The Defenestrations of Prague: what happened in 1419 and 1618

1419: ten men out of the window

On 30 July 1419, the preacher Jan Želivský led a procession through Prague's New Town, carrying the monstrance. Behind him came the Hussites, who wanted ordinary believers to receive communion in wine as well as bread. The procession forced its way into the church of St Stephen and, on the way back through the market, stopped outside the town hall to demand the release of several Hussite prisoners.

The councillors shut the doors. Stones began to rain down from the windows and, so it was said, one of them struck the monstrance. The crowd stormed the building. Ten people were thrown out of the windows: the burgomaster, two councillors, the sub-judge and his servant, and five townsmen. Those below finished them off. Another councillor died inside, in the torture chamber. Other chronicles say thirteen; ten is the figure considered more reliable.

Myths grew up around that day. It's often said that Jan Žižka led the attack, but just two chroniclers name him, and briefly at that: it's uncertain. There was also a story that the parish priest of St Stephen's was killed, something no early source says and which is regarded as a later invention.

King Wenceslas IV heard the news at his castle at Kunratice and flew into a rage. A few days later he felt a pain in his left arm, and on 16 August he died of a stroke, with a cry that, it's said, sounded like a lion's roar. It's tempting to say the shock killed him, but that's never been proved. What is accepted is that the Hussite revolution began that day, at the New Town Hall.

1618: the window at the Castle

Two centuries later, the scene was played again on a different stage. On the evening of 22 May 1618, a group of conspirators met at the Smiřický Palace on Malá Strana's main square. Their host, Albrecht Jan Smiřický, was twenty-three and had one of the greatest fortunes in the kingdom; some saw him as a future king. That's where they decided what would happen the next morning.

On 23 May the rebels burst into the Bohemian Chancellery, in the Ludwig Wing of the Old Royal Palace. Only four of the king's governors were there. Their fury fell on two of them, Slavata and Jaroslav Bořita of Martinic, who were put through an improvised trial, complete with a reading of the charges. It wasn't all politics. One of the ringleaders, Thurn, had lost a very lucrative post the year before, that of burgrave of Karlštejn Castle. And who had got it? Martinic.

He was the first out of the window. He's said to have called on the Virgin Mary as he fell. Then came Slavata, who hurt himself clinging to the window ledge. And then, quite unplanned, their secretary Fabricius, for standing up for them. They fell some seventeen metres and were shot at from above. All three survived. Martinic, almost unhurt, helped Slavata get slowly away; Fabricius ran towards the river and set off for Vienna.

How was that possible? Each side told it its own way. For the Catholics it was a miracle of the Virgin, and Slavata commissioned a votive painting in thanks. For the Protestants, they'd been saved by a heap of dung and rubbish under the window. Neither version proves anything. Today specialists lean towards something less glorious: the slope of the ground beneath the window, down which they rolled.

Two days later the rebels published an Apology: they insisted they weren't rising against the king, only against those who gave him bad counsel. It changed nothing. So began the revolt of the Bohemian Estates, which opened the Thirty Years' War. In the Czech lands, defenestrations come with numbers: the Military History Institute in Prague titles its account of 1618 "The Third Defenestration of Prague". Third? That count includes another episode we don't cover here.

A lady who handed no one over

The two governors found refuge in the nearby Lobkowicz Palace. That was the home of Polyxena of Lobkowicz, wife of the Supreme Chancellor of the kingdom. She had Slavata's wounds tended and, in doing so, probably saved both their lives. That same day the rebels came to claim them. She refused to hand them over.

Ten years later, Polyxena gave the Carmelites a figure that her mother, the Spaniard María Manrique de Lara, had brought from Spain and given her as a wedding present. It's the Infant Jesus of Prague, venerated today above all in Spanish-speaking countries. The same woman turns up in both stories.

What came next

For the rebels, what began at that window ended badly. Young Smiřický died that November, probably of tuberculosis, and his fortune passed to Albrecht von Wallenstein, whose mother was a Smiřický: the same Wallenstein who would be assassinated on the emperor's orders in 1634. The rebellion was defeated, and on 21 June 1621 twenty-seven of its leaders were executed outside the Old Town Hall. The twenty-seven crosses in the paving don't date from that day: they were first marked out in 1904.

And Martinic? Work on his palace on Castle Square had stopped with the defenestration. He finished it in the 1630s, with an extra storey and his coat of arms in red marble on the façade. The sgraffito scenes from the biblical story of Joseph are older, from the late 16th century. Pure coincidence, but Joseph also knew a thing or two about falling and getting back up.

One more window, in 1948

Prague remembers one more fall. On the night of 9 to 10 March 1948, a few weeks after the Communist coup that February, Jan Masaryk died. He was foreign minister and the son of Czechoslovakia's first president. He fell from a window of his official flat, under the roof of the Czernin Palace, and was found in a courtyard in the early hours. The official version was suicide. Later investigations haven't reached the same conclusion: one found it was murder; another, that no version could be either confirmed or ruled out. His death came to stand for the end of Czechoslovak democracy.

Fact or legend?

• Fact: in 1419 the crowd threw ten people (thirteen, according to other chronicles) out of the windows of the New Town Hall, and they died. In 1618 three men fell from the Chancellery at the Castle and survived. Polyxena of Lobkowicz took in the two governors and wouldn't hand them over.
• Uncertain: whether Žižka led the attack in 1419, and whether the king's death had anything to do with it. On Masaryk's death, the investigations have reached different conclusions.
• Legend or propaganda: the priest killed in 1419; the miracle of the Virgin and the heap of dung in 1618. The most widely accepted explanation is the slope.

Where to hear it

The window of 1618 and Polyxena are on the route "Prague Castle: Kings, Astronomers and Prisoners", at the stop in the Third Courtyard. The plot the evening before is on "Malá Strana: from the Charles Bridge to the Foot of the Castle"; Martinic's house and Masaryk's death, on "Upper Hradčany: from Strahov to Castle Square"; and 1419, on "Charles Square and the Paratroopers' Crypt". The crosses of 1621 are on the free route, "The Old Town: from the Powder Tower to the Astronomical Clock".

Further reading

• Vojenský historický ústav Praha (Military History Institute, Prague), "Třetí pražská defenestrace a začátek třicetileté války", written for the 400th anniversary (in Czech): https://www.vhu.cz/treti-prazska-defenestrace-a-zacatek-tricetilete-valky/
• Václav Vladivoj Tomek, Dějepis města Prahy, vol. III (Prague, 1875; in Czech). Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/dejepismestaprah03tome
• Novoměstská radnice (New Town Hall), "Historie" (in Czech): https://www.nrpraha.cz/historie
• Správa Pražského hradu (Prague Castle Administration), "Starý královský palác" (in Czech): https://www.hrad.cz/cs/prazsky-hrad-pro-navstevniky/navstevnicke-objekty/stary-kralovsky-palac-10209
• Martinický palác, "Historie paláce" (in Czech): http://www.martinickypalac.cz/historie-palace/