Bila Hora, Prague

Bila Hora, Prague

Bila Hora, or 'White Mountain' is where the eponymous Battle of White Mountain took place between Habsburg forces and the Czech nobility on 8 November 1620, as part of the Thirty Years' War.

Bila Hora, or 'White Mountain' is where the eponymous Battle of White Mountain took place between Habsburg forces and the Czech nobility on 8 November 1620, as part of the Thirty Years' War. During the early fifteenth century's Hussite rebellions, most of the Czech people abandoned the Catholic church and followed the Protestant teachings of Jan Hus and similar preachers. Despite the Czech lands' annexation by the very Catholic Austrian Habsburg family, the Czech nobility remained Protestant. When Emperor Ferdinand II violated an agreement signed by his predecessor which codified the mainly-Protestant nobility's rights, they got angry. Two Protestant churches were forcibly closed/destroyed on orders of the Bishop of Prague (Ferdinand's right-hand man), the nobility decided they'd had quite enough, and gathered at the Castle en masse. Count Thurn, the ringleader, and his assistants entered the Castle, where they were harassed by two Catholic members of Ferdinand's advisory council. In the best Czech tradition (this has happened more than once. The words 'defenestration' and 'Prague' are inextricably linked in history), Count Thurn and his friends threw the council members out a window. In a remarkably ironic twist of fate, they landed in a pile of manure and survived.