treme penalty of the law. At the appointed time many persons made their appearance at court, where they were assured that their lives and honor should not be touched, but only their estates. Still the penalty was far mote grievous than they had reason to expect. Some were deprived of all their possessions; some, the half; while others lost a third. The value of the estates thus confiscated, was estimated at 1,440,000,000 Meissen coins. This confiscation of the estates proved a most disastrous blow to the Bohemian nation. By this means, a large part of the old nobility was reduced to penury; their estates fell into the hands of foreigners—Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and others who not only cared nothing for the country or the people, but willingly lent their aid to all manner of cruel persecutions. What the poor peasants endured from these foreign masters, who often were nothing but wild, heartless adventurers, is a story that could be written in blood.
In the year 1622 Ferdinand visited Prague, and promised to call a Diet; but he delayed to do so, although he imposed heavy taxes upon the country, receiving permission to do so, not from the States, according to the ancient laws of the land, but from officers of his own appointing.
Ferdinand, a pupil of the Jesuits, consequently a most zealous Catholic, Compulsory Conversions.cherished no higher aim than to convert the Bohemian people back to the “true faith.” At first he was restrained somewhat by his agreement with the Elector of Saxony; but having satisfied that ruler by the payment of six millions of thalers, and the cession of both Lusatias, he was free to act according to his own wishes.
27
