Jindřich Matyáš Thurn

Count Jindřich Matyáš of Thurn-Valsassina (Swedish: Henrik Mattias von Thurn; German: Heinrich Matthias Graf von Thurn und Valsassina; Italian: Enrico Matteo Conte della Torre di Valsassina; 24 February 1567 – 26 January 1640), was one of the leaders of the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against Emperor Ferdinand II.

In northeast Bohemia he purchased 1605 the lordship of Veliš manor (near town Jičín), which brought him to the membership of the Bohemian estate of nobles (páni, "lords").

In 1617, the devout Catholic Archduke Ferdinand of Styria was put forward as Habsburg successor to the aged, childless emperor Matthias, and also to be elected to the Bohemian throne.

Bohemian nobles required him to commit to honor their freedom of religion, enshrined in the Decree (Letter of Majesty) of the late Emperor Rudolf II.

What the nobles did achieve was that in 1618, in a stormy event at the Royal Castle of Prague, count Thurn was a key leader of that faction of the nobility who incited a crowd that defenestrated two of Ferdinand's representatives, Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice and Vilém Slavata of Chlum together with their scribe, Philip Fabricius.

After being exiled, Thurn continued to take part in the fighting and political negotiations of the Thirty Years' War against the Habsburgs, acting in the roles of both diplomat and as a soldier.

Count Thurn wrote a booklet in German, titled Defensionsschrift ("Writing about Defenestration"), the work justifying his role in the events of 1618 as a deliberate, conscious defence of his religious beliefs.