Habsburg Rule and the Rise of Religious Tensions in Bohemia

After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Czech lands fell under Habsburg rule, beginning a complex era marked by religious conflicts and political tensions. Ferdinand I, the first Habsburg to rule Bohemia, faced external pressures from Ottoman forces as well as growing Protestant influences. Ferdinand faced the immediate challenge of stabilizing Bohemia amidst the growing threat from the Ottoman Empire, which now controlled vast regions of Hungary. To secure Bohemia, Ferdinand centralized authority, curtailing the autonomy of local nobles and enforcing Catholic orthodoxy. His policies increased tensions with the largely Protestant Bohemian nobility, which had embraced the ideas of the Reformation. In response, Protestant and Utraquist nobility in Bohemia began pushing back against Habsburg policies, seeking religious freedoms and maintaining local privileges.

In the 1540s, tensions deepened when Ferdinand and his brother, Emperor Charles V, sought to rally Catholic support against the Protestant Schmalkaldic League in the Holy Roman Empire. Reluctantly, Czech nobles supported Ferdinand but resisted his centralizing policies and Protestant repression, leading to rebellion in 1547, which Ferdinand decisively quashed. Following his victory, he confiscated property from rebellious nobles and encouraged the spread of Catholicism, notably inviting Jesuits to Prague in 1556.

Ferdinand’s successor, Maximilian II, adopted a more tolerant stance, granting religious freedoms to Protestants in the Czech Confession and reaffirming legal protections for Bohemia’s Jewish population. Under Maximilian’s son Rudolf II, who moved the royal court to Prague in 1583, the city became a prominent cultural hub, drawing artists and scholars from across Europe. However, Rudolf’s personal preoccupations and reclusive nature led to neglect of state affairs, and his Catholic successor, Matthias, centralized power back in Vienna and began undoing the religious concessions granted by Rudolf. Tensions climaxed in 1609 when Rudolf was forced to issue the Letter of Majesty, granting substantial religious freedoms to Bohemian Protestants.

Matthias’s successor, Ferdinand II, an ardent Catholic, disregarded the Letter of Majesty, sparking the infamous Second Defenestration of Prague, where Protestant nobles threw two Catholic officials out of a castle window in 1618. This act ignited the Bohemian Revolt, leading directly into the Thirty Years’ War.