The emperor Ferdinand, whose hatred to the Bohemian protestants was without bounds, not thinking he had sufficiently oppressed them, instituted a high court of reformers, upon the plan of the inquisition, with this difference, that the reformers were to remove from place to place, and always to be attended by a body of troops.
These reformers consisted chiefly of Jesuits, and from their decision, there was no appeal, by which it may be easily conjectured, that it was a dreadful tribunal indeed.
This bloody court, attended by a body of troops, made the tour of Bohemia, to which they seldom examined or saw a prisoner, suffering the soldiers to murder the protestants as they pleased, and then to make a report of the matter to them afterward.
The first victim of their cruelty was an aged minister whom they killed as he lay sick in his bed, the next day they robbed, and murdered another, and soon after shot a third, as he was preaching in his pulpit.
A nobleman and clergyman, who resided in a protestant village, hearing of the approach of the high court of reformers and the troops, fled from the place, and secreted themselves. The soldiers, however, on their arrival, seized upon a schoolmaster, asked him where the lord of that place and the minister were concealed, and where they had hid their treasures. The schoolmaster replied, he could not answer either of the questions. They then stripped him naked, bound him with cords, and beat him most unmercifully with cudgels. This cruelty not extorting any confession from him, they scorched him in various parts of his body; when, to gain a respite from his torments, he promised to show them where the treasures were hid. The soldiers gave ear to this with pleasure, and the schoolmaster led them to a ditch full of stones, saying, Beneath these stones are the treasures ye seek for. Eager after money, they went to work, and soon removed those stones, but not finding what they sought after, beat the schoolmaster to death, buried him in the ditch, and covered him with the very stones he had made them remove.
Some of the soldiers ravished the daughters of a worthy protestant before his face, and then tortured him to death. A minister and his wife they tied back to back and burnt. Another minister they hung upon a cross beam, and making a fire under him, broiled him to death. A gentleman they hacked into small pieces, and they filled a young man's mouth with gunpowder, and setting fire to it, blew his head to pieces.