The Events of the Battle of the White Mountain: Their Causes and Consequences in the Works of Exiles after the Battle of the White Mountain

This study documents, by means of works written by contemporary chroniclers - exiles fleeing the country after the Battle of the White Mountain - the causes and consequences of the Czech Estates Uprising. The most important source to provide us with information on this range of problems is the Ecclesiastic History by Pavel Skála of Zhoř. Pavel Skála of Zhoř was a clerk of the directorial government and the royal office of Friedrich von Pfalz (Frederick Palatine), whom he accompanied abroad for two years. In the last four volumes of his Ecclesiastic History he gives an account, from the point of view of an eyewitness, of events in the context of the European history that took place in Bohemia before the Estate Uprising, during the short reign of Frederick Palatine and after the defeat of Bohemian troops at the White Mountain. The author of the study does not forget the works of Pavel Ješín of Bezdězec, Mikuláš Diviš of Doubravín and a number of others.

Keywords: The Battle of the White Mountain (1618); Bohemian Estates Uprising; Czech Chroniclers of the 16th and 17th centuries; Church history