Thus commenced the Thirty Years' War. The Czechs, defeated in the Battle of White Mountain near Prague, had to bear the terrible consequences of an abortive revolt.
The Battle of White Mountain marks the end of the first period of struggle between the Czech Estates and the Habsburgs. The victorious king, Ferdinand II., took care to turn his success to good account, as his predecessor, Ferdinand I., had done. He had twenty-seven Bohemian lords beheaded as leaders of the revolt. He exiled a large number of the Czech nobility, and confiscated their entire fortunes. He assured the final triumph of the Catholic Church in driving away from the country all those who refused to embrace Catholicism. In the ten years that followed the defeat, 659 nobles, all more or less powerful, were deprived of their fortunes and land property. The total value of these confiscations exceeded thirty millions of florins, that is to say nearly a milliard of our current money. The 112 feudal nobles, who till then had been independent, now became vassals of the Crown, and were deprived of all they possessed. The fines and confiscations imposed on the towns exceeded many millions.
Two-thirds of all feudal holdings and properties of the towns were confiscated. Indeed the victory of the Catholic Church and the Habsburgs was complete. The whole national and social organisa-
