Ghost had enlightened him and ordered him to accept without hesitation all advice that his confessor might give him.[1] By order of the Emperor two new decrees referring to the protestants of Bohemia were then published (May 1624). The first ordered the Imperial officials to pursue with greater energy all preachers whose teaching was not in accordance with that of the Church of Rome. The second practically, though not yet formally, excluded all Protestants from Bohemia. No Protestant was in future to enjoy the rights of citizenship, to own or to inherit land in Bohemia. No marriage which was not celebrated in accordance to the Roman rites, and no marriage of a Protestant was henceforth to be valid. Baptisms and burials without the assistance of a Roman priest were prohibited. These decrees caused great rejoicing in Rome. The nuncio was instructed to express the Pope's special gratitude, and the College of the Propaganda celebrated Ferdinand as a "second Constantine and Theodosius."[2]
It appears that these draconic regulations were not immediately carried out in their whole extent in Bohemia. Warfare with alternating results continued in Germany, and the "Politicians" at the court of Ferdinand may still have thought it advisable not to exasperate too much a once formidable nation. In 1625 the Elector of Bavaria warned Ferdinand that a new confederacy against the House of Habsburg appeared probable. Not entirely to alienate the sympathies of the Germans, Ferdinand decreed that non-Catholics should in the German districts of Bohemia be allowed to hold baptismal, marriage and burial services according to their "heretical" rites, with the tacit connivance of the authorities. To the Slavic majority of the population no such a favour was to be granted," as it was not likely that their complaints would reach Germany."
On August 27, 1626, Tilly decisively defeated, at Lutter, near Wolfenbüttel, the army of King Christian of Denmark, who had come to the aid of the German Protestants, and about the same time Ferdinand's general Waldstein[3] defeated the forces of Bethlen Gabor. These victories, as usual,
- ↑ Despatch of Caraffa in the Vatican archives, quoted by Gindely.
- ↑ Quoted by Gindely from the acts of the propaganda.
- ↑ Even the example of Schiller is not a sufficient authority for calling the great general "Wallenstein." I use the form of the name which is accepted by the family and generally used in Bohemia.
