The Three Kingdoms

It was on November 8, 1620 when the army of the Catholic League under General Tilly had routed twenty thousand Bohemians under General Christian Anhalt at the Battle of White Mountain. According to tradition, a monk brought along an image of the Virgin Mary which had been defiled by the Protestants, inspiring the Catholic forces with religious zeal. The fighting began when Tilly observed Anhalt's troops on the slopes of Bila Hora with a hunting castle to the right, a brook on the left, and a smaller brook and moor land in front. The Bavarians, having rows of pikemen follow a vanguard of musketeers, crossed the bridge spanning the small brook and attacked the Bohemian center. The battle was brief, only two hours, and decisive. Tilly lost some seven hundred men whereas the Bohemian army was nearly destroyed. Whatever was left of Anhalt's forces scattered, and Tilly's men continued marching south into Prague from which the Winter King, Frederick V, and his wife fled the Czech capital.

The Bohemian revolt, started by the Third Defenestration of Prague in 1618 against Austria, collapsed, and the twenty-seven noble leaders who propelled the insurrection were executed at the town square. An uncounted number of civilians shared their fate. Religious freedom, which had been observed for centuries, gradually tightened in Bohemia, and many Protestants, if not already expelled, began to flee the country.

At the present, a Bavarian viscount who was an officer under the Count of Tilly trudged through the snowy streets of Prague, rubbing his gloved hands together to keep the chill out of his fingers. He was dressed in full military regalia with honors on his breast and epaulets fringed by golden threads on his shoulders. He shivered once, wishing he had his furs about him. He looked up then at the gray sky whose silvery clouds drifted toward the pearly-green of the distant horizon.

With his head back, he deeply inhaled the frigid air and wondered if it were going to snow in the evening. He continued on his way, admiring the wintry landscape of Prague and longing for his own mansion back in Bavaria. No doubt the park was covered in white, and the central fir trees strung with candles. His wife might have already turned off the fountain, freezing the water into cascading crystalline jets which would only flow again when the balmy breeze of spring would thaw the ice into liquid diamonds. Smiling, he imagined how his youngest would watch mesmerized as ice sculptures of angels and fawns were erected in the garden. But he was a lonely Catholic officer in Prague amidst other martial colleagues and hostile Protestants who had decided to wait out the winter before leaving.

The officer came to a courtyard enclosed on three sides by apartments. A group of small children was playing in the court, some hurling snowballs at each other, some walking around aimlessly, trying to make a picture with their footprints. Still others, while lying on the ivory ground, flapped their arms and legs back and forth to form snow angels. He stopped and watched the children with amused eyes and a soft smile on his lips.

"Are you not cold, little ones?" he asked in a husky voice.

"Oh no, sir. It's always this cold in Prague during this time of year," a little boy replied, holding a snowball in his hands and eying the officer's splendid uniform. Some of the other children looked again at the gentleman before them, not knowing who he was, but they liked his glittering epaulets and bright honorary ribbons.

"I see," the officer returned. "And what do you call this time of year?"

"Why? It's winter, sir," another boy answered, stepping back to inspect his snow angel. "It's always cold in winter."

"Then it is very cold indeed in your kingdom of Prague," the officer continued.

"It's always so in Prague, but our kingdom is called Bohemia, and our king is known as Frederick the Fifth," the first boy answered.

The officer laughed lightly. "Your kingdom is Bohemia, is it? And are you all part of it?" he said.

"Yes!" a third boy shouted, clapping his hands with infant patriotism.

The officer who had been bending down to talk at the level of the children now stood up straight and pointed to the ivy vine creeping up the far wall. "You all live in the kingdom of Bohemia, but to what kingdom does that ivy belong?" he quizzed. The children looked to where his gloved hand gestured. They were all puzzled, and peered at each other with dubious expressions.

Then the first boy ventured, "It's part of the plant kingdom." The officer nodded in approval and gave the boy a thin red ribbon from among his honors on his breast. The boy accepted the prize with shining eyes.

Then the officer put his hand into his pocket and produced a yellow gold piece which he held out in his white palm for the children to see. "Now, to what kingdom does this belong?" he asked.

"The mineral kingdom," the second boy supplied. "All gold pieces belong to the mineral kingdom." Still smiling, the officer flicked the coin toward the second boy who airily caught it. The other children were very excited and forgot their snowballs and angels as they eagerly waited for what the decorated gentleman would say next.

"Ah, so you all belong to Bohemia, the ivy to the plants, and the gold piece to the minerals. It has been a long time. For two years I have gone off to fight a war, and I hope that war is over. But I have forgotten to what kingdom I belong. Can you tell me," the officer queried, a touch of sadness marking his expression. The children bowed their heads, remembering what their parents had told them about the Austrians and Bavarians. They were not sure how to answer. Some wanted to say, "To the kingdom of Bohemia" since he looked like a soldier; and others thought, "To the animal kingdom."

At last a little blue-eyed girl replied, "I think you belong to the kingdom of heaven." With glistening eyes, the officer looked down at the Bohemian child who resembled so much his own daughter in Bavaria. He picked her up in his arms and kissed her soft curls.

"If all our diplomats and generals were children, we would have no wars," the officer said to himself aloud.

"What's a war?" the little girl in his arms asked.

"I wish I knew, my child," the officer replied with a wary sigh. The girl gazed at him concernedly. At that moment, however, he caught sight of a tall woman advancing toward him with a worried expression on her face. As she quickened her strides, he put down the child and met the woman directly.

When she reached the courtyard, the officer gave the woman a stiff bow and said in a respectful tone, "Your daughter is an angel, frau."

The Bohemian woman, now puzzled instead of worried, looked at the Bavarian officer quizzically. He only smiled and remarked, "It is winter, frau, and I am just a lonely officer too cold to fight." He saluted her, and she and the children watched him leave in silence.