When Bohemia threw their rulers out of office by throwing them out a window

Today we might vote annoying leaders out of office but in 1618 the Bohemians tossed their leaders’ representatives out of an office window

The Defenestration 1618, by Václav Brozik, painted circa 1889-1890. Picture: Courtesy National Gallery of Victoria

TODAY we generally disapprove of our politicians by voting them out of office . But 400 years ago today the citizens of Bohemia showed their disapproval by literally throwing politicians out a window. The incident, known as the Defenestration of Prague, was a dispute over plans by Habsburg rulers to rei mpose Catholicism in Bohemia .

On May 23, 1618, four Catholic nobles, representatives of the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias, arrived at the Chancellery of Prague’s Hradcany Castle to meet with Protestant nobles of Bohemia’s assembly, to discuss the order to cease the building of Protestant chapels on royal land.

The assembly had recently been dissolved by King Ferdinand, the emperor’s cousin and heir who been installed as king in 1617. But the Protestant nobles hoped to appeal to the better judgment of the Matthias’ representatives — Count Jaroslav Borzita of Martinic, Count Vilem Slavata of Chlum, Adam II von Sternberg and Matthew Leopold Popel Lobcowitz.

The Protestants complained that the order to stop the building of the chapels was in violation of a 1609 Letter of Majesty from Matthias’s predecessor guaranteeing religious freedom. They therefore declared the four Catholics guilty of breaking the law, and threw them and a secretary out a window.

A 1583 portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Matthias, by Lucas van Valckenborch.

Despite the 21-metre drop, none were seriously injured, but all were badly shaken. The defenestration sent a message to Matthias that Bohemia was ready to fight for their rights. It would lead to open conflict with Matthias and his successor Ferdinand, sparking the Thirty Years War.

After the bitter struggles of the Reformation in the early 16th century, the Habsburg kings had allowed certain religious freedoms in Bohemia since they took power in 1526. The 1555 Peace of Augsburg, a treaty between Protestants and Catholics had put forward the principle of “Cuius regio, eius religio”, meaning “whose realm, his religion”, which held for much of the rest of the 1500s.

But there was a growing movement toward counter-Reformation, Catholics wanting to restore the primacy of their church in Eastern Europe. In 1609, threatened with rebellion among his Protestant advisers and subjects, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II reluctantly signed a Letter of Majesty, guaranteeing Protestant rights.

Polyxena of Lobkowitz (right) safeguards royal officials Count Slavata and Count Borzita (in the room on the right), who were later thrown out the windows of the royal castle in Prague in 1618, painting by Václav Brožík. Public domain image.

A 17th century engraving showing the Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618.

When Rudolf died in 1612 his brother Matthias, by then already ruler of Bohemia, became Holy Roman Emperor. His policies were initially conciliatory but by the time he took power Matthias was already ageing and he soon came under the influence of powerful Catholic forces within his court and family. His brother Archduke Maximilian forced Matthias to name hard line Catholic Ferdinand his successor.

In 1617 Ferdinand was elected king in Bohemia, where he dissolved the local assembly and ordered a halt to the building of the Protestant chapels. This led to the heated meeting between the Emperor Matthias’ representatives and the members of the dissolved Bohemian assembly.

There was already a tradition of throwing people out of windows in Bohemia. In 1419 a group of Hussites, followers of a pre-Reformation era Christian sect that had broken from the Catholic Church, had thrown town councillors, a judge and a burgomaster out a window, killing them. When King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia heard the news he is said to have died from the shock. The defenestration marked the start of the Hussite rebellion against papal authority in Bohemia. It led to 15 years of war after which the Hussites were largely left in peace to practice their version of Christianity, although in the 16th century Lutheranism became the predominant Protestant religion.

Prague’s Hradcany Castle today with Charles Bridge on Vltava River in foreground. Picture: David McGonigal

In 1618, although circumstances were very different, when the Bohemian nobles threw the Matthais’ Catholic nobles out the window it was a sign that tensions between Catholics and Protestants had finally boiled over.

Both sides began gathering their armies for war. Protestant nobles in Bohemia were joined by sympathetic nobles in Austria and they rose up in rebellion.

Matthias died in 1619 and Ferdinand took power to vigorously pursue his policy of subduing the Protestants. He was deposed as ruler of Bohemia in favour of Frederick V of the Palatinate.

Despite some initial victories in 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain, outside Prague, Frederick’s forces were defeated by Ferdinand and Frederick was later deposed as king. But the rebellion had already set off a series of conflicts that would rage across Europe until 1648.