VIII.

FROM THE RETIREMENT OF THE GERMANS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE TO THE DEATH OF HUS.

(1409-1415.)

The overthrow of German supremacy in the Bohemian University has been considered by both sides to mark a great crisis in the history of Bohemia. The national character, which had been stamped at so early a time on the reforming movement, now became more visible to the world at large, and at the same time more exclusive and defiant. Nor was its effect on the life and death of Hus less notable. When he became recognised as the most complete embodiment of the principles of the Bohemian Reformation, his German enemies naturally fixed upon him as the chief actor in this important stage of the movement; and wild charges of violence and intimidation towards the Germans helped to increase the hostility which had been roused by the suspicion of heresy.

Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that, though Hus ultimately rejoiced in the change produced by the German secession, he had yet taken but a secondary and hesitating part in producing the change itself. On returning from Kuttenberg (Kutna Hora), after Wenceslaus’s first rejection of this proposal, Hus, disappointed and anxious, was seized with illness; and, while worn with suffering, he asked a friend whether, after all, the change was a just one. This appeal has been quoted by a modern writer as a proof of the duplicity of Hus; and the same antagonist has scornfully contrasted this anxious hesitation with the exulting approval of the change which Hus proclaimed at a later time.

To those who try to weigh both sides of a question, it may not seem so difficult to understand that Hus may have heartily desired, and exulted in, the victory of the reforming party and the freedom of the Bohemians from German domination, and yet may have hesitated in his own mind, especially in sickness, about the justice of the particular step which brought things to a crisis. The point which rather seems to distinguish him from other men in the matter was the candour with which he confessed those previous doubts at a place and in a time when such a confession was certain to be used against him.

But if the charge of duplicity against Hus is founded mainly on ignorance of human nature, the accusation of violence which was brought against the Bohemian reformers may have been partially due to a confusion between two contests which were taking place at the same time, and in which the same parties were to some extent involved. For, while the Germans and Bohemians were struggling for supremacy in the University of Prague, Wenceslaus was devoting his energies to the punishment of the Archbishop and clergy for their championship of Gregory XII. In this, as in every other case, Wenceslaus soon damaged his cause by his utter want of self-restraint. Mobs were let loose upon the clergy, many acts of violence were committed, and a general sense of insecurity prevailed. Zbynĕk, who had plenty of that bull-dog courage which one might expect from an ex-soldier, replied to the king’s violence by putting Prague under an interdict. How the king might have met this defiance one may guess from his previous conduct; but the Archbishop and his clergy were saved from the fate of Nepomuc by a sudden change of circumstances.

The Council of Pisa had agreed to depose the two existing claimants of the Papacy; and, after some discussion, they chose a new Pope, under the name of Alexander V. At first, of course, this Pope was not very favourably inclined to an Archbishop who had steadily opposed his election; but, when Zbynĕk accepted his authority, and showed his appreciation of him by sending him rich gifts, Alexander became alarmed at the spread of heresy in Bohemia, and granted a commission for inquiry into the writings of Wyclif, and a permission to Zbynĕk to remove those writings from the eyes of the faithful.

This commission gave a new opportunity to the enemies of Hus; and they presented a petition against him to the Archbishop, in which they charged him with sixteen acts of heresy and disorder. Some of these charges had already been put forward on former occasions, others alleged against him heresies which he repudiated; but there are four accusations at least that are specially worth noting, both for their own character, and on account of the answers made to them by Hus. The fourth charge was that in a conversation, which took place at the time of the drowning of John Nepomuc and the arrest of the Dean of Prague, Hus had spoken lightly of these acts, and had condemned the proposal to put Prague under an Interdict on account of them. Hus replied to this charge by quoting his actual words. “If,” said he, “he himself, or any other, had been killed or imprisoned, that was no reason why men should cease to give praise to God throughout the kingdom of Bohemia.” The fifth clause he answered by one of those distinctions which seemed to his enemies so dishonest. Hus was accused of saying that anti-Christ had fixed a foot in the Roman Church, which it was difficult to move. To this charge Hus answered that he had never said this of the Roman _Church_, because he considered that that Church consisted of all those who held the faith preached by St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome; but that he did maintain that anti-Christ had set his foot very firmly in the Roman _Court_ (Curia). Thirdly, he objected to two of the charges against him on the ground that they implied his use of words which had no equivalent in the Bohemian language, and which, therefore, he could not have used in the Bethlehem Chapel. Lastly, in answer to the charge of having stirred up ill-will between Bohemian and German, he denied that he had done this, unless either German or Bohemian had taken unjust occasion from his words; and he reiterated his statement that he loved a good German better than a bad Bohemian.

It was evident that these articles were intended to identify still more closely the struggle of the Archbishop and clergy against secular intrusion and heretical doctrine with the struggles of the Germans for supremacy in Bohemia. But if, by so doing, Zbynĕk secured a stronger following in the outside world, and bound to his cause those Germans who had remained in Bohemia, he irritated against him still more strongly the feeling of the Bohemian nobles and of a large number of the citizens of Prague; and he even alienated from him many of the inferior clergy.

Another powerful influence, which was specially exerted at this time in favour of Hus, was that of the Queen Sophia. She had been greatly impressed by the preacher, and had taken him as her chief adviser, some say her confessor; and, though it may be true of Wenceslaus that he hated Zbynĕk more than he loved Hus, the reverse is true of his wife. Yet in spite of all this force of opposition, Zbynĕk showed very little sign of yielding. He consented, indeed, to postpone any final act until the Margrave of Moravia could be consulted. But, whether Jodok delayed beyond the time proposed, or whether the Archbishop simply grew tired of waiting, he resolved, on June 10, 1410, publicly to burn two hundred of Wyclif’s books; and accordingly they were burnt in great state, in the court of the archiepiscopal palace, the bells of the churches being tolled during the performance.

As if to mark the man against whom this proceeding was specially aimed, the Archbishop followed it up by commanding the closing of all private chapels, a command understood by everybody to be intended especially against the chapel in which Hus preached. Hus and his friends indignantly appealed to the Pope against these proceedings; and they did not fail to point out that many of the works which were burnt were not theological at all, but simply dealt with abstract philosophy. Indeed, the traditions of learning and culture, which the German scholars had hoped to secure to their side, in their first struggle against the Bohemian language, were now appealed to by the opposite party with much more force. Zbynĕk was ridiculed in satirical songs for having burnt books which he had never read; and the University of Bologna, when consulted by the Pope, denounced the burning of the books as an insult to the University of Oxford. Zbynĕk, indeed, would have fought to the last; but Pope Alexander was shaken by the opposition which these proceedings had called forth, and he checked the inquiry into Wyclif’s books, and continued to delay matters, till the decision was taken out of his hands by death.

Both parties made haste to approach the new Pope, John XXIII.; and he demanded that Hus should come to Rome. The danger of the way made a good excuse for refusal; and John, having received rich presents from Zbynĕk, consented to excommunicate Hus for contumacy. This, however, did not affect Wenceslaus’s attitude; for, irritated by Zbynĕk’s opposition, and impressed by the queen’s partiality for Hus, the king had become a zealous champion of the Reformers. He demanded that Zbynĕk should compensate those whose books he had burnt; and, on his refusal, he confiscated his property for the benefit of the owners of the books. At the same time the king and his friends wrote to the Pope to assure him that he had been ill-informed about the circumstances of the case. The Pope being thus politely set on one side, and riot and disorder continuing, there seemed an opportunity for some outsider to step in.

This opportunity was eagerly seized by Sigismund. He had never formally resigned that administrative power which Wenceslaus had granted to him in his time of emergency; and, though he had nominally supported Wenceslaus against Rupert in his claim to the Imperial crown, he was now intriguing to succeed the latter and to set aside his brother. Wenceslaus, on his part, was willing enough to listen to proposals for peace when they did not come from a clerical source; and Zbynĕk consented to accept the arbitration proposed. But, when the arbitrators demanded that the archbishop should write to the Pope to ask him to repeal the excommunication of Hus, Zbynĕk refused to submit to this decision; and he went to Presburg to appeal personally to Sigismund. There, however, he fell ill and died; and, in a few months, the controversy had assumed quite another form.

It will be remembered that the Council of Pisa had professed to put an end to the disunion in the Church by deposing the two claimants of the Papacy, and electing Alexander V. in their place. But, though Alexander V., and his successor, John XXIII., had probably been accepted by a majority of the authorities of the Church, the deposed Popes still, at times, put forward claims which could easily be taken advantage of by those who wished to stir up division in the Church. Ladislaus, the king of Naples, who had a grudge against John, took up the cause of Gregory XII. Therefore, in December, 1411, John proclaimed a crusade against the King of Naples, and promised plenary indulgence to all who would support this expedition, either in purse or person.

The commissioners for promoting this war arrived in Prague in 1412; and they soon set to work, not merely to preach the crusade, but to organise a regular system for the sale of the indulgences. Some attempt to start this trade had been begun in 1393, but it does not seem to have been then carried on on so extensive a scale. _Now_ the Legate farmed out the right of selling these indulgences to other priests, granting them preferment in the Church, and receiving from them a commission on what they raised. As respectable clergymen would not often undertake such an office, the trade fell into the hands of men of disreputable lives, who were thus brought prominently to the front. Hus had objected, from the first, to the attempt to involve the Bohemians in a war which he considered unchristian; and, when to the proposal for the crusade was added the organisation of the sale of indulgences, he determined to raise the question in an assembly of the University.

But he now found that some, who had been hitherto his followers, were prepared to resist and oppose him. Stanislaus of Znojem and Stephen Pálec̆ had been released from their imprisonment at Bologna, at the request of Wenceslaus; and since their return to Prague they had gradually drifted into the ranks of the opponents of reform. Stanislaus had been the first to show this change. The charge of heresy on which he had been arrested had been based on a pamphlet dealing with Wyclif’s doctrines. He pleaded that the apparent Wyclifite tendency of the pamphlet was due to its incompleteness; and, when ordered to finish it, he did so in a sense hostile to the doctrines of Wyclif.

It will be remembered that, though Hus had repudiated many of the doctrines of the English Reformer, he had yet opposed the general condemnation of his works, and had spoken warmly of his character. Therefore Stanislaus’ attack upon Wyclif paved the way for an open opposition to Hus. Pálec̆, indeed, had remained on the side of his old leader during the struggle with Zbynĕk, but the opposition to the Papal Bull drove him also into the orthodox ranks. The cry of cowardice has been raised against him by the friends of Hus, and seems, indeed, to have been sanctioned by Hus himself. But, unscrupulous and malignant as Pálec̆ afterwards showed himself, it may be doubted whether the charge of cowardice was, in this instance, a just one. It must be remembered that in his previous opposition to Popes, Hus had protected himself by the well-recognised formula that the Pope had been misinformed on the condition of affairs in Bohemia. On this occasion the question at issue was not so much one of information about special facts as of clear moral principles; and the issue of the Bull took away all possibility of throwing the blame of the Pope’s action on misleading advisers. Moreover, the opposition of Hus was no longer covered by the authority of the King. Wenceslaus, having once committed himself to opposition to Gregory, was not disposed to inquire too curiously into the methods which were used to suppress the fallen Pope. He had therefore sanctioned John’s Bull, and thereby approved the crusade. It may well, therefore, have been that Pálec̆, though willing to resist the ordinary current of clerical opinion, might yet doubt the lawfulness and propriety of setting himself against his spiritual and temporal rulers. At any rate, when Hus brought before the Masters of the University his proposal to denounce the crusade and its methods, Pálec̆ and Stanislaus headed the opposition to their former leader, and won the majority of the Masters to their side.

But Hus was not to be silenced. He continued to preach and write against the sale of indulgences; and he proposed to hold a discussion on the Papal Bull in the Carolinum, a college founded for the clergy by Charles IV. He was now compelled into a position which seems to anticipate the more advanced Reformers of the following century; for when the new Archbishop, Albik, called on him to obey the Apostolic commands, he answered that the Apostolic commands were those contained in the teaching of Christ and His Apostles; that, so far as the Pope’s commands agreed with them, he would obey them gladly; but that, if they did not agree with them, he would not obey them, if the fire were kindled in his presence.

Hus was now at issue with old friends, with the leaders of learning, and with the rulers of Church and State. It was therefore with special satisfaction that he must have hailed a new supporter who came to his aid at this crisis. This was a young Bohemian nobleman, named Hieronymus, or Jerom. He has often been credited with the first introduction of Wyclif’s works into Bohemia, though some historians have thrown doubt on this claim. Whether it were so or not, he certainly now formed a link between the reforming leaders and the fashionable world, which did not previously exist. His easy circumstances and noble birth gave him entrance to the Court circles of Europe; and his attractive manners, splendid dress, and love of display gained him fame and popularity. Moreover, he had found great delight in exciting discussions on doubtful points of theology in the various Universities which he had visited. He began these discussions at Heidelberg, apparently against the wish of the University authorities. He had visited Oxford, whither a reputation for heresy had preceded him; and he had specially provoked the opposition of Gerson, the Chancellor of the Paris University, by the controversies which he had inaugurated in that famous centre of learning. He now plunged boldly into the dispute about the sale of indulgences. His brilliant and polished oratory threw into shade for the time the simpler eloquence of Hus. He was followed home, on one occasion, by a large crowd of students; and the reforming movement began to attract the sympathies of the younger nobles.

But it soon became evident that the new converts would bring more zeal than dignity to the camp of the reformers. The forms of ridicule of the clerical party indulged in by these fiery spirits can scarcely have been welcome to the soberer reformers who had been first drawn to the teaching of Hus. Thus, for instance, a procession was organised, which marched through the streets of Prague, and in which the chief figure was a student, who was dressed as a woman of ill-fame, wearing round her neck an imitation of the Papal Bulls. Such demonstrations as these, when accompanied by satirical songs, naturally led to disorder and riot. Wenceslaus, who was divided in feeling between his friendliness to Hus and his desire to enforce his own decrees, tried in vain to effect a compromise between the contending parties, and, finding reconciliation or even partial restraint impossible, he forbad the reformers to offer any further opposition to the sale of indulgences.

This decree at once called out the sterner and nobler side of the reforming spirit. In spite of the king’s prohibition, three young men came to the church where the champions of the indulgences were preaching, and made a public protest against the preacher’s words. The intruders were promptly secured by the officials of the town council, and were at once taken to the Great Ring. A large crowd gathered to see what was intended, and Hus came forward to remind the councillors that he was the first promoter of the opposition to the indulgences, and that they ought therefore to punish him before they punished these young men. The Councillors gave an answer which seemed to imply that the prisoners should not be injured; but no sooner had the crowd dispersed than the youths were taken into a side street and summarily executed.

Great excitement followed this treachery; and numbers of people paraded the streets declaring their readiness to die for the truth. Hus, from his pulpit, praised the young men who had been executed, and exhorted his hearers to stand by the truth.

Another opponent now came forward to give new impulse to the attacks on Hus. This was a German priest of questionable antecedents, called Michael de Causis. He drew up a list of articles against the reformer, which revived, more definitely, the charge of sympathising with Wyclif’s doctrine, both as to the Sacraments, and the interference of secular authorities with the property of the clergy. With these charges Michael now combined the accusation of stirring up the people against the bishops, and making ill-feeling in the University. Pope John, already indignant at the opposition to his Bull, was roused by these charges to more decided action. He excommunicated Hus, and laid an Interdict on Prague. Several Germans tried to give practical force to this sentence by rushing armed into the Bethlehem chapel, and attempting to kill Hus; but his friends rallied round him, and the assassins were forced to retire.

[Illustration: THE GREAT RING OF PRAGUE. SCENE OF MURDER OF THE OPPONENTS OF THE INDULGENCE.]

During all this time Wenceslaus seems to have shown towards Hus a forbearance such as he hardly ever exhibited towards others who crossed his path. Doubtless one must trace in this conduct the influence of the queen; but, to whatever cause it was due, it did not fail to affect the feelings of Hus. He was shocked at the amount of disorder and bitterness prevailing in Prague; and he was grieved to think that he was, to some extent, the cause of it. The desire for peace and concession which these considerations produced was naturally quickened by personal gratitude to the King; and he now consented to leave Prague for a time, and to retire to Austi, where he remained under the protection of a powerful noble.

It was during this retirement that he composed the book “De Ecclesia,” which was to cost him so dear. In this he declared, more distinctly than before, his disbelief in the necessity of the Pope and Cardinals as a part of the constitution of the Church, and his belief in the essential equality of all Orders of the clergy. But his retirement from Prague brought no cessation to the fierceness of the controversy. Jakaubek of Kladrau, who now took the lead among the friends of Hus, demanded a reformation of the lives of the clergy, and declared that no peace could be made till these were amended. Wenceslaus once more stepped in as peacemaker. He appointed a commission of four, to which the representatives of the opposite parties were to present their different statements for consideration and arbitration. Stanislaus and his friends drew up an address, in which they spoke of the Church, “whose head is the Pope, and whose body is the Cardinals.” For this Jakaubek and his friends proposed to substitute the words, “whose head is Jesus Christ our Saviour, and His representative is the Pope.” When, however, the opposite parties came before the arbitrators, Stanislaus, Pálec̆, and their friends refused to submit to the order of discussion suggested by the commissioners; whereupon Wenceslaus cut short the proceedings by banishing from Bohemia Stanislaus, Pálec̆, and two of their friends, as disturbers of the peace.

In the meantime Hus had been vexed with scruples of conscience, as to whether he had violated his duty in consenting to leave Prague, and to abandon his pulpit at the order of the King; and, after vainly endeavouring to satisfy himself by a comparison of quotations from St. Augustine and others, he at last came back to Prague, though he could not at once make up his mind so far to defy the king as to return to his pulpit in the Bethlehem Chapel. While he was in this hesitating state, the crisis arrived which was to solve his difficulties for him, and give him the longed-for opportunity of vindicating his teaching before the world, without directly defying the King of Bohemia.

In August, 1414, Sigismund once more arrived in Prague. He had contrived, on the death of Count Rupert, to get himself elected Holy Roman Emperor, but had afterwards reconciled Wenceslaus to this arrangement, by promising to recognise the latter as Emperor, during his life, if Wenceslaus would allow him to retain the name of King of the Romans, which implied heirship to the Empire. This promise seems to have been very ill-kept; but probably Wenceslaus was too busy with his Bohemian troubles to care to enforce a claim which had formerly proved so irksome to him. At the period at which we have arrived, he was contented to leave both the dignity and power to his brother.

Circumstances now afforded a splendid opening for the display of both. The quarrel between John and Ladislaus, after being patched up by a temporary peace, had broken out again so fiercely that John had been forced to fly from Rome, and to take refuge in Bologna. From thence he appealed to Sigismund to call a new Council for the settlement of the troubles of the Church, and the final suppression of the schism in the papacy; and he consented that it should be held in the free, Imperial town of Constance. Hus also saw his opportunity in this Council, and he appealed to Sigismund to secure him a public hearing before it. Sigismund readily consented, and promised also to give a safe-conduct for the purpose. Before starting, however, Hus secured from the new Archbishop, Conrad, and from the chief Inquisitor in Bohemia, letters declaring their belief in his orthodoxy. He then put himself under the special care of John of Chlum and Wenceslaus of Duba, and, under their escort, he started from Prague, without waiting for the arrival of the safe-conduct. To judge by some expressions in his letter to Sigismund, and still more by a letter which he left at Prague, to be opened by a friend in case of his death, Hus had already a gloomy anticipation of the fate which awaited him. But his spirits rose as the journey continued; for everywhere he met with kindness and hospitality, even from the Germans, and at Nürnberg he was chosen to preach before the nobles and clergy. So, with raised hopes, on the 3rd of November, 1414, he arrived at the town of Constance.

He and his friends were somewhat startled to find that the inn at which he lodged was close to that already occupied by the Pope, who had so recently excommunicated him. John of Chlum and Henry of Lac̆embok decided that the best course would be to go at once to the Pope, and tell him that Hus had arrived, under the promise of safe-conduct from the Emperor. The Pope answered that he had no desire to hinder Hus in any way; that he had no wish to do him any violence; and that Hus might remain safe in Constance, even if he had killed the Pope’s own brother. The arrival, two days later, of a messenger from Sigismund bearing the safe-conduct must have further confirmed Hus’s sense of security; and, so safe did his friends suppose him, that a rumour even spread among some of them that he was to preach before the Council.

But, in the meantime, there had arrived in Constance two enemies far more deadly to Hus than Pope or King. These were Michael de Causis, the German priest, and Stephen Pálec̆, his former friend and recent opponent, who had so lately been banished from Prague as a disturber of the peace. They agreed to draw up extracts, chiefly compiled from Hus’s book “De Ecclesia,” some of them tolerably accurate, others perverting his meaning. These Pálec̆ carried about among the Cardinals, bishops, and friars, and he stirred them up to take action against Hus. At last, on the 28th of November, while Hus was at dinner, there arrived at his house two bishops, the burgomaster of Constance, and a German gentleman. Not knowing Hus by sight, they first applied to John of Chlum for an opportunity of speaking with Hus, on behalf of the Cardinals. Chlum seems at once to have suspected treachery, and he told them that Hus had come to Constance to speak publicly before the Emperor and Council, and that he was under the protection of the Emperor’s safe-conduct. The bishops answered that they had come in the interests of peace and to prevent disorder. Then Hus, rising from table, came to them, and said that, though he had come to speak to the whole Council and not to the Cardinals only, yet, if the Cardinals desired it, he would come to see them.

When he was brought to the palace, the Cardinals told him that they had been informed that he taught many errors. He answered that he would sooner die than teach errors, and he would amend any if they were shown to him. Then the Cardinals went away for a time, leaving him under the guard of soldiers. Still, they seem to have hesitated, and, in order to obtain clearer proof, they sent a monk to try to entrap him into confession of heresy. But, when this failed, Stephen Pálec̆ and Michael de Causis urged them to arrest him. One point, which they strongly pressed in proof of his heresy, was the practice which Jakaubek of Kladrau had introduced since the departure of Hus, of administration of the Communion in both kinds to the laity. Then they raised against him the charge which he had so often denied, of a sympathy with Wyclif’s opposition to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. They revived the old grievances of the Germans in the matter of the University votes, and then charged him with having incited to the plunder of the clergy, and of having stood alone in the support of the doctrines of Wyclif against both Germans and Bohemians. The Cardinals then sent a messenger to Chlum, who had accompanied Hus to the palace, and told him that he might leave Hus and return home. Chlum hastened to the Pope, reminded him of his former promise, and insisted again on Sigismund’s safe-conduct. Pope John answered that he had not ordered the arrest of Hus, but that he could not resist the Cardinals.

Hus, in the meantime, had been hurried off to a Dominican convent, in a suburb of Constance, and was there thrown into a damp prison. Chlum was not, however, to be silenced; and he put up bills on the great church at Constance, denouncing the Pope and Cardinals for their breach of faith. Then he appealed to the Bohemian nobles who had come to the Council; and they and the leading Polish nobles also prepared a protest against the treatment of Hus, to be presented to Sigismund on his arrival. In the meantime, the treatment of Hus showed a mixture of cruelty and cunning on the part of his opponents. While, on the one hand, the prison in which he was confined was so damp as to produce fever, he was yet allowed to communicate freely with his friends; and two of the letters which he wrote from prison had some influence on his fate. In one of these he defended the practice, which Jakaubek was now introducing, of Communion in both kinds. In the other he declared that, even if he were condemned by false witnesses, his friends were not to believe that he had forsaken the truth. This latter letter seems to have fallen into the hands of Pálec̆, or some other enemy; and it was at once perverted into the statement that, if he revoked and recanted anything at Constance, he would still continue to hold and teach it notwithstanding.

While these intrigues of the enemies of Hus were being reduced into a literary form, Sigismund at last arrived at Constance. Most English readers will remember the scene, as Carlyle has given it, of his splendid appearance on his entrance into the Council, of his pompous address about the need of suppressing the schism in the Church, and of his rebuke to the man who ventured to correct his Latin--“Rex sum Romanus et super grammaticam.”

The question of Hus’s imprisonment was brought before him by the Bohemian and Polish nobles; and he at first protested, with much indignation, against the violation of his safe-conduct. But the necessity of dealing with the question of the Papacy compelled him, for a time, to abandon further inquiry into the Bohemian heresies; for the representatives of the Popes arrived soon after at the Council. At first the discussion was confined to the consideration of the disorders produced by the multiplication of claimants to the Papal throne; and a demand was made for the simultaneous resignation of all the rivals, in order that the ground might be cleared for a new election. But it soon became evident that the case against John XXIII. was based on very different grounds from the opposition to his rivals; and fearing the consequences which might ensue, he fled from Constance. The Duke of Austria, willing enough to hamper a Council presided over by a member of the House of Luxemburg, lent his aid to this scheme, and John escaped to Freyburg. He was, however, seized and brought back; and he was soon after degraded from the Papacy, on account of his horrible crimes.

His attempted escape gave a new opportunity to the enemies of Hus. If, they said, one prisoner of the Council could escape, why not another? Hus was too lightly guarded at the convent; and he must be put under safer charge. Therefore, on the night of March 24th, a guard of a hundred and seventy armed men carried him off to a fortress, outside the city, belonging to the Bishop of Constance; and there he was chained night and day. Again his friends indignantly protested; but Sigismund was now evidently falling under hostile influences. He had been offended already with Hus for having come to the Council without waiting for the safe-conduct; and he was persuaded that the fact that Hus possessed that safe-conduct had been in some way suppressed. Indignant at this rumour, Sigismund, on the 8th of April, by the advice of the Council, revoked all the letters of safe-conduct which he had granted. At last, on April 17th, commissioners were appointed to report on Hus’s case.

It appears to have been about this time that Jerom also arrived at the Council. His career, since the struggle against the indulgences had been very unsatisfactory. He had first gone to Presburg to preach before Sigismund, and had there been imprisoned. Escaping from prison, he had made his way to Vienna; but had again been arrested there, and had consented to submit to an examination by an Austrian bishop. Set free on parole, he had broken his word and fled back to Bohemia, from whence he addressed a taunting letter to the bishop. It was, therefore, under the shadow of some discredit that he came to Constance, and offered to answer any charges of heresy which might be brought against him. At the same time he demanded a safe-conduct from Sigismund; and, not being able to obtain it, he fled from Constance, to which he was forcibly brought back by the officers of the Duke of Bavaria. He was then imprisoned, and kept heavily ironed for nearly a year.

Hus accused him of having disregarded the advice of his friends; and though it is not clear, whether this refers to his coming to the Council, or to his conduct when there, it is certain that his appearance must have made Hus’s position more difficult.

At last, on May 14, 1415, the nobles of Bohemia and Poland were able to make their protest before the Council against the treatment of Hus. They also indignantly complained of the insults and slanders which were being circulated against the Bohemian nation, as if they were profaners of the Sacrament, and guilty of all sorts of indecencies in its celebration. The Bishop of Litomys̆l rose in answer to this to say that he was the author of these reports; and that this desecration of the Sacrament was the natural consequence of granting the cup to the laity. Another bishop answered their reference to Hus’s safe-conduct by saying that Hus only obtained it after his imprisonment. To this the Bohemian lords retorted that John of Chlum had himself shown the safe-conduct to the Pope before the arrest of Hus. They defended his non-appearance at Rome in answer to the summons of the Pope; and they produced the testimony of the University of Prague to his orthodoxy. Then, after reiterating their denial of the charges made by the Bishop of Litomys̆l, they wound up with a rather amusing outburst of aristocratic feeling. The Bishop of Litomys̆l had demanded their names, that he might know to whom he had to give answer. They had fancied that their names were tolerably well known to him; but, for their part, they were perfectly willing to give not only their own names, but those of their ancestors. On a later occasion they produced the certificate which the Bohemian Inquisitor had given to Hus.

At last, after repeated appeals, Hus was granted an audience on June 5th. But no sooner did he try to answer the various charges brought against him, then all the Council howled at him, and, after demanding that he should give a simple answer (Yes! or No!), were proceeding to condemn him on the evidence of the falsified letter to his friends. Fortunately Oldr̆ich and Peter Mladenovich, who had accompanied Hus to Constance, heard the noise of the riot, and hastened to inform John of Chlum and Wenceslaus of Duba. They went at once to Sigismund, who was not present at the Council; and he sent the Count Palatine and Frederick of Hohenzollern to order the Councillors to hear Hus patiently. After some further disorder, the audience was adjourned to the 7th of June.

At the next meeting many new points were raised against Hus, both of doctrine and conduct. He defended his resistance to the condemnation of Wyclif’s books, on the ground that he had been called on to say that every proposition of Wyclif’s was either heretical, scandalous, or erroneous. At the same time he admitted that he had wished his soul to be with Wyclif, on account of Wyclif’s pure life. When charged with having appealed to Christ when condemned by the Pope, he declared that to be a most just and efficacious appeal, a statement which was received with laughter by his judges. At the same time he indignantly denied having encouraged his followers to smite with the material sword. Lastly, while maintaining the justice of the decision about the Bohemian votes, he denied the extraordinary charge of Pálec̆ that he had driven out the Germans.

But he was, unfortunately, doomed to irritate against him on every occasion the intense vanity of Sigismund. One great object of his enemies was to deprive him of any benefit accruing to him from his safe-conduct; and they caught eagerly at an expression of his that he had come, freely and voluntarily, to the Council. Provoked at the constant distortions of his language, he broke out with a boast, which, however true, was most ill-judged. If, he said, he had not wished to come to the Council, neither King nor Emperor could have compelled him; for there were many friends who would have hidden him in their houses, so that neither Wenceslaus nor Sigismund could have found him. When a murmur arose at this, John of Chlum stepped forward and said that, though he was but a poor gentlemen in his own country, he, for one, would have guarded Hus for a year, whoever liked or disliked it; and that there were many others who would have protected him in strong castles. This belittling of his power roused Sigismund’s anger. He exclaimed that he had sent Hus his safe-conduct before he left Prague; and that he had provided the noblemen for his escort; and he now advised Hus to submit himself completely to the Council. Hus at once answered, in his more ordinary tone, that he thanked Sigismund for the safe-conduct; and, for his part, he would be glad to be corrected by the Council if he were shown to be wrong.

On June 8th, he was examined more in detail on thirty-nine Articles gathered from his writings. Some of these dealt with the subtle questions of Predestination; but others were concerned with his assertions in the “De Ecclesia” that a visible head was not necessary to the Church; and that a Pope in mortal sin ceases to be a true Pope. Hus was able, with great force, to appeal to the action of the Council itself in justification of these doctrines. If a Pope in mortal sin did not cease to be a true Pope, by what right had they deposed John XXIII.? If the visible Head was necessary to the Church, who was the Head _then_, when all the Popes had either resigned or been deposed? Such arguments were probably too forcible to be convincing.

But again, by some strange fatality, Hus was further to irritate against him the suspicion and anger of the Holy Roman Emperor. “Not only,” said Hus, “did a Pope cease to be a true Pope if in mortal sin, but the case of the deposition of Saul by Samuel showed that a King might be treated in a similar way.” Sigismund was sitting at a window in a back part of the room when this utterance was made; but the Cardinals eagerly called him forward and made Hus repeat his statement. Nor was this the only offence which he was doomed to commit against the Emperor on that fatal day. When the examination had concluded, the chief Cardinal asked Hus whether he would submit entirely to the Council, or if he wished to defend any of the Articles alleged against him. But when Hus demanded an opportunity for further discussion, the Cardinal answered that the Council insisted on his abjuration and revocation of the Articles alleged against him, and his promise not to preach them any more. To this Hus answered, that he could not revoke and abjure opinions which he had never held, mentioning as an instance the denial of Transubstantiation. As for the opinions which he had set forth, he would retract them when they had been refuted. Sigismund endeavoured to convince him that he could abjure Articles which he had never held; whereupon Hus ventured to dispute the Emperor’s use of the word “abjurare.” This further denial of the power of the Roman Emperor over the Latin language roused to a still higher pitch the irritation of Sigismund “Super Grammaticam;” and he told Hus that, unless he would abjure and revoke all the errors alleged against him, the Council must deal with him according to its laws.

Upon this a fat and richly dressed priest, who was sitting in the window, cried out that they should not allow him to recant, since he would not keep his word; and again he quoted the falsified version of Hus’s letter. Then Pálec̆ and Michael de Causis pressed upon him a number of charges, some new and some old, mixing up actual writings and doings of Hus with doctrines which he had repudiated; and, after this had continued for some time, the Council decided to send him back to prison, to see if a period of delay would induce him to revoke his heresies.

For the moment Hus seemed to be crushed by the noise and bitterness of his enemies. He was leaving the Council with the sense that the world was entirely against him, when, as he drew near to the door, John of Chlum pressed through the crowd and shook him warmly by the hand. The memory of that handshake seems to have lingered to the last in the mind of Hus. Other friends, too, were still faithful to him; and, after he had left the Council, several of them pressed to the window of the convent where the Council was being held, to hear what should follow.

Sigismund was now thoroughly inflamed against Hus. He had belittled the protection which Sigismund had offered him, and had declared that his friends could protect him against the Emperor; he had quoted a Scriptural instance of the deposition of kings; and, above all, he had disputed Sigismund’s authority over the Latin language. Such a man could not be suffered to live; and the Emperor now declared that he delivered him over to the Council to be burnt, if they so pleased; adding further, that no recantation was to be trusted. He also implied that the death of Jerom must follow that of Hus.

Hus now saw that his fate was sealed; and one observes in his letters to his friends the tone of a man who is preparing for death. He was

## particularly anxious, lest the more ignorant of his followers should

suffer for doctrines which they had not understood, and which they had merely adopted from a sense of personal devotion to their teacher. So he wrote to one of these followers, that, if he should be attacked for his adherence to Hus, he should answer his accusers by saying, “I hope that the Master was a good Christian, but I have not understood or read through the things which he taught in the schools.” The thought of the corruptions of the clergy still weighed upon his mind; and he advised his nephews rather to learn some manual work than to become priests; lest, if they assumed the spiritual office, they should not maintain it as it deserved.

In the meantime, the Council, with singular maladroitness, had singled out for special condemnation the granting of the Cup to the laity; and thus, at one stroke, they changed the doctrine of a few obscure men into the war-cry of an indignant nation. This decree called the attention to Hus to this matter, which, till then, he had not deeply considered; and he wrote to his successor at the Bethlehem Chapel that he ought not to oppose the granting of the Cup to the laity, since there was nothing but custom against it; and that, if he opposed Jakaubek, there would be a division amongst the faithful.

But, while Hus was thus interesting himself in the affairs of his countrymen, the Council were not suffering him to rest in peace. One of the few priests who had shown themselves friendly to Hus at the Council wrote to him urging sophistical arguments in favour of a form of recantation; and Pálec̆ paid him several visits, to worry him into confessions of heresy. Yet, bitterly as he felt the persecutions of his former follower, that same self-distrust and earnest desire for justice which he had shown in the question of the three votes, and again on his retirement from Prague, appeared, even more remarkably, in this last interview. He entreated his enemy to pardon him for having charged him with deliberate falsehood on the occasion of Pálec̆’s first attacks in the Council. The savage apostate was moved even to tears for the moment, though his pity was of short duration.

At last, on July 5th, Wenceslaus of Duba and John of Chlum were sent to the prison to demand Hus’s final answer. But these messengers had been ill-chosen as exponents of the sophistries of Sigismund and the Cardinals. John of Chlum addressed the prisoner as follows: “Master John, we are laymen and cannot advise you. Therefore, see if there is anything in the things which they object to you, in which you feel you are to blame. If so, do not fear to be instructed and to revoke it; but, if you do not feel yourself guilty in your conscience in these things, then by no means act against your conscience, nor lie in the sight of God, but rather continue till the death in the truth which you have acknowledged.” Then Hus answered, “Lord John! know, that if I knew that I had written or preached anything contrary to the law or to our Holy Mother the Church, God is my witness that I would humbly revoke it. But I always desired that they should show me better and more probable Scriptures than those that I had taught; and, if they are shown me, I will most readily recant.” A bishop, who had come with the Bohemian nobles, now introduced the sophistical platitude which is common on such occasions--“Do you wish,” he said, “to be wiser than the whole Council?” “I do not wish,” answered Hus, “to be wiser than the whole Council; but I ask you to give me the least of the Council who can inform me by better and more efficacious Scriptures; and I am ready to revoke what I said.”

On the following day he was brought forth to receive his final condemnation. The articles on which he was to be condemned were read out against him, though he continued to protest against the manner in which his words had been perverted. To his horror, he found that they had added to the charges against him a new article, in which he was accused of saying that he was a fourth person of the Deity. He demanded the name of the author of this slander; but the Council refused to tell him. Then, as a climax to his offences, they quoted his appeal to Christ as against the Pope. At that he cried out “O Lord God! do this Council condemn Thy law and Thy acts as an error? because Thou, when oppressed by Thy enemies, didst commit Thy cause to Thy God and Father, and gavest us thereby an example to appeal to Thee as the justest Judge, humbly demanding Thy help.” Then for the last time he recapitulated the circumstances under which he had come to the Council. When he referred to the safe-conduct, he fixed his eye upon Sigismund; and the Emperor was observed to blush. This blush is worth mentioning as the only sign of grace in that mean and treacherous career. But, of course, neither appeal nor blush could avail Hus anything; and his statement was almost immediately followed by his condemnation to the stake.

Then he knelt down and said, “Lord Jesus Christ, pardon all my enemies for Thy great mercy; Thou knowest that they have falsely accused me, that they have produced false witnesses, and that they have produced false articles against me; pardon them for Thy mercy.” This prayer was received with shouts of laughter. Then they stripped him of his priestly dress, and put on him a crown which declared him to be an Heresiarch. This was followed by a proclamation committing his soul to the devil, to which he answered, “And I commit it to my blessed Lord Jesus Christ.”

He had now quite recovered his composure; and, on his way to the stake, he smiled when he saw the place where his books were being burnt; and he smiled again when the paper crown fell off his head and he saw the three demons which had been painted on it. When they put a heavy chain round his neck to fasten him to the stake, he exclaimed, “The Lord Jesus my Redeemer was bound with a heavier chain for me.” Even after the faggots had been piled round him, the officials came to him, asking him to recant. He answered by repudiating the false charges that had been made against him, and declared that he had only preached the truth of the gospel and the holy Doctors. Then, as they lit the fire round him, he cried out, “Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me;” but, as he added the words, “Who wast born of the Virgin Mary,” a flame struck him on the mouth, and he died praying.

N.B.--For the two stories which are most generally quoted about Hus, I can find no sufficient authority. The beautiful tradition of his comment on the woman who brought the faggot to burn him, seems to belong to a much later date; while the earliest authority, which I have discovered, for the prophecy about the goose and the swan, is Martin Luther himself. But both the stories are eminently characteristic; and they deserve to live as legend, if not as authentic history.