On the night of the 21st of January, three months after the
capitulation, and when the inhabitants of Prague had begun to hope that
there might, after all, be some mercy in the bosom of Ferdinand, forty
of the leading citizens of the place were simultaneously arrested. They
were torn from their families and thrown into dungeons where they were
kept in terrific suspense for four months. They were then brought before
an imperial commission and condemned as guilty of high treason. All
their property was confiscated, nothing whatever being left for their
helpless families. Twenty-three were immediately executed upon the
scaffold, and all the rest were either consigned to life-long
imprisonment, or driven into banishment. Twenty-seven other nobles, who
had escaped from the kingdom, were declared traitors. Their castles were
seized, their property confiscated and presented as rewards to Roman
Catholic nobles who were the friends of Ferdinand. An order was then
issued for all the nobles and landholders throughout the kingdom to send
in a confession of whatever aid they had rendered, or encouragement they
had given to the insurrection. And the most terrible vengeance was
threatened against any one who should afterward be proved guilty of any
act whatever of which he had not made confession.
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