her as Heinrich Georg’s guardian. This ended in a bizarre
and widely publicised disaster in February 1620, when during an armed
confrontation at the family mansion in Gitschin there was an explosion
in a gunpowder store, killing the elder sister and the husband of the
younger, as well as a number of other officials, soldiers and servants,
some 50 people in all.^13 The thus-widowed younger sister Margareta
hence secured control of the entire family estates in her capacity as
her brother’s guardian, but her success was short-lived. Following the
battle of the White Mountain she fled, first to Brandenburg and then
to Hamburg, taking Heinrich Georg and as much money as she could
with her. Her dead husband Heinrich Slavata had also been a leading
rebel and had been there when his own brother Wilhelm was thrown
out of the Prague castle window, and doubtless she feared reprisals from
the victors.
The legal position following these events was determined by the
emperor’s confiscation rules. As a rebel who had died in arms Albrecht
Jan Smirˇický’s property was clearly forfeit to the crown and no transfer
to his heirs was recognised. Margareta, the surviving sister, had no claim
to the property so long as Heinrich Georg lived, and as Bohemian legal
rulings during the revolt were invalid thereafter her guardianship was
void. Moreover the property of those who fled Bohemia was also forfeit,