Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

filled all their existing schools, they erected others;
and thus their seminaries rapidly multiplied, "so
that the Catholic verity," in the words of the author
last quoted, "which in Bohemia was on the point of
breathing its last, appeared to revive again, and rise
publicly."
Toward the close of his reign, Ferdinand
became somewhat less zealous in the cause of
Rome. Having succeeded to the imperial crown on
the abdication of his brother, Charles V., he had
wider interests to care for, and less time, as well as
less inclination, to concentrate his attention on
Bohemia. It is even said that before his death he
expressed his sincere regret for his acts of
oppression against his Bohemian subjects; and to
do the monarch justice, these severities were the
outcome, not of a naturally cruel disposition, but
rather of his Spanish education, which had been
conducted under the superintendence of the stern
Cardinal Ximenes.[17]
Under his son and successor, Maximilian II.,
the sword of persecution was sheathed. This prince
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