Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War, 1617

From the opening

Ferdinand of Gratz crowned King of Bohemia--His Enmity to Protestants--Slawata and Martinitz thrown from the Windows of the Hradschin--Real Beginning of the Thirty Years' War--The Elector- Palatine's Intrigues in Opposition to the House of Austria--He supports the Duke of Savoy--The Emperor Matthias visits Dresden-- Jubilee for the Hundredth Anniversary of the Reformation.

When the forlorn emperor Rudolph had signed the permission for his brother Matthias to take the last crown but one from his head, he bit the pen in a paroxysm of helpless rage. Then rushing to the window of his apartment, he looked down on one of the most stately prospects that the palaces of the earth can offer. From the long monotonous architectural lines of the Hradschin, imposing from its massiveness and its imperial situation, and with the dome and minarets of the cathedral clustering behind them, the eye swept across the fertile valley, through which the rapid, yellow Moldau courses, to the opposite line of cliffs crested with the half imaginary fortress-palaces of the Wyscherad. There, in the mythical legendary past of Bohemia had dwelt the shadowy Libuscha, daughter of Krok, wife of King Premysl, foundress of Prague, who, when wearied of her lovers, was accustomed to toss them from those heights into the river. Between these picturesque precipices lay the two Pragues, twin-born and quarrelsome, fighting each other for centuries, and growing up side by side into a double, bellicose, stormy, and most splendid city, bristling with steeples and spires, and united by the ancient many-statued bridge with its blackened mediaeval entrance towers.

But it was not to enjoy the prospect that the aged, discrowned, solitary emperor, almost as dim a figure among sovereigns as the mystic Libuscha herself, was gazing from the window upon the imperial city.

"Ungrateful Prague," he cried, "through me thou hast become thus magnificent, and now thou hast turned upon and driven away thy benefactor. May the vengeance of God descend upon thee; may my curse come upon thee and upon all Bohemia."

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

• A Belated Guest (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)William Dean HowellsHistory19 pages
• A Bit of Old ChinaCharles Warren StoddardHistory17 pages
• A Book of Remarkable CriminalsH. B. IrvingHistory341 pages
• A Book of ScoundrelsCharles WhibleyHistory202 pages
• A Brief History of the Internet The Bright Side: The Dark SideMichael HartHistory59 pages