The
History of Protestantism |
| Chapter 1 | RISE AND SPREAD OF PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND. The "Catholic Restoration " — First Introduction of Christianity into Poland — Influence of Wicliffe and Huss — Luther — The Light Shines on Dantzic — The Ex-Monk Knade — Rashness of the Dantzic Reformers — The Movement thrown back — Entrance of Protestantism into Thorn and other Towns — Cracow — Secret Society, and Queen Bona Sforza — Efforts of Romish Synods to Arrest the Truth — Entrance of Bohemian Protestants into Poland — Their great Missionary Success — Students leave Cracow: go to Protestant Universities — Attempt at Coercive Measures — They Fail — Cardinal Hosius — A Martyr — The Priests in Conflict with the Nobles — National Diet of 1552 — Auguries — Abolition of the Temporal Jurisdiction of the Bishops. |
| Chapter 2 | JOHN ALASCO, AND REFORMATION OF EAST FRIESLAND. No One Leader — Many Secondary Ones — King Sigismund Augustus — His Character — Favourably Disposed to Protestantism — His Vacillations — Project of National Reforming Synod — Opposed by the Roman Clergy — John Alasco — Education — Goes to Louvain — Visits Zwingle — His Stay with Erasmus — Recalled to Poland — Purges himself from Suspicion of Heresy — Proffered Dignities — He Severs himself from the Roman Church — Leaves Poland — Goes to East Friesland — Begins its Reformation — Difficulties — Triumph of Alasco — Goes to England — Friendship with Cranmer — Becomes Superintendent of the Foreign Church in London — Retires to Denmark on Death of Edward VI. — Persecutions and Wanderings — Returns to Poland — His Work there — Prince Radziwill — His Attempts to Reform Poland — His Dying Charge to his Son — His Prophetic Words to Sigismund Augustus. |
| Chapter 3 | ACME OF PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND. Arts of the Pope's Legate-Popish Synod — Judicial Murder — A Miracle — The King asks the Pope to Reform the Church — Diet of 1563 — National Synod craved — Defeated by the Papal Legate — His Representations to the King — The King Gained over — Project of a Religious Union — Conference of the Protestants — Union of Sandomir — Its Basis — The Eucharistic Doctrine of the Polish Protestant Church — Acme of Protestantism in Poland. |
| Chapter 4 | ORGANISATION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF POLAND. Several Church Organisations in Poland — Causes — Church Government in Poland a Modified Episcopacy — The Superintendent — His Powers — The Senior, etc. — The Civil Senior — The Synod the Supreme Authority — Local and Provincial Synods — General Convocation-Two Defects in this Organisation — Death of Sigismund Augustus — Who shall Succeed him? — Coligny proposes the Election of a French Prince — Montluc sent as Ambassador to Poland — Duke of Anjou Elected — Pledges — Attempted Treacheries — Coronation — Henry Attempts to Evade the Oath — Firmness of the Polish Protestants — The King's Unpopularity and Flight. |
| Chapter 5 | TURNING OF THE TIDE OF PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND. Stephen Bathory Elected to the Throne — His Midnight Interview — Abandons Protestantism, and becomes a Romanist — Takes the Jesuits under his Patronage — Builds and Endows Colleges for them — Roman Synod of Piotrkow — Subtle Policy of the Bishops for Recovering their Temporal Jurisdiction — Temporal Ends gained by Spiritual Sanctions — Spiritual Terrors versus Temporal Punishments — Begun Decadence of Poland — Last Successes of its Arms — Death of King Stephen — Sigismund III. Succeeds — " The King of the Jesuits." |
| Chapter 6 | THE JESUITS ENTER POLAND — DESTRUCTION OF ITS
PROTESTANTISM. Cardinal Hosius — His Acquirements — Prodigious Activity — Brings the Jesuits into Poland — They rise to vast Influence — Their Tactics — Mingle in all Circles — Labour to Undermine the Influence of Protestant Ministers — Extraordinary Methods of doing this — Mob Violence — Churches, etc., Burned — Graveyards Violated — The Jesuits in the Saloons of the Great — Their Schools and Method of Teaching — They Dwarf the National Mind — They Extinguish Literature — Testimony of a Popish Writer — Reign of Vladislav — John Casimir, a Jesuit, ascends the Throne — Political Calamities-Revolt of the Cossacks — Invasion of the Russians and Swedes — Continued Decline of Protestantism and Oppression of Protestants — Exhaustion and Ruin of Poland — Causes which contributed along with the Jesuits to the Overthrow of Protestantism in Poland. |
| Chapter 7 | BOHEMIA — ENTRANCE OF REFORMATION. Darkness Concealing Bohemian Martyrs — John Huss — First Preachers of the Reformed Doctrine in Bohemia — False Brethren — Zahera — Passek — They Excite to Persecutions — Martyrs-Nicolas Wrzetenarz-The Hostess Clara — Martha von Porzicz — The Potter and Girdler — Fate of the Persecutors — Ferdinand I. Invades Bohemia — Persecutions and Emigrations — Flight of the Pastors — John Augusta, etc. — A Heroic Sufferer — The Jesuits brought into Bohemia — Maximilian II. — Persecution Stopped — Bohemian Confession — Rudolph — The Majestats-Brief — Full Liberty given to the Protestants. |
| Chapter 8 | OVERTHROW OF PROTESTANTISM IN BOHEMIA. Protestantism Flourishes — Constitution of Bohemian. Church — Its Government — Concord between Romanists and Protestants — Temple of Janus Shut — Joy of Bohemia — Matthias Emperor — Election of Ferdinand II. as King of Bohemia — Reaction — Intrigues and Insults — Council-chamber — Three Councillors Thrown out at the Window — Ferdinand II. elected Emperor — War — Battle of the White Hill — Defeat of the Protestants — Atrocities — Amnesty — Apprehension of Nobles and Senators — Their Frightful Sentences -Their Behaviour on the Scaffold — Their Deaths. |
| Chapter 9 | AN ARMY OF MARTYRS. Count Schlik — His Cruel Sentence — The Baron of Budowa — His Last Hours — Argues with the Jesuits — His Execution — Christopher Harant — His Travels — His Death — Baron Kaplirz — His Dream — Attires himself for the Scaffold — Procopius Dworschezky — His Martyrdom — Otto Losz — His Sleep and Execution — Dionysius Czernin — His Behaviour on the Scaffold — Kochan — Steffek — Jessenius — His Learning — His Interview with the Jesuits — Cruel Death — Khobr — Schulz — Kutnauer — His great Courage — His Death — Talents and Rank of these Martyrs — Their Execution the Obsequies of their Country. |
| Chapter 10 | SUPPRESSION OF PROTESTANTISH IN BOHEHIA. Policy of Ferdinand II — Murder of Ministers by the Troops — New Plan of Persecution — Kindness and its Effects — Expulsion of Anabaptists from Moravia — The Pastors Banished — Sorrowful Partings — Exile of Pastors of Kuttenberg — The Lutherans "Graciously Dismissed" — The Churches Razed — The New Clergy — Purification of the Churches — The Schoolmasters Banished — Bibles and Religious Books Burned — Spanish Jesuits and Lichtenstein's Dragoons — Emigration of the Nobles — Reign of Terror in the Towns — Oppressive Edicts — Ransom-Money — Unprotestantizing of Villages and Rural Parts — Protestantism Trampled out — Bohemia a Desert — Testimony of a Popish Writer. |
PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND AND BOHEMIA.
CHAPTER 1 Back to Top
RISE AND SPREAD OF PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND.
The "Catholic Restoration " — First Introduction of Christianity into
Poland — Influence of Wicliffe and Huss — Luther — The Light Shines on
Dantzic — The Ex-Monk Knade — Rashness of the Dantzic Reformers — The
Movement thrown back — Entrance of Protestantism into Thorn and other Towns —
Cracow — Secret Society, and Queen Bona Sforza — Efforts of Romish Synods to
Arrest the Truth — Entrance of Bohemian Protestants into Poland — Their great
Missionary Success — Students leave Cracow: go to Protestant Universities —
Attempt at Coercive Measures — They Fail — Cardinal Hosius — A Martyr
— The Priests in Conflict with the Nobles — National Diet of 1552 —
Auguries — Abolition of the Temporal Jurisdiction of the Bishops.
WE are now approaching the era of that great "Catholic
Restoration" which, cunningly devised and most perseveringly carried on by. the
Jesuits, who had: now perfected the organisation and discipline of their corps, and
zealously aided by the arms of the Popish Powers, scourged Germany with a desolating war
of thirty years, trampled out many flourishing Protestant Churches in the east of Europe,
and nearly succeeded in rehabilitating Rome in her ancient dominancy of all Christendom.
But before entering on the history of these events, it is necessary to follow, in a brief
recital, the rise and progress of Protestantism in the countries of Poland, Bohemia,
Hungary, and parts of Austria, seeing that these were the Churches which fell before the
spiritual cohorts of Loyola, and the military hordes of Austria, and seeing also that
these were the lands, in conjunction with Germany, which because the seat of that great
struggle which seemed as though it were destined to overthrow Protestantism wholly, till
all suddenly, Sweden sent forth a champion who rolled back the tide of Popish success, and
restored the balance between the two Churches, which has remained much as it was then
settled, down to almost the present hour.
We begin with Poland. Its Reformation opened with brilliant promise, but it had hardly
reached what seemed its noon when its light was overcast, and since that disastrous hour
the farther Poland's story is pursued, it becomes but the sadder and more melancholy;
nevertheless, the history of Protestantism in Poland is fraught with great lessons,
specially applicable to all free countries. Christianity, it is believed, was introduced
into Poland by missionaries from Great Moravia in the ninth century. In the tenth we find
the sovereign of the country receiving baptism, from which we may infer that the Christian
faith was still spreading in Poland,[1] It
is owing to the simplicity and apostolic zeal of Cyrillus [2] and Methodius, two pastors from Thessalonica, that the nations,
the Slavonians among the rest, who inhabited the wide territories lying between the Tyrol
and the Danube on the one side, and the Baltic and Vistula on the other, were at so early
a period visited with the light of the Gospel.
Their first day was waxing dim, notwithstanding that they were occasionally visited by the
Waldenses, when Wicliffe arose in England. This splendor which had burst out in the west,
traveled, as we have already narrated, as far as Bohemia, and from Bohemia it passed on to
Poland, where it came in time to arrest the return of the pagan night. The voice of Huss
was now resounding through Bohemia, and its echoes were heard in Cracow. Poland was then
intimately connected with Bohemia; the language of the two countries was almost the same;
numbers of Polish youth resorted to the University of Prague, and one of the first martyrs
of Huss's Reformation was a Pole. Stanislav Pazek, a shoemaker by trade, suffered death,
along with two Bohemians, for opposing the indulgences which were preached in Prague in
1411. The citizens interred their bodies with great respect, and Huss preached a sermon at
their funeral.[3] In
1431, a conference took place in Cracow, between certain Hussite missionaries and the
doctors of the university, in presence of the king and senate. The doctors did battle for
the ancient faith against the "novelties" imported from the land of Huss, which
they described as doctrines for which the missionaries could plead no better authority
than the Bible. The disputation lasted several days, and Bishop Dlugosh, the historian of
the conference, complains that although, "in the opinion of all present, the heretics
were vanquished, they never acknowledged their defeat."[4]
It is interesting to find these three countries — Poland, Bohemia, and England
— at that early period turning their faces toward the day, and hand-in-hand
attempting to find a path out of the darkness. How much less happy, one cannot help
reflecting, the fate of the first two countries than that of the last, yet all three were
then directing their steps into the same road. Many of the first families in Poland
embraced openly the Bohemian doctrines; and it is an interesting fact that one of the
professors in the university, Andreas Galka, expounded the works of Wicliffe at Cracow,
and wrote a poem in honor of the English Reformer. It is the earliest production of the
Polish muse in existence, a poem in praise of the Virgin excepted. The author, addressing
"Poles, Germans, and all nations," says, "Wicliffe speaks the truth!
Heathendom and Christendom have never had a greater man than he, and never will."
Voice after voice is heard in Poland, attesting a growing opposition to Rome, till at last
in 1515, two years before Luther had spoken, we find the seminal principle of
Protestantism proclaimed by Bernard of Lublin, in a work which he published at Cracow, and
in which he says that "we must believe the Scriptures alone, and reject human
ordinances."[5] Thus
was the way prepared.
Two years after came Luther. The lightnings of his Theses, which flashed through the skies
of all countries, lighted up also those of Polish Prussia. Of that flourishing province
Dantzic was the capital, and the chief emporium of Poland with Western Europe. In that
city a monk, called James Knade, threw off his habit (1518), took a wife, and began to
preach publicly against Rome. Knade had to retire to Thorn, where he continued to diffuse
his doctrines under the protection of a powerful nobleman; but the seed he had sown in
Dantzic did not perish; there soon arose a little band of preachers, composed of Polish
youths who had sat at Luther's feet in Wittemberg, and of priests who had found access to
the Reformer's writings, who now proclaimed the truth, and made so numerous converts that
in 1524: five churches in Dantzic were given up to their use.
Success made the Reformers rash. The town council, to whom the king, Sigismund, had hinted
his dislike of these innovations, lagged behind in the movement, and the citizens resolved
to replace that body with men more zealous. They surrounded the council, to the number of
400, and with arms in their hands, and cannon pointed on the council-hall, they demanded
the resignation of the members. No sooner had the council dissolved itself than the
citizens elected another from among themselves. The new council proceeded to complete the
Reformation at a stroke. They suppressed the Roman Catholic worship, they closed the
monastic establishments, they ordered that the convents and other ecclesiastical edifices
should be converted into schools and hospitals, and declared the goods of the
"Church" to be public property, but left them untouched.[6]
This violence only threw back the movement; the majority of the inhabitants were
still of the old faith, and had a right to exercise its worship till, enlightened in a
better way, they should be pleased voluntarily to abandon it.
The deposed councillors, seating themselves in carriages hung in black, and encircling
their heads with crape, set out to appear before the king. They implored him to interpose
his authority to save his city of Dantzic, which was on the point of being drowned in
heresy, and re-establish the old order of things. The king, in the main upright and
tolerant, at first temporised. The members of council, by whom the late changes had been
made, were summoned before the king's tribunal to justify their doings; but, not obeying
the summons, they were outlawed. In April, 1526, the king in person visited Dantzic; the
citizens, as a precaution against change, received the monarch in arms; but the royal
troops, and the armed retainers of the Popish lords who accompanied the king, so greatly
outnumbered the Reformers that they were overawed, and submitted to the court. A royal
decree restored the Roman Catholic worship; fifteen of the leading Reformers were
beheaded, and the rest banished; the citizens were ordered to return within the Roman pale
or quit Dantzic; the priests and monks who had abandoned the Roman Church were exiled, and
the churches appropriated to Protestant worship were given back to mass. This was a sharp
castigation for leaving the peaceful path. Nevertheless, the movement in Dantzic was only
arrested, not destroyed. Some years later, there came an epidemic to the city, and amid
the sick and the dying there stood up a pious Dominican, called Klein, to preach the
Gospel. The citizens, awakened a second time to eternal things, listened to him. Dr. Eck,
the famous opponent of Luther, importuned King Sigismund to stop the preacher, and held up
to him, as an example worthy of imitation, Henry VIII. of England, who had just published
a book against the Reformer. "Let King Henry write against Martin," replied
Sigismund, "but, with regard to myself, I shall be king equally of the sheep and of
the goats."[7] Under
the following reign Protestantism triumphed in Dantzie.
About the; same time the Protestant doctrines began to take root in other towns of Polish
Prussia. In Thorn, situated on the Vistula, these doctrines appeared in 1520, There came
that year toThorn, Zacharias Fereira, a legate of the Pope. He took a truly Roman way of
warning the inhabitants against the heresy which had invaded, their town. Kindling a great
fire before the Church of St. John, he solemnly committed the effigies and writings of
Luther to the flames. The faggots had hardly begun to blaze when a shower of stones from
the townsmen saluted the legate and his train, and they were forced to flee, before they
had had time to consummate their auto- da-fe. At Braunsberg, the seat of the Bishop of
Ermeland, the Lutheran worship was publicly introduced in 1520, without the bishop's
taking any steps to prevent it. When reproached by his chapter for his supineness, he told
his canons that the Reformer founded all he said on Scripture, and any one among them who
deemed himself competent to refute him was at liberty to do so. At Elbing and many other
towns the light was spreading.
A secret society, composed of the first scholars of the day, lay and cleric, was formed at
Cracow, the university seat, not so much to propagate the Protestant doctrines as to
investigate the grounds of their truth. The queen of Sigismund I., Bona Sforza, was an
active member of this society. She had for her confessor a learned Italian, Father
Lismanini. The Father received most of the Protestant publications that appeared in the
various countries of Europe, and laid them on the table of the society, with the view of
their being read and canvassed by the members. The society at a future period acquired a
greater but not a better renown. One day a priest named Pastoris, a native of Belgium,
rose in it and avowed his disbelief of the Trinity, as a doctrine inconsistent with the
unity of the Godhead. The members, who saw that this was to overthrow revealed religion,
were mute with astonishment; and some, believing that what they had taken for the path of
reform was the path of destruction, drew back, and took final refuge in Romanism. Others
declared themselves disciples of the priest, and thus were laid in Poland the foundations
of Socinianism.[8]
The rapid diffusion of the light is best attested by the vigorous efforts of the
Romish clergy to suppress it. Numerous books appeared at this time in Poland against
Luther and his doctrines. The Synod of Lenczyca, in 1527, recommended the re-establishment
of the "Holy Inquisition." Other Synods drafted schemes of ecclesiastical
reform, which, in Poland as in all the other countries where such projects were broached,
were never realized save on paper. Others recommended the appointment of popular preachers
to instruct the ignorant, and guide their feet past the snares which were being laid for
them in the writings of the heretics On the principle that it would be less troublesome to
prevent the planting of these snares, than after they were set to guide the unwary past
them, they prohibited the introduction of such works into the country. The Synod of
Lenczyca, in 1532, went a step farther, and in its zeal to preserve the "sincere
faith" in Poland, recommended the banishment of "all heretics beyond the bounds
of Sarmatia."[9] The
Synod of Piotrkow, in 1542, published a decree prohibiting all students from resorting to
universities conducted by heretical professors, and threatening with exclusion from all
offices and dignities all who, after the passing of the edict, should repair to such
universities, or who, being already at such, did not instantly return.
This edict had no force in law, for besides not being recognised by the Diet, the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction was carefully limited by the constitutional liberties of
Poland, and the nobles still continued to send their sons to interdicted universities, and
in particular to Wittemberg. Meanwhile the national legislation of Poland began to flow in
just the opposite channel. In 1539 a royal ordinance established the liberty of the press;
and in 1543 the Diet of Cracow granted the freedom of studying at foreign universities to
all Polish subjects.
At this period an event fell out which gave an additional impulse to the diffusion of
Protestantism in Poland. In 1548, a severe persecution, which will come under our notice
at a subsequent stage of our history, arose against the Bohemian brethren, the descendants
of that valiant host who had cormbated for the faith under Ziska. In the year above-named
Ferdinand of Bohemia published an edict shutting up their churches, imprisoning their
ministers, and enjoining the brethren, under severe penalties, to leave the country within
forty-two days. A thousand exiles, marshalling themselves in three bands, left their
native villages, and began their march westward to Prussia, where Albert of Brandenburg, a
zealous Reformer, had promised them asylum. The pilgrims, who were under the conduct of
Sionins, the chief of their community- "the leader of the people of God," as a
Polish historian styles him had to pass through Silesia and Poland on their way to
Prussia. Arriving in Posen in June, 1548, they were welcomed by Andreas Gorka, first
magistrate of Grand Poland, a man of vast possessions, and Protestant opinions, and were
offered a settlement in his States. Here, meanwhile, their journey terminated. The pious
wanderers erected churches and celebrated their worship. Their hymns chanted in the
Bohemian language, and their sermons preached in the same tongue, drew many of the Polish
inhabitants, whose speech was Slavonic, to listen, and ultimately to embrace their
opinions. A missionary army, it looked to them as if Providence had guided their steps to
this spot for the conversion of all the provinces of Grand Poland. The Bishop of Posen saw
the danger that menaced his diocese, and rested not till he had obtained an order from
Sigismund Augustus, who had just succeeded his father (1548), enjoining the Bohemian
emigrants to quit the territory. The order might possibly have been recalled, but the
brethren, not wishing to be the cause of trouble to the grandee who had so nobly
entertained them, resumed their journey, and arrived in due time in Prussia, where Duke
Albert, agreeably to his promise, accorded them the rights of naturalisation, and full
religious liberty. But the seed they had sown in Posen remained behind them. In the
following year (1549) many of them returned to Poland, and resumed their propagation of
the Reformed doctrines. They prosecuted their work without molestation, and with great
success. Many of the principal families embraced their opinions; and the ultimate result
of their labors was the formation of about eighty congregations in the provinces of Grand
Poland, besides many in other parts of the kingdom.
A quarrel broke out between the students and the university authorities at Cracow, which,
although originating in a street-brawl, had important bearings on the Protestant movement.
The breach it was found impossible to heal, and the students resolved to leave Cracow in a
body. "The schools became silent," says a contemporary writer, "the halls
of the university were deserted, and the churches were mute."[10] Nothing but farewells,
lamentations, and groans resounded through Cracow. The pilgrims assembled ill a suburban
church, to hear a farewell mass, and then set forth, singing a sacred hymn, some taking
the road to the College of Goldberg, in Silesia, and others going on to the newly-erected
University of Konigsberg, in Prussia. The first-named school was under the direction of
Frankendorf, one of the most eminent of Melancthon's pupils; Konigsberg, a creation of
Albert, Duke of Prussia, was already fulfilling its founder's intention, which was the
diffusion of scriptural knowledge. In both seminaries the predominating influences were
Protestant. The consequence was that almost all these students returned to their homes
imbued with the Reformed doctrine, and powerfully contributed to spread it in Poland.
So stood the movement when Sigismund Augustus ascended the throne in 1548. Protestant
truth was widely spread throughout the kingdom. In the towns of Polish Prussia, where many
Germans resided, the Reformation was received in its Lutheran expression; in the rest of
Poland it was embraced in its Calvinistic form. Many powerful nobles had abandoned
Romanism; numbers of priests taught the Protestant faith; but, as yet, there existed no
organisation — no Church. This came at a later period. The priesthood had as yet
erected no stake. They thought to stem the torrent by violent denunciations, thundered
from the pulpit, or sent abroad over the kingdom through the press. They raised their
voices to the loftiest pitch, but the torrent continued to flow broader and deeper every
day.
They now began to make trial of coercive measures. Nicholaus Olesnicki, Lord of Pinczov,
ejecting the images from a church on his estates, established Protestant worship in it
according to the forms of Geneva. This was the first open attack on the ancient order of
things, and Olesnicki was summoned before the ecclesiastical tribunal of Cracow. He obeyed
the summons, but the crowd of friends and retainers who accompanied him was such that the
court was terrified, and dared not open its sittings. The clergy had taken a first step,
but had lost ground thereby.
The next move was to convoke a Synod (1552) at Piotrkow. At that Convocation, the
afterwards celebrated Cardinal Hosius produced a summary of the Roman faith, which he
proposed all priests and all of senatorial and equestrian degree should be made to
subscribe. Besides the fundamental doctrines of Romanism, this creed of Hosius made the
subscriber express his belief in purgatory, in the worship of saints and images, in the
efficacy of holy water, of fasts, and similar rites.[11] The suggestion of Hosius was adopted; all priests were ordered to
subscribe this test, and the king was petitioned to exact subscription to it from all the
officers of his Government, and all the nobles of his realm. The Synod further resolved to
set on foot a Vigorous war against heresy, to support which a tax was to be levied on the
clergy. It was sought to purchase the assistance of the king by offering him the
confiscated property of all condemned heretics.[12] It seemed as if Poland was about to be lighted up with
martyr-piles.
A beginning was made with Nicholaus, Rector of Kurow. This good man began in 1550 to
preach the doctrine of salvation by grace, and to give the Communion in both kinds to his
parlshioners. For these offenses he was cited before the ecclesiastical tribunal, where he
courageously defended himself. He was afterwards thrown into a dungeon, and deprived of
life, but whether by starvation, by poison, or by methods more violent still, cannot now
be known. One victim had been offered to the insulted majesty of Rome in Poland.
Contemporary chroniclers speak of others who were immolated to the intolerant genius of
the Papacy, but their execution took place, not in open day, but in the secresy of the
cell, or in the darkness of the prison.
The next move of the priests landed them in open conflict with the popular sentiment and
the chartered rights of the nation. No country in Europe enjoyed at that hour a greater
degree of liberty than did Poland. The towns, many of which were flourishing, elected
their own magistrates, and thus each city, as regarded its internal affairs, was a little
republic. The nobles, who formed a tenth of the population, were a peculiar and privileged
class. Some of them were owners of vast domains, inhabited castles, and lived in great
magnificence. Others of them tilled their own lands; but all of them, grandee and
husbandman alike, were equal before the law, and neither their persons nor property could
be disposed of, save by the Diet. The king himself was subject to the law. We find the
eloquent but versatile Orichovius, who now thundered against the Pope, and now threw
himself prostrate before him, saying in one of his philippics, "Your Romans bow their
knees before the crowd of your menials; they bear on their necks the degrading yoke of the
Roman scribes; but such is not the case with us, where the law rules even the
throne." The free constitution of the country was a shield to its Protestantism, as
the clergy had now occasion to experience. Stanislav Stadnicki, a nobleman of large
estates and great influence, having embraced the Reformed opinions, established the
Protestant worship according to the forms of Geneva on his domains. He was summoned to
answer for his conduct before the tribunal of the bishop. Stadnicki replied that he was
quite ready to justify both his opinions and his acts. The court, however, had no wish to
hear what he had to say in behalf of his faith, and condemned him, by default, to civil
death and loss of property. Had the clergy wished to raise a flame all over the kingdom,
they could have done nothing more fitted to gain their end.
Stadnicki assembled his fellow-nobles and told them what the priests had done. The Polish
grandees had ever been jealous of the throne, but here was an ecclesiastical body, acting
under an irresponsible foreign chief, assuming a power which the king had never ventured
to exercise, disposing of the lives and properties of the nobles without reference to any
will or ally tribunal save their own. The idea was not to be endured. There rung a loud
outcry against ecclesiastical tyranny all throughout Poland; and the indignation was
brought to a height by numerous apprehensions, at that same time, at the instance of the
bishops, of influential persons — among others, priests of blameless life, who had
offended against the law of clerical celibacy, and whom the Roman clergy sought to put to
death, but could not, simply from the circumstance that they could find no magistrate
willing to execute their sentences.
At this juncture it happened that the National Diet (1552) assembled. Unmistakable signs
were apparent at its opening of the strong anti-Papal feeling that animated many of its
members. As usual, its sessions were inaugurated by the solemn performance of high mass.
The king in his robes was present, and with him were the ministers of his council, the
officers of his household, and the generals of his army, bearing the symbols of their
office, and wearing the stars and insignia of their rank; and there, too, were the
senators of the Upper Chamber, and the members of the Lower House. All that could be done
by chants and incense, by splendid vestments and priestly Fires, to make the service
impressive, and revive the decaying veneration of the worshippers for the Roman Church,
was done. The great words which effect the prodigy of transubstantiation had been spoken;
the trumpet blared, and the clang of grounded arms rung through the building. The Host was
being elevated, and the king and his court fell on their knees; but many of the deputies,
instead of prostrating themselves, stood erect and turned away their faces. Raphael
Leszczynski, a nobleman of high character and great possessions, expressed his dissent
from Rome's great mystery in manner even more marked: he wore his hat all through the
performance. The priests saw, but dared not reprove, this contempt of their rites.[13]
The auguries with which the Diet had opened did not fail of finding ample
fulfilment in its subsequent proceedings. The assembly chose as its president Leszczynski
— the nobleman who had remained uncovered during mass, and who had previously
resigned his senatorial dignity in order to become a member of the Lower House.[14] The Diet immediately took into
consideration the jurisdiction wielded by the bishops. The question put in debate was this
— Is such jurisdiction, carrying civil effects, compatible with the rights of the
crown and the freedom of the nation? The Diet decided that it was consistent with neither
the prerogatives of the sovereign nor the liberties of the people, and resolved to abolish
it, so far as it had force in law. King Sigismund Augustus thought it very possible that
if he were himself to mediate in the matter he would, at least, succeed in softening the
fall of the bishops, if only he could persuade them to make certain concessions. But he
was mistaken: the ecclesiastical dignitaries were perverse, and resolutely refused to
yield one iota of their powers. Thereupon the Diet issued its decree, which the king
ratified, that the clergy should retain the power of judging of heresy, but have no power
of inflicting civil or criminal punishment on the condemned. Their spiritual sentences
were henceforward to carry no temporal effects whatever. The Diet of 1552 may be regarded
as the epoch of the downfall of Roman Catholic predominancy in Poland, and of the
establishment in that country of the liberty of all religious confessions. [15]
The anger of the bishops was inflamed to the utmost. They entered their solemn
protest against the enactment of the Diet. The mitre was shorn of half its splendor, and
the crozier of more than half its power, by being disjoined from the sword. They left the
Senate-hall in a body, and threatened to resign their senatorial dignities. The Diet heard
their threats unmoved, and as it made not the slightest effort either to prevent their
departure or to recall them after they were gone, but, on the contrary, went on with its
business as if nothing unusual had occurred, the bishops returned and took their seats of
their own accord.
CHAPTER 2 Back to Top
JOHN ALASCO, AND REFORMATION OF EAST FRIESLAND.
No One Leader — Many Secondary Ones — King Sigismund Augustus — His
Character — Favourably Disposed to Protestantism — His Vacillations —
Project of National Reforming Synod — Opposed by the Roman Clergy — John Alasco
— Education — Goes to Louvain — Visits Zwingle — His Stay with Erasmus
— Recalled to Poland — Purges himself from Suspicion of Heresy — Proffered
Dignities — He Severs himself from the Roman Church — Leaves Poland — Goes
to East Friesland — Begins its Reformation — Difficulties — Triumph of
Alasco — Goes to England — Friendship with Cranmer — Becomes Superintendent
of the Foreign Church in London — Retires to Denmark on Death of Edward VI. —
Persecutions and Wanderings — Returns to Poland — His Work there — Prince
Radziwill — His Attempts to Reform Poland — His Dying Charge to his Son —
His Prophetic Words to Sigismund Augustus.
We see the movement marching on, but we can see no one leader
going before it. The place filled by Luther in Germany, by Calvin in Geneva, and by men
not dissimilarly endowed in other countries, is vacant in the Reformation of Poland. Here
it is a Waldensian missionary or refugee who is quietly sowing the good seed which he has
drawn from the garner of some manuscript copy of the New Testament, and there it is a
little band of Bohemian brethren, who have preserved the traditions of John Huss, and are
trying to plant them in this new soil. Here it is a university doctor who is expounding
the writings of Wicliffe to his pupils, and there it is a Polish youth who has just
returned from Wittemberg, and is anxious to communicate to his countrymen the knowledge
which he has there learned, and which has been so sweet and refreshing to himself.
Nevertheless, although amid all these laborers we can discover no one who first gathers
all the forces of the new life into himself, and again sends them forth over the land, we
yet behold the darkness vanishing on every side. Poland's Reformation is not a sunrise,
but a daybreak: the first dim streaks are succeeded by others less doubtful; these are
followed by brighter shades still; till at last something like the clearness of day
illuminates its sky. The truth has visited some nobleman, as the light will strike on some
tall mountain at the morning hour, and straightway his retainers and tenantry begin to
worship as their chief worships; or some cathedral abbot or city priest has embraced the
Gospel, and their flocks follow in the steps of their shepherd, and find in the doctrine
of a free salvation a peace of soul which they never experienced amid the burdensome rites
and meritorious services of the Church of Rome. There are no combats; no stakes; no mighty
hindrances to be vanquished; Poland seems destined to enter without struggle or bloodshed
into possession of that precious inheritance which other nations are content to buy with a
great price.
But although there is no one who, in intellectual and spiritual stature, towers so far
above the other workers in Poland as to be styled its Reformer there are three names
connected with the history of Protestantism in that country so outstanding as not to be
passed without mention. The first is that of King Sigismund Augustus. Tolerant,
accomplished, and pure in life, this monarch had read the Institutes, and was a
correspondent of Calvin, who sought to inflame him with the ardor of making his name and
reign glorious by laboring to effect the Reformation of his dominions. Sigismund Augustus
was favourably disposed toward the doctrines of Protestantism, and he had nothing of that
abhorrence of heresy and terror of revolution which made the kings of France drive the
Gospel from their realm with fire and sword; but he vacillated, and could never make up
his mind between Rome and the Reformation. The Polish king would fain have seen an
adjustment of the differences that divided his subjects into two great parties, and the
dissensions quieted that agitated his kingdom, but he feared to take the only effectual
steps that could lead to that end. He was surrounded constantly with Protestants, who
cherished the hope that he would yet abandon Rome, and declare himself openly in favour of
Protestantism, but he always drew back when the moment came for deciding. We have seen
him, in conjunction with the Diet of 1552, pluck the sword of persecution from the hands
of the bishops; and he was willing to go still further, and make trial of any means that
promised to amend the administration and reform the doctrines of the Roman Church. He was
exceedingly favorable to a project much talked of in his reign — namely, that of
convoking a National Synod for reforming the Church on the basis of Holy Scripture.
The necessity of such an assembly had been mooted in the Diet of 1552; it was revived in
the Diet of 1555, and more earnestly pressed on the king, and thus contemporaneously with
the abdication of the imperial sovereignty by Charles V., and the yet unfinished sittings
of the great Council of Trent, the probability was that Christendom would behold a truly
(Ecumenical Council assemble in Poland, and put the topstone upon the Reformation of its
Church and kingdom. The projected Polish assembly, over which it was proposed that King
Sigismund Augustus should preside, was to be composed of delegates from all the religious
bodies in the kingdom — Lutherans, Calvinists, and Bohemians — who were to meet
and deliberate on a perfect equality with the Roman clergy.
Nor was the constituency of this Synod to be confined to Poland; other Churches and lands
were to be represented in it. All the living Reformers of note were to be invited to it;
and, among others, it was to include the great names of Calvin and Beza, of Melancthon and
Vergerius. But this Synod was never to meet. The clergy of Rome, knowing that tottering
fabrics can stand only in a calm air, and that their Church was in a too shattered
condition to survive the shock of free discussion conducted by such powerful antagonists,
threw every obstacle in the way of the Synod's meeting. Nor was the king very zealous in
the affair. It is: doubtful whether Sigismund Augustus was ever brought to test the two
creeds by the great question which of the twain was able to sustain the weight of his
soul's salvation; and so, with convictions feeble and ill-defined, his purpose touching
the reform of the Church never ripened into act.
The second name is that of no vacillating man — we have met it before — it is
that of John Alasco. John Alasco, born in the last year save one of the fifteenth century [1] was sprung of one of the most
illustrious families in Poland. Destined for the Church, he received the best education
which the schools of his native land could bestow, and he afterwards visited Germany,
France, Italy, and Belgium in order to enlarge and perfect his studies. At the University
of Louvain, renowned for the purity of its orthodoxy, and whither he resorted, probably at
the recommendation of his uncle, who was Primate of Poland, he contracted a close
friendship with Albert Hardenberg.[2] After
a short stay at. Louvain, finding the air murky with scholasticism, he turned his steps in
the direction of Switzerland, and arriving at Zurich, he made the acquaintance of Zwingle.
"Search the Scriptures," said the Reformer of Zurich to the young Polish
nobleman. Alasco turned to that great light, and from that moment he began to be delivered
from the darkness which had till then encompassed him. Quitting Zurich and crossing the
Jura, he entered Basle, and presented himself before Erasmus. This great master of the
schools was not slow to discover the refined grace, the beautiful genius, and the many and
great acquirements of the stranger who had sought his acquaintance. Erasmus was charmed
with the young Pole, and Alasco on his part was equally enamoured of Erasmus. Of all then
living, Erasmus, if not the man of highest genius, was the man of highest culture, and
doubtless the young scholar caught the touch of a yet greater suavity from this prince of
letters, as Erasmus, in the enthusiasm of his friendship, confesses that he had grown
young again in the society of Alasco. The Pole lived about a year (1525) under the roof,[3] but not at the cost of the great
scholar; for his disposition being as generous as his means were ample, he took upon
himself the expenses of housekeeping; and in other ways he ministered, with equal
liberality and delicacy, to the wants of his illustrious host. He purchased his library
for 300 golden crowns, leaving to Erasmus the use of it during his life-time.[4] He formed a friendship with
other eminent men then living at Basle; in particular, with Oecolampadius and Pellicanus,
the latter of whom initiated him into the study of the Hebrew Scriptures.
His uncle, the primate, hearing that his nephew had fallen into "bad company,"
recalled him by urgent letters to Poland. It cost Alasco a pang to tear himself from his
friends in Basle. He carried back to his native land a heart estranged from Rome, but he
did not dissever himself from her communion, nor as yet did he feel the necessity of doing
so; he had tested her doctrines by the intellect only, not by the conscience, He was
received at court, where his youth, the refinement of his manners, and the brilliance of
his talents made him a favourite. The pomps and galeties amid which he now lived weakened,
but did not wholly efface, the impressions made upon him at Zurich and Basle. Destined for
the highest offices in the Church of Poland, his uncle demanded that he should purge
himself by oath from the suspicions of heresy which had hung about him ever since his
return from Switzerland. Alasco complied. The document signed by him is dated in 1526, and
in it Alasco promises not to embrace doctrines foreign to those of the Apostolic Roman
Church, and to submit in all lawful and honest things to the authority of the bishops and
of the Papal See. "This I swear, so help me, God, and his holy Gospel."[5]
This fall was meant to be the first step towards the primacy. Ecclesiastical
dignities began now to be showered upon him, but the duties which these imposed, by
bringing him into close contact with clerical men, disclosed to him more and more every
day the corruptions of the Papacy, and the need of a radical reform of the Church. He
resumed his readings in the Bible, and renewed his correspondence with the Reformers. His
spiritual life revived, and he began now to try Rome by the only infallible touch-stone
— "Can I, by the performance of the works she prescribes, obtain peace of
conscience, and make myself holy in the sight of God?" Alasco was constrained to
confess that he never should. He must therefore, at whatever cost, separate himself from
her. At this moment two mitres — that of Wesprim in Hungary, and that of Cujavia in
Poland — were placed at his acceptance.[6] The latter mitre opened his way to the primacy in Poland. On the
one side were two kings proffering him golden dignities, on the other was the Gospel, with
its losses and afflictions. Which shall he choose? "God, in his goodness," said
he, writing to Pellicanus, "has brought me to myself." He went straight to the
king, and frankly and boldly avowing his convictions, declined the Bishopric of Cujavia.
Poland was no place for Alasco after such an avowal, lie left his native land in 1536,
uncertain in what country he should spend what might yet remain to him of life, which was
now wholly devoted to the cause of the Reformation. Sigismund, who knew his worth, would
most willingly have retained Alasco the Romanist, but perhaps he was not sorry to see
Alasco the Protestant leave his dominions. The Protestant princes, to whom his illustrious
birth and great parts had made him known, vied with each other to secure his services. The
Countess Regent of East Friesland, where the Reformation had been commenced in 1528, urged
him to come and complete the work by assuming the superintendence of the churches of that
province. After long deliberation he went, but the task was a difficult one. The country
had become the battle-ground of the sectaries. All things were in confusion; the churches
were full of images, and the worship abounded in mummeries; the people were rude in
manners, and many of the nobles dissolute in life; one less resolute might have been
dismayed, and retired.
Alasco made a commencement. His quiet, yet persevering, and powerful touch was telling.
Straightway a tempest arose around him. The wrangling sectaries on the one side, and the
monks Oh the other, united in assailing the man in whom both recognised a common foe.
Accusations were carried to the court at Brussels against him, and soon there came an
imperial order to expel "the fire-brand" from Friesland. "Dost thou hear
the gowl of the thunder?"[7] said
Alasco, writing to his friends; he expected that the bolt would follow. Anna, the
sovereign princess of the kingdom, terrified at the threat of the emperor, began to cool
in her zeal toward the superintendent and his work; but in proportion as the clouds grew
black and danger menaced, the courage and resolution of the Reformer waxed strong. He
addressed a letter to the princess (1543), fit which he deemed it "better to be
unpolite than to be unfaithful," warning her that should she "take her hand from
the plough" she would have to "give account to the eternal Judge." "I
am only a foreigner," he added, "burdened with a family,[8] and having no home. I wish,
therefore, to be friends with all, but... as far as to the altar. This barrier I cannot
pass, even if I had to reduce my family to beggary."[9]
This noble appeal brought the princess once more to the side of Alasco, not again
to withdraw her support from one whom she had found so devoted and so courageous. Prudent,
yet resolute, Alasco went on steadily in his work. Gradually the remnants of Romanism were
weeded out; gradually the images disappeared from the temples; the order and discipline of
the Church were reformed on the Genevan model; the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was
established according to the doctrine of Calvin;[10] and, as regarded the monks, they were permitted to occupy their
convents in peace, but were forbidden the public performance of their worship. Not liking
this restraint, the Fathers quietly withdrew from the kingdom. In six years John Alasco
had completed the Reformation of the Church of East Friesland. It was a great service. He
had prepared an asylmn for the Protestants of the Netherlands during the evil days that
were about to come upon them, and he had helped to pave the way for the appearance of
William of Orange.
The Church order established by Alasco in Friesland was that of Geneva. This awoke against
him the hostility of the Lutherans, and the adherents of that creed continuing to multiply
in Friesland, the troubles of Alasco multiplied along with them. He resigned the general
direction of ecclesiastical affairs, which he had exercised as superintendent, and limited
his sphere of action to the ministry of the single congregation of Emden, the capital of
the country.
But the time was come when John Alasco was to be removed to another sphere. A pressing
letter now reached him from Archbishop Cranmer, inviting him to take part, along with
other distinguished Continental Reformers, in completing the Reformation of the Church of
England.[11] The
Polish Reformer accepted the invitation, and traversing Brabant and Flanders in disguise,
he arrived in London in September, 1548. A six months' residence with Cranmer at Lambeth
satisfied him that the archbishop's views and his own, touching the Reformation of the
Church, entirely coincided; and an intimate friendship sprang up between the two, which
bore good fruits for the cause of Protestantism in England, where Alaseo's noble character
and great learning soon won him high esteem.
After a short visit to Friesland, in 1549, he returned to England, and was nominated by
Edward VI., in 1550, Superintendent of the German, French, and Italian congregations
erected in London, numbering between 3,000 and 4,000 persons, and which Cranmer hoped
would yet prove a seed of Reformation in the various countries from which persecution had
driven them,[12] and
would also excite the Church of England to pursue the path of Protestantism. And so,
doubtless, it would have been, had not the death of Edward VI. and the accession of Mary
suddenly changed the whole aspect of affairs in England.[13] The Friesian Reformer and his congregation had now to quit our
shore. They embarked at Gravesend on the 15th of September, 1553, in the presence of
thousands of English Protestants, who crowded the banks of the Thames, and on bended knees
supplicated the blessing and protection of Heaven on the wanderers.
Setting sail, their little fleet was scattered by a storm, and the vessel which bore John
Alasco entered the Danish harbor of Elsinore. Christian III. of Denmark, a mild and pious
prince, received Alasco and his fellow-exiles at first with great kindness; but soon their
asylum was invaded by Lutheran intolerance. The theologians of the court, Westphal and
Pomeranus (Bugenhagen), poisoned the king's mind against the exiles, and they were
compelled to re-embark at an inclement season, and traverse tempestuous seas in quest of
some more hospitable shore. This shameful breach of hospitality was afterwards repeated at
Lubeck, Hamburg, and Rostock; it kindled the indignation of the Churches of Switzerland,
and it drew from Calvin an eloquent letter to Alasco, in which he gave vent not only to
his deep sympathy with him and his companions in suffering, but also to his astonishment
"that the barbarity of a Christian people should exceed even the sea in savageness.[14]
Driven hither and thither, not by the hatred of Rome, but by the intolerance of
brethren, Gustavus Vasa, the reforming monarch of Sweden, gave a cordial welcome to the
pastor and his flock, should they choose to settle in his dominions. Alasco, however,
thought better to repair to Friesland, the scene of his former labors; but even here the
Lutheran spirit, which had been growing in his absence, made his stay unpleasant. He next
sought asylum in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where he established a Church for the Protestant
refugees from Belgium.[15] During
his stay at Frankfort he essayed to heal the breach between the Lutheran and the
Calvinistic branches of the Reformation. The mischiefs of that division he had amply
experienced in his own person; but its noxious influence was felt far beyond the little
community of which he was the center. It was the great scandal of Protestantism; it
disfigured it with dissensions and hatreds, and divided and weakened it in the presence of
a powerful foe. But his efforts to heal this deplorable and scandalous schism, although
seconded by the Senate of Frankfort and several German princes, were in vain.[16]
He never lost sight of his native land; in all his wanderings he cherished the hope
of returning to it at a future day, and aiding in the Reformation of its Church; and now
(1555) he dedicated to Sigismund Augustus of Poland a new edition of an account he had
formerly published of the foreign Churches in London of which he had acted as
superintendent. He took occasion at the same time to explain in full his own sentiments on
the subject of Church Reformation. With great calmness and dignity, but with great strengh
of argument, he maintained that the Scriptures were the one sole basis of Reformation;
that neither from tradition, however venerable, nor from custom, however long established,
were the doctrines of the Church's creed or the order of her government to be deduced;
that neither Councils nor Fathers could infallibly determine anything; that apostolic
practice, as recorded in the inspired canon that is to say, the Word of God — alone
possessed authority in this matter, and was a sure guide. He also took the liberty of
urging on the, king the necessity of a Reformation of the Church of Poland, "of which
a prosperous beginning had already been made by the greatest and best part of the
nation;" but the matter, he added, was one to be prosecuted "with judgment and
care, seeing every one who reasoned against Rome was not orthodox;" and touching the
Eucharist — that vexed question, and in Poland, as elsewhere, so fertile in divisions
— Alasco stated "that doubtless believers received the flesh and blood of Christ
in the Communion, but by the lip of the soul, for there was neither bodily nor personal
presence in the Eucharist."[17]
It is probable that it was this publication that led to his recall to Poland, in
1556, by the king and nobles.[18] The
Roman bishops heralded his coming with a shout of terror and wrath. "The 'butcher' [19] of the Church has entered
Poland! " they cried. "Driven out of every land, he returns to that one that
gave him birth, to afflict it with troubles and commotions. He is collecting troops to
wage war against the king, root out the Churches, and spread riot and bloodshed over the
kingdom." This clamor had all the effect on the royal mind which it deserved to have
— that is, none at all.[20]
Alasco, soon after his return, was appointed superintendent of all the Reformed
Churches of Little Poland.[21] His
long-cherished object seemed now within his reach. That was not the tiara of the primacy
— for, if so, he needed not have become the exile; his ambition was to make the
Church of Poland one of the brightest lights in the galaxy of the Reformation. He had
arrived at his great task with fully-ripened powers. Of illustrious birth, and of yet more
illustrious learning and piety, he was nevertheless, from remembrance of his fall, humble
as a child. Presiding over the Churches of more than half the kingdom, Protestantism,
under his fostering care, waxed stronger every day. He held Synods. He actively assisted
in the translation of the first Protestant Bible in Poland, that he might give his
countrymen direct access to the fountain of truth. He laboured unweariedly in the cause of
union. He had especially at heart the healing of the great breach between the Lutheran and
the Reformed — the sore through which so much of the vital force of Protestantism was
ebbing away. The final goal which he kept ever in eye, and at which he hoped one day to
arrive, was the erection of a national Church, Reformed in doctrine on the basis of the
Word of God, and constituted in government as similarly to the Churches over which he had
presided in London as the circumstances of Poland would allow. Besides the opposition of
the Roman hierarchy, which was to be looked for, the Reformer found two main hindrances
obstructing his path. The first was the growth of and-Trinitarian doctrines, first
broached, as we have seen, in the secret society of Cracow, and which continued to spread
widely among the Churches superintended by Alasco, in spite of the polemical war he
constantly maintained against them. The second was the vacillation of King Sigismund
Augustus. Alasco urged the. convocation of a National Synod, in order to the more speedy
and universal Reformation of the Polish Church. But the king hesitated. Meanwhile Rome,
seeing in the measures on foot, and more especially in the projected Synod, the impending
overthrow of her power in Poland, dispatched Lippomani, one of the ablest of the Vatican
diplomatists, with a promise, sealed with the Fisherman's ring, of a General Council,
which should reform the Church and restore her unity.
What need, then, for a National Council? The Pope would do, and with more order and quiet,
what the Poles wished to have done. How many score of times had this promise been made,
and when had it proved aught save a delusion and a snare? It served, however, as an excuse
to the king, who refused to convoke the Synod which Alasco so much desired to see
assemble. It was a great crisis. The Reformation had essayed to crown her work in Poland,
but she was hindered, and the fabric remained unfinished: a melancholy monument of the
egregious error of letting slip those golden opportunities that are given to nations,
which "they that are wise" embrace, but they that are void of wisdom neglect,
and 'bewail their folly with floods of tears and torrents of blood in the centuries that
come after.
In January, 1560, John Alasco died, and was buried with great pomp in the Church of
Pintzov.[22] After
him there arose in Poland no Reformer of like adaptability and power, nor did the nation
ever again enjoy so favorable an opportunity of planting its liberties on a stable
foundation by completing its Reformation.[23]
After John Alasco, but not equal to him, arose Prince Radziwill. His rank, his
talents, and his zealous labors in the cause of Protestantism give him a conspicuous place
in the list of Poland's Reformers. Nicholas Radziwill was sprung of a wealthy family of
Lithuania. He was brother to Barbara, the first queen of Sigismund Augustus, whose
unlimited confidence he enjoyed. Appointed ambassador to the courts of Charles V. and
Ferdinand I., the grace of his manners and the charm of his discourse so attracted the
regards of these monarchs, that he received from the Emperor Charles the dignity of a
Prince of the Empire. At the same time he so acquitted himself in the many affairs of
importance in which he was employed by his own sovereign, that honors and wealth flowed
upon him in his native land. He was created Chancellor of Lithuania, and Palatine of
Vilna. Hitherto politics alone had engrossed him, but the time was now come when something
nobler than the pomp of courts, and the prizes of earthly kingdoms, was to occupy his
thoughts and call forth his energies. About 1553 he was brought into intercourse with some
Bohemian Protestants at Prague, who instructed him in the doctrines of the Reformation,
which he embraced in the Genevan form. From that time his influence and wealth — both
of which were vast — were devoted to the cause of his country's Reformation. He
summoned to his help Vergerius [24] from
Italy. He supported many learned Protestants. He defrayed the expense of the printing of
the first Protestant Bible at Brest, in Lithuania, in 1563. He diffused works written in
defense of the Reformed faith. He erected a magnificent church and college at Vilna, the
capital of Lithuania, and in many other ways fostered the Reformed Church in that powerful
province where he exercised almost royal authority. Numbers of the priests now embraced
the Protestant faith. "Almost the whole of the Roman Catholic nobles," says
Krasinski, "including the first families of the land, and a great number of those who
had belonged to the Eastern Church, became Protestants; so that in the diocese of
Samogitia there were only eight Roman Catholic clergymen remaining. The Reformed worship
was established not only in the estates of the nobles, but also in many towns."[25] On the other side, the testimony
to Radziwill's zeal as a Reformer is equally emphatic. We find the legate, Lippomani,
reproaching him thus: — " Public rumor says that the Palatine of Vilna
patronises all heresies, and that all the dangerous innovators are gathering under his
protection; that he erects, wherever his influence reaches, sacrilegious altars against
the altar of God, and that he establishes pulpits of falsehood against the pulpits of
truth." Besides these scandalous deeds, the legate charges Radziwill with other
heinous transgressions against the Papacy, as the casting down the images of the saints,
the forbidding of prayers to the dead, and the giving of the cup to the laity; by all of
which he had greatly offended against the Holy Father, and put his own salvation in peril
set about writing a work against "the apostates of Germany," which resulted in
his own conversion to Protestantism. He communicated his change of mind to his brother,
Bishop of Pola, who at first opposed, and at last embraced his opinions. The Bishop of
Pola soon after met his fate, though how is shrouded in mystery. The Bishop of Capo
d'Istria was witness to the horrors of the death-bed of Francis Spira, and was so
impressed by them that he resigned his bishopric and left Italy. He it was that now came
to Poland. (See McCrie, Italy.)
Had the life of Prince Radziwill been prolonged, so great was his influence with the king,
it is just possible that the vacillation of Sigismund Augustus might have been overcome,
and the throne permanently won for the cause of Poland's Reformation; but that
possibility, if it ever existed, was suddenly extinguished. In 1565, while yet in the
prime of life, and in the midst of his labors for the emancipation of his native land from
the Papal yoke, the prince died. When he felt his last hour approaching he summoned to his
bed-side his eldest son, Nicholas Christopher, and solemnly charged him to abide constant
in the profession of his father's creed, and the service of his father's God; and to
employ the illustrious name, the vast possessions, and the great influence which had
descended to him for the cause of the Reformation.
So ill did that son fulfill the charge, delivered to him in circumstances so solemn, that
he returned into the bosom of the Roman Church, and to repair to the utmost of his power
the injury his father had done the Papal See, he expended 5,000 ducats in purchasing
copies of his father's Bible, which he burned publicly in the market-place of Vilna. On
the leaves, now sinking in ashes, might be read the following words, addressed in the
dedication to the Polish monarch, and which we who are able to compare the Poland of the
nineteenth century with the Poland of the sixteenth, can hardly help regarding as
prophetic. "But if your Majesty (which may God avert) continuing to be deluded by
this world, unmindful of its vanity, and fearing still some hypocrisy, will persevere in
that error which, according to the prophecy of Daniel, that impudent priest, the idol of
the Roman temple, has made abundantly to grow in his infected vineyard, like a true and
real Antichrist; if your Majesty will follow to the end that blind chief of a generation
of vipers, and lead us the faithful people of God the same way, it is to be feared that
the Lord may, for such a rejection of his truth, condemn us all with your Majesty to
shame, humiliation, and destruction, and afterwards to an eternal perdition."[26]
CHAPTER 3 Back to Top
ACME OF PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND.
Arts of the Pope's Legate-Popish Synod — Judicial Murder — A Miracle — The
King asks the Pope to Reform the Church — Diet of 1563 — National Synod craved
— Defeated by the Papal Legate — His Representations to the King — The King
Gained over — Project of a Religious Union — Conference of the Protestants
— Union of Sandomir — Its Basis — The Eucharistic Doctrine of the Polish
Protestant Church — Acme of Protestantism in Poland.
Is following the labors of those eminent men whom God
inspired with the wish to emancipate their native land from the yoke of Rome, we have gone
a little way beyond the point at which we had arrived in the history of Protestantism in
Poland. We go back a stage. We have seen the Diet of 1552 inflict a great blow on the
Papal power in Poland, by abolishing the civil jurisdiction of the bishops. Four years
after this (1556) John Alasco returned, and began his labors in Poland; these he was
prosecuting with success, when Lippomani was sent from Rome to undo his work.
Lippomani's mission bore fruit. He revived the fainting spirits and rallied the wavering
courage of the Romanists. He sowed with subtle art suspicions and dissensions among the
Protestants; he stoutly promised in the Pope's name all necessary ecclesiastical reforms;
this fortified the king in his vacillation, and furnished those within the Roman Church
who had been demanding a reform, with an excuse for relaxing their efforts. They would
wait "the good time coming." The Pope's manager with skillful hand lifted the
veil, and the Romanists saw in the future a purified, united, and Catholic Church as
clearly as the traveler sees the mirage in the desert. Vergerius labored to convince them
that what they saw was no lake, but a shimmering vapor, floating above the burning sands,
but the phantasm was so like that the king and the bulk of the nation chose it in
preference to the reality which John Alasco would have given them.
Meanwhile the Diet of 1552 had left the bishops crippled; their temporal arm had been
broken, and their care now was to restore this most important branch of their
jurisdiction. Lippomani assembled a General Synod of the Popish clergy at Lowicz. This
Synod passed a resolution declaring that heretics, now springing up on every side, ought
to be visited with pains and penalties, and then proceeded to make trial how far the king
and nation would permit them to go in restoring their punitive power. They summoned to
their bar the Canon of Przemysl, Lutomirski by name, on a suspicion of heresy. The canon
appeared, but with him came his friends, all of them provided with Bibles — the best
weapons, they thought, for such a battle as that to which they were advancing; but when
the bishops saw how they were armed, they closed the doors of their judgment-hall and shut
them out. The first move of the prelates had not improved their position.
Their second was attended with a success that was more disastrous than defeat. They
accused a poor girl, Dorothy Lazecka, of having obtained a consecrated wafer on pretense
of communicating, and of selling it to the Jews. The Jews carried the Host to their
synagogue, where, being pierced with needles, it emitted a quantity of blood. The miracle,
it was said, had come opportunely to show how unnecessary it was to give the cup to the
laity. But further, it was made a criminal charge against both the girl and the Jews. The
Jews pleaded that such an accusation was absurd; that they did not believe in
transubstantiation, and would never think of doing anything so preposterous as
experimenting on a wafer to see whether it contained blood. But in spite of their defense,
they, as well as the unfortunate girl, were condemned to be burned. This atrocious
sentence could not be carried out without the royal exequatur. The king, when applied to,
refused his consent, declaring that he could not believe such an absurdity, and dispatched
a messenger to Sochaczew, where the parties were confined, with orders for their release.
The Synod, however, was determined to complete its work. The Bishop of Chelm, who was
Vice-Chancellor of Poland, attached the royal seal without the knowledge of the king, and
immediately sent off a messenger to have the sentence instantly executed. The king, upon
being informed of the forgery, sent in haste to counteract the nefarious act of his
minister; but it was too late. Before the royal messenger arrived the stake had been
kindled, and the innocent persons consumed in the flames.[1]
This deed, combining so many crimes in one, filled all Poland with horror. The
legate, Lippomani, disliked before, was now detested tenfold. Assailed in pamphlets and
caricatures, he quitted the kingdom, followed by the execration of the nation. Nor was it
Lippomani alone who was struck by the recoil of this, in every way, unfortunate success;
the Polish hierarchy suffered disgrace and damage along with him, for the atrocity showed
the nation what the bishops were prepared to do, should the sword which the Diet of 1552
had plucked from their hands ever again be grasped by them.
An attempt at miracle, made about this time, also helped to discredit the character and
weaken the influence of the Roman clergy in Poland. Christopher Radziwill, cousin to the
famous Prince Radziwill, grieved at his relative's lapse into what he deemed heresy, made
a pilgrimage to Rome, in token of his own devotion to the Papal See, and was rewarded with
a box of precious relics from the Pope. One day after his return home with his inestimable
treasure, the friars of a neighbouring convent waited on him, and telling him that they
had a man possessed by the devil under their care, on whom the ordinary exorcisms had
failed to effect a cure, they besought him, in pity for the poor demoniac, to lend them
his box of relics, whose virtue doubtless would compel the foul spirit to flee. The bones
were given with joy. On a certain day the box, with its contents, was placed on the high
altar; the demoniac was brought forward, and in presence of a vast multitude the relics
were applied, and with complete success. The evil spirit departed out of the man, with the
usual contortions and grimaces. The spectators shouted, "Miracle!" and
Radziwill, overjoyed, lifted eyes and hands to heaven, in wonder and gratitude.[2]
In a few days thereafter his servant, smitten in conscience, came to him and
confessed that on their journey from Rome he had carelessly lost the true relics, and had
replaced them with common bones. This intelligence was somewhat disconcerting to
Radziwill, but greatly more so to the friars, seeing it speedily led to the disclosure of
the imposture. The pretended demoniac confessed that he had simply been playing a part,
and the monks likewise were constrained to acknowledge their share in the pious fraud.
Great scandal arose; the clergy bewailed the day the Pope's box had crossed the Alps; and
Christopher Radziwill, receiving from the relics a virtue he had not anticipated, was led
to the perusal of the Scriptures, and finally embraced, with his whole family, the
Protestant faith. When his great relative, Prince Radziwill, died in 1565, Christopher
came forward, and to some extent supplied his loss to the Protestant cause.
The king, still pursuing a middle course, solicited from the Pope, Paul IV., a Reformation
which he might have had to better effect from his Protestant clergy, if only he would have
permitted them to meet and begin the work. Sigismund Augustus addressed a letter to the
Pontiff at the Council of Trent, demanding the five following things: —
The effect of these demands on Paul IV. was to irritate this
very haughty Pontiff; he fell into a fume, and expressed in animated terms his amazement
at the arrogance of his Majesty of Poland; but gradually cooling down, he declined
civilly, as might have been foreseen, demands which, though they did not amount to a very
great deal, were more than Rome could safely grant.[3]
This rebuff taught the Protestants, if not the king, that from the Seven Hills no
help would come - that their trust must be in themselves; and they grew bolder every day.
In the Diet of Piotrkow, 1559, an attempt was made to deprive the bishops of their seats
in the Senate, on the ground that their oath of obedience to the Pope was wholly
irreconcilable to and subversive of their allegiance to their sovereign, and their duty to
the nation. The oath was read and commented on, and the senator who made the motion
concluded his speech in support of it by saying that if the bishops kept their oath of
spiritual obedience, they must necessarily violate their vow of temporal allegiance; and
if they were faithful subjects of the Pope, they must necessarily be traitors to their
king.[4] The motion was not carried,
probably because the vague hope of a more sweeping measure of reform still kept possession
of the minds of men.
The next step of the Poles was in the direction of realising that hope. A Diet met in
1563, and passed a resolution that a General Synod, in which all the religious bodies in
Poland would be represented, should be assembled. The Primate of Poland, Archbishop
Uchanski, who was known to be secretly inclined toward the Reformed doctrines, was
favorable to the proposed Convocation. Had such a Council been convened, it might, as
matters then stood, with the first nobles of the land, many of the great cities, and a
large portion of the nation, all on the side of Protestantism, have had the most decisive
effects on the Kingdom of Poland and its future destinies. "It would have
upset," says Krasinski, "the dominion of Rome in Poland for ever."[5] Rome saw the danger in all its
extent, and sent one of her ablest diplomatists to cope with it. Cardinal Commendoni, who
had given efficient aid to Queen Mary of England in 1553, in her attempted restoration of
Popery, was straightway dispatched to employ his great abilities in arresting the triumph
of Protestantism, and averting ruin from the Papacy in the Kingdom of Poland. The legate
put forth all his dexterity and art in his important mission, and not without effect. He
directed his main efforts to influence the mind of Sigismund Augustus. He drew with
masterly hand a frightful picture of the revolts and seditions that were sure to follow
such a Council as it was contemplated holding. The warring winds, once let loose, would
never cease to rage till the vessel of the Polish State was driven on the rocks and
shipwrecked. For every concession to the heretics and the blind mob, the king would have
to part with as many rights of his own. His laws contemned, his throne in the dust, who
then would lift him up and give him back his crown? Had he forgotten the Colloquy of
Poissy, which the King of France, then a child, had been pemuaded to permit to take place?
What had that disputation proved but a trumpet of revolt, which had banished peace from
France, not since to return? In that unhappy country, whose inhabitants were parted by
bitter feuds and contending factions, whose fields were reddened by the sword of civil
war, whose throne was being continually shaken by sedition and revolt, the king might see
the picture of what Poland would become should he give his consent to the meeting of a
Council, where all doctrines would be brought into question, and all things reformed
without reference to the canons of the Church, and the authority of the Pope. Commendoni
was a skillful limner; he made the king hear the roar of the tempest which he foretold;
Sigismund Augustus felt as if his throne were already rocking beneath him; the
peace-loving monarch revoked the permission he had been on the point of giving; he would
not permit the Council to convene.[6]
If a National Council could not meet to essay the Reformation of the Church, might
it not be possible, some influential persons now asked, for the three Protestant bodies in
Poland to unite in one Church? Such a union would confer new strength on Protestantism,
would remove the scandal offered by the dissensions of Protestants among themselves, and
would enable them in the day of battle to unite their arms against the foe, and in the
hour of peace to conjoin their labors in building up their Zion. The Protestant communions
in Poland were — lst, the Bohemian; 2ndly, the Reformed or Calvinistic; and 3rdly,
the Lutheran. Between the first and second there was entire agreement in point of
doctrine; only inasmuch as the first pastors of the Bohemian Church had received
ordination (1467) from a Waldensian superintendent, as we have previously narrated,[7] the Bohemians had come to lay
stress on this, as an order of succession peculiarly sacred. Between the second and third
there was the important divergence on the subject of the Eucharist. The Lutheran doctrine
of consubstantiation approached more nearly to the Roman doctrine of the mass than to the
Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper. If change there had been since the days of Luther
on the question of consubstantiation, it was in the direction of still greater rigidity
and tenacity, accompanied with a growing intolerance toward the other branches of the
great Protestant family, of which some melancholy proofs have come before us. How much the
heart of John Alasco was set on healing these divisions, and how small a measure of
success attended his efforts to do so, we have already seen.
The project was again revived. The main opposition to it came from the Lutherans. The
Bohemian Church now numbered upwards of 200 congregations in Moravia and Poland,[8] but the Lutherans accused them
of being heretical. Smarting from the reproach, and judging that to clear their orthodoxy
would pave the way for union, the Bohemians submitted their Confession to the Protestant
princes of Germany, and all the leading Reformers of Europe, including Peter Martyr and
Bullinger at Zurich, and Calvin and Beza at Geneva. A unanimous verdict was returned that
the Bohemian Confession was "conformable to the doctrines of the Gospel."
This judgment silenced for a time the Lutheran attacks on the purity of the Bohemian
creed; but this good understanding being once more disturbed, the Bohemian Church in 1568
sent a delegation to Wittemberg, to submit their Confession to the theological faculty of
its university. Again their creed was fully approved of, and this judgment carrying great
weight with the Lutherans, the attacks on the Bohemians from that time ceased, and the
negotiations for union went prosperously forward.
At last the negotiations bore fruit. In 1569, the leading nobles of the three communions,
having met together at the Diet of Lublin, resolved to take measures for the consummation
of the union. They were the more incited to this by the hope that the king, who had so
often expressed his desire to see the Protestant Churches of his realm become one, would
thereafter declare himself on the side of Protestantism. It was resolved to hold a Synod
or Conference of all three Churches, and the town of Sandomir was chosen as the place of
meeting. The Synod met in the beginning of April, 1570, and was attended by the Protestant
grandees and nobles of Poland, and by the ministers of the Bohemian, Reformed, and
Lutheran Churches. After several days discussion it was found that the assembly was of one
heart and mind on all the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel; and all agreement, entitled
"Act of the Religious Union between the Churches of Great and Little Poland, Russia,
Lithuania, and Samogitia," was signed on the 14th of April, 1570.[9]
The subscribers place on the front of their famous document their unanimity in
"the doctrines about God, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God,
Justification, and other principal points of the Christian religion." To give effect
to this unanimity they "enter into a mutual and sacred obligation to defend
unanimously, and according to the injunctions of the Word of God, this their covenant in
the true and pure religion of Christ, against the followers of the Roman Church, the
sectaries, as well as all the enemies of the truth and Gospel."
On the vexed question of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the United Church agreed to
declare that "the elements are not only elements or vain symbols, but are sufficient
to believers, and impart by faith what they signify." And in order to express
themselves with still greater clearness, they agreed to confess that "the substantial
presence of Christ is not only signified but really represented in the Communion to those
that receive it, and that the body and blood of our Lord are really distributed and given
with the symbols of the thing itself; which according to the nature of Sacraments are by
no means bare signs."
"But that no disputes," they add, "should originate from a difference of
expressions, it has been resolved to add to the articles inserted into our Confession, the
article of the Confession of the Saxon Churches relating to the Lord's Supper, which was
sent in 1551 to the Council of Trent, and which we acknowledge as pious, and do receive.
Its expressions are as follows: ' Baptism and the Lord's Supper are signs and testimonies
of grace, as it has been said before, which remind us of the promise and of the
redemption, and show that the benefits of the Gospel belong to all those that make use of
these rites... In the established use of the Communion, Christ is substantially present,
and the body and blood of Christ are truly given to those who receive the
Communion.'" [10]
The confederating Churches further agreed to "abolish and bury in eternal
oblivion all the contentions, troubles, and dissensions which have hitherto impeded the
progress of the Gospel," and leaving free each Church to administer its own
discipline and practice its own rites, deeming these of "little importance"
provided "the foundation of our faith and salvation remain pure and
unadulterated," they say: "Having mutually given each other our hands, we have
made a sacred promise faithfully to maintain the peace and faith, and to promote it every
day more and more for the edification of the Word of God, and carefully to avoid all
occasions of dissension."[11]
There follows a long and brilliant list of palatines, nobles, superintendents,
pastors, elders, and deacons belonging to all the three communions, who, forgetting the
party-questions that had divided them, gathered round this one standard, and giving their
hands to one another, and lifting them up to heaven, vowed henceforward to be one and to
contend only against the common foe. This was one of the triumphs of Protestantism. Its
spirit now gloriously prevailed over the pride of church, the rivalry of party, and the
narrowness of bigotry, and in this victory gave an augury — alas! never to be
fulfilled — of a yet greater triumph in days to come, by which this was to be
completed and crowned.
Three years later (1573) a great Protestant Convocation was held at Cracow. It was
presided over by John Firley, Grand Marshal of Poland, a leading member of the Calvinistic
communion, and the most influential grandee of the kingdom. The regulations enacted by
this Synod sufficiently show the goal at which it was anxious to arrive. It aimed at
reforming the nation in life as well as in creed. It forbade "all kinds of wickedness
and luxury, accursed gluttony and inebriety." It prohibited lewd dances, games of
chance, profane oaths, and night assemblages in taverns. It enjoined landowners to treat
their peasants with "Christian charity and humanity," to exact of them no
oppressive labor or heavy taxes, to permit no markets or fairs to be held upon their
estates on Sunday, and to demand no service of their peasants on that day. A Protestant
creed was but the means for creating a virtuous and Christian people.
There is no era like this, before or since, in the annals of Poland. Protestantism had
reached its acme in that country. Its churches numbered upwards of 2,000. They were at
peace and flourishing. Their membership included the first dignitaries of the crown and
the first nobles of the land. In some parts Romanism almost entirely disappeared. Schools
were planted throughout the country, and education flourished. The Scriptures were
translated into the tongue of the people, the reading of them was encouraged as the most
efficient weapon against the attacks of Rome. Latin was already common, but now Greek and
Hebrew began to be studied, that direct access might be had to the Divine fountains of
truth and salvation. The national intellect, invigorated by Protestant truth, began to
expatiate in fields that had been neglected hitherto. The printing-press, which rusts
Unused where Popery dominates, was vigorously wrought, and sent forth works on science,
jurisprudence, theology, and general literature. This was the Augustan era of letters in
Poland. The toleration which was so freely accorded in that country drew thither crowds of
refugees, whom persecution had driven from their homes, and who, carrying with them the
arts and manufactures of their own lands, enriched Poland with a material prosperity
which, added to the political power and literary glory that already encompassed her,
raised her to a high pitch of greatness.
CHAPTER 4 Back to Top
ORGANISATION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF POLAND.
Several Church Organisations in Poland — Causes — Church Government in Poland a
Modified Episcopacy — The Superintendent — His Powers — The Senior, etc.
— The Civil Senior — The Synod the Supreme Authority — Local and Provincial
Synods — General Convocation-Two Defects in this Organisation — Death of
Sigismund Augustus — Who shall Succeed him? — Coligny proposes the Election of a
French Prince — Montluc sent as Ambassador to Poland — Duke of Anjou Elected
— Pledges — Attempted Treacheries — Coronation — Henry Attempts to
Evade the Oath — Firmness of the Polish Protestants — The King's Unpopularity
and Flight.
The short-lived golden age of Poland was now waning into the
silver one. But before recording the slow gathering of the shadows — -the passing of
the day into twilight, and the deepening of the twilight into night — we must cast a
momentary glance, first, at the constitution of the Polish Protestant Church as seen at
this the period of her fullest development; and secondly, at certain political events,
which bore with powerful effect upon the Protestant character of the nation, and sealed
the fate of Poland as a free country.
In its imperfect unity we trace the absence of a master-hand in the construction of the
Protestant Church of Poland. Had one great mind led in the Reformation of that country,
one system of ecclesiastical government would doubtless from the first have been given to
all Poland. As it was, the organisation of its Church at the beginning, and in a sense all
throughout, differed in different provinces. Other causes, besides the want of a great
leader, contributed to this diversity in respect of ecclesiastical government. The nobles
were allowed to give what order they pleased to the Protestant churches which they erected
on their lands, but the same liberty was not extended to the inhabitants of towns, and
hence very considerable diversity in the ecclesiastical arrangements. This diversity was
still farther increased by the circumstance that not one, but three Confessions had gained
ground in Poland — the Bohemian, the Genevan, and the Lutheran. The necessity of a
more perfect organ-isation soon came to be felt, and repeated attempts were made at.
successive Synods to unify the Church's government. A great step was taken in this
direction at the Synod of Kosmin, in 1555, when a union was concluded between the Bohemian
and Genevan Confessions; and a still greater advance was made in 1570, as we have narrated
in the preceding chapter, when at the Synod of Sandomir the three Protestant Churches of
Poland — the Bohemian, the Genevan, and the Lutheran — agreed to merge all their
Confessions in one creed, and combine their several organisations in one government.
But even this was only an approximation, not a full and complete attainment of the object
aimed at. All Poland was not yet ruled spiritually from one ecclesiastical centre; for the
three great political divisions of the country — Great Poland, Little Poland, and
Lithuania — had each its independent ecclesiastical establishment, by which all its
religious affairs were regulated. Nevertheless, at intervals, or when some matter of great
moment arose, all the pastors of the kingdom came together in Synod, thus presenting a
grand Convocation of all the Protestant Churches of Poland.
Despite this tri-partition in the ecclesiastical authority, one form of Church government
now extended over all Poland. That form was a modified episcopacy. If any one man was
entitled to be styled the Father of the Polish Protestant Church it was John Alasco, and
the organisation which he gave to the Reformed Church of his native land was not unlike
that of England, of which he was a great admirer. Poland was on a great scale what the
foreign Church over which John Alasco presided in London was on a small. First came the
Superintendent, for Alasco preferred that term, though the more learned one of Senior
Primarius was sometimes used to designate this dignitary. The Superintendent, or Senior
Primarius, corresponded somewhat in rank and powers to an archbishop. He convoked Synods,
presided in them, and executed their sentences; but he had no judicial authority, and was
subject to the Synod, which could judge, admonish, and depose him.[1]
Over the Churches of a district a Sub-Superintendent, or Senior, presided. The Senior
corresponded to a bishop. He took the place of the Superintendent in his absence; he
convoked the Synods of the district, and possessed a certain limited jurisdiction, though
exclusively spiritual. The other ecclesiastical functionaries were the Minister, the
Deacon, and the Lecturer. The Polish Protestants eschewed the fashion and order of the
Roman hierarchy, and strove to reproduce as far as the circumstances of their times would
allow, or as they themselves were able to trace it, the model exhibited in the primitive
Church.
Besides the Clerical Senior each district had a Civil Senior, who was elected exclusively
by the nobles and landowners. His duties about the Church were mainly of an external
nature. All things appertaining to faith and doctrine were left entirely in the hands of
the ministers; but the Civil Senior took cognisance of the morals of ministers, and in
certain cases could forbid them the exercise of their functions till he had reported the
case to the Synod, as the supreme authority of the Church. The support and general welfare
of churches and schools were entrusted to the Civil Senior, Who, moreover, acted as
advocate for the Church before the authorities of the country.
The supreme authority in the Polish Protestant Church was neither the Superintendent nor
the Civil Senior, but the Synod. Four times every year a Local Synod, composed not of
ministers only, but of all the members of the congregations, was convened in each
district. Although the members sat along with the pastors, all questions of faith and
doctrine were left to be determined exclusively by the latter. Once a year a Provincial
Synod was held, in which each district was represented by a Clerical Senior, two
Con-Seniors, or assistants, and four Civil Seniors; thus giving a slight predominance to
the lay element in the Synod. Nevertheless, ministers, although not delegated by the Local
Synods, could sit and vote on equal terms with others in the Provincial Synod.
The Grand Synod of the nation, or Convocation of the Polish Church, met at no stated
times. It assembled only when the emergence of some great question called for its
decision. These great gatherings, of course, could take place only so long as the Union of
Sandomir, which bound in one Church all the Protestant Confessions of Poland, existed, and
that unhappily was only from 1570 to 1595. After the expiry of these twenty-five years
those great national gatherings, which had so impressively attested the strength and
grandeur of Protestantism in Poland, were seen no more. Such in outline was the
constitution and government of the Protestant Church of Poland. It wanted only two things
to make it complete and perfect — namely, one supreme court, or center of authority,
with jurisdiction covering the whole country; and a permanent body or "Board,"
having its seat in the capital, through which the Church might take instant action when
great difficulties called for united councils, or sudden dangers necessitated united arms.
The meetings of the Grand Synods were intermittent and irregular, whereas their enemies
never failed to maintain union among themselves, and never ceased their attacks upon the
Protestant Church.
We must now turn to the course of political affairs subsequent to the death of King
Sigismund Augustus, of which, however, we shall treat only so far as they grew out of
Protestantism, and exerted a reflex influence upon it. The amiable; enlightened, and
tolerant monarch, Sigismund Augustus, so often almost persuaded to be a Protestant, and
one day, as his courtiers fondly hoped, to become one in reality, went to his grave in
1572, without having come to any decision, and without leaving any issue.
The Protestants were naturally desirous of placing a Protestant upon the throne; but the
intrigues of Cardinal Commendoni, and the jealousy of the Lutherans against the Reformed,
which the Union of Sandomir had not entirely extinguished, rendered all efforts towards
this effect in vain. Meanwhile Coligny, whom the Peace of St. Germains had restored to the
court of Paris, and for the moment to influence, came forward with the proposal of placing
a French prince upon the throne of Poland. The admiral was revolving a gigantic scheme for
humbling Romanism, and its great champion, Spain. He meditated bringing together in a
political and religious alliance the two great countries of Poland and France, and
Protestantism once triumphant in both, an issue which to Coligny seemed to be near, the
united arms of the two countries would soon put an end to the dominancy of Rome, and lay
in the dust the overgrown power of Austria and Spain. Catherine de Medici, who saw in the
project a new aggrandisement to her family, warmly favored it; and Montluc, Bishop of
Valence, was dispatched to Poland, furnished with ample instructions from Coligny to
prosecute the election of Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou. Montluc had hardly crossed the
frontier when the St. Bartholomew was struck, and among the many victims of that dreadful
act was the author of that very scheme which Montluc was on his way to advocate and, if
possible, consummate. The bishop, on receiving the terrible news, thought it useless to
continue his journey; but Catherine, feeling the necessity of following the line of
foreign policy which had been originated by the man she had murdered, sent orders to
Montluc to go forward.
The ambassador had immense dimculties to overcome in the prosecution of his mission, for
the massacre had inspired universal horror, but by dint of stoutly denying the Duke of
Anjou's participation in the crime, and promising that the duke would subscribe every
guarantee of political and religious liberty which might be required of him, he finally
carried his object. Firley, the leader of the Protestants, drafted a list of privileges
which Anjou was to grant to the Protestants of Poland, and of concessions which Charles
IX. was to make to the Protestants of France; and Montluc was required to sign these, or
see the rejection of his candidate. The ambassador promised for the monarch.
Henry of Valois having been chosen, four ambassadors set out from Poland with the diploma
of election, which was presented to the duke on the 10th September, 1573, in Notre Dame,
Paris. A Romish bishop, and member of the embassy, entered a protest, at the beginning of
the ceremonial, against that clause in the oath which secured religious liberty, and which
the duke was now to swear. Some confusion followed. The Protestant Zborowski, interrupting
the proceedings, addressed Montluc thus:~"Had you not accepted, in the name of the
duke, these conditions, we should not have elected him as our monarch." Henry feigned
not to understand the subject of dispute, but Zborowski, advancing towards him, said
— "I repeat, sire, if your ambassador had not accepted the condition securing
religious liberty to us Protestants, we would not have elected you to be our king, and if
you do not confirm these conditions you shall not be our king." Thereupon Henry took
the oath. When he had sworn, Bishop Karnkowski, who had protested against the religious
liberty promised in the oath, stepped forward, and again protested that the clause should
not prejudice the authority of the Church of Rome, and he received from the king a written
declaration to the effect that it would not.[2]
Although the sovereign-elect had confirmed by oath the religious liberties of Poland, the
suspicions of the Protestants were not entirely allayed, and they resolved jealously to
watch the proceedings at the coronation. Their distrust was not without cause. Cardinal
Hosius, who had now begun to exercise vast influence on the affairs of Poland, reasoned
that the oath that Henry had taken in Paris was not binding, and he sent his secretary to
meet the new monarch on the road to his new dominions, and to assure him that he did not
even need absolution from what he had sworn, seeing what was unlawful was not binding, and
that as soon as he should be crowned, he might proceed, the oath notwithstanding, to drive
from his kingdom all religions contrary to that of Rome.[3] The bishops began to teach the same doctrine and to instruct
Henry, who was approaching Poland by slow stages, that he would mount the throne as an
absolute sovereign, and reign wholly unfettered and uncontrolled by either the oath of
Paris or the Polish Diet. The kingdom was in dismay and alarm; the Protestants talked of
annulling the election, and refusing to accept Henry as their sovereign. Poland was on the
brink of civil war.
At the coronation a new treachery was attempted. Tutored by Jesuitical councillors, Henry
proposed to assume the crown, but to evade the oath. The ceremonial was proceeding,
intently watched by both Protestants and Romanists. The final act was about to be
performed; the crown was to be placed on the head of the new sovereign; but the oath
guaranteeing the Protestant liberties had not been administered to him. Firley, the Grand
Marshal of Poland, and first grandee of the kingdom, stood forth, and stopping the
proceedings, declared that unless the Duke of Anjou should repeat the oath which he had
sworn at Paris, he would not allow the coronation to take place. Henry was kneeling on the
steps of the altar, but startled by the words, he rose up, and looking round him, seemed
to hesitate. Firley, seizing the crown, said in a firm voice, "Si non jurabis, non
regnabis" (If you will not swear, you shall not reign). The courtiers and spectators
were mute with astonishment. The king was awed; he read in the crest-fallen countenances
of his advisers that he had but one alternative the oath, or an ignominious return to
France. It was too soon to go back; he took the copy of the oath which was handed to him,
swore, and was crowned.
The courageous act of the Protestant grand marshal had dispelled the cloud of civil war
that hung above the nation. But it was only for a moment that confidence was restored. The
first act of the new sovereign had revealed him to his subjects as both treacherous and
cowardly; what trust could they repose in him, and what affection could they feel for him?
Henry took into exclusive favor the Popish bishops; and, emboldened by a patronage unknown
to them during former reigns, they boldly declared the designs they had long harboured,
but which they had hitherto only whispered to their most trusted confidants. The great
Protestant nobles were discountenanced and discredited. The king's shameless profligacies
consummated the discontent and disgust of the nation. The patriotic Firley was dead —
it was believed in many quarters that he had been poisoned — and civil war was again
on the point of breaking out when, fortunately for the unhappy country, the flight of the
monarch saved it from that great calamity. His brother, Charles IX., had died, and Anjou
took his secret and quick departure to succeed him on the throne of France.
CHAPTER 5 Back to Top
TURNING OF THE TIDE OF PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND.
Stephen Bathory Elected to the Throne — His Midnight Interview — Abandons
Protestantism, and becomes a Romanist — Takes the Jesuits under his Patronage —
Builds and Endows Colleges for them — Roman Synod of Piotrkow — Subtle Policy of
the Bishops for Recovering their Temporal Jurisdiction — Temporal Ends gained by
Spiritual Sanctions — Spiritual Terrors versus Temporal Punishments — Begun
Decadence of Poland — Last Successes of its Arms — Death of King Stephen —
Sigismund III. Succeeds — " The King of the Jesuits."
After a year's interregnum, Stephen Bathory, a Transylvanian
prince, who had married Anne Jagellon, one of the sisters of the Emperor Sigismund
Augustus, was elected to the crown of Poland. His worth was so great, and his popularity
so high, that although a Protestant the Roman clergy dared not oppose his election. The
Protestant nobles thought that now their cause was gained; but the Romanists did not
despair. Along with the delegates commissioned to announce his election to Bathory, they
sent a prelate of eminent talent and learning, Solikowski by name, to conduct their
intrigue of bringing the new king over to their side. The Protestant deputies, guessing
Solikowski's errand, were careful to give him no opportunity of conversing with the new
sovereign in private. But, eluding their vigilance, he obtained an interview by night, and
succeeded in persuading Bathory that he should never be able to maintain, himself on the
throne of Poland unless he made a public profession of the Roman faith. The Protestant
deputies, to their dismay, next morning beheld Stephen Bathory, in whom they had placed
their hopes of triumph, devoutly kneeling at mass.[1] The new reign had opened with no auspicious omen!
Nevertheless, although a pervert, Bathory did not become a zealot. He repressed all
attempts at persecution, and tried to hold the balance with tolerable impartiality between
the two parties. But he sowed seeds destined to yield tempests in the future. The Jesuits,
as we shall afterwards see, had already entered Poland, and as the Fathers were able to
persuade the king that they were the zealous cultivators and the most efficient teachers
of science and letters, Bathory, who was a patron of literature, took them under his
patronage, and built colleges and seminaries for their use, endowing them with lands and
heritages. Among other institutions he founded the University of Vilna, which became the
chief seat of the Fathers in Poland, and whence they spread themselves over the kingdom.[2]
It was during the reign of King Stephen that the tide began to turn in the fortunes
of this great, intelligent, and free nation. The ebb first showed itself in a piece of
subtle legislation which was achieved by the Roman Synod of Piotrkow, in 1577. That Synod
decreed excommunication against all who held the doctrine of religious toleration [3] But toleration of all religions
was one of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and the enactment of the Synod was
levelled against this law. True, they could not blot out the law of the State, nor could
they compel the tribunals of the nation to enforce their own ecclesiastical edict;
nevertheless their sentence, though spiritual in its form, was very decidedly temporal in
both its substance and its issues, seeing excommunication carried with it many grievous
civil and social inflictions. This legislation was the commencement of a stealthy policy
which had for its object the recovery of that temporal jurisdiction of which, as we have
seen, the Diet had stripped them.
This first encroachnlent being permitted to pass unchallenged, the Roman clergy ventured
on other and more violent attacks on the laws of the State, and the liberties of the
people. The Synods of the diocese of Warmia prohibited mixed marriages; they forbade
Romanists to be sponsors at the baptism of Protestant children; they interdicted the use
of books and hymns not sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority; and they declared heretics
incapable of inheriting landed property. All these enactments wore a spiritual guise, and
they could be enforced only by spiritual sanctions; but they were in antagonism to the law
of the land, and by implication branded the laws with which they conflicted as immoral;
they tended to widen the breach between the two great parties hi the nation, and they
disturbed the consciences of Romanists, by subjecting them to the alternative of incurring
certain disagreeable consequences, or of doing what they were taught was unlawful and
sinful.
Stretching their powers and prerogatives still farther, the Roman bishops now claimed
payment of their tithes from Protestant landlords, and attempted to take back the churches
which had been converted front Romanist to Protestant uses. To make trial of how far the
nation was disposed to yield to these demands, or the tribunals prepared to endorse them,
they entered pleas at law to have the goods and possessions which they claimed as theirs
adjudged to them, and in some instances the courts gave decisions in their favour. But the
hierarchy had gone farther than meanwhile was prudent. These arrogant demands roused the
alarm of the nobles; and the Diets of 1581 and 1582 administered a tacit rebuke to the
hierarchy by annulling the judgments which had been pronounced in their favor. The bishops
had learned that they must walk slowly if they would walk safely; but they had met with
nothing to convince them that their course was not the right one, or that it would not
succeed in the end.
Nevertheless, under the appearance of having suffered a rebuff, the hierarchy had gained
not a few substantial advantages. The more extreme of their demands had been disallowed,
and many thought that; the contest between them and the civil courts was at an end, and
that it had ended adversely to the spiritual authority; but the bishops knew better. They
had laid the foundation of what would grow with every successive Synod, and each new
edict, into a body of law, diverse from and in opposition to the law of the land, and
which presenting itself to the Romanist with a higher moral sanction, would ultimately, in
his eyes, deprive the civil law of all force, and transfer to itself the homage of his
conscience and the obedience of his life. The coercive power wielded by this new code,
which was being stealthily put in operation in the heart of the Polish State, was a power
that could neither be seen nor heard; and those who were accustomed to execute their
behests through the force of armies, or the majesty of tribunals, were apt to contemn it
as utterly unable to cope with the power of law; nevertheless, the result as wrought out
in Poland showed that this influence, apparently so weak, yet penetrating deeply into the
heart and soul, had in it an omnipotence compared with which the power of the sword was
but feebleness. And farther there was this danger, perhaps not foreseen or not much taken
into account in Poland at the moment, namely, that the Jesuits were busy manipulating the
youth, and that whenever public opinion should be ripe for a concordat between the bishops
and the Government, this spiritual code would start up into an undisguisedly temporal one,
having at its service all the powers of the State, and enforcing its commands with the
sword.
What was now introduced into Poland was a new and more refined policy than the Church of
Rome had as yet employed in her battles with Protestantism. Hitherto she had filled her
hand with the coarse weapons of material force — the armies of the Empire and the
stakes of the Inquisition. But now, appealing less to the bodily senses, and more to the
faculties of the soul, she began at Trent, and continued in Poland, the plan of creating a
body of legislation, the pseudo-divine sanctions of which, in many instances, received
submission where the terrors of punishment would have been withstood. The sons of Loyola
came first, moulding opinion'; and the bishops came after, framing canons in conformity
with that altered opinions-gathering where the others had strewed — and noiselessly
achieving victory where the swords of their soldiers would have but sustained defeat. No
doubt the liberty enjoyed in Poland necessitated this alteration of the Roman tactics; but
it was soon seen that it was a more effectual method than the vulgar weapons of force, and
that if a revolted Christendom was to be brought back to the Papal obedience, it must be
mainly, though not exclusively, by the means of this spiritual artillery.
It was under the same reign, that of Stephen Bathory, that the political influence of the
Kingdom of Poland began to wane. The ebb in its national prestige was almost immediately
consequent on the ebb in its Protestantism. The victorious wars which Bathory had carried
on with Russia were ended, mainly through the counsels of the Jesuit Possevinus, by a
peace which stripped Poland of the advantages she was entitled to expect from her
victories. This was the last gleam of military success that shone upon the country.
Stephen Bathory died in 1586, having reigned ten years, not without glory, and was
succeeded on the throne of Poland by Sigismund III. He was the son of John, King of
Sweden, and grandson of the renowned Gustavus Vasa. Nurtured by a Romish mother, Sigismund
III. had abandoned the faith of his famous ancestor, and during his long reign of
well-nigh half a century, he made the grandeur of Rome his first object, and the power of
Poland only his second. Under such a prince the fortunes of the nation continued to sink.
He was called "the King of the Jesuits," and so far was he from being ashamed of
the title, that he gloried in it, and strove to prove himself worthy of it. He surrounded
himself with Jesuit councillors; honors and riches he showered almost exclusively upon
Romanists, and especially upon those whom interest had converted, but argument left
unconvinced. No dignity of the State and no post in the public service was to be obtained,
unless the aspirant made friends of the Fathers. Their colleges and schools multiplied,
their hoards and territorial domains augmented from year to year. The education of the
youth, and especially the sons of the nobles, was almost wholly in their hands, and a
generation was being created brimful of that "loyalty" which Rome so highly
lauds, and which makes the understandings of her subjects so obdurate and their necks so
supple. The Protestants were as yet too powerful in Poland to permit of direct
persecution, but the way was being prepared in the continual decrease of their numbers,
and the systematic diminution of their influence; and when Sigismund III. went to his
grave in 1632, the glory which had illuminated the country during the short reign of
Stephen Bathory had departed, and the night was fast closing in around Poland.
CHAPTER 6 Back to Top
THE JESUITS ENTER POLAND — DESTRUCTION OF ITS PROTESTANTISM.
Cardinal Hosius — His Acquirements — Prodigious Activity — Brings the
Jesuits into Poland — They rise to vast Influence — Their Tactics — Mingle
in all Circles — Labour to Undermine the Influence of Protestant Ministers —
Extraordinary Methods of doing this — Mob Violence — Churches, etc., Burned
— Graveyards Violated — The Jesuits in the Saloons of the Great — Their
Schools and Method of Teaching — They Dwarf the National Mind — They Extinguish
Literature — Testimony of a Popish Writer — Reign of Vladislav — John
Casimir, a Jesuit, ascends the Throne — Political Calamities-Revolt of the Cossacks
— Invasion of the Russians and Swedes — Continued Decline of Protestantism and
Oppression of Protestants — Exhaustion and Ruin of Poland — Causes which
contributed along with the Jesuits to the Overthrow of Protestantism in Poland.
The Jesuits had been introduced into Poland, and the turning
of the Protestant tide, and the begun decadence of the nation's political power, which was
almost contemporaneous with the retrogression in its Protestantism, was mainly the work of
the Fathers. The man who opened the door to the disciples of Loyola in that country is
worthy of a longer study than we can bestow upon him. His name was Stanislaus Hosen,
better known as Cardinal Hosius. He was born at Cracow in 1504, and thus in birth was
nearly contemporaneous with Knox and Calvin. He was sprung of a family of German descent
which had been engaged in trade, and become rich. His great natural powers had been
perfected by a finished education, first in the schools of his own country, and afterwards
in the Italian universities. He was unwearied in his application to business, often
dictating to several secretaries at once, and not unfrequently dispatching important
matters at meals, He was at home in the controversial literature of the Reformation, and
knew how to employ in his own cause the arguments of one Protestant polemic against
another. He took care to inform himself of everything about the life and occupation of the
leading Reformers, his contemporaries, which it was important for him to know.
His works are numerous; they are in various languages, written with equal elegance in all,
and with a wonderful adaptation in their style and method to the genius and habit of
thought of each of the various peoples he addressed. The one grand object of his life was
the overthrow of Protestantism, and the restoration of the Roman Church to that place of
power and glory from which the Reformation had cast her down. He brought the concentrated
forces of a vast knowledge, a gigantic intellect, and a strong will to the execution of
that task. History has not recorded, so far as we are aware, any immorality in his life.
He could boast the refined manners, liberal sentiments, and humane disposition which the
love and cultivation of letters usually engender. Nevertheless the marvellous and
mysterious power of that system of which he was so distinguished a champion asserted its
superiority in the case of this richly endowed, highly cultivated, and noble-minded man.
Instead of imparting his virtues to his Church, she transferred her vices to hint. Hosius
always urged on fitting occasions that no faith should be kept with heretics, and although
few could better conduct an argument than himself, he disliked that tedious process with
heretics, and recommended the more summary one of the lictor's axe. He saw no sin in
spilling heretical blood; he received with joy the tidings of the St. Bartholomew
Massacre, and writing to congratulate the Cardinal of Lorraine on the slaughter of
Coligny, he thanked the Almighty for the great boon bestowed on France, and implored him
to show equal mercy to Poland. His great understanding he prostrated at the feet of his
Church, but for whose authority, he declared, the Scriptures would have no more weight
than the Fables of Aesop. His many acquirements and great learning were not able to
emancipate him from the thrall of a gloomy asceticism; he grovelled in the observance of
the most austere performances, scouring himself in the belief that to have his body
streaming with blood and covered with wounds was more pleasing to the Almighty than to
have his soul adorned with virtues and replenished with graces. Such was the man who, to
use the words of the historian Krasinski, "deserved the eternal gratitude of Rome and
the curses of his own country," by introducing the Jesuits into Poland.[1]
Returning from the Council of Trent in 1564, Hosius saw with alarm the advance which
Protestantism had made in his diocese during his absence. He immediately addressed himself
to the general of the society, Lainez, requesting him to send him some members of his
order to aid him in doing what he despaired of accomplishing by his own single arm. A few
of the Fathers were dispatched from Rome, and being joined by others from Germany, they
were located in Braunsberg, a little town in the diocese of Hosius, who richly endowed the
infant establishment. For six years they made little progress, nor was it till the death
of Sigismund Augustus and the accession of Stephen Bathory that they began to make their
influence felt in Poland. How they ingratiated themselves with that monarch by their vast
pretensions to learning we have already seen. They became great favourites with the
bishops, who finding Protestantism increasing in their dioceses, looked for its repression
rather from the intrigues of the Fathers than the labors of their own clergy. But the
golden age of the Jesuits in Poland, to be followed by the iron age to the people, did not
begin until the bigoted Sigismund III. mounted the throne. The favors of Stephen Bathory,
the colleges he had founded, and the lands with which he had endowed them, were not
remembered in comparison with the far higher consideration and vaster wealth to which they
were admitted under his successor. Sigismund reigned, but the Jesuits governed. They stood
by the fountain-head of honours, and they held the keys of all dignities and emoluments.
They took care of their friends in the distribution of these good things, nor did they
forget when enriching others to enrich also themselves. Conversions were numerous; and the
wanderer who had returned from the fatal path of heresy to the safe fold of the Church was
taught to express his thanks in some gift or service to the order by whose instructions
and prayers he had been rescued. The son of a Protestant father commonly expressed his
penitence by building them a college, or bequeathing them an estate, or expelling from his
lands the confessors of his father's faith, and replacing them with the adherents of the
Roman creed. Thus all things were prospering to their wish. Every day new doors were
opening to them. Their missions and schools were springing up in all corners of the land.
They entered all houses, from the baron's downward; they sat at all tables, and listened
to all conversations. In all assemblies, for whatever purpose convened, whether met to
mourn or to make merry, to transact business or to seek amusement, there were the Jesuits.
They were present at baptisms, at marriages, at funerals, and at fairs. While their
learned men taught the young nobles in the universities, they had their itinerant orators,
who visited villages, frequented markets, and erecting their stage in public exhibited
scenic representations of Bible histories, or of the combats, martyrdoms, and
canonisations of the saints. These wandering apostles were furnished, moreover, with store
of relics and wonder-working charms, and by these as well as by pompous processions, they
edified and awed the crowds that gathered round them. They strenuously and systematically
labored to destroy the influence of Protestant ministers. They strove; to make them
odious, sometimes by malevolent whisperings, and at other times by open accusations. The
most blameless life and the most venerated character afforded no protection against Jesuit
calumny. Volanus, whose ninety years bore witness to his abstemious life, they called a
drunkard. Sdrowski, who had incurred their anger by a work written against them, and whose
learning was not excelled by the most erudite of their order, they accused of theft, and
of having once acted the part of a hangman. Adding ridicule to calumny, they strove in
every way to hold up Protestant sermons and assemblies to laughter. If a Synod convened,
there was sure to appear, in no long time, a letter from the devil, addressed to the
members of court, thanking them for their zeal, and instructing them, in familiar and
loving phrase, how to do their work and his. Did a minister marry, straightway he was
complimented with an epithalamium from the ready pen of some Jesuit scribe. Did a
Protestant pastor die, before a few days had passed by, the leading members of his flock
were favored with letters from their deceased minister, duly dated from Pandemonium. These
effusions were composed generally in doggerel verse, but they were barbed with a venomous
wit and a coarse humor. The multitude read, laughed, and believed. The calumnies, it is
true, were refitted by those at whom they were levelled; but that signified little, the
falsehood was repeated again and again, till at last, by dint of perseverance and
audacity, the Protestants and their worship were brought into general hatred and contempt.[2]
The defection of the sons of Radziwill, the zealous Reformer of whom we have
previously made mention, was a great blow to the Protestantism of Poland. That family
became the chief support, after the crown, of the Papal reaction in the Polish dominions.
Not only were their influence and wealth freely employed for the spread of the Jesuits,
but all the Protestant churches and schools which their father had built on his estates
were made over to the Church of Rome. The example of the Radziwills was followed by many
of the Lithuanian nobles, who returned within the Roman pale, bringing with them not only
the edifices on their lands formerly used in the Protestant service, but their tenants
also, and expelling those who refused to conform.
By this time the populace had been sufficiently leavened with the spirit and principles of
the Jesuits to be made their tool. Mob violence is commonly the first form that
persecution assumes. It was so in Poland. The caves whence these popular tempests issued
were the Jesuit colleges. The students inflamed the passions of the multitude, and the
public peace was broken by tumult and outrage. Protestant worshipping assemblies began to
be assailed and dispersed, Protestant churches to be wrecked, and Protestant libraries to
be given to the flames. The churches of Cracow, of Vilna, and other towns were pillaged.
Protestant cemeteries were violated, their monuments and tablets destroyed, the dead
exhumed, and their remains scattered about. It was not possible at times to carry the
Protestant dead to their graves. In June, 1578, the funeral procession of a Protestant
lady was attacked in the streets of Cracow by the pupils of All-hallows College. Stones
were thrown, the attendants were driven away, the body was torn from the coffin, and after
being dragged through the streets it was thrown into the Vistula. Rarely indeed did the
authorities interfere; and when it did happen that punishment followed these misdeeds, the
infliction fell on the wretched tools, and the guiltier instigators and ringleaders were
suffered to escape.[3]
While the Jesuits were smiting the Protestant ministers and members with the arm of
the mob, they were bowing the knee in adulation and flattery before the Protestant nobles
and gentry. In the saloons of the great, the same men who sowed from their chairs the
principles of sedition and tumult, or vented in doggerel rhyme the odious calumny, were
transformed into paragons of mildness and inoffensiveness. Oh, how they loved order,
abominated coarseness, and anathematised all uncharitableness and violence! Having gained
access into Protestant families of rank by their winning manners, their showy
accomplishments, and sometimes by important services, they strove by every means — by
argument, by wit, by insinuation — to convert them to the Roman faith; if they failed
to pervert the entire family they generally succeeded with one or more of its members.
Thus they established a foothold in the household, and had fatally broken the peace and
confidence of the family. The anguish of the perverts for their parents, doomed as they
believed to perdition, often so affected these parents as to induce them to follow their
children into the Roman fold. Rome, as is well known, has made more victories by touching
the heart than by convincing the reason.
But the main arm with which the Jesuits operated in Poland was the school. They had among
them a few men of good talent and great erudition. At the beginning they were at pains to
teach well, and to send forth from their seminaries accomplished Latin scholars, that so
they might establish a reputation for efficient teaching, and spread their educational
institutions over the kingdom. They were kind to their pupils, they gave their
instructions without exacting any fee; and they were thus able to compete at great
advantage with the Protestant schools, and not unfrequently did they succeed in
extinguishing their rivals, and drafting the scholars into their own seminaries. Not only
so: many Protestant parents, attracted by the high repute of the Jesuit schools, and the
brilliant Latin scholars whom they sent forth from time to time, sent their sons to be
educated in the institutions of the Fathers.
But the national mind did not grow, nor did the national literature flourish. This was the
more remarkable from contrast with the brilliance of the era that had preceded the
educational efforts of the Jesuits. The half-century during which the Protestant influence
was the predominating one was "the Augustan age of Polish literature;" the
half-century that followed, dating from the close of the sixteenth century, showed a
marked and most melancholy decadence in every department of mental exertion. It was but
too obvious that decrepitude had smitten the national intellect. The press sent forth
scarcely a single work of merit; capable men were disappearing from professional life;
Poland ceased to have statesmen fitted to counsel in the cabinet, or soldiers able to lead
in the field. The sciences were neglected and the arts languished; and even the very
language was becoming corrupt and feeble; its elegance and fire were sinking in the ashes
of formalism and barbarism. Nor is it difficult to account for this. Without freedom there
can be no vigour; but the Jesuits dared not leave the mind of their pupils at liberty.
That the intellect should make full proof of its powers by ranging freely over all
subjects, and investigating and discussing unfettered all questions, was what the Jesuits
could not allow, well knowing that such freedom would overthrow their own authority. They
led about the mind in chains as men do wild beasts, of whom they fear that should they
slip their fetters, they would turn and rend them. The art they studied was not how to
educate, but how not to educate. They intrigued to shut up the Protestant schools, and
when they had succeeded, they collected the youth into their own, that they might keep
them out of the way of that most dangerous of all things, knowledge. They taught them
words, not things. They shut the page of history, they barred the avenues of science and
philosophy, and they drilled their pupils exclusively in the subtleties of a scholastic
theology. Is it wonderful that the eye kept perpetually poring on such objects should at
last lose its power of vision; that the intellect confined to food like this should pine
and die; and that the foot-prints of Poland ceased to be visible in the fields of
literature, in the world of commerce, and on the arena of politics? The men who had taken
in hand to educate the nation, taught it to forget all that other men strive to remember,
and to remember all that other men strive to forget; in short, the education given to
Poland by the Jesuits was a most ingenious and successful plan of teaching them not how to
think right, but how to think wrong; not how to reason out truth, but how to reason out
falsehood; not how to cast away prejudice, break the shackles of authority, and rise to
the independence and noble freedom of a rational being, but how to cleave to error, hug
one's fetters, hoot at the light, and yet to be all the while filled with a proud conceit
that this darkness is not darkness, but light; and this folly not folly, but wisdom. Thus
metamorphosed this once noble nation came forth from the schools of the Jesuits, the light
of their eye quenched, and the strength of their arm dried up, to find that they were no
longer able to keep their place in the struggles of the world. They were put aside, they
were split up, they were trampled down, and at last they perished as a nation; and yet
their remains were not put into the sepulcher, but were left lying on the face of Europe,
a melancholy monument of what nations become when they take the Jesuit for their
schoolmaster.
This estimate of Jesuit teaching is not more severe than that which Popish authors
themselves have expressed. Their system was admirably described by Broscius, a zealous
Roman Catholic clergyman, professor in the University of Cracow, and one of the most
learned men of his time, in a work published originally in Polish, in the beginning of the
seventeenth century. He says: "The Jesuits teach children the grammar of Alvar,[4] which it is very difficult to
understand and to learn; and much time is spent at it. This they do for many reasons:
first, that by keeping the child a long time in the school they may receive in gifts from
the parents of the children, whom they pretend gratuitously to educate, much more than
they would have got had there been a regular payment; second, that by keeping the children
a long while in the school they may become well acquainted with their minds; third, that
they may train the boy for their own plans, and for their own purposes; fourth, that in
case the friends of the boy wish to have him from them, they may have a pretense for
keeping him, saying, give him time at least to learn grammar, which is the foundation of
every other knowledge; fifth, they want to keep boys at school till the age of manhood,
that they may engage for their order those who show most talent or expect large
inheritances; but when an individual neither possesses talents nor has any expectations,
they will not retain him."[5]
Sigismund III., in whose reign the Jesuits had become firmly rooted in Poland, died
in 1632, and was succeeded by his eldest son Vladislav IV. Vladislav hated the disciples
of Loyola as much as his father had loved and courted them, and he strove to the utmost of
his power to counteract the evil effects of his father's partiality for the order. He
restrained the persecution by mob riots; he was able, in some instances, to visit with
punishment the ringleaders in the burning down of Protestant churches and schools; but
that spirit of intolerance and bigotry which was now diffused throughout the nation, and
in which, with few exceptions, noble and peasant shared alike, he could not lay; and when
he went to his grave, those bitter hatreds and evil passions which had been engendered
during his father's long occupancy of the throne, and only slightly repressed during his
own short reign, broke out afresh in all their violence.
Vladislav was succeeded by his brother John Casimir. Casimir was a member of the Society
of Jesus, and had attained the dignity of the Roman purple; but when his brother's death
opened his way to the throne, the Pope relieved him from his vows as a Jesuit. The heart
of the Jesuit remained within him, though his vow to the order had been dissolved.
Nevertheless, it is but justice to say that Casimir was less bigoted, and less the tool of
Rome, than his father Sigismund had been. Still it was vain to hope that under such a
monarch the prospects of the Protestants would be materially improved, or the tide of
Popish reaction stemmed. Scarcely had this disciple of Loyola ascended the throne than
those political tempests began, which continued at short intervals to burst over Poland,
till at length the nation was destroyed. The first calamity that befell the unhappy
country was a terrible revolt of the Cossacks of the Ukraine. The insurgent Cossacks were
joined by crowds of peasants belonging to the Greek Church, whose passions had been roused
by a recent attempt of the Polish bishops to compel them to enter the Communion of Rome.
Poland now began to feel what it was to have her soul chilled and her bonds loosened by
the touch of the Jesuit. If the insurrection did not end in the dethronement of the
monarch, it was owing not to the valor of his troops, or the patriotism of his nobles, but
to the compassion or remorse of the rebels, who stopped short in their victorious career
when the king was in their power, and the nation had been brought to the brink of ruin.
The cloud which had threatened the kingdom with destruction rolled away to the
half-civilised regions whence it had so suddenly issued; but hardly was it gone when it
was again seen to gather, and to advance against the unhappy kingdom. The perfidy of the
Romish bishops had brought this second calamity upon Poland. The Archbishop of Kioff,
Metropolitan of the Greek Church of Poland, had acted as mediator between the rebellious
Cossacks and the king, and mainly through the archbishop's friendly offices had that peace
been effected, which rescued from imminent peril the throne and life of Casimir. One of
the conditions of the Pacification was that the archbishop should have a seat in the
Senate; but when the day came, and the Eastern prelate entered the hall to take his place
among the senators, the Roman Catholic bishops rose in a body and left the Senate-house,
saying that they never would sit with a schismatic. The Archbishop of Kioff had lifted
Casimir's throne out of the dust, and now he had his services repaid with insult.
The warlike Cossacks held themselves affronted in the indignity done their spiritual
chief; and hence the second invasion of the kingdom. This time the insurgents were
defeated, but that only brought greater evils upon the country. The Cossacks threw
themselves into the arms of the Czar of Muscovy. He espoused their quarrel, feeling,
doubtless, that his honor also was involved in the disgrace put upon a high dignitary of
his Church, and he descended on Poland with an immense army. At the same time, Charles
Gustavus of Sweden, taking advantage of the discontent which prevailed against the Polish
monarch Casimir, entered the kingdom with a chosen body of troops; and such were his own
talents as a leader, and such the discipline and valor of his army, that in a short time
the principal part of Poland was in his possession. Casimir had, meanwhile, sought refuge
in Silesia. The crown was offered to the valorous and magnanimous Charles Gustavus, the
nobles only craving that before assuming it he should permit a Diet to assemble and
formally vote it to him.
Had Gustavus ascended the throne of Poland, it is probable that the Jesuits would have
been driven out, that the Protestant spirit would have been reinvigorated, and that
Poland, built up into a powerful kingdom, would have proved a protecting wall to the south
and west of Europe against the barbaric masses of the north; but this hope, with all that
it implied, was dispelled by the reply of Charles Gustavus. "It did not need,"
he said, "that the Diet should elect him king, seeing he was aready master of the
country by his sword." The self-love of the Poles was wounded; the war was renewed;
and, after a great struggle, a peace was concluded in 1660, under the joint mediation and
guarantee of England, France, and Holland. John Casimir returned to resume his reign over
a country bleeding from the swords of two armies. The Cossacks had exercised an
indiscriminate vengeance: the Popish cathedral and the Protestant church had alike been
given to the flames, and Protestants and Papists had been equal sufferers in the
calamities of the war.
The first act of the monarch, after his return, was to place his kingdom under the special
protection of the "Blessed Virgin." To make himself and his dominions the more
worthy of so august a suzerainty,. he registered on the occasion two vows, both.
well-pleasing, as he judged, to his celestial patroness. Casimir promised in the first to
redress the grievances of the lower orders, and in the second to convert the heretics
— in other words, to persecute the Protestants. The first vow it was not even
attempted to fulfill. All the efforts of the sovereign, therefore, were given to the
second.
But the shield of England and Holland was at that time extended over the Protestants of
Poland, who were still numerous, and had amongst them some influential families; the
monarch's efforts were, in consequence, restricted meanwhile to the conversion of the
Socinians, who were numerous in his kingdom. They were offered the alternative of return
to the Roman Church or exile. They seriously proposed to meet the prelates of the Roman
hierarchy in conference, and convince them that there was no fundamental difference
between their tenets and the dogmas of the Roman Church.[6] The conference was declined, and the Socinians, with great
hardship and loss, were driven out of the kingdom. But the persecution did not stop there.
England, with Charles II. on her throne, grew cold in the cause of the Polish Protestants.
In the treaty of the peace of 1660, the rights of all religious Confessions in Poland had
been secured; but. the guaranteeing Powers soon ceased to enforce the treaty, the Polish
Government paid but small respect to it, persecution in the form of mob violence was still
continued; and when the reign of John Casimir, which had been fatal to the Protestants
throughout, came to an end, it was found that their ranks were broken up, that all the
great families who had belonged to their communion were extinct or had passed into the
Church of Rome, that their sanctuaries were mostly in ashes, their congregations all
dispersed, and their cause hopeless.[7]
There followed a succession of reigns which only furnished evidence how weak the
throne had become, and how powerful the Jesuits and the Roman hierarchy had grown.
Religious equality was still the law of Poland, and each new sovereign swore, at his
coronation, to maintain the rights of the anti-Romanists, but the transaction was deemed a
mere fiction, and the king, however much disposed, had not the power to filfil his oath.
The Jesuits and the bishops were in this matter above the law, and the sovereign's
tribunals could not enforce their own edicts. 'What the law called rights the clergy
stigmatised as abuses, and demanded that they should be abolished. In 1732 a law was
passed excluding from all public offices those who were not of the communion of the Church
of Rome.[8]
The public service was thus deprived of whatever activity and enlightenment of mind
yet existed in Poland. The country had no need of this additional stimulus: it was already
pursuing fast enough the road to ruin. For a century, one disaster after another had
devastated its soil and people. Its limits had been curtailed by the loss of several
provinces; its population had been diminished by the emigration of thousands of
Protestants; its resources had been drained by its efforts to quell revolt within and ward
off invasion from without; its intelligence had been obscured, and well-nigh extinguished,
by those who claimed the exclusive right to instruct its youth; for in that land it was a
greater misfortune to be educated than to grow up untaught. Overspread by torpor, Poland
gave no signs of life save such as indicate paralysis. Placed under foreign tutelage, and
sunk in dependence and helplessness, if she was cared for by her powerful protectors, it
was as men care for a once noble palace which they have no thought of rebuilding, but from
whose fallen masses they hope to extract a column or a topstone that may help to enlarge
and embellish their own dwelling.
Justice requires that we should state, before dismissing this part of our subject, with
its many solemn lessons, that though the fall of Protestantism in Poland, and the
consequent ruin of the Polish State, was mainly the work of the Jesuits, other causes
co-operated, though ill a less degree. The Protestant body in Poland, from the first, was
parted into three Confessions: the Genevan in Lithuania, the Bohemian in Great Poland, and
the Lutheran in those towns that were inhabited by a population of German descent. This
was a source of weakness, and this weakness was aggravated by the ill-will borne by the
Lutheran Protestants to the adherents of the other two Confessions. The evil was cured, it
was thought, by the Union of Sandomir; but Lutheran exclusiveness and intolerance, after a
few years, again broke up the united Church, and deprived the Protestant cause of the
strength which a common center always gives. The short lives of John Alasco and Prince
Radziwill are also to be reckoned among the causes which contributed to the failure of the
Reform movement in Poland. Had their labors been prolonged, a deeper seat would have been
given to Protestant truth in the general population, and the throne might have been gained
to the Reformation. The Christian chivalry and patriotism with which the great nobles
placed themselves at the head of the movement are worthy of all praise, but the people
must ever be the mainstay of a religious Reformation, and the great landowners in Poland
did not, we fear, take this fact sufficiently into account, or bestow the requisite pains
in imbuing their tenantry with great Scriptural principles: and hence the comparative ease
with which the people were again transferred into the Roman fold. But an influence yet
more hostile to the triumph of Protestantism in Poland was the rise and rapid diffusion of
Socinian views. These sprang up in the bosom of the Genevan Confession, and inflicted a
blight on the powerful Protestant Churches of Lithuania.
That blight very soon overspread the whole land; and the green tree of Protestantism began
to be touched with the sere of decay. The Socinian was followed, as we have seen, by the
Jesuit. A yet deeper desolation gathered on his track. Decay became rottenness, and blight
deepened into death; but Protestantism did not perish alone. The throne, the country, the
people, all went down with it in a catastrophe so awful that no one could have effected it
but the Jesuit.
CHAPTER 7 Back to Top
BOHEMIA — ENTRANCE OF REFORMATION.
Darkness Concealing Bohemian Martyrs — John Huss — First Preachers of the
Reformed Doctrine in Bohemia — False Brethren — Zahera — Passek — They
Excite to Persecutions — Martyrs-Nicolas Wrzetenarz-The Hostess Clara — Martha
von Porzicz — The Potter and Girdler — Fate of the Persecutors — Ferdinand
I. Invades Bohemia — Persecutions and Emigrations — Flight of the Pastors —
John Augusta, etc. — A Heroic Sufferer — The Jesuits brought into Bohemia —
Maximilian II. — Persecution Stopped — Bohemian Confession — Rudolph —
The Majestats-Brief — Full Liberty given to the Protestants.
IN resuming the story of Bohemia we re-enter a tragic field. Our rehearsal of its conflicts and sufferings will in one sense be a sorrowful, in another a truly triumphant task. What we are about to witness is not the victorious march of a nation out of bondage, with banners unfurled, and singing the song of a recovered Gospel; on the contrary, it is a crowd of sufferers and martyrs that is to pass before us; and when the long procession begins to draw to an end, we shall have to confess that these are but a few of that great army of confessors who in this land gave their lives for the truth. Where are the rest, and why are not their deaths here recorded? They still abide under that darkness with which their martyrdoms were on purpose covered, and which as yet has been only partially dispelled. Their names and sufferings are the locked up in the imperial archives of Vienna, in the archiepiscopal archives of Prague, in the libraries of Leitmeritz, Koniggratz, Wittingau, and other places. For a full revelation we must wait the coming of that day when, in the emphatic language of Scripture,
In a former book [2] we brought down the history of the Bohemian Church [3] a century beyond the stake of
Huss. Speaking from the midst of the flames, as we have already seen, the martyr said,
"A hundred years and there will arise a swan whose singing you shall not be able to
silence."[4] The
century had revolved, and Luther, with a voice that was rolling from east to west of
Christendom, loud as the thunder but melodious as the music of heaven, was preaching the
doctrine of justification by faith alone. We resume our history of the Bohemian Church at
the point where we broke it off.
Though fire and sword had been wasting the Bohemian confessors during the greater part of
the century, there were about 200 of their congregations in existence when the Reformation
broke. Imperfect as was their knowledge of Divine truth, their presence on the soil of
Bohemia helped powerfully toward the reception of the doctrines of Luther in that country.
Many hailed his appearance as sent to resume the work of their martyred countryman, and
recognised in his preaching the "song" for which Huss had bidden them wait. As
early as the year 1519, Matthias, a hermit, arriving at Prague, preached to great crowds,
which assembled round him in the streets and market-place, though he mingled with the
doctrines of the Reformation. certain opinions of his own. The Calixtines, who were now
Romanists in all save the Eucharistic rite, which they received in both kinds, said,
"It were better to have our pastors ordained at Wittemberg than at Rome." Many
Bohemian youths were setting out to sit at Luther's feet, and those who were debarred the
journey, and could not benefit by the living voice of the great doctor, eagerly possessed
themselves, most commonly by way of Nuremberg, of his tracts and books; and those
accounted themselves happiest of all who could secure a Bible, for then they could drink
of the Water of Life at its fountainhead. In January, 1523, we find the Estates of Bohemia
and Moravia assembling at Prague, and having summoned several orthodox pastors to assist
at their deliberations, they promulgated twenty articles — "the forerunners of
the Reformation," as Comenius calls them — of which the following was one:
"If any man shall teach the Gospel without the additions of men, he shall neither be
reproved nor condemned for a heretic."[5] Thus from the banks of the Moldau was coming an echo to the voice
at Wittemberg.
"False brethren" were the first to raise the cry of heresy against John Huss,
and also the most zealous in dragging him to the stake. So was it again. A curate, newly
returned from Wittemberg, where he had daily taken his place in the crowd of students of
all nations who assembled around the chair of Luther, was the first in Prague to call for
the punishment of the disciples of that very doctrine which he professed to have embraced.
His name was Gallus Zahera, Calixtine pastor in the Church of Laeta Curia, Old Prague.
Zahera joined himself to John Passek, Burgomaster of Prague, "a deceitful, cruel, and
superstitious man," who headed a powerful faction in the Council, which had for its
object to crush the new opinions. The Papal legate had just arrived in Bohemia, and he
wrote in bland terms to Zahera, holding out the prospect of a union between Rome and the
Calixtines. The Calixtine pastor, forgetting all he had learned at Wittemberg, instantly
replied that he had "no dearer wish than to be found constant in the body of the
Church by the unity of the faith;" and he went on to speak of Bohemia in a style that
must have done credit, in the eyes of the legate, at once to his rhetoric and his
orthodoxy.
"For truly," says he, "our Bohemia, supporting itself on the most sure
foundation of the most sure rock of the Catholic faith, has sustained the fury and broken
the force of all those waves of error wherewith the neighboring countries of Germany have
been shaken, and as a beacon placed in the midst of a tempestuous sea, it has held forth a
dear light to every voyager, and shown him a safe harbor into which he may retreat from
shipwreck; " and he concluded by promising to send forthwith deputies to expedite the
business of a union between the Roman and Calixtine Churches.[6] When asked how he could thus oppose a faith he had lately so
zealously professed, Zahera replied that he had placed himself at the feet of Luther that
he might be the better able to confute him: "An excuse," observes Comerflus,
"that might have become the mouth of Judas."
Zahera and Passek were not the men to stop at half-measures. To pave the way for a union
with the Roman Church they framed a set of articles, which, having obtained the consent of
the king, they required the clergy and citizens to subscribe. Those who refused were to be
banished from Prague. Six pastors declined the test, and were driven from the city. The
pastors were followed into exile by sixty-five of the leading citizens, including the
Chancellor of Prague and the former burgomaster. A pretext being sought for severer
measures, the malicious invention was spread abroad that the Lutherans had conspired to
massacre all the Calixtines, and three of the citizens were put to the rack to extort from
them a confession of a conspiracy which had never existed. They bore the torment [7] rather than witness to a
falsehood. An agreement was next concluded by the influence of Zahera and Passek, that no
Lutheran should be taken into a workshop, or admitted to citizenship. If one owed adebt,
and was unwilling to pay it, he had only to say the other was a Lutheran, and the
banishment of the creditor gave him riddance from his importunities.[8]
Branding on the forehead, and other marks of ignominy, were now added to exile. One
day Louis Victor, a disciple of the Gospel, happened to be among the hearers of a certain
Barbarite who was entertaining his audience with ribald stories. At the close of his
sermon Louis addressed the monk, saying to him that it were "better to instruct the
people out of the Gospel than to detain them with such fables." Straightway the
preacher raised such a clamor that the excited crowd laid hold on the too courageous
Lutheran, and haled him to prison. Next day the city sergeant conducted him out of Prague.
A certain cutler, in whose possession a little book on the Sacrament had been found, was
scourged in the market-place. The same punishment was inflicted upon John Kalentz, with
the addition of being branded on the forehead, because it was said that though a layman he
had administered the Eucharist to himself and his family. John Lapatsky, who had returned
from banishment, under the impression that the king had published an amnesty to the
exiles, was apprehended, thrown into prison, and murdered.[9]
The tragic fate of Nicolas Wrzetenarz deserves a more circumstantial detail.
Wrzetenarz was a learned man, well stricken in years. He was accused of Picardism, a name
by which Protestant sentiments were at times designated. He was summoned to answer before
the Senate. When the old man appeared, Zahera, who presided on the tribunal, asked him
what he believed concerning the Sacrament of the altar. "I believe," he replied,
"what the Evangelists and St. Paul teach me to believe." "Do you
believe," asked the other, "that Christ is present in it, having flesh and
blood?" "I believe," replied Wrzetenarz, "that when a pious minister
of God's Word declares to a faithful congregation the benefits which are received by the
death of Christ, the bread and wine are made to them the Supper of the Lord, wherein they
are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ, and the benefits received by his
death." After a few more questions touching the mass, praying to the saints, and
similar matters, he was condemned as a heretic to the fire. His hostess, Clara, a widow of
threescore years, whom he had instructed in the truth, and who refused to deny the faith
she had received into her heart, was condemned to be burned along with him.
They were led out to die. Being come to the place of execution they were commanded to
adore the sign of the cross, which had been elevated in the east. They refused, saying,
"The law of God permits us not to worship the likeness of anything either in heaven
or in earth; we will worship only the living God, Lord of heaven and earth, who inhabiteth
alike the south, the west, the north, the east; " and turning their backs upon the
crucifix, and prostrating themselves toward the west, with their eyes and hands lifted up
to heaven, they invoked with great ardor the name of Christ.
Having taken leave of their children, Nicolas, with great cheerfulness, mounted the pile,
and standing on the faggots, repeated the Articles of the Creed, and having finished,
looked up to heaven and prayed, saying with a loud voice, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of
the living God, who was born of a pure Virgin, and didst vouchsafe to undergo the shameful
death of the cross for me a vile sinner, thee alone do I worship — to thee I commend
my soul. Be merciful unto me, and blot out all mine iniquities." He then repeated in
Latin the Psalm, "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust."
Meanwhile the executioner having brought forward Clara, and laid her on the pile, now tied
down both of them upon the wood, and heaping over them the books that had been found in
their house, he lighted the faggots, and soon the martyrs were enveloped in the flames. So
died this venerable scholar and aged matron at Prague, on the 19th December, 1526. [10]
In the following year Martha von Porzicz was burned. She was a woman heroic beyond
even the heroism of her sex. Interrogated by the doctors of the university as well as by
the councillors, she answered intrepidly, giving a reason of the faith she had embraced,
and upbraiding the Hussites themselves for their stupid adulation of the Pope. The
presiding judge hinted that it was time she was getting ready her garment for the fire.
"My petticoat and cloak are both ready," she replied; "you may order me to
be led away when you please."[11] She
was straightway sentenced to the fire.
The town-crier walked before her, proclaiming that she was to die for blaspheming the holy
Sacrament. Raising her voice to be heard by the crowd she said, "It is not so; I am
condemned because I will not confess to please the priests that Christ, with his bones,
hairs, sinews, and veins, is contained in the Sacrament."[12] And raising her voice yet higher, she warned the people not to
believe the priests, who had abandoned themselves to hypocrisy and every vice. Being come
to the place where she was to die, they importuned her to adore the crucifix. Turning her
back upon it, and elevating her eyes to heaven, "It is there," she said,
"that our God dwells: thither must we direct our looks." She now made haste to
mount the pile, and endured the torment of the flames with invincible courage. She was
burned on the 4th of December, 1527.
On the 28th of August of the following year, two German artificers — one a potter,
the other a girdler — accused of Lutheranism by the monks, were condemned by the
judges of Prague to be burned. As they walked to the stake, they talked so sweetly
together, reciting passages from Scripture, that tears flowed from the eyes of many of the
spectators. Being come to the pile, they bravely encouraged one another. "Since our
Lord Jesus Christ," said the girdler, "hath for us suffered so grievous things,
let us arm ourselves to suffer this death, and let us rejoice that we have found so great
favor with him as to be accounted worthy to die for his Gospel;" to whom the potter
made answer, "I, truly, on my marriage-day was not so glad of heart as I am at this
moment." Having ascended the pyre, they prayed with a clear voice, "Lord Jesus,
who in thy sufferings didst pray for thine enemies, we also pray, forgive the king, and
the men of Prague, and the clergy, for they know not what they do, and their hands are
full of blood." And then addressing the people, they said, "Dearly beloved, pray
for your king, that God would give him the knowledge of the truth, for he is misled by the
bishops and clergy." "Having ended this most penitent exhortation," says
the chronicler, "they therewith ended their lives."
After this the fury of the, persecution for a little while subsided. The knot of cruel and
bloodthirsty men who had urged it on was broken up. One of the band fell into debt, and
hanged himself in despair. Zahera was caught in a political intrigue, into which his
ambitious spirit had drawn him, and, being banished, ended his life miserably in
Franconia. The cruel burgomaster, Passek, was about the same time sent into perpetual
exile, after he had in vain thrown himself at the king's feet for mercy. Ferdinand, who
had now ascended the throne, changed the Council of Prague, and gave the exiles liberty to
return. The year 1530 was to them a time of restitution; their churches multiplied; they
corresponded with their brethren in Germany and Switzerland, and were thereby strengthened
against those days of yet greater trial that awaited them.[13]
These days came in 1547. Charles V., having overcome the German Protestants in the
battle of Muhlberg, sent his brother, Ferdinand I., with an army of Germans and Hungarians
to chastise the Bohemians for refusing to assist him in the war just ended. Ferdinand
entered Prague like a city taken by siege. The magistrates and chief barons he imprisoned;
some he beheaded, others he scourged and sent into exile, while others, impelled by
terror, fled from the city. "See," observed some, "what calamities the
Lutherans have brought upon us." The Bohemian Protestants were accused of disloyalty,
and Ferdinand, opening his ear to these malicious charges, issued an order for the
shutting up of all their churches. In the five districts inhabited mainly by the
"Brethren," all who refused to enter the Church of Rome, or at least meet her
more than half-way by joining the Calixtines, were driven away, and their landlords, on
various pretexts, were arrested.
This calamity fell upon them like a thunder-bolt. Not a few, yielding to the violence of
the persecution, fell back into Rome; but the great body, unalterably fixed on maintaining
the faith for which Huss had died, chose rather to leave the soil of Bohemia for ever than
apostatise. In a previous chapter we have recorded the march of these exiles, in three
divisions, to their new settlements in Prussia, and the halt they made on their journey at
Posen, where they kindled the light of truth in the midst of a population sunk ill
darkness, and laid the foundations of that prosperity which their Church at a subsequent
period enjoyed in Poland.
The untilled fields and empty dwellings of the expatriated Bohemians awakened no doubts in
the king's mind as to the expediency of the course he was pursuing. Instead of pausing,
there came a third edict from Ferdinand, commanding the arrest and imprisonment of the
pastors. All except three saved themselves by a speedy flight. The greater part escaped to
Moravia; but many remained near the frontier, lying hid in woods and caves, and venturing
forth at night to visit their former flocks and to dispense the Sacrament in private
houses, and so to keep the sacred flame from going out in Bohemia.
The three ministers who failed to make their escape were John Augusta, James Bilke, and
George Israel, all men of note. Augusta had learned his theology at the feet of Luther.
Courageous and eloquent, he was the terror of the Calixtines, whom he had often vanquished
in debate, and "they rejoiced," says Comenins, "when they learned his
arrest, as the Philistines did when Samson was delivered bound into their hands." He
and his colleague Bilke were thrown into a deep dungeon in the Castle of Prague, and,
being accused of conspiring to dispose Ferdinand, and place John, Elector of Saxony, on
the throne of Bohemia, they were put to the torture, but without eliciting anything which
their persecutors could construe into treason. Seventeen solitary and sorrowful years
passed over them in prison. Nor was it till the death of Ferdinand, in 1564, opened their
prison doors that they were restored to liberty. George Israel, by a marvellous
providence, escaped from the dungeon of the castle, and fleeing into Prussia, he
afterwards preached with great success the Gospel in Poland, where he established not
fewer than twenty churches.[14]
Many of the nobles shared with the ministers in these sufferings. John
Prostiborsky, a man of great learning, beautiful life, and heroic spirit, was put to a
cruel death. On the rack he bit out his tongue and cast it at his tormentors, that he
might not, as he afterwards declared in writing, be led by the torture falsely to accuse
either himself or his brethren. He cited the king and his councillors to answer for their
tyranny at the tribunal of God. Ferdinand, desirous if possible to save his life, sent him
a physician; but he sank under his tortures, and died in prison.[15]
Finding that, in spite of the banishment of pastors, and the execution of nobles,
Protestantism was still extending, Ferdinand called the Jesuits to his aid. The first to
arrive was Wenzel Sturm, who had been trained by Ignatius Loyola himself. Sturm was
learned, courteous, adroit, and soon made himself popular in Prague, where he labored,
with a success equal to his zeal, to revive the decaying cause of Rome. He was soon joined
by a yet more celebrated member of the order, Canisius, and a large and sumptuous edifice
having been assigned them as a college, they began to train priests who might be able to
take their place in the pulpit as well as at the altar; "for at that time," says
Pessina, a Romish writer, "there were so few orthodox priests that, had it not been
for the Jesuits, the Catholic religion would have been suppressed in Bohemia."[16] The Jesuits grew powerful in
Prague. They eschewed public disputations; they affected great zeal. for the instruction
of youth in the sciences; and their fame for learning drew crowds of pupils around them.
When they had filled all their existing schools, they erected others; and thus their
seminaries rapidly multiplied, "so that the Catholic verity," in the words of
the author last quoted, "which in Bohemia was on the point of breathing its last,
appeared to revive again, and rise publicly."
Toward the close of his reign, Ferdinand became somewhat less zealous in the cause of
Rome. Having succeeded to the imperial crown on the abdication of his brother, Charles V.,
he had wider interests to care for, and less time, as well as less inclination, to
concentrate his attention on Bohemia. It is even said that before his death he expressed
his sincere regret for his acts of oppression against his Bohemian subjects; and to do the
monarch justice, these severities were the outcome, not of a naturally cruel disposition,
but rather of his Spanish education, which had been conducted under the superintendence of
the stern Cardinal Ximenes.[17]
Under his son and successor, Maximilian II., the sword of persecution was sheathed.
This prince had for his instructor John Fauser, a man of decided piety, and a lover of the
Protestant doctrine, the principles of which he took care to instil into the mind of his
royal pupil. For this Fauser had nearly paid the penalty of his life. One day Ferdinand,
in a fit of rage, burst into his chamber, and seizing him by the throat, and putting a
drawn sword to his breast, upbraided him for seducing his son from the true faith.
The king forbore, however, from murdering him, and was content with commanding his son no
further to receive his instructions. Maximilian was equally fortunate in his physician,
Crato. He also loved the Gospel, and, enjoying the friendship of the monarch, he was able
at times to do service to the "Brethren." Under this gentle and upright prince
the Bohemian Protestants were accorded full liberty, and their Churches flourished. The
historian Thaunus relates a striking incident that occurred in the third year of his
reign. The enemies of the Bohemians, having concocted a new plot, sent the Chancellor of
Bohemia, Joachim Neuhaus, to Vienna, to persuade the emperor to renew the old edicts
against the Protestants. The artful insinuations of the chancellor prevailed over the easy
temper of the monarch, and Maximilian, although with great distress of mind, put his hand
to the hostile mandate. "But," says the old chronicler, "God had a watchful
eye over his own, and would not permit so good and innocent a prince to have a hand in
blood, or be burdened with the cries of the oppressed."[18] Joachim, overjoyed, set out on his journey homeward, the fatal
missives that were to lay waste the Bohemian Church carefully deposited in his chest. He
was crossing the bridge of the Danube when the oxen broke loose from his carriage, and the
bridge breaking at the same instant, the chancellor and his suite were precipitated into
the river. Six knights struck out and swam ashore; the rest of the attendants were
drowned. The chancellor was seized hold of by his gold chain as he was floating on the
current of the Danube, and was kept partially above water till some fishermen, who were
near the scene of the accident, had time to come to the rescue. He was drawn from the
water into their boat, but found to be dead. The box containing the letters patent sank in
the deep floods of the Danube, and was never seen more — nor, indeed, was it ever
sought for. Thaunus says that this catastrophe happened on the fourth of the Ides of
December, 1565.
In Maximilian's reign, a measure was passed that helped to consolidate the Protestantism
of Bohemia. In 1575, the king assembled a Parliament at Prague, which enacted that all the
Churches in the kingdom which received the Sacrament under both kinds — that is, the
Utraquists or Calixtines, the Bohemian Brethren, the Lutherans, and the Calvinists or
Picardines — were at liberty to draw up a common Confession of their faith, and unite
into one Church. In spite of the efforts of the Jesuits, the leading pastors of the four
communions consulted together and, animated by a spirit of moderation and wisdom, they
compiled a common creed, in the Bohemian language, which, although never rendered into
Latin, nor printed till 1619, and therefore not to be found in the "Harmony of
Confessions," was ratified by the king, who promised his protection to the
subscribers, had this Confession been universally signed, it would have been a bulwark of
strength to the Bohemian Protestants.[19]
The reign of the Emperor Maximilian came all too soon to an end. He died in 1576,
leaving a name dear to the Protestants and venerated by all parties.
Entirely different in disposition and character was his son, the Emperor Rudolph II., by
whom he was succeeded. Educated at the court of his cousin Philip II., Rudolph brought
back to his native dominions the gloomy superstitions and the tyrannical maxims that
prevailed in the Escorial. Nevertheless, the Bohemian Churches were left in peace. Their
sleepless foes were ever and anon intriguing to procure some new and hostile edict from
the king; but Rudolph was too much engrossed in the study of astrology and alchemy to
pursue steadily any one line of policy, and so these edicts slept. His brother Matthias
was threatening his throne; this made it necessary to conciliate all classes of his
subjects; hence originated the famous Majestats-Brief, one object of which was to empower
the Protestants in Bohemia to open churches and schools wherever they pleased. This
"Royal Charter," moreover, made over to them [20] the University of Prague, and permitted them to appoint a public
administrator of their affairs. It was in virtue of this last very important concession
that the Protestant Church of Bohemia now attained more nearly than ever, before or since,
to a perfect union and a settled government.
CHAPTER 8 Back to Top
OVERTHROW OF PROTESTANTISM IN BOHEMIA.
Protestantism Flourishes — Constitution of Bohemian. Church — Its Government
— Concord between Romanists and Protestants — Temple of Janus Shut — Joy of
Bohemia — Matthias Emperor — Election of Ferdinand II. as King of Bohemia —
Reaction — Intrigues and Insults — Council-chamber — Three Councillors
Thrown out at the Window — Ferdinand II. elected Emperor — War — Battle of
the White Hill — Defeat of the Protestants — Atrocities — Amnesty —
Apprehension of Nobles and Senators — Their Frightful Sentences -Their Behaviour on
the Scaffold — Their Deaths.
The Protestant Church of Bohemia, now in her most flourishing
condition, deserves some attention. That Church was composed of the three following
bodies: the Calixtines, the United Brethren, and the Protestants that is, the Lutheran and
Calvinist communions. These three formed one Church under the Bohemian Confession —
to which reference has been made in the previous chapter. A Consistory, or Table of
Government, was constituted, consisting of twelve ministers chosen in the following
manner: three were selected from the Calixtines, three from the United Brethren, and three
from the Lutheran and Calvinistic communions, to whom were added three professors from the
univensity. These twelve men were to manage the affairs of their Church in all Bohemia.
The Consistory thus constituted was entirely independent of the archiepiscopal chair in
Prague.
It was even provided in the Royal Charter that the Consistory should "direct,
constitute, or reform anything among their Churches without hindrance or interference of
his Imperial Majesty." In case they were unable to determine any matter among
themselves, they were at liberty to advise with his Majesty's councillors of state, and
with the judges, or with the Diet, the Protestant members of which were exclusively to
have the power of deliberating on and determining the matter so referred, "without
hindrance, either from their Majesties the future Kings of Bohemia, or the party sub una
" — that is, the Romanist members of the Diet.[1]
From among these twelve ministers, one was to be chosen to fill the office of
administrator. He was chief in the Consistory, and the rest sat with him as assessors. The
duty of this body was to determine in all matters appertaining to the doctrine and worship
of the Church — the dispensation of Sacraments, the ordination of ministers, the
inspection of the clergy, the administration of discipline, to which was added the care of
widows and orphans. There was, moreover, a body of laymen, termed Defenders, who were
charged with the financial and secular affairs of the Church.
Still further to strengthen the Protestant Church of Bohemia, and to secure the peace of
the kingdom, a treaty was concluded between the Romanists and Protestants, in which these
two parties bound themselves to mutual concord, and agreed to certain rules which were to
regulate their relations to one another as regarded the possession of churches, the right
of burial in the public cemeteries, and similar matters. This agreement was entered upon
the registers of the kingdom; it was sworn to by the Emperor Rudolph and his councillors;
it was laid up among the other solemn charters of the nation, and a protest taken that if
hereafter any one should attempt to disturb this arrangement, or abridge the liberty
conceded in it, he should be held to be a disturber of the peace of the kingdom, and
punished accordingly.[2]
Thus did the whole nation unite in closing the doors of the Temple of Janus, in
token that now there was peace throughout the whole realm of Bohemia. Another most
significant and fitting act signalized this happy time. The Bethlehem Chapel-the scene of
the ministry of John Huss — the spot where that day had dawned which seemed now to
have reached its noon — was handed over to the Protestants as a public recognition
that they were the true offspring of the great Reformer and martyr. Bohemia may be said to
be now Protestant. "Religion flourished throughout the whole kingdom," says
Comenius, "so that there was scarcely one among a hundred who did not profess the
Reformed doctrine." The land was glad; and the people's joy found vent in such
unsophisticated couplets as the following, which might be read upon the doors of the
churches: —
But even in the hour of triumph there were some who felt
anxiety for the future. They already saw ominous symptoms that the tranquillity would not
be lasting. The great security which the Church now enjoyed had brought with it a
relaxation of morals, and a decay of piety. "Alas!" said the more thoughtful,
"we shall yet feel the mailed hand of some Ferdinand." It was a true presage;
the little cloud was even now appearing on the horizon that was rapidly to blacken into
the tempest.
The Archduke Matthias renewed his claims upon the crown of Bohemia, and supporting them by
arms, he ultimately deposed his brother Rudolph, and seated himself upon his throne.
Matthias was old and had no son, and he bethought him of adopting his cousin Ferdinand,
Duke or Styria, who had been educated in a bigoted attachment to the Roman faith. Him
Matthias persuaded the Bohemians to crown as their king. They knew something of the man
whom they were calling to reign over them, but they relied on the feeble security of his
promise not to interfere in religious matters while Matthias lived. It soon became
apparent that Ferdinand had sworn to the Bohemians with the mouth, and to the Pope with
the heart. Their old enemies no longer hung their heads, but began to walk about with
front erect, and eyes that presaged victory. The principal measures brought to bear
against the Protestants were the work of the college of the Jesuits and the cathedral. The
partisans of Ferdinand openly declared that the Royal Charter, having been extorted from
the monarch, was null and void; that although Matthias was too weak to tear in pieces that
rag of old parchment, the pious Ferdinand would make short work with this bond.
By little and little the persecution was initiated. The Protestants were forbidden to
print a single line except with the approbation of the chancellor, while their opponents
were circulating without let or hindrance, far and near, pamphlets filled with the most
slanderous accusations. The pastors were asked to produce the original titles of the
churches in their possession; in short, the device painted upon the triumphal arch, which
the Jesuits had erected at Olmutz in honor of Ferdinand - namely, the Bohemian lion and
the Moravian eagle chained to Austria, and underneath a sleeping hare with open eyes, and
the words "I am used to it"[4] — expressed the consummate craft with which the Jesuits had
worked, and the criminal drowsiness into which the Bohemians had permitted themselves to
fall.[5]
No method was left unattempted against the Protestants. It was sought by secret
intrigue to invade their rights, and by open injury to sting them into insurrection. At
last, in 1618, they rushed to arms. A few of the principal barons having met to consult on
the steps to be taken in this crisis of their affairs, a sudden mandate arrived forbidding
their meeting under pain of death. This flagrant violation of the Royal Charter, following
on the destruction of several of their churches, irritated the Reformed party beyond
endurance. Their anger was still more inflamed by the reflection that these bolts came not
from Vienna, but from the Castle of Prague, where they had been forged by the junto whose
head-quarters were at the Hardschin. Assembling an armed force the Protestants crossed the
Moldau, climbed the narrow street, and presented themselves before the Palace of
Hardschin, that crowns the height on which New Prague is built. They marched right into
the council-chamber, and seizing on Slarata, Martinitz, and Secretary Fabricius, whom they
believed to be the chief authors of their troubles, they threw them headlong out of the
window. Falling on a heap of soft earth, sprinkled over with torn papers, the councilors
sustained no harm. "They have been saved by miracle," said their friends.
"No," replied the Protestants, "they have been spared to be a scourge to
Bohemia." Tiffs deed was followed by one less violent, but more wise - the expulsion
of the Jesuits, who were forbidden under pain of death to return.[6]
The issue was war; but the death of Matthias, which happened at this moment,
delayed for a little while its outbreak. The Bohemian States met to deliberate whether
they should continue to own Ferdinand after his flagrant violation of the Majestats-Brief.
They voted him no longer their sovereign. The imperial electors were then sitting at
Frankfort-on-the-Maine to choose a new emperor. The Bohemians sent an ambassador thither
to say that they had deposed Ferdinand, and to beg the electors not to recognize him as
King of Bohemia by admitting him to a seat in the electoral college. Not only did the
electors admit Ferdinand as still sovereign of Bohemia, but they conferred upon him the
vacant diadem.
The Bohemians saw that they were in an evil case. The bigoted Ferdinand, whom they had
made more their enemy than ever by repudiating him as their king, was now the head of the
"Holy Roman Empire."
The Bohemians had gone too far to retreat. They could not prevent the electors conferring
the imperial diadem upon Ferdinand, but they were resolved that he should never wear the
crown of Bohemia. They chose Frederick, Elector-Palatine, as their sovereign. He was a
Calvinist, son-in-law of James I. of England; and five days after his arrival in Prague,
he and his consort were crowned with very great pomp, and took possession of the palace.
Scarcely had the bells ceased to ring, and the cannon to thunder, by which the coronation
was celebrated, when the nation and the new monarch were called to look in the face the
awful struggle they had invited. Ferdinand, raising a mighty army, was already on his
march to chastise Bohemia. On the road to Prague he took several towns inhabited by
Protestants, and put the citizens to the sword. Advancing to the capital he encamped on
the White Hill, and there a decisive battle was fought on the 8th of November, 1620. [7] The Protestant army was
completely beaten; the king, whom the unwelcome tidings interrupted at his dinner, fled;
and Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia lay prostrated at the feet of the conqueror. The
generals of Ferdinand entered Prague, "the conqueror promising to keep
articles," says the chronicler, "but afterwards performing them according to the
manner of the Council at Constance."
The ravages committed by the soldiery were most frightful. Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia
were devastated. Villages were set on fire, cities were pillaged, churches, schools, and
dwellings pulled down; the inhabitants were slaughtered, matrons and maidens violated;
neither the child in its cradle nor the corpse in its grave was spared. Prague was given
as a spoil, and the soldiers boasted that they had gathered some millions from the
Protestants; nor, large as the sum is, is it an unlikely one, seeing that all the
valuables in the country had been collected for security into the capital.
But by far the most melancholy result of this battle was the overthrow, as sudden as it
was complete, of the Protestantism of Bohemia. The position of the two parties was after
this completely reversed; the Romanists were now the masters; and the decree went forth to
blot out utterly Protestant Bohemia. Not by the sword, the halter, and the wheel in the
first instance. The Jesuits were recalled, and the work was committed to them, and so
skillfully did they conduct it that Bohemia, which had been almost entirely Protestant
when Ferdinand II ascended the throne, was at the close of his reign almost as entirely
Popish. No nation, perhaps, ever underwent so great a change in the short term of fifteen
years as Bohemia.
Instead of setting up the scaffold at once, the conquerors published an amnesty to all who
should lay down their arms. The proclamation was as welcome as it was unexpected, and many
were caught, who otherwise would have saved their lives by flight. Some came out of their
hiding places in the neighborhood, and some returned from distant countries. For three
months the talk was only of peace. It was the sweet piping of the fowler till the birds
were snared. At length came the doleful 20th of February, 1621.
On that evening fifty chiefs of the Bohemian nation were seized and thrown into prison.
The capture was made at the supper-hour. The time was chosen as the likeliest for finding
every one at home. The city captains entered the house, a wagon waited at the door, and
the prisoners were ordered to enter it, and were driven off to the Tower of Prague, or the
prisons of the magistrate. The thing was done stealthily and swiftly; the silence of the
night was not broken, and Prague knew not the blow that had fallen upon it.
The men now swept off to prison were the persons of deepest piety and highest intelligence
in the land. In short, they were the flower of the Bohemian nation.[8] They had passed their youth in
the study of useful arts, or in the practice of arms, or in foreign travel. Their manhood
had been devoted to the service of their country. They had been councilors of state,
ambassadors, judges, or professors in the university. It was the wisdom, the experience,
and the courage which they had brought to the defense of their nation's liberty, and the
promotion of its Reformation, especially in the recent times of trouble, which had drawn
upon them the displeasure of the emperor. The majority were nobles and barons, and all of
them were venerable by age.
On the Clay after the transaction we have recorded, writs were issued summoning all now
absent from the kingdom to appear within six weeks. When the period expired they were
again summoned by a herald, but no one appearing, they were proclaimed traitors, and their
heads were declared forfeit to the law, and their estates to the king. Their execution was
gone through in their absence by the nailing of their names to the gallows. On the day
following sentence was passed on the heirs of all who had fallen in the insurrection, and
their properties passed over to the royal exchequer.[9]
In prison the patriots were strenuously urged to beg pardon and sue for life. But,
conscious of no crime, they refused to compromise the glory of their cause by doing
anything that might be construed into a confession of guilt. Despairing of their
submission, their enemies proceeded with their trial in May. Count Schlik, while
undergoing his examination, became wearied out with the importunities of his judges and
inquisitors, who tried to make hint confess what had never existed. He tore open. his
vest, and laying bare his breast, exclaimed, "Tear this body in pieces, and examine
my heart; nothing shall you find but what we have already declared in our Apology. The
love of liberty and religion alone constrained us to draw the sword; but seeing God has
permitted the emperor's sword to conquer, and has delivered us into your hands, His will
be done." Budowa and Otto Losz, two of his co-patriots, expressed themselves to the
same effect, adding, "Defeat has made our cause none the worse, and victory has made
yours none the better."[10]
On Saturday, the 19th of June, the judges assembled in the Palace of Hardschin, and
the prisoners, brought before them one by one, heard each his sentence. The majority were
doomed to die, some were consigned to perpetual imprisonment, and others were sent into
exile. Ferdinand, that he might have an opportunity of appearing more clement and gracious
than his judges, ordered the sentences to be sent to Vienna, where some of them were
mitigated in their details by the royal pen. We take an instance: Joachim Andreas Schlik,
whose courageous reply to his examiners we have already quoted, was to have had his hand
cut off, then to have been beheaded and quartered, and his limbs exposed on a stake at a
cross-road; but this sentence was changed by Ferdinand to beheading, and the affixing of
his head and hand to the tower of the Bridge of Prague. The sentences of nearly all the
rest were similarly dealt with by the merciful monarch.
The condemned were told that they were to die within two days, that is, on the 21st of
June. This intimation was made to them that they might have a Jesuit, or a Capuchin, or a
clergyman of the Augsburg Confession, to prepare them for death. They were now led back to
prison: the noblemen were conducted to the Castle of Prague, and the citizens to the
prisons of the printer. Some "fellows of the baser sort," suborned for the
purpose, insulted them as they were being led through the streets, crying out, "Why
don't you now sing, 'The Lord reigneth'?" The ninety-ninth Psalm was a favorite ode
of the Bohemians, wherewith they had been wont to kindle their devotion in the sanctuary,
and their courage on the battlefield.
Scarcely had they reentered their prisons when a flock [11] of Jesuits and Capuchin monks, not waiting till they were called,
gathered round them, and began to earnestly beseech them to change their religion, holding
out the hope that even yet their lives might be spared. Not wishing that hours so precious
as the few that now remained to them should be wasted, they gave the intruders plainly to
understand that they were but losing their pains, whereupon the good Fathers withdrew,
loudly bewailing their obstinacy, and calling heaven and earth to witness that they were
guiltless of the blood of men who had put away from them the grace of God. The Protestant
ministers were next introduced. The barons and nobles in the tower were attended by the
minister of St. Nicholas, Rosacius by name. The citizens in the prisons of Old Prague were
waited on by Werbenius and Jakessius, and those in New Prague by Clement and Hertwiz. The
whole time till the hour of execution was spent in religious exercises, in sweet converse,
in earnest prayers, and in the singing of psalms. "Lastly," says the chronicler
of the persecutions of the Bohemian Church, "they did prepare the holy martyrs by the
administration of the Lord's Supper for the future agony."
On the evening of Sunday, as the prisoners shut up in Old Prague were conversing with
their pastor Werbenius, the chief gaoler entered and announced the hour of supper. They
looked at each other, and all declared that they desired to eat no more on earth.
Nevertheless, that their bodies might not be faint when they should be led out to
execution, they agreed to sit down at table and partake of something. One laid the cloth,
another the plates, a third brought water to wash, a fourth said grace, and a fifth
observed that this was their last meal on earth, and that tomorrow they should sit down
and sup with Christ in heaven. The remark was overheard by the Prefect of Old Prague. On
going out to his friends he observed jeeringly, "What think ye? These men believe
that Christ keeps cooks to regale them in heaven!" On these words being told to
Jakessius, the minister, he replied that "Jesus too had a troublesome spectator at
his last supper, Judas Iscariot."
Meanwhile they were told that the barons and noblemen were passing from the tower to the
courthouse, near to the market-place, where the scaffold on which they were to die had
already been erected. They hastened to the windows, and began to sing in a loud voice the
forty-fourth Psalm to cheer their fellow-martyrs: "Yea, for thy sake we are killed
all the day long; ... Rise, Lord, cast us not off for ever." A great crowd, struck
with consternation at seeing their greatest and most venerated men led to death, followed
them with sighs and tears.
This night was spent as the preceding one had been, in prayers and psalms. They exhorted
one another to be of good courage, saying that as the glory of going first in the path of
martyrdom had been awarded them, it behooved them to leave an example of constancy to
their posterity, and of courage to the world, by showing it that they did not fear to die.
They then joined in singing the eighty-sixth Psalm. When it was ended, John Kutnauer
turned the last stanza into a prayer, earnestly beseeching God that he would "show
some token which might at once strengthen them and convince their enemies." Then
turning to his companions, and speaking to them with great fervor of spirit, he said,
"Be of good cheer, for God hath heard us even in this, and tomorrow he will bear
witness by some visible sign that we are the martyrs of righteousness." But Pastor
Werbenius, when he heard this protestation, bade them be content to have as sufficient
token from God, even this, "that that death which was bitter to the world he made
sweet to them."
When the day had broken they washed and changed their clothes, putting on clean apparel as
if they were going to a wedding, and so fitting their doublets, and even their frills,
that they might not need to re-arrange their dress on the scaffold. All the while John
Kutnauer was praying fervently that some token might be vouchsafed them as a testimony of
their innocence. In a little the sun rose, and the broad stream of the Moldau, as it
rolled between the two Pragues, and the roofs and steeples on either side, began to glow
in the light. But soon all eyes were turned upwards. A bow of dazzling brilliance was seen
spanning the heavens.[12] There
was not a cloud in the sky, no rain had fallen for two days, yet there was this bow of
marvelous brightness hung in the clear air. The soldiers and townspeople rushed into the
street to gaze at the strange phenomenon. The martyrs, who beheld it from their windows,
called to mind the bow which greeted the eyes of Noah when he came forth from the Ark. It
was the ancient token of a faithfulness more steadfast than the pillars of earth;[13] and their feelings in witnessing
it were doubtless akin to those with which the second great father of the human family
beheld it for the first time in the young skies of the post-diluvian world.
The bow soon ceased to be seen, and the loud discharge of a cannon told them that the hour
of execution hail arrived. The martyrs arose, and embracing, they bade each other be of
good cheer, as did also the ministers present, who exhorted them not to faint now when
about to receive the crown. The scaffold had been erected hard by in the great square or
market-place, and several squadrons of cavalry and some companies of foot were now seen
taking up their position around it. The imperial judges and senators next came forward and
took their seats on a theater, whence riley could command a full view of the scaffold.
Under a canopy of state sat Lichtenstein, the Governor of Prague. "Vast numbers of
spectators," says Comenius, "crowded the market-place, the streets, and all the
houses."
The martyrs were called to go forth and die one after the other. When one had offered his
life the city officers returned and summoned the next. As if called to a banquet they rose
with alacrity, and with faces on which shone a serene cheerfulness they walked to the
bloody stage. All of them submitted with undaunted courage to the stroke of the headsman.
Rosacius, who was with them all the while, noted down their words, and he tells us that
when one was called to go to the scaffold he would address the rest as follows: "Most
beloved friends, farewell. God give you the comfort of his Spirit, patience, and courage,
that what before you confessed with the heart, the mouth, and the hand, you may now seal
by your glorious death. Behold I go before you, that I may see the glory of my Lord Jesus
Christ! You will follow, that we may together behold the face of our Father. This hour
ends our sorrow, and begins our everlasting joy." To whom those who remained behind
would make answer and say, "May God, to whom you go, prosper your journey, and grant
you a happy passage from this vale of misery into the heavenly country. May the Lord Jesus
send his angels to meet thee. Go, brother, before us to our Father's house; we follow
thee. Presently we shall reassemble in that heavenly glory of which we are confident
through him in whom we have believed."[14]
The beaming faces and meek yet courageous utterances of these men on the scaffold,
exhibited to the spectators a more certain token of the goodness of their cause than the
bow which had attracted their wondering gaze in the morning. Many of the senators, as well
as the soldiers who guarded the execution, were moved to tears; nor could the crowd have
withheld the same tribute, had not the incessant beating of drums, and the loud blaring of
trumpets, drowned the words spoken on the scaffold.
But these words were noted down by their pastors, who accompanied them to the block, and
as the heroism of the scaffold is a spectacle more sublime, and one that will better repay
an attentive study, than the heroism of the battlefield, we shall permit these
martyr-patriots to pass before us one by one. The clamor that drowned their dying words
has long since been hushed; and the voices of the scaffold of Prague, rising clear and
loud above the momentary noise, have traveled down the years to us.
CHAPTER 9 Back to Top
AN ARMY OF MARTYRS.
Count Schlik — His Cruel Sentence — The Baron of Budowa — His Last Hours
— Argues with the Jesuits — His Execution — Christopher Harant — His
Travels — His Death — Baron Kaplirz — His Dream — Attires himself for
the Scaffold — Procopius Dworschezky — His Martyrdom — Otto Losz — His
Sleep and Execution — Dionysius Czernin — His Behaviour on the Scaffold —
Kochan — Steffek — Jessenius — His Learning — His Interview with the
Jesuits — Cruel Death — Khobr — Schulz — Kutnauer — His great
Courage — His Death — Talents and Rank of these Martyrs — Their Execution
the Obsequies of their Country.
JOACHIM ANDREAS SCHLIK, Count of Passau, and chief justice
under Frederick, comes first in the glorious host that is to march past us. He was
descended of an ancient and illustrious family. A man of magnanimous spirit, and excellent
piety, he united an admirable modesty with great business capacity. When he heard his
sentence, giving his body to be quartered, and his limbs to be exposed at a cross-road, he
said, "The loss of a sepulchre is a small matter." On hearing the gun in the
morning fired to announce the executions, "This," said he, "is the signal;
let me go first."
He walked to the scaffold, dressed in a robe of black silk, holding a prayer-book in his
hands, and attended by four German clergymen.[1] He mounted the scaffold, and then marking the great brightness of
the sun, he broke out, "Christ, thou Sun of righteousness, grant that through the
darkness of death I may pass into the eternal light." He paced to and fro a little
while upon the scaffold, evidently meditating, but with a serene and dignified
countenance, so that the judges could scarce refrain from weeping. Having prayed, his page
assisted him to undress, and then he kneeled down on a black cloth laid there for the
purpose, and which was removed after each execution, that the next to die might not see
the blood of the victim who had preceded him. While engaged in silent prayer, the
executioner struck, and the head of Bohemia's greatest son rolled on the scaffold. His
right hand was then struck off and, together with his head, 'was fixed on a spear, and set
up on the tower of the Bridge of Prague. His body, untouched by the executioner, was
wrapped in a cloth, and carried from the scaffold by four men in black masks.
Scarcely inferior in weight of character, and superior in the variety of his mental
accomplishments to Count Schlik, was the second who was called to die — Wenceslaus,
Baron of Budown. He was a man of incomparable talents and great learning, which he had
further improved by travelling through all the kingdoms of Western and Southern Europe. He
had filled the highest offices of the State under several monarchs. Protestant writers
speak of him as "the glory of his country, and the bright shining star of the Church,
and as rather the father than the lord of his dependents." The Romanist historian,
Pelzel, equally extols his uprightness of character and his renown in learning. When urged
in prison to beg the clemency of Ferdinand, he replied, "I will rather die than see
the ruin of my country."
When one told him that it was rumored of him that he had died of grief, he exclaimed,
"Died of grief ! I never experienced such happiness as now. See here," said he,
pointing to his Bible, "this is my paradise; never did it regale me with such store
of delicious fruits as now. Here I daily stray, eating the manna of heaven, and drinking
the water of life." On the third day before receiving his sentence he dreamed that he
was walking in a pleasant meadow, and musing on the issue that might be awaiting his
affairs, when lo! one came to him, and gave him a book, which when he had opened, he found
the leaves were of silk, white as snow, with nothing written upon them save the fifth
verse of the thirty-seventh Psalm:
"Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to
pass." While he was pondering over these words there came yet another, carrying a
white robe, which he cast over him. When he awoke in the morning he told his dream to his
servant. Some days after, when he mounted the scaffold, "Now," said he, "I
attire myself in the white robe of my Savior's righteousness."
Early on the morning of his execution there came two Jesuits to him, who, complimenting
him on his great learning, said that they desired to do him a work of mercy by gaining his
soul. "Would," he said, "you were as sure of your salvation as I am of
mine, through the blood of the Lamb." "Good, my lord," said they, "but
do not presume too much; for doth not the Scripture say, 'No man knoweth whether he
deserves grace or wrath'?"
"Where find you that written?" he asked; "here is the Bible, show me the
words." "If I be not deceived," said one of them, "in the Epistle of
Paul to Timothy." "You would teach me the way of salvation," said the baron
somewhat angrily, "thou who knowest thy Bible so in. But that the believer may be
sure of his salvation is proved by the words of St. Paul, 'I know whom I have believed,'
and also, 'there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.'" "But,"
rejoined the Jesuit, "Paul says this of himself, not of others." "Thou art
mistaken," said Budowa, "for it continues, 'not for me only, but for all them
who love his appearing.' Depart, and leave me in peace."
He ascended the scaffold with undaunted look, and stroking his long white beard — for
he was a man of seventy — he said, "Behold! my gray hairs, what honor awaits
you; this day you shall be crowned with martyrdom." After this he directed his speech
to God, praying for the Church, for his country, for his enemies, and having commended his
soul to Christ he yielded his head to the executioner's sword. That head was exposed by
the side of that of his fellow patriot and martyr, Schlik, on the tower of the Bridge of
Prague.
The third who was called to ascend the scaffold was Christopher Harant, descended from the
ancient and noble family of the Harants of Polzicz and Bezdruzicz. He had traveled in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, visiting Jerusalem and Egypt, and publishing in his native
tongue his travels in these various lands. He cultivated the sciences, wrote Greek and
Latin verses, and had filled high office under several emperors. Neither his many
accomplishments nor his great services could redeem his life from the block. When called
to die he said, "I have traveled in many countries, and among many barbarous nations,
I have undergone dangers manifold by land and sea, and now I suffer, though innocent, in
my own country, and by the hands of those for whose good both my ancestors and myself have
spent our fortunes and our lives. Father, forgive them." When he went forth, he
prayed, "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust; let me not be confounded."
When he stepped upon the scaffold he lifted up his eyes, and said, "Into thy hands, O
Lord, I commend my spirit." Taking off his doublet, he stepped upon the fatal doth,
and kneeling down, again prayed. The executioner from some cause delaying to strike, he
again broke out into supplication, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me, and
receive my spirit." The sword now fell, and his prayer and life ended together.[2]
The fourth to offer up his life was Gaspar, Baron Kaplirz of Sulowitz, a knight of
eighty-six years of age. He had faithfully served four emperors. Before going to the
scaffold he called for Rosacius, and said, "How often have I entreated that God would
be pleased to take me out of this life, but instead of granting my wish, he has reserved
me as a sacrifice for himself. Let God's will be done." "Yesterday," said
he, continuing his speech, "I was told that if I would petition Prince Lichtenstein
for pardon my life would be spared. I never offended the prince: I will desire pardon of
Him against whom I have committed many sins. I have lived long enough. When I cannot
distinguish the taste of meats, or relish the sweetness of drinks; when it is tedious to
sit long, and irksome to lie; when I cannot walk unless I lean on a staff, or be assisted
by others, what profit would such a life be to me? God forbid that I should be pulled from
this holy company of martyrs."
On the day of execution, when the minister who was to attend him to the scaffold came to
him, he said, "I laid this miserable body on a bed, but what sleep could so old a man
have? Yet I did sleep, and saw two angels coming to me, who wiped my face with fine linen,
and bade me make ready to go along with them. But I trust in my God that I have these
angels present with me, not by a dream, but in truth, who minister to me while I live, and
shall carry my soul from the scaffold to the bosom of Abraham. For although I am a sinner,
yet am I purged by the blood of my Redeemer, who was made a propitiation for our
sins."
Having put on his usual attire, he made a robe of the finest linen be thrown over him,
covering his entire person. "Behold, I put on my wedding garment," he said.
Being called, he arose, put on a velvet cloak, bade adieu to all, and went forth at a slow
pace by reason of his great age. Fearing lest in mounting the scaffold he should fall, and
his enemies flout him, he craved permission of the minister to lean upon him when
ascending the steps. Being come to the fatal spot, he had much ado to kneel down, and his
head hung so low that the executioner feared to do his office. "My lord," said
Pastor Rosacius, "as you have commended your soul to Christ, do you now lift up
yourself toward heaven." he raised himself up, saying, "Lord Jesus, into thy
hands I commend my spirit." The executioner now gave his stroke, his gray head sank,
and his body lay prostrate on the scaffold.[3]
The fifth to fall beneath the executioner's sword was Procopius Dworschezky, of
Olbramowitz On receiving his sentence he said, "If the emperor promises himself
anything when my head is off, let it be so." On passing before the judges he said,
"Tell the emperor, as I now stand at his tribunal, the day comes when he shall stand
before the judgment-seat of God." He was proceeding in his address, when the drums
beat and drowned his words. When he had undressed for the executioner, he took out his
purse containing a Hungarian ducat, and gave it to the minister who attended him, saying,
"Behold my last riches! these are unprofitable to me, I resign them to you." A
gold medal of Frederick's coronation, that hung round his neck, he gave to a bystander,
saying, "When my dear King Frederick shall sit again upon his throne, give it to him,
and tell him that I wore it on my breast till the day of my death." He kneeled down,
and the sword falling as he was praying, his spirit ascended with his last words to God.[4]
Otto Losz, Lord of Komarow, came next. A man of great parts, he had traveled much,
and discharged many important offices. When he received his sentence he said, "I have
seen barbarous nations, but what cruelty is this! Well, let them send one part of me to
Rome, another to Spain, another to Turkey, and throw the fourth into the sea, yet will my
Redeemer bring my body together, and cause me to see him with these eyes, praise him with
this mouth, and love him with this heart." When Rosacius entered to tell him that he
was called to the scaffold, "he rose hastily out of his seat," says Comenius,
"like one in an ecstasy, saying, 'O, how I rejoice to see you, that I may tell you
what has happened to me! As I sat here grieving that I had not one of my own communion
[the United Brethren] to dispense the Eucharist to me, I fell asleep, and behold my Savior
appeared unto me, and said, 'I purify thee with my blood,' and then infused a drop of his
blood into my heart; at the feeling of this I awaked, and leaped for joy: now I understand
what that is, Believe, and thou hast eaten. I fear death no longer."
As he went on his way to the scaffold, Rosacius said to him, "That Jesus who appeared
to you in your sleep, will now appear to you in his glory." "Yes," replied
the martyr, "he will meet me with his angels, and conduct me into the
banqueting-chamber of an everlasting marriage." Being come to the scaffold, he fell
on his face, and prayed in silence. Then rising up, he yielded himself to the executioner.
He was followed on the scaffold by Dionysius Czernin, of Chudenitz. This sufferer was a
Romanist, but his counsels not pleasing the Jesuits, he fell under the suspicion of
heresy; and it is probable that the Fathers were not sorry to see hint condemned, for his
death served as a pretext for affirming that these executions were for political, not
religious causes.
When the other prisoners were declaring their faith, Czernin protested that this was his
faith also, and that in this faith did he die. When the others received the Lord's Supper,
he stood by dissolved in tears, praying most fervently, he was offered the Eucharistic
cup; but smiting on his breast, and sighing deeply, he said, "I rest in that grace
which hath come unto me." He was led to the scaffold by a canon and a Jesuit, but
gave small heed to their exhortations. Declining the "kiss of peace," and
turning his back upon the crucifix, he fell on his face, and prayed softly. Then raising
himself, and looking up into the heavens, he said, "They can kill the body, they
cannot kill the soul; that, O Lord Jesus, I commend to thee," and died.
There followed other noblemen, whose behavior on the scaffold was equally courageous, and
whose dying words were equally impressive, but to record them all would unnecessarily
prolong our narration. We take a few examples from among the citizens whose blood was
mingled with that of the nobles in defense of the religion and liberty of their native
land. Valentine Kochan, a learned man, a Governor of the University, and Secretary of
Prague, protested, when Ferdinand II was thrust upon them, that no king should be elected
without the consent of Moravia and Silesia. This caused him to be marked out for
vengeance. In his last hours he bewailed the divisions that had prevailed among the
Protestants of Bohemia, and which had opened a door for their calamities. "O!"
said he, "if all the States had employed more thought and diligence in maintaining
union; if there had not been so much hatred on both sides; if one had not sought
preference before another, and had not given way to mutual suspicions; moreover, if the
clergy and the laity had assisted each other with counsel and action, in love, unity, and
peace, we should never have been thus far misled."[5] On the scaffold he sang the last verse of the sixteenth: Psalm:
"Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right
hand are pleasures for evermore;" and then yielded his head to the executioner.
Tobias Steffek was a man of equal modesty and piety. He had been chosen to fill important
trusts by his fellow-citizens. "Many a cup of blessing," said he, "have I
received from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not accept this cup of affliction? I am
going by a narrow path to the heavenly kingdom." His time in prison was mostly passed
in sighs and teals. When called to go to the scaffold, he looked up with eyes suffused
with weeping, yet with the hope shining through his tears that the same stroke that should
sever his head from his body would wipe them away for ever. In this hope he died.
John Jessenius, professor of medicine, and Chancellor of! the University of Prague, was
the next whose blood was spilt. He was famed for his medical skill all over Europe. tie
was the intimate friend of the illustrious Tycho Brahe, and Physician in Ordinary to two
emperors — Rudolph and Matthias. He it was, it is said, who introduced the study of
anatomy into Prague. Being a man of eloquent address, he was employed on an important
embassy to Hungary, and this made him a marked object of the vengeance of Ferdinand II.
His sentence was a cruel one. He was first to have his tongue cut out, then he was to be
beheaded, and afterwards quartered. His head was to be affixed to the Bridge-tower, and
his limbs were to be exposed on stakes in the four quarters of Plague. On hearing this
sentence, he said, "You use us too cruelly; but know that there will not be wanting
some who will take down the heads you thus ignominiously expose, and lay them in the
grave."[6]
The Jesuits evinced a most lively desire to bring this learned man over to their
side. Jessenius listened as they enlarged on the efficacy of good works. "Alas!"
replied he, "my time is so short that I fear I shall not be able to lay up such a
stock of merits as will suffice for my salvation." The Fathers, thinking the victory
as good as won, exclaimed, "My dear Jessenius, though you should die this very
moment, we promise you that you shall go straight to heaven." "Is it so?"
replied the confessor; "then where is your Purgatory for those who are not able to
fill up the number of their good deeds here?" Finding themselves but befooled, they
departed from him.
On mounting the scaffold, the executioner approached him, and demanded his tongue. He at
once gave it — that tongue which had pleaded the cause of his country before princes
and States. It was drawn out with a pair of tongs. He then dropped on his knees, his hands
tied behind his back, and began to pray, "not speaking, but stuttering," says
Comenius. His head was struck off, and affixed to the Bridge-tower, and his body was taken
below the gallows, and dealt with according to the sentence. One of the lights, not of
Bohemia only, but of Europe, had been put out.
Christopher Khobr was the next whose life was demanded. He was a man of heroic mind.
Speaking to his fellow-sufferers, he said, "How glorious is the memory of Huss and
Jerome! And why? because they laid down their lives for the truth." He cited the
words of Ignatius — "I am the corn of God, and shall be ground with the teeth of
beasts." "We also," he added, "are the corn of God, sown in the field
of the Church. Be of good cheer, God is able to raise up a thousand witnesses from every
drop of our blood." He went with firm step, and face elate, to the place where he was
to die. Standing on the scaffold, he said, "Must I die here? No! I shall live, and
declare the works of the Lord in the land of the living." Kneeling down, he gave his
head to the executioner and his spirit to God. He was followed by John Schulz, Burgomaster
of Kuttenberg. On being led out to die, he sent a message to his friends, saying,
"The bitterness of this parting will make our reunion sweet indeed." On mounting
the scaffold, he quoted the words of the Psalm, "Why art thou cast down, O my
soul?" When he had gone a few paces forward, he continued, "Trust in God, for I
shall yet praise him." Advancing to the spot where he was to die, he threw himself on
his face, and spread forth his hands in prayer. Then, rising up, he received that stroke
which gave him at once temporal death and eternal life.
In this procession of kingly and glorious spirits who travel by the crimson road of the
scaffold to the everlasting gates, there are others whom we must permit to pass on in
silence. One other martyr only shall we notice; he is the youngest of them all, and we
have seen him before. He is John Kutnauer, senator of Old Prague, the same whom we saw
praying that there might be given some "token" to the martyrs, and who, when the
bow appeared a little after sunrise spanning the heavens above Prague, accepted it as the
answer to his prayer.[7] No
one of all that heroic company was more courageous than Kutnauer. When the Jesuits came
round him, he said, "Depart, gentlemen; why should you persist in labor so
unprofitable to yourselves, and so troublesome to us?" One of the Fathers observed,
"These men are as hard as rocks." "We are so, indeed," said the
senator, "for we are joined to that rock which is Christ."
When summoned to the scaffold, his friends threw themselves upon him, overwhelming him
with their embraces and tears. He alone did not weep. "Refrain," he said,
"let us be men; a little while, and we shall meet in the heavenly glory." And
then, says the chronicler, "with the face of a lion, as if going to battle, he set
forward, singing in his own tongue the German hymn: 'Behold the hour draws near,'
etc."
Kutnauer was sentenced to die by the rope, not by the sword. On the scaffold he gave his
purse to the executioner, and then placed himself beneath the beam from which he was to be
suspended. He cried, or rather, says the chronicler, "roared," if haply he might
be heard above the noise of the drums and trumpets, placed around the scaffold on purpose
to drown the last words of the sufferers. "I have plotted no treason," he said;
"I have committed no murder; I have done no deed worthy of death. I die because I
have been faithful to the Gospel and my country. O God, pardon my enemies, for they know
not what they do. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." He was then thrown off the ladder,
and gave up the ghost.[8]
We close this grand procession of kings, this march of palm-bearers. As they pass
on to the axe and the halter there is no pallor on their countenances. Their step is firm,
and their eye is bright. They are the men of the greatest talents and the most resplendent
virtues in their nation. They belong to the most illustrious families of their country.
They had filled the greatest offices and they wore the highest honors of the State; yet we
see them led out to die the death of felons. The day that saw these men expire on the
scaffold may be said to have witnessed the obsequies of Bohemia.
CHAPTER 10 Back to Top
SUPPRESSION OF PROTESTANTISH IN BOHEHIA.
Policy of Ferdinand II — Murder of Ministers by the Troops — New Plan of
Persecution — Kindness and its Effects — Expulsion of Anabaptists from Moravia
— The Pastors Banished — Sorrowful Partings — Exile of Pastors of
Kuttenberg — The Lutherans "Graciously Dismissed" — The Churches Razed
— The New Clergy — Purification of the Churches — The Schoolmasters
Banished — Bibles and Religious Books Burned — Spanish Jesuits and
Lichtenstein's Dragoons — Emigration of the Nobles — Reign of Terror in the
Towns — Oppressive Edicts — Ransom-Money — Unprotestantizing of Villages
and Rural Parts — Protestantism Trampled out — Bohemia a Desert — Testimony
of a Popish Writer.
THE sufferings of that cruel time were not confined to the
nobles of Bohemia. The pastors were their companions in the horrors of the persecution.
After the first few months, during which the conqueror lured back by fair promises all who
had fled into exile, or had hidden themselves in secret places, the policy of Ferdinand II
and his advisers was to crush at once the chief men whether of the nobility or of the
ministry, and afterwards to dear with the common people as they might find it expedient,
either by the rude violence of the hangman or the subtle craft of the Jesuit. This astute
policy was pursued with the most unflinching resolution, and the issue was the almost
entire trampling out of the Protestantism of Bohemia and Moravia. In closing this sad
story we must briefly narrate the tortures and death which were inflicted on the Bohemian
pastors, and the manifold woes that befell the unhappy country.
Even before the victory of the Weissenberg, the ministers in various parts of Bohemia
suffered dreadfully from the license of the troops. No sooner had the Austrian army
crossed the frontier, than the soldiers began to plunder and kill as they had a mind.
Pastors found preaching to their flocks were murdered in the pulpit; the sick were shot in
their beds; some were hanged on trees, others were tied to posts, and their extremities
scorched with fire, while others were tortured in various cruel ways to compel them to
disclose facts which they did not know, and give up treasure which they did not possess.
To the barbarous murder of the father or the husband was sometimes added the brutal
outrage of his family.
But when the victory of the Weissenberg gave Bohemia and its capital into the power of
Ferdinand, the persecution was taken out of the hands of the soldiers, and committed to
those who knew how to conduct it, if not more humanely, yet more systematically. It was
the settled purpose of the emperor to bring the whole of Bohemia back to Rome. He was
terrified at the spirit of liberty and patriotism which he saw rising in the nation; he
ascribed that spirit entirely to the new religion of which John Muss had been the great
apostle, since, all down from the martyr's day, he could trace the popular convulsions to
which it had given rise; and he despaired of restoring quiet and order to Bohemia till it
should again be of one religion, and that religion the Roman. Thus political were blended
with religious motives in the terrible persecution which Ferdinand now commenced.
It was nearly a year till the plan of persecution was arranged; and when at last the plain
was settled, it was resolved to baptize it by the name of "Reformation." To
restore the altars and images which the preachers of the new faith had east out, and again
plant the old faith in the deformed churches, was, they affirmed, to effect a real
Reformation. They had a perfect right to the word. They appointed a Commission of
Reformers, having at its head the Archbishop of Prague and several of the Bohemian
grandees, and united with them was a numerous body of Jesuits, who bore the chief burden
of this new Reformation. After the executions, which we have described, were over, it was
resolved to proceed by kindness and persuasion. If the Reformation could not be completed
without the axe and the halter, these would not be wanting; meanwhile, mild measures, it
was thought, would best succeed. The monks who dispersed themselves among the people
assured them of the emperor's favor should they embrace the emperor's religion. The times
were hard, and such as had fallen into straits were assisted with money or with seed-corn.
The Protestant poor were, on the other hand, refused alms, and at times could not even buy
bread with money. Husbands were separated from their wives, and children from their
parents. Disfranchisement, expulsion from corporations and offices, the denial of burial,
and similar oppressions were inflicted on those who evinced a disposition to remain
steadfast in their Protestant profession. If any one declared that he would exile himself
rather than apostatize, he was laughed at for his folly. "To what land will you
go," he was asked, "where you shall find the liberty you desire? Everywhere you
shall find heresy proscribed. One's native soil is sweet, and you will be glad to return
to yours, only, it may be, to find the door of the emperor's clemency closed."
Numerous conversions were effected before the adoption of a single harsh measure; but
wherever the Scriptural knowledge of Huss's Reformation had taken root, there the monks
found the work much more difficult.
The first great tentative measure was the expulsion of the Anabaptists from Moravia. The
most unbefriended, they were selected as the first victims. The Anabaptists were gathered
into some forty-five communities or colleges, where they had all things in common, and
were much respected by their neighbors for their quiet and orderly lives. Their lands were
skillfully cultivated, and their taxes duly paid, but these qualities could procure them
no favor in the eyes of their sovereign. The order for their banishment arrived in the
beginning of autumn, 1622, and was all the more severe that it inferred the loss of the
labors of the year. Leaving their fields unreaped and their grapes to rot upon the bough,
they arose, and quitted house and lands and vineyards. The children and aged they placed
in carts, and setting forward in long and sorrowful troops, they held on their way across
the Moravian plains to Hungary and Transylvania, where they found new habitations. They
were happy in being the first to be compelled to go away; greater severities awaited those
whom they left behind.
Stop the fountains, and the streams will dry up of themselves. Acting on this maxim, it
was resolved to banish the pastors, to shut up the churches, and to burn the books of the
Protestants.
In pursuance of this program of persecution, the ministers of Prague had six articles laid
before them, to which their submission was demanded, as the condition of their remaining
in the country. The first called on them to collect among themselves a sum of several
thousand pounds, and give it as a loan to the emperor for the payment of the troops
employed in suppressing the rebellion. The remaining five articles amounted to an
abandonment of the Protestant faith. The ministers replied unanimously that "they
would do nothing against their consciences." The decree of banishment was not long
deferred. To pave the way for it, an edict was issued, which threw the whole blame of the
war upon the ministers. They were stigmatized as "turbulent, rash, and seditious
men," who had "made a new king," and who even now "were plotting
pernicious confederacies," and preparing new insurrections against the emperor. They
must therefore, said the edict, be driven from a kingdom which could know neither quiet
nor safety so long as they were in it. Accordingly on the 13th of December, 1621, [1] the decree of banishment was
given forth, ordering all the ministers in Prague within three days, and all others
throughout Bohemia and the United Provinces within eight days, to remove themselves beyond
the bounds of the kingdom, "and that for ever." If any of the proscribed should
presume to remain in the country, or should return to it, they were to suffer death, and
the same fate was adjudged to all who should dare to harbor them, or who should in the
least favor or help them.[2]
But, says Comenius, "the scene of their departure cannot be described,"
it was so overwhelmingly sorrowful. The pastors were followed by their loving flocks,
bathed in tears, and so stricken with anguish of spirit, that they gave vent to their
grief in sighs and groans. Bitter, thrice bitter, were their farewells, for they knew they
should see each other no more on earth. The churches of the banished ministers were given
to the Jesuits.
The same sorrowful scenes were repeated in all the other towns of Bohemia where there were
Protestant ministers to be driven away; and what town was it that had not its Protestant
pastor? Commissaries of Reformation went from town to town with a troop of horse,
enforcing the edict. Many of the Romanists sympathized with the exiled pastors, and
condemned the cruelty of the Government; the populations generally were friendly to the
ministers, and their departure took place amid public tokens of mourning on the part of
those among whom they had lived. The crowds on the streets were often so great that the
wagons that bore away their little ones could with difficulty move forward, while sad and
tearful faces looked down upon the departing troop from the windows. On the 27th of July,
1623, the ministers of Kuttenberg were commanded to leave the city before break of day,
and remove beyond the bounds of the kingdom within eight days. Twenty-one ministers passed
out at the gates at early morning, followed by some hundreds of citizens. After they had
gone a little way the assembly halted, and drawing aside from the highway, one of the
ministers, John Matthiades, preached a farewell sermon to the multitude, from the words,
"They shall cast you out of the synagogues."
Earnestly did the preacher exhort them to constancy. The whole assembly was drowned in
tears. When the sermon had ended, "the heavens rang again," says the chronicler,
"with their songs and their lamentations, and with mutual embraces and kisses they
commended each other to the grace of God."[3] The flocks returned to the city, and their exiled shepherds went
on their way.
The first edict of proscription fell mainly upon the Calvinistic clergy and the ministers
of the United Brethren. The Lutheran pastors were left unmolested as yet. Ferdinand II
hesitated to give offense to the Elector of Saxony by driving his co-religionists out of
his dominions. But the Jesuits took the alarm when they saw the Calvinists, who had been
deprived of their own pastors, flocking to the churches of the Lutheran clergy. They
complained to the monarch that the work was only half done, that the pestilence could not
be arrested till every Protestant minister had been banished from the hind, and the
urgencies of the Fathers at length prevailed over the fears of the king. Ferdinand issued
an order that the Lutheran ministers should follow their brethren of the Calvinistic and
Moravian Communion into exile. The Elector of Saxony remonstrated against this violence,
and was politely told that it was very far indeed from being the fact that the Lutheran
clergy had been banished — they had only received a "gracious dismissal."[4]
The razing of the churches in many places was consequent on the expulsion of the
pastors. Better that they should be ruinous heaps than that they should remain to be
occupied by the men who were now brought to fill them. The lowest of the priests were
drafted from other places to enjoy the vacant livings, and fleece, not feed, the desolate
flocks. There could not be found so many curates as there were now empty churches in
Bohemia; and two, six, nay, ten or a dozen parishes were committed to the care of one man.
Under these hirelings the people learned the value of that Gospel which they had, perhaps
too easily, permitted to be taken from them, in the persons of their banished pastors.
Some churches remained without a priest for years; "but the people," says
Comenius, "found it a less affliction to lack wholesome instruction than to resort to
poisoned pastures, and become the prey of wolves."[5]
A number of monks were imported from Poland, that country being near, and the
language similar, but their dissolute lives were the scandal of that Christianity which
they were brought to teach. On the testimony of all historians, Popish as well as
Protestant, they were riotous livers, insatiably greedy, and so shamelessly profligate
that abominable crimes, unknown in Bohemia till then, and not fit to be named, say the
chroniclers, began to pollute the land. Even the Popish historian Pelzel says, "they
led vicious lives." Many of them had to return to Poland faster than they had come,
to escape the popular vengeance which their misdeeds had awakened against them. Bohemia
was doubly scourged: it had lost its pious ministers, and it had received in their room
men who were fitter to occupy the culprit's cell than the teacher's chair.
The cleansing of the churches which had been occupied by the Protestant ministers, before
being again taken possession of by the Romish clergy, presents us with many things not
only foolish, but droll. The pulpit was first whipped, next sprinkled with holy water,
then a priest was made to enter it, and speaking for the pulpit to say, "I have
sinned." The altars at which the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had been dispensed
were dealt with much in the same way. When the Jesuits took possession of the church in
Prague which had been occupied by the United Brethren, they first strewed gunpowder over
its flora-, and then set fire to it, to disinfect the building by flame and smoke from the
poison of heresy. The "cup," the well-known Bohemian symbol, erected over church
portals and city gates, was pulled down, and a statue of the Virgin put up fit its stead.
If a church was not to be used, because it was not needed, or because it was
inconveniently situated, it was either razed or shut up. If only shut up it was left
unconsecrated, and in that dreadful condition the Romanists were afraid to enter it. The
churchyards shared the fate of the churches. The monumental tablets of the Protestant
(lead were broken in pieces, the inscriptions were effaced, and the bones of the dead in
many instances were dug up and burned.[6]
After the pastors, the iron hand of persecution fell upon the schoolmasters. All
teachers who refused to conform to the Church of Rome, and teach the new catechism of the
Jesuit Canisius, were banished. The destruction of the Protestant University of Prague
followed. The non-Catholic professors were exiled, and the building was delivered over to
the Jesuits. The third great measure adopted for the overthrow of Protestantism was the
destruction of all religious books. A commission traveled from town to town, which,
assembling the people by the tolling of the bells, explained to them the cause of their
visit, and "exhorted them," says George Holyk, "in kind, sweet, and gentle
words, to bring all their books." If gentle words failed to draw out the peccant
volumes, threats and a strict inquisition in every house followed. The books thus
collected were examined by the Jesuits who accompanied the commissioners, and while
immoral works escaped, all in which was detected the slightest taint of heresy were
condemned. They were carried away in baskets and carts, piled up in the market-place, or
under the gallows, or outside the city gates, and there burned. Many thousands of Bohemian
Bibles, and countless volumes of general literature, were thus destroyed. Since that time
a Bohemian book and a scarce book have been synonymous. The past of Bohemia was blotted
out; the great writers and the illustrious warriors who had flourished in it were
forgotten; the noble memories of early times were buried in the ashes of these fires; and
the Jestuits found it easy to make their pupils believe that, previous to their arrival,
the country had been immersed in darkness, and that with them came the first streaks of
light in its sky.[7]
The Jesuits who were so helpful in this "Reformation" were Spaniards.
They had brought with them the new order of the Brethren of Mercy, who proved their most
efficient coadjutors. Of these Brethren of Mercy, Jacobeus gives the following graphic but
not agreeable picture: — "They were saints abroad, but furies at home; their
dress was that of paupers, but their tables were those of gluttons; they had the maxims of
the ascetic, but the morals of the rake." Other allies, perhaps even more efficient
in promoting conversions to the Roman Church, came to the aid of the Jesuits. These were
the well-known Lichtenstein dragoons. These men had never faced an enemy, or learned on
the battle-field to be at once brave and merciful. They were a set of vicious and cowardly
ruffians, who delighted in terrifying, torturing, and murdering the pious peasants. They
drove them like cattle to church with the saber. When billeted on Protestant families,
they conducted themselves like incarnate demons; the members of the household had either
to declare themselves Romanists, or flee to the woods, to be out of the reach of their
violence and the hearing of their oaths. As the Jesuits were boasting at Rome in presence
of the Pope of having converted Bohemia, the famous Capuchin, Valerianus Magnus, who was
present, said, "Holy Father, give me soldiers as they were given to the Jesuits, and
I will convert the whole world to the Catholic faith."[8]
We have already narrated the executions of the most illustrious of the Bohemian
nobles. Those whose lives were spared were overwhelmed by burdensome taxes, and reiterated
demands for stuns of money, on various pretexts. After they had been tolerably fleeced, it
was resolved to banish them from the kingdom. On Ignatius Loyola's day, the 31st of July,
in the year 1627, an edict appeared, in which the emperor declared that, having "a
fatherly care for the salvation of his kingdom," he would permit none but Catholics
to live in it, and he commanded all who refused to return to the Church of Rome, to sell
their estates within six months, and depart from Bohemia. Some there were who parted with
"the treasure of a good conscience" that they might remain in their native land;
but the greater part, more steadfastly-minded, sold their estates for a nominal price in
almost every instance, and went forth into exile.[9] The, decree of banishment was extended to widows. Their sons and
daughters, being minors, were taken forcible possession of by the Jesuits, and were shut
up in colleges and convents, and their goods managed by tutors appointed by the priests.
About a hundred noble families, forsaking their ancestral domains, were dispersed
throughout the neighboring countries, and among these was the gray-headed baron, Charles
Zierotin, a man highly respected throughout all Bohemia for :his piety and courage.
The places of the banished grandees were filled by persons of low degree, to whom the
emperor could give a patent of nobility, but to whom he could give neither elevation of
soul, nor dignity of character, nor grace of manners. The free cities were placed under a
reign of terrorism. New governors and imperial judges were appointed to rule them; but
from what class of the population were these officials drawn? The first were selected from
the new nobility; the second, says Comenius — and his statement was not denied by his
contemporaries — were taken from "banished Italians or Germans, or apostate
Bohemians, gluttons who had squandered their fortunes, notorious murderers, bastards,
cheats, fiddlers, stage-players, mutineers, even men who were unable to read, without
property, without home, without conscience."[10] Such were the judges to whom the goods, the liberties, and the
lives of the citizens were committed. The less infamous of the new officials, the
governors namely, were soon removed, and the "gluttons, murderers, fiddlers, and
stage-players" were left to tyrannize at pleasure. No complaint was listened to;
extortionate demands were enforced by the military; marriage was forbidden except to Roman
Catholics; funeral rites were prohibited at Protestant burials; to harbor any of the
banished ministers was to incur fine and imprisonment; to work on a Popish holiday was
punishable with imprisonment and a fine of ten florins; to laugh at a priest, or at his
sermon, inferred banishment and confiscation of goods; to eat flesh on prohibited (lays,
without an indulgence from the Pope, was to incur a fine of ten florins; to be absent from
Church on Sunday, or ca festival-mass days, to send one's son to a non-Catholic school, or
to educate one's family at home, was forbidden under heavy penalties; non-Catholics were
not permitted to make a will; if nevertheless they did so, it was null and void; none were
to be admitted into arts or trades unless they first embraced the Popish faith. If any
should speak unbecomingly of the "Blessed Virgin the Mother of God," or of the
"illustrious House of Austria," "he shall lose his head, without the least
favor or pardon." The poor in the hospitals were to be converted to the Roman
Catholic faith before the feast of All Saints, otherwise they were to be turned out, and
not again admitted till they had entered the Church of Rome. So was it enacted in July,
1624, by Charles, Prince of Lichtenstein, as "the constant and unalterable will of
His Sacred Majesty Ferdinand II."[11]
In the same year (1624) all the citizens of Prague who had not renounced their
Protestant faith, and entered the Roman communion, were informed by public edict that they
had forfeited their estates by rebellion.
Nevertheless, their gracious monarch was willing to admit them to pardon. Each citizen was
required to declare on oath the amount of goods which he possessed, and his pardon-money
was fixed accordingly. The "ransom" varied from 100 up to 6,000 guilders. The
next "thunderbolt" that fell on the non-Catholics was the deprivation of the
rights of citizenship. No one, if not in communion with the Church of Rome, could carry on
a trade or business in Prague. Hundreds were sunk at once by this decree into poverty. It
was next resolved to banish the more considerable of those citizens who still remained
"unconverted." First four leading men had sentence of exile recorded against
them; then seventy others were expatriated. Soon thereafter, several hundreds were sent
into banishment; and the crafty persecutors now paused to mark the effect of these
severities upon the common people. Terrified, ground down into poverty, suffering from
imprisonment and other inflictions, and deprived of their leaders, they found the people,
as they had hoped, very pliant. A small number, who voluntarily exiled themselves,
excepted, the citizens conformed. Thus the populous and once Protestant Prague bowed its
neck to the Papal yoke.[12] In
a similar way, and with a like success, did the "Commissioners of the
Reformation" carry out their instructions in all the chief cities of Bohemia.
After the same fashion were the villages and rural parts "unprotestantized." The
Emperor Matthias, in 1610, had guaranteed the peasantry of Bohemia in the free exercise of
the Protestant religion. This privilege was now abolished, beginning was made in the
villages, where the flocks were deprived of their shepherds. Their Bibles and other
religious books were next taken from them and destroyed, that the flame might go out when
the fuel was withdrawn. The ministers and Bibles out of the way, the monks appeared on the
scene. They entered with soft words and smiling faces. They confidently promised lighter
burdens and happier times if the people would only forsake their heresy. They even showed
them the beginning of this golden age, by bestowing upon the more necessitous a few small
benefactions. When the conversions did not answer the fond expectations of the Fathers,
they changed their first bland utterances into rough words, and even threats. The
peasantry were commanded to go to mass. A list of the parishioners was given to the clerk,
that the absentees from church might be marked, and visited with fine. If one was detected
at a secret Protestant conventicle, he was punished with flagellation and imprisonment.
Marriage and baptism were next forbidden to Protestants. The peasants were summoned to the
towns to be examined and, it might be, punished. If they failed to obey the citation they
were surprised overnight by the soldiers, taken from their beds, and driven into the towns
like herds of cattle, where they were thrust into prisons, towers, cellars, and stables;
many perishing through the hunger, thirst, cold, and stench which they there endured.
Other tortures, still more horrible and disgusting, were invented, and put in practice
upon these miserable creatures. Many renounced their faith.
Some, unwilling to abjure, and yet unable to bear their prolonged tortures, earnestly
begged their persecutors to kill them outright. "No," would their tormentors
reply, "the emperor does not thirst for your blood, but for your salvation."
This sufficiently accounts for the paucity of martyrs unto blood in Bohemia,
notwithstanding the lengthened and cruel persecution to which it was subject. There were
not wanting many who would have braved death for their faith; but the Jesuits studiously
avoided setting up the stake, and preferred rather to wear out the disciples of the Gospel
by tedious and cruel tortures. Those only whose condemnation they could color with some
political pretext, as was the case with the noblemen whose martyrdoms we have recorded,
did they bring to the scaffold. Thus they were able to suppress the Protestantism of
Bohemia, and yet they could say, with some little plausibility, that no one had died for
his religion.
But in trampling out its Protestantism the persecutor trampled out the Bohemian nation.
First of all, the flower of the nobles perished on the scaffold. Of the great families
that remained 185 sold their castles and hinds and left the kingdom. Hundreds of the
aristocratic families followed the nobles into exile. Of the common people not fewer than
36,000 families emigrated. There was hardly a kingdom in Europe where the exiles of
Bohemia were not to be met with. Scholars, merchants, traders, fled from a land which was
given over as a prey to the disciples of Loyola, and the dragoons of Ferdinand. Of the
4,000,000 who inhabited Bohemia in 1620, a miserable remnant, amounting not even to a
fifth, were all that remained in 1648. [13] Its fanatical sovereign is reported to have said that he would
rather reign over a desert than over a kingdom peopled by heretics. Bohemia was now a
desert.
This is not our opinion only, it is that of Popish historians also. "Until that
time," says Pelzel, "the Bohemians appeared on the field of battle as a
separate' nation, and they not infrequently earned glory. They were now thrust among other
nations, and their flame has never since resounded on the field of battle…. Till that
time, the Bohemians, taken as a nation, had been brave, dauntless, passionate for glory,
and enterprising; but now they lost all courage, all national pride, all spirit of
enterprise. They fled into forests like sheep before the Swedes, or suffered themselves to
be trampled under foot…. The Bohemian language, which was used in all public
transactions, and of which the nobles were proud, fell into contempt…. As high as the
Bohemians had risen in science, literature, and arts, in the reigns of Maximilian and
Rudolph, so low did they now sink in all these respects. I do not know of any scholar who,
after the expulsion of the Protestants, distinguished himself in any learning…. With
that period the history of the Bohemians ends, and that of other nations in Bohemia
begins."[14]
FOOTNOTES
VOLUME THIRD
BOOK NINETEENTH
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 1
[1] Krasinski, History Reform. in Poland, vol. 1., p. 2; Lond.; 1838.
[2] A remarkable man, the inventor of the Slavonic alphabet.
[3] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., p. 61.
[4] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 174.
[5] Krasinski, S1avonia, p. 182; Lond., 1849.
[6] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol 1., pp. 115, 116.
[7] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 185.
[8] Krasinski Hist. Reform. Poland, vol 1., pp. 138 — 140.
[9] Constitutiones Synodorum — apud Krasinski.
[10] Zalaszowski, Jus Publicum Regni Poloniae — Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., p. 157.
[11] Vide Hosii Opera, Antverpise, 1571; and Stanislai Hosii Vita autore Rescio, Romae, 1587. Subscription to the above creed by the clergy was enjoined because many of the bishops were suspected of heresy — " quod multi inter episcopos erant suspecti."
[12] Bzovius, ann. 1551
[13] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., pp. 186 — 188.
[14] This nobleman was the descendant of that Wenceslaus of Leszna who defended John Huss at the Council of Krasinski, Hist. Constance. He had adopted for his motto, Malo pericuIosam Iibertatem quam tutum servitium- "Better the dangers of liberty than the safeguards of slavery."
[15] Vide Reform. Poland, vol. 1., pp. 188, 189, where the original Polish authorities are cited.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 2
[1] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., vol 3., p. 146.
[2] Ibid. This is the date (1523) of their friendship as given by Gerdesius; it is doubtful, however, whether it began so early'.
[3] "Is in iisdem cum Erasmo aedibus vixerat Basileae." (Gerdesius, vol. 3., p. 146.)
[4] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., p. 247
[5] Alasco, Opp., vol. 2., p. 548 — apud D'Aubigne, 7:546.
[6] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., vol 3., p. 147.
[7] Alasco, Opp., vol. 2., p. 558.
[8] In 1540, Alasco had married at Mainz, to put an insurmountable barrier between himself and Rome.
[9] Alasco, Opp., vol. 2., p. 560.
[10] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., vol. 3., p. 148.
[11] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., vol. 3., p. 150.
[12] Strype, Cranmer, pp. 234 — 240. The young king granted him letters patent, erecting Alasco and the other ministers of the foreign congregations into a body corporate. The affairs of each congregation were managed by a minister, ruling elders and deacons. The oversight of all was committed to Alasco as superintendent. He had greater trouble but no more authority than the others, and was subject equally with them to the discipline of the, Church. Although he allowed no superiority of office or authority to superintendents, he considered that they were of Divine appointment, and that Peter held this rank among the apostles. (Vide McCrie, Life of Knox, vol. 1., p. 407, notes.)
[13] Gerdesius, vol. 3., p. 151. Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol 1., pp. 264 — 266.
[14] Vide Letter of Calvin to John Alasco — Bonnet, vol. 2., p. 432.
[15] Gerdesius, vol. 3., p. 151
[16] Krasinski, Slovenia, pp. 214, 215.
[17] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 217; and Hist. Reform Poland, vol. 1., pp. 272, 273
[18] Gerdesius, vol, 3., p. 151.
[19] "Carnifex."
[20] Krasinski, Slavonia, pp. 217, 218.
[21] Poland was divided politically into Great and Little Poland. The first comprehended the western parts, and being the original seat of the Polish power, was called Great Poland, although actually less than the second division, which comprehended the south-eastern provinces, and was styled Little Poland.
[22] Gerdesius, vol. 3., p. 152.
[23] Krasinski says that but scanty materials exist for illustrating the last four years of John Alasco's life. This the count explains by the fact that his descendants returned into the bosom of the Roman Church after his death, and that all records of his labors for the Reformation of his native land, as well as most of his published works, were destroyed by the Jesuits.
[24] There were two brothers of that name, both zealous Protestants. The one was Bishop of Capo d'Istria, and
[25] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 227.
[26] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland. vol. 1., p. 309, foot-note.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 3
[1] Raynaldus, ad ann. 1556. Starowolski, Epitomae Synodov. — apud Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol 1., p. 305
[2] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., pp. 310, 311. Bayle, art. "Radziwi11."
[3] Pietro Soave Polano, Hist. Counc. Trent, lib. 5., p. 399; Lond., 1629.
[4] "Episcopi sunt non custodes sed proditores reipublicae." (Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., p. 312.)
[5] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 232, foot-note.
[6] Vie de Commendoni, par Gratiani, Fr. Trans., p. 213 et seq. — apud Krasinski, Slavonia, pp. 232 — 234.
[7] See ante, bk. 3., chap. 19, p. 212.
[8] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 1., p. 368.
[9] This union is known in history as the Consensus Sandomiriensis.
[10] These articles are a compromise between the Lutheran and Calvinistic theologies, on the vexed question of the Eucharist. The Lutherans soon began loudly to complain that though their phraseology was Lutheran their sense was Calvinistic, and the union, as shown in the text, was short-lived.
[11] Krasinski, Hist Reform. Poland, vol. 1., chap. 9.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 4
[1] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 2., p. 294.
[2] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 2., pp. 15 — 34.
[3] Hosius wrote in the same terms from Rome to the Archbishop and clergy of Poland: "Que ce que le Roi avait promis a Paris n'etait qu'une feinte et dissimulation; et qu'aussitot qu'il serait couronne, il chasserait hors du royaume tout exercice de religion autre que la Romaine." (MS. of Dupuis in the Library of Richelieu at Paris — apud Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 2., 1). 39.)
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 5
[1] The fact that Bathory before his election to the throne of Poland was a Protestant, and not, as historians commonly assert, a Romanist, was first published by Krasinski, on the authority of a MS. history now in the Library at St. Petersburg, written by Orselski, a contemporary of the events. (Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol 2., p. 48 )
[2] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. 2., p. 53.
[3] Ibid., vol. 2., pp. 49, 50.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 6
[1] See his Life by Rescius (Reszka), Rome, 1587. Numerous editions have been published of his works; the best is that of Cologne, 1584, containing his letters to many of the more eminent of his contemporaries.
[2] Lukaszewicz (a Popish author), History of the Helvetian Churches of Lithuania, vol. 1., pp. 47, 85. and vol. 2., p. 192; Posen, 1842, 1843 — apud Krasinski, Slavonia,..... pp. 289, 294.
[3] Albert Wengiersi
[4] A Spanish Jesuit who compiled a grammar which the Jesuits used in the schools of Poland.
[5] Dialogue of a Landowner with a Parish Priest. The work, published about 1620, excited the violent anger of the Jesuits; but being unable to wreak their vengeance on the author, the printer, at their instigation, was publicly flogged, and afterwards banished. (See Krasinski, S1avonia, p. 296.)
[6] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 333.
[7] Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol 2., chap. 12.
[8] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 356.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 7
[1] Isaiah 26:21
[2] See ante, vol. 1., bk. 3
[3] We have in the same place narrated the origin of the "United Brethren," their election by lot of three men who were afterwards ordained by Stephen, associated with whom, in the laying on of hands, were other Waldensian pastors. Comenius, who relates the transaction, terms Stephen a chief man or bishop among the Waldenses. He afterwards suffered martyrdom for the faith.
[4] See ante, vol. 1, bk. 3., chap. 7, p. 162.
[5] Comenius, Historia Persecutionum Ecclesia Bohemica, cap. 28, p. 98; Lugd Batav., 1647.
[6] Ibid., cap. 28, p. 29.
[7] "Placide expirarunt." (Comenius, cap. 30, p. 109.)
[8] Comenius, cap. 29, p. 102.
[9] Ibid., cap. 29, p. 105.
[10] Comenius, cap. 30, pp. 105, 106.
[11] "Parata mihi sunt et indusium et pallium, quando lubet duci jubete." (Comenius, p. 107.)
[12] "Cum ossibus, capillis, nervis et venis in Sacramento contineri." (Comenius, p. 108.)
[13] Comenius, p. 110. The Reformation and Anti-Reforma tion in Bohemia (from the German), vol. 1., pp. 66, 67; Lond., 1845.
[14] Comenius, cap. 36.
[15] Comenius, cap. 37.
[16] Reform. and Anti-Reform. in Bohem., vol. 1., p. 75.
[17] Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 145.
[18] Comenius, cap. 39, pp. 126, 127.
[19] Comenius, cap. 39. Reform. and Anti-Reform. in Bohem., vol. 1., pp. 105, 107.
[20] Krasinski, Slavonia, pp. 145, 146.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 8
[1] Reform. and Anti-Reform. in Bohem., vol. 1., p. 187.
[2] Comenius, cap. 40. Reform. and Anti-Reform. In Bohem., vol. 1., p. 193 et seq.
[3] Comenius, cap. 40, pp. 134-136.
[4] "Adsuevi." (Comenius.)
[5] Comenius, cap. 42. Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 146.
[6] Balbin assures us that some Jesuits, despite the order to withdraw, remained in Prague disguised as coal-fire men. (Reform. and Anti-Reform. in Bohem., vol. 1., p. 336.)
[7] Comenius, cap. 44, p. 154.
[8] "Lumina et columina patriae." (Comenius, cap. 59.)
[9] Comenius, pp. 209-211. Reform. and Anti-Reform. In Bohem., pp. 287- 290.
[10] Comenius, pp. 211, 212.
[11] "Ut muscae advolabant." (Comenius.)
[12] "Nuntiatur formosissimus caelum cinxisse arcus." (Comenius.)
[13] Comenius, pp. 223, 224.
[14] Comenius, p. 225.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 9
[1] The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 1., p. 401.
[2] Comenius, cap. 63.
[3] Comenius, cap. 64. The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 1., pp. 416, 417.
[4] Comenius, cap. 65.
[5] The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 1., p. 423
[6] This anticipation was realized in 1631. After the victory of Gustavus Adolphus at Leipsic, Prague was entered, and Count Thorn took down the heads from the Bridge-tower, and conveyed them to the Tein Church, followed by a large assemblage of nobles, pastors, and citizens, who had returned from exile. They were afterwards buried, but the spot was concealed from the knowledge of the Romanists. (Comenius, cap. 73.)
[7] This bow is mentioned by both Protestant and Popish writers. The people, after gazing some time at it, admiring its beauty, were seized with fear, and many rushed in terror to their houses.
[8] Comenius, cap. 78. The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 1., pp. 429, 430.
VOLUME THIRD- BOOK NINETEENTH- CHAPTER 10
[1] Comenius, cap. 51, p. 184.
[2] Ibid.
[3] "Tandem cantu et fictu resonante caelo, amplexibus et osculis mutuis Divinae se commendarunt gratiae." (Comenius, p. 195.)
[4] The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia. vol. 2., pp. 32, 33.
[5] Comenius, cap. 54, p. 192.
[6] The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 2., pp. 16-19.
[7] Comenius, cap. 105. The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 2., chap. 3.
[8] The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, vol. 2., p. 114.
[9] Comenius, cap. 89.
[10] "Lurcones qui sua decoxerant, homicidas infames, spurios, mangones, fidicines, comaedos, ciniflones, quosdam etiam alphabeti ignaros homines," etc. (Comenius, cap. 90, p. 313.)
[11] Comenius, cap. 91.
[12] Comenius, cap. 92.
[13] Ludwig Hausser, Period of the Reformation, vol. 2., p. 107; Lond., 1873.
[14] Pelzel, Geschichte von Bohmen, p. 185 et seq. Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 158.