Peter of Rosenberg died in 1611, only a few years before the momentous events which so completely changed the destinies of his country.
It is a natural and easy transition from Peter of Rosenberg to another great Bohemian nobleman, Charles of Žerotin, who indeed was often politically associated with Rosenberg, particularly during the contest between King Rudolph II. and his brother Matthew, which occurred in the early years of the seventeenth century. Žerotin was, it is true, a maker rather than a writer of history. On two occasions, in 1608 when Rudolph was contending with his treacherous younger brother Matthew, and in 1619, when Frederick of the Palatinate attempted to oust the house of Habsburg from the Bohemian throne, Žerotin's attitude to a great extent decided the fate of his country. Žerotin's numerous writings may also be considered materials for history rather than historical works. Yet no outline of Bohemian literature would be complete were the name of Žerotin omitted.
Charles of Žerotin was born in 1564 at Brandeis, on the Adler, one of the Bohemian estates of his powerful family. Like many Bohemian noblemen of this period, Charles spent a considerable part of his youth in foreign countries, both as a student and as a soldier. At Genoa he fell under the influence of the Calvinist divine Theodore de Beza, but he never (as has been stated) abandoned for Calvinism the Church of the Bohemian Brethren, to which his family had belonged from the time that the Brotherhood had been founded. His writings as well as his political career prove that he was a faithful adherent of that community, of which he was one of the most illustrious members.
In the year 1591 he took service under Henry IV. of
