Battle of White Mountain - Aftermath

Aftermath

With the Bohemian army destroyed, Tilly entered Prague and the revolt collapsed. King Frederick with his wife Elizabeth fled the country (hence his nickname the Winter King), and many citizens welcomed the restoration of Catholicism. Forty-seven noble leaders of the insurrection were tried, and twenty-seven were executed on what is called "the Day of Blood" by Protestants at Prague's Old Town Square. Amongst those executed were Kryštof Harant and Jan Jesenius. Today, 27 crosses have been inlaid in the cobblestone as a tribute to those victims. An estimated five-sixths of the Bohemian nobility went into exile soon after the Battle of White Mountain, and their properties were confiscated. Before the war about 151,000 farmsteads existed in the Lands of Bohemian Crown, while only 50,000 remained after the year 1648. The number of inhabitants decreased from 3 million to 800,000. The Thirty Years War had still another 28 years to run, and Bohemia was often the scene of much bloodshed.

But there was still a strong Protestant army in Silesia under the command of Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, Duke of Brandenburg-Jägerndorf which continued fighting the Imperial army in Moravia and in what today is Slovakia until 1623.

In 1621, the Emperor ordered all Calvinists and other non-Lutherans to leave the realm in 3 days or to convert to Catholicism. Next year, he also ordered all Lutherans (who primarily had not been involved in the revolt) to convert or leave the country. By 1627, Archbishop Harrach of Prague and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice set out to peacefully convert the heretics as they were termed; most Bohemians converted, but a significant Protestant minority remained. Spanish troops, seeking to encircle their rebellious Dutch provinces, seized the Palatinate electoral lands. With the prospect of Protestantism being overrun in Germany, Denmark entered the struggle. Sweden was to join the Protestant forces in 1630.