THE BULWARK OF CHRISTENDOM 141Lutherans, the students ordered the burghers to kneel in the street. On 17 July,
a full-scale riot ensued. The Catholics, having failed to obtain the release of a
comrade arrested by the Burgomaster, began to seize Lutheran hostages. In
retaliation, the city mob descended on the Jesuit College, demolished its con-
tents and made a bonfire of them in the market square. For this, according to the
Jesuits, the blame lay chiefly with the city Corporation which had connived in
the mob's excesses. According to the Lutherans, it lay exclusively with the stu-
dents, who had gone on the rampage sword in hand, and had fired from within
the College on guards sent by the Burgomaster to defend it. As related in
Catholic Poland, the event which caused most offence was the burning of a
statue of Our Lady, allegedly to taunts of: 'Now, Woman, save thyself.' In due
course, on a deposition by the Jesuits, the citizens of Thorn were charged with
sedition in the Crown Tribunal in Warsaw; and on 16 November sentence was
passed against them. Burgomaster Roesner and his deputy, Czernich, were con-
demned to decapitation, 'for neglecting to do the Duty of their respective offices
and thereby countenancing the Sedition and Tumult of the populace'. The
burghers Harder, Moab, and thirteen more, were also to be executed 'as the first
aggressors against the Jesuit College'. Two others, Carwise and Schultz, for
profaning the Virgin, were to be mutilated, quartered, and burned. There fol-
lowed a long list of fines, banishments, and confiscations. No appeals were
allowed. At the end of the month Prince Lubomirski appeared before Thorn
with a regiment of soldiers, and proceeded to put the sentence into effect. The
condemned men were promised clemency on condition of conversion to
Catholicism. At dawn on 7 December 1724, Burgomaster Roesner was
beheaded. His last words were: 'Be satisfied with my Body; my Soul is my
Saviour's.' Later, the wheel, the whip, and the fire were added to the sufferings
of the victims. Two men were saved; one, Heyder, by conversion on the gallows,
the other, John-Henry Czernich, the deputy Burgomaster, by a personal pardon
from the King of Poland. A Lutheran school, a chapel, and a printing-press were
handed over to the Catholic Church. Thus ended the 'Tumult of Thorn', der
Thorner Blutbad. In Polish history books, it rarely finds mention. In Protestant
Europe, and particularly in England, it was the sole event for which the name of
Copernicus's birthplace was remembered. (See p. Z85.)
In London, the Tumult of Thorn provided a capital sensation. Already on 2
December, before the executions, the King of Prussia had written to George I to
arouse English feelings. 'The fury of the Romish clergy is come to such a
Height', he wrote, 'that they are now endeavouring not only at the total ruin of
the city of Thorn, but likewise at the utter Extirpation of all Dissenters in that
Kingdom.' By January, the country was seething with indignation. The
Historical Register, London's main source of foreign news, carried the most
detailed information, carefully supplied by courtesy of Berlin. Its readers were
regaled in turn with the text of the Treaty of Oliva; with 'the Council of Thorn's
Account of the Tumult that happen'd there last July'; with an 'Abstract of the
Affair of Thorn publish'd at Berlin in the German tongue'; with 'the