Though already existing in Middle French, the word defenestrate is believed to have first been used in English in reference to the episodes in Prague in 1618 when the disgruntled Protestant estates threw two royal governors and their secretary out of a window of the Hradčany Castle and wrote an extensive apologia explaining their action.

In the Middle Ages and early modern times, defenestration was not uncommon—the act carried elements of lynching and mob violence in the form of murder committed together.

[1] Jan Želivský, a Hussite priest at the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the New Town Hall on Charles Square.

In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg had settled religious disputes in the Holy Roman Empire by enshrining the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, allowing a prince to determine the religion of his subjects.

He was increasingly viewed as unfit to govern, and other members of the Habsburg dynasty declared his younger brother, Matthias, to be family head in 1606.

[citation needed] Conflict was precipitated by two factors: Matthias, already aging, and without children, made his cousin, Ferdinand of Styria, his heir and had him elected king in 1617.

Whereas Matthias and Klesl were prepared to appease these demands, Ferdinand was not; in 1618 he forced the Emperor to order the cessation of construction of some Protestant chapels on royal land.

After preparing the meeting hall, members of the dissolved assembly of the three main Protestant estates gathered at 9:00 am, led by Count Thurn, who had been deprived of his post as castellan (burgrave) of Karlštejn Castle by the Emperor.

[citation needed] According to the Count of Martinice himself: Lord Paul Rziczan read aloud ... a letter with the following approximate content: His Imperial Majesty had sent to their graces the lord regents a sharp letter that was, by our request, issued to us as a copy after the original had been read aloud, and in which His Majesty declared all of our lives and honour already forfeit, thereby greatly frightening all three Protestant estates.

As they also absolutely intended to proceed with the execution against us, we came to a unanimous agreement among ourselves that, regardless of any loss of life and limb, honour and property, we would stand firm, with all for one and one for all ... nor would we be subservient, but rather we would loyally help and protect each other to the utmost, against all difficulties.

[5]Before the regents gave any answer, they requested that the Protestants give them the opportunity to confer with their superior, Adam von Waldstein, who was not present.

Two regents, Adam II von Sternberg and Matthew Leopold Popel Lobkowitz, were declared innocent by the Protestant Estate holders, deemed to be too pious to have any responsibility in the preparation of the Emperor's letter.

[6][7] Catholics maintained the men were saved by angels or by the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who caught them; later Protestant pamphleteers asserted that they survived due to falling onto a dung heap, a story unknown to contemporaries and probably coined in response to divine intervention claims.

For example, it has been used[11] to describe the death of Jan Masaryk, who was found below the bathroom window of the building of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 10 March 1948.

[15] However, a more recent investigation opened in 2019 again called those findings into question, with new research claiming that Masaryk fell not from the bathroom window, but from the adjacent exterior ledge.