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Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

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The men now swept off to prison were the<br />

persons of deepest piety <strong>and</strong> highest <strong>in</strong>telligence <strong>in</strong><br />

the l<strong>and</strong>. In short, they were the flower of the<br />

<strong>Bohemia</strong>n nation.[8] They had passed their youth<br />

<strong>in</strong> the study of useful arts, or <strong>in</strong> the practice of<br />

arms, or <strong>in</strong> foreign travel. Their manhood had been<br />

devoted to the service of their country. They had<br />

been councilors of state, ambassadors, judges, or<br />

professors <strong>in</strong> the university. It was the wisdom, the<br />

experience, <strong>and</strong> the courage which they had<br />

brought to the defense of their nation's liberty, <strong>and</strong><br />

the promotion of its Reformation, especially <strong>in</strong> the<br />

recent times of trouble, which had drawn upon<br />

them the displeasure of the emperor. The majority<br />

were nobles <strong>and</strong> barons, <strong>and</strong> all of them were<br />

venerable by age.<br />

On the Clay after the transaction we have<br />

recorded, writs were issued summon<strong>in</strong>g all now<br />

absent from the k<strong>in</strong>gdom to appear with<strong>in</strong> six<br />

weeks. When the period expired they were aga<strong>in</strong><br />

summoned by a herald, but no one appear<strong>in</strong>g, they<br />

were proclaimed traitors, <strong>and</strong> their heads were<br />

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