Eliska
Page 19
I have met with the authorities - now both Catholic and Lutheran - and have presented my confidential report with which they seem highly pleased.
By the way, near Unterkoblitz an Imperial messenger overtook us and shared some disturbing tidings with me. He had traversed the region we had left and witnessed grave disturbances there, precisely around Zatoransky of all places. It seems that a local revolt has taken place with much bloodshed but more than this I do not know.
I shall journey next month along the Danube to Tübingen to see you and, having read your letters awaiting me here, we can discuss the religious matters you raise - which preoccupy me also, Nephew.
You do not mention my private and rather risky letters I sent you. Please make sure, as I have asked before, to destroy them all. It would be delicate for me if they were to fall into the wrong hands, you understand. I do not, of course, regret writing them because that I felt you should know these things. But get rid of them.
Your mother Margretlin is here and sends her love and greetings.
As I do.
Ever in God, your loving uncle,
Huldrych von Mechtingen.
Would you care to travel with me to Munster this summer? I have work to do there.
Afterword
The noble writer’s account of his mission ends here.
Leaving aside its indecencies, the account merits certain comments.
First, it appears from other despatches found in Bamberg that this was only one of several missions von Mechtingen carried out in Bohemia, Lusatia and Moravia as well as in the Low Countries on behalf of his Imperial masters.
Secondly, what von Mechtingen’s letters do not disclose, for obvious reasons, is the real nature of his mission, although a hint is given in his thirteenth letter. After the death on 29 August 1528 at the fateful battle of Mohacz of Louis II, the childless monarch of Bohemia and Hungary, the crown was ‘offered’ to the Emperor’s brother, the Archduke Ferdinand, by reason of his marriage to Louis’ sister, Anne of Hungary. To achieve this election and vote of loyalty to the Habsburgs and the Empire, great amounts of work and ducats were expended. Even after his coronation in February 1527, Ferdinand continued to send his most trusted servants on secret missions of negotiation to consolidate the allegiance of the Princes and local rulers. This visit of von Mechtingen to the principled but volatile and ruthless Margravine of Zatoransky constituted one such mission.
While it is inconceivable that he would have carried with him the monies involved in the election bribery, it is clear that the Margravine awaited her recompense which was slow in materializing. Von Mechtingen’s long-suffering, tolerant condoning of his callous hosts’ behaviour can thus be explained, as well as the image he gives of himself as an urbane, indulgent but conscientious assessor. Shrewdly he allows nothing to emerge from his long and no doubt delicate secret negotiations in Zatoransky, astutely masking these with lurid details of the scandalous life of the community. Not that the tales are untrue; they are simply not the whole story. As an Imperial envoy, he proves himself worthy of his great masters.
A third item of some interest is reported by a certain Freiherr Rochus Frey, another Imperial envoy who in the summer of that year 1528 passed through the region on his way from Prague to Salzburg. From this it appears that in the early days of July a violent uprising had broken out in the area. It was not connected, for once, with the Taborites, the Hussites or any recognizable religious group; nor was it confined to the poor peasantry but involved artisans, small landowners, poor clergy and even individuals from a certain castle near Zatoransky. The revolt was well planned, thorough, unexpected and bloody.
Six churches, two nunneries and a monastery were burnt to the ground, the Episcopal residence looted and, while - ironically - the inmates were at High Mass, the castle itself was stormed, the drawbridge having been lowered by persons unknown.
The report submitted to the Imperial capital at Salzburg tells of an unprecedented carnage as the castle was sacked and torched. Among the ruins were found the bodies of two noblemen (according to local records, a certain Premsyl, Count Pauska and a Lord Milan of Rozenvice); a couple of bailiffs who had put up a staunch defence, numerous Landsknechte, pikemen, male servants, smithies and an executioner by the name of Sebasal or Sebastian, found in a sort of torture cellar, stabbed through with a pitchfork.
Further, the unclothed body of the ruling Gräfin, Eliska Helena of Zatoransky, was found in the moat where it had been thrown, weighted round the neck, from her bedchamber casement. A young girl found in her bed was saved and freed as were numerous other females throughout the castle.
Subsequently, the report states, the principal brothel in the town was put to the torch, the inn keeper and his wife being hanged from the lintel of the doorway.
No mention is made of names such as Mistress Radka Zidka, Brother Ignatius, Bojena, Ottla or others.
Little other information has come down to us. The document does, however, disclose that the marauding mob was led by a bearded officer of the Sixth Imperial Lansquenets who acted in a frenzied manner. Next to him, in leather breeches and jerkin, a beautiful young woman was seen dismounting from a grey stallion to set fire with a torch of burning pitch to straw in the underground dungeon and cells of the castle.
The uprising was gradually pacified but it was not possible to trace either the officer or the woman in question.
Finally, it can be confirmed that the late Gräfin was summarily buried next to the ruined gatehouse among the broom. Mysteriously a loving epitaph was found on the grave, said to have been placed there by a Vladislas or Ladislav, a middle-aged man in peasant homespun. This indeed may be our man, having escaped the massacre and still sought by the authorities. But there is no proof. The grave was also visited by a certain Beguine from the Rhineland but this is not substantiated either in any document that has come to hand. The grave apparently was later badly desecrated.
While we have no ready record regarding the Zatoransky succession (which was referred to the Diet for settlement), on the other hand a source in the prosperous city of Munster reported that a certain Huldrych Schonheimer; a retired diplomatic secretary in the Imperial court, embraced the Lutheran faith and, accompanied by his newly-ordained nephew and a married sister from Eisleben, laboured to question the massive structures of the medieval church and justify the fragile faith just emerging.
Nothing more is known.
The End
Also Available