Some members of the Bohemian aristocracy have rebelled following the 1617 election of Ferdinand (Duke of Styria and a Catholic) as King of Bohemia to succeed the aging Emperor Matthias.

Roman Catholic officials had in 1617 ordered the cessation of construction of some Protestant chapels on land of which the Catholic clergy claim ownership.

Protestants contend the land in question is royal, rather than owned by the Catholic Church, and is thus available for their own use.

Protestants interpret the cessation order as a violation of the right to freedom of religious expression granted in the Letter of Majesty issued by Emperor Rudolf II in 1609.

They also fear that the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand, a staunch supporter of the German Catholic League, will revoke the Protestant rights altogether once he comes to the throne.

An assembly of Protestants at Prague Castle, led by Count Jindrich Matyas Thurn, ‘try’ two Imperial governors, Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice, for violating the Letter of Majesty, find them guilty, and throw them, together with their scribe Philip Fabricius, out of the windows of the Bohemian Chancellery on May 23, 161.

They land on a large pile of manure in a dry moat and survive.

Philip Fabricius will later be ennobled by the emperor and granted the title von Hohenfall (lit. meaning "of Highfall").

Roman Catholic Imperial officials claim that the three men had survived due to the mercy of angels assisting the righteousness of the Catholic cause.

Protestant pamphleteers assert that their survival had more to do with the horse excrement in which they landed than the benevolent acts of the angels.

This event, known as the Second Defenestration of Prague (the first had occurred in 1419), exacerbates a low-key rebellion into into armed conflict—the Bohemian Revolt—thus precipitating what is to become known as the Thirty Years’ War, which is to further polarize Europe on religious grounds.

Count Thurn leads an army to the walls of Vienna itself in 1619.

The Emperor, who had been preoccupied with the Uzkok War, hurries to reform an army to stop the Bohemians and their allies from entirely overwhelming his country.

Count Bucquoy, the commander of the Imperial army, defeats the forces of the Protestant Union led by Count Mansfeld at the Battle of Sablat, on June 10, 1619.

This cuts off Count Thurn's communications with Prague.

The Battle of Sablat also costs the Protestants an important ally—Savoy, long an opponent of Habsburg expansion.

Savoy has already sent considerable sums of money to the Protestants and even sent troops to garrison fortresses in the Rhineland.

The capture of Mansfeld's field chancery reveals the Savoyards' involvement and they are forced to bow out of the war.

Count Thurn's army continues to exist as an effective force in spite of Sablat, and Mansfeld manages to reform his army further north in Bohemia.

The Bohemian forces’ defeat in early August 1619 of an Imperial army at Dolní Věstonice (German: Wisternitz) leaves Moravia in the Bohemian camp.

Bethlen's troops join with the troops of the Czech and Moravian estates (led by Count Thurn), but they fail to conquer Vienna in November.

Bethlen is forced to leave Austria after being attacked by George Druget, the captain of Upper Hungary (i.e.

present-day Slovakia and adjacent territories), and Polish mercenaries (lisowczycy).

The Bohemians have reneged on their offer of their crown, but the Transylvanians continue to make surprising progress, succeeding in driving the Emperor's armies from this country by 1620.

Although Bethlen has conquered most of Royal Hungary, he is not averse to a peace, nor to a preliminary suspension of hostilities, and negotiations had been opened at the conquered towns of Pozsony, Kassa and Besztercebánya.

They had initially led to nothing because Bethlen had insisted on including the Czechs in the peace, but finally a truce is concluded on February 4, 1620, under which Bethlen receives thirteen counties in the east of Royal Hungary.

Christian, fresh from his victory at Fleurus, has spent the winter of 1622-23 in the Spanish Netherlands resting and replenishing his army to what is in spring 1623 set at roughly fifteen thousand.

Christian, Mansfeld, the Hungarian general Bethlen Gabor, and his ally Count Thurn plan to retake Bohemia for the Protestants and to breathe new life into the ailing Protestant cause.

The campaign falters from the start as Tilly receives news of the troop movements and positions himself in Lower Saxony, with reports from Mansfeld coming to Christian that he does not have the money to pay his armies or to campaign, leaving Christian to himself in the north.

Outnumbered again, and leading an army that is not as disciplined as Tilly's, Christian makes a break for the relative safety of the United Provinces.

He is outrun and outmaneuvered ten miles short of the Dutch border, and in a stand typical of Christian's bravery, he is nonetheless decisively defeated at the Battle of Stadtlohn on August 6, 1623, when he loses all but two thousand of this fifteen thousand man army.

Broken, he flees for The Hague with the remnants of his cavalry.

Tilly’s victory virtually ends all Protestant resistance in Germany.

Three days after Stadtlohn, Frederick V signs an armistice with Ferdinand II, ending the former's resistance to what seems impending Catholic domination of the Holy Roman Empire.

Bethlen, though successful in Bohemia, is unable to continue the war after the defeat of the Protestant forces in Germany.

Thus ends the "Palatine Phase" of the Thirty Years' War, and the Protestant rebellion as a whole.

However, the transfer of the Upper Palatine (northern Bavaria) along with Frederick’s electoral vote to Bavaria’s Duke Maximilian, Frederick’s distant relative, coupled with Maximilian’s claims to the Rhenish Palatinate, makes peace virtually impossible.