Fall from the Eights of Political Heaven Trial of Václav of Vchynice at the Bohemian Land Diet in 1614–1615
Abstract
The article looks at the life of Václav Vchynský of Vchynice (1572–1626), who was an important representative of the Czech nobility in the first quarter of the 17th century. His life has attracted the attention of historians in the past, not least because his name was explicitly mentioned during the second Prague defenestration in May 1618. His younger brother Oldřich Vchynský also took part in this event. personally, and during this violent act he emphasised that Vilém Slavata of Chlum (one of the governors who were thrown out of the window of Prague Castle) would be killed because of the trouble he had caused to Vchynský’s older brother Václav. The political trial of 1615, during which Václav Vchynský was sentenced to the loss of his throat (the Emperor reduced this sentence to “only” life imprisonment), was already described in detail in the resolution of the Land Diet and in the memoirs of contemporaries of this event. In his paper, the author draws attention to a different context, which the older literature does not take into account at all. It is a long-term debt of the Chamber of the Monarchy, which resulted in the bankruptcy in 1615. Václav Vchynský was dangerous for the Emperor’s creditors by asserting his claims to the chamber estates, which were transferred to his property by Matthias of Habsburg. A secret consensus emerged across the confessional spectrum of Bohemia at the time, that Václav Vchynský had to be removed from political life because his influence on Emperor Matthias was too great. Vilém Slavata of Chlum, as the president of the Bohemian court chamber, under whose jurisdiction the chamber estates fell, had a direct interest in such a course of action.
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