Pichel, a bigoted popish magistrate, apprehended 24 protestants, among whom was his daughter's husband. As they all owned they were of the reformed religion, he indiscriminately condemned them to be drowned in the river Abbis. On the day appointed for the execution, a great concourse of people attended, among whom was Pichel's daughter. This worthy wife threw herself at her father's feet, bedewed them with tears, and in the most pathetic manner, implored him to commisserate her sorrow, and pardon her husband. The obdurate magistrate sternly replied, "Intercede not for him, child, he is a heretic, a vile heretic." To which she nobly answered, "Whatever his faults may be, or however his opinions may differ from yours, he is still my husband, a name which, at a time like this, should alone employ my whole consideration." Pichel flew into a violent passion and said, "You are mad! cannot you, after the death of this, have a much worthier husband?" "No, sir, (replied she) my affections are fixed upon this, and death itself shall not dissolve my marriage vow." Pichel, however, continued inflexible, and ordered the prisoners to be tied with their hands and feet behind them, and in that manner be thrown into the river. As soon as this was put into execution, the young lady watched her opportunity, leaped into the waves, and embracing the body of her husband, both sunk together into one watery grave. An uncommon instance of conjugal love in a wife, and of an inviolable attachment to, and personal affection for, her husband. The emperor Ferdinand, whose hatred to the Bohemian protestants was without bounds, not thinking he had sufficiently oppressed them, instituted a high court of reformers, upon the plan of the inquisition, with this difference, that the reformers were to remove from place to place, and always to be attended by a body of troops. These reformers consisted chiefly of Jesuits, and from their decision, there was no appeal, by which it may be easily conjectured, that it was a dreadful tribunal indeed. This bloody court, attended by a body of troops, made the tour of Bohemia, to which they seldom examined or saw a prisoner, suffering the soldiers to murder the protestants as they pleased, and then to make a report of the matter to them afterward. The first victim of their cruelty was an aged minister whom they killed as he lay sick in his bed, the next day they robbed, and murdered another, and soon after shot a third, as he was preaching in his pulpit.