Germany, Protestantism was divided between the Calvinist and the Lutheran creed, and the strongest animosity then existed between the adherents of the two beliefs.[1]
The Calvinistic doctrine, then prevalent in the Palatinate, and which Frederick and his councillors would undoubtedly, had fate favoured them, have established in Bohemia, was distasteful to many of the Bohemian Protestants; they had, indeed, long diverged from the old utraquist Church, founded on the Compacts, but they had retained much of the ritual and discipline of the Church of Rome. The religious party most in harmony with the doctrine of the divines of the Palatinate was the "Unity" of the Bohemian Brethren; of these, however, many entertained scruples as to the right of resistance to temporal authority under any circumstances whatever. It has already been noted that Žerotin, the leader of the "Unity" in Moravia, who also exercised great influence over the Brethren in Bohemia, totally refused to join the movement against the house of Habsburg. It remains to allude to the hopeless situation of Bohemia in its relations to foreign countries. A country such as Bohemia, neither very large nor very rich, was at best unable to resist the entire power of that absolutist alliance between Spain, Austria and Rome which Fra Paoli Sarpi termed the diacatholicon.
There is no doubt that immediately after the battle of the White Mountain the councillors of Ferdinand decided to change entirely the ancient free constitution of Bohemia, though, as will be noted in the next chapter, circumstances did not permit of these changes being carried out immediately in their entirety.
Before the great changes in the political and religious condition of Bohemia were carried out, Ferdinand's government considered it advisable that the public punishment of
- ↑ In a letter addressed to Count Šlik, one of the Bohemian leaders—dated Dresden, August 23, 1619—Hoe, court chaplain to the Elector of Saxony, writes: "Your Lordship is known to the whole Christian world for your zeal against the injurious, blasphemous, and damnable Calvinistic creed. I beg your Lordship, 'per amorem Dei et per vulnera Christi,' to retain these views, and to prove it, so that posterity may for ever have cause to praise your zeal. Your Lordship has not been able to endure the papal yoke; verily that of the Calvinist is as intolerable and indeed more so" (Letter printed in the pamphlet entitled: Wohlmeinende Missiv von Herr D. Hoe, Oberhofprediger, 1619). It may be added that Dr. Hoe did not deny the authenticity of this letter, though he blamed Count Šlik for publishing it.
