at once, however, the storm
burst forth; forty-eight of the most active among the insurgents were
arrested on the same day and hour, and tried by an extraordinary
commission, composed of native Bohemians and Austrians. Of these,
twenty-seven, and of the common people an immense number, expired on the
scaffold. The absenting offenders were summoned to appear to their
trial, and failing to do so, condemned to death, as traitors and
offenders against his Catholic Majesty, their estates confiscated, and
their names affixed to the gallows. The property also of the rebels who
had fallen in the field was seized. This tyranny might have been borne,
as it affected individuals only, and while the ruin of one enriched
another; but more intolerable was the oppression which extended to the
whole kingdom, without exception. All the Protestant preachers were
banished from the country; the Bohemians first, and afterwards those of
Germany. The `Letter of Majesty', Ferdinand tore with his own hand, and
burnt the seal. Seven years after the battle of Prague, the toleration
of the Protestant religion within the kingdom was entirely revoked. But
whatever violence the Emperor allowed himself against the religious
privileges of his subjects, he carefully abstained from interfering with
their political constitution; and while he deprived them of the liberty
of thought, he magnanimously left them the prerogative of taxing
themselves.

The victory of the White Mountain put Ferdinand in possession of all his
dominions. It even invested him with greater authority over them than
his predecessors enjoyed, since their allegiance had been
unconditionally pledged to him, and no Letter of Majesty now existed to
limit his sovereignty. All his wishes were now gratified, to a degree
surpassing his most sanguine expectations.

It was now in his power to dismiss his allies, and disband his army. If
he was just, there was an end of the war--if he was both magnanimous and
just, punishment was also at an end. The fate of Germany was in his
hands; the happiness and misery of millions depended on the resolution
he should take. Never was so great a decision resting on a single mind;
never did the blindness of one man produce so much ruin.

Book II.

The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted, gave to the war a new
direction, a new scene, and new actors. From a rebellion in Bohemia,
and the chastisement of rebels, a war extended first to Germany,