Besides Thurn, a few other leaders, Colonna of Fels, Budova, Ruppa, two nobles of the Kinsky, and two of the Rican family were present. Ulrich of Kinsky proposed that the royal Councillors should be poniarded in the Council chamber [where they were to meet next day], but Thurn’s suggestion that they should be thrown from the windows of the Hradcany Palace prevailed. This was in Bohemia the traditional death-penalty for traitors. As the Estates afterwards quaintly stated, “They followed the example of that which was done to Jezebel, the tormentor of the Israelite people and also that of the Romans and other famed nations, who were in the habit of throwing from rocks and other elevated places those who disturbed the peace of the commonwealth.” Early on the morning of the memorable 23rd of May the representatives of Protestantism in Bohemia proceeded to the Hradcany; all of them were in full armour and most of them were followed by one or more retainers. They first proceeded to the hall where the Estates usually met. The address to the king which the defenders had prepared was here read to them. All then entered the hall of the royal Councillors, where a very stormy discussion arose. Count Slik, Thurn, Kinsky, and others violently accused Martinic and Slavata, the two principal Councillors, of being traitors. Slik particularly accused Martinic of having deprived “that noble Bohemian hero, Count Thurn,” of his office of Burgrave of the Karlstyn. He added that “as long as old men, honest and wise, had governed Bohemia, the country had prospered, but since they (Martinic and Slavata), worthless disciples of the Jesuits, had pushed themselves forward, the ruin of the country had begun.” What now happened can best be given in the words of the contemporary historian, Skala Ze Zhore: “No mercy was granted them, and first the lord of Smecno (_i.e._ Martinic) was dragged to the window near which the secretaries generally worked; for Kinsky was quicker, and had more aid than Count Thurn, who had seized Slavata. Then they were both thrown, dressed in their cloaks and with their rapiers and decorations, just as they had been found in the Councillors’ office, one after the other, headforemost out of the western window into a moat beneath the palace, which, by a wall, was separated from the other deeper moat. They loudly screamed, ‘Ach, ach, Ouve!’ and attempted to hold on to the window-frame, but were at last obliged to let go, as they were struck on their hands. “It remains to add that neither of the nobles, nor Fabricius their secretary, who was also thrown from the window, perished, a circumstance that the Catholics afterwards attributed to a miracle.”