The Second Defenestration of Prague

I've always liked the word "defenestration."  Well, not literally always-- when I was 9 months old, for example, I think my favorite word was "ub," and I probably hadn't encountered "defenestration" yet.  Although it's hard to be sure-- my parents are kind of odd.  Hi, dad!


At any rate, if you do a search through any serious database, most of the hits you will get will feature, in relatively close proximity, the name "Prague."  This is because, although to be sure people have been thrown from windows probably since there were windows, Prague was the setting for multiple incidents that cemented the term in the public awareness.


The first occurrence was in 1419, when a full set of town officials, engaged in anti-Hussite activities (they were throwing rocks at a Hussite priest and his congregation from the windows), were basically lynched by an angry mob.  Hurled from the window, their subsequent deaths were apocryphally the cause of King Wenceslas*'s death, and are commonly pointed to as the division between "unrest" and "outright bloody war," also known as the Hussite wars.


Not ones to leave a good idea alone, the good citizens staged The Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618, when Catholic-Protestant tensions were at a peak.  The Pope was ostensibly fairly laid-back about the many Protestants in the area, but King Ferdinand (also Catholic) took over Bohemia somewhat prematurely (his brother being the traditional "not quite dead"), and had been putting Catholics into positions of power at an alarming rate.


At a meeting to clarify the ownership of some land underneath some Protestant chapels, a few Catholic Lords admitted to writing a letter encouraging the (still not completely dead) King to rescind many of the rights enjoyed by the Protestant community.  They freely fessed up, presumably assuming that they'd be thrown into the typical sort of cushy nobleman's jail for a few years until their cronies could spring them.  Instead, they were thrown out of a third-story window.  Interestingly enough, they apparently survived-- either due to the agency of the angels (if you ask one side) or due to an unexpectedly soft landing in a convenient large pile of manure (if you ask the other).  King Ferdinand was deposed, but responded by outlawing Protestantism outright, ultimately sparking the Thirty Years War, "one of the most destructive conflicts in European history."


So remember-- throwing people out windows is a good way to start horrible European wars.


*not Good King Wenceslas; he lived about 500 years earlier, and was (if I've counted correctly) this King Wenceslas's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granduncle.  There were several Wenceslases over the years.