XI.

FROM THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL OF BASEL TO THE FALL OF TABOR.

(1437-1452.)

The Council of Basel seemed to many to be the natural result of the Council of Constance. The conception of a constitutional check on the power of the Popes, and of a better provision for the orderly government of the Church, was an idea which had become familiar to the leading theologians of Europe during the bitter ecclesiastical divisions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And it must be remembered that, however unsatisfactory the results of the Council of Constance may seem to us, the dignity of its members and the apparent vigour of its action left a very different impression on the minds of many of its contemporaries. It had succeeded in deposing and electing Popes; it had burnt the heretics whom it had condemned; it had found princes ready to enforce its decrees by fire and sword. And if that last exercise of its power had ended in failure and disgrace, it might be plausibly urged that the greater part of the war which it had initiated had been carried on after the dissolution of the Council itself; and it was held therefore by many that the summoning of a similar Council would revive an influence in Europe more capable than the Pope’s of crushing out heresy and restoring power to the Church. It was just this consciousness of the popular expectation from the new Council which strengthened the opposition of Martin V. to the demand for its convocation. He may, no doubt, have honestly believed that his personal initiative was more likely to produce the desired effect on the crusaders than the necessarily divided counsels of a large body of princes and clergy. But at the same time he was very anxious that the experiment should not be tried of setting up so dangerous a rival to the Papal authority.

For the time, however, the feeling of the orthodox world seemed, with few exceptions, to be overwhelmingly opposed to his; and, even before his death, the Council of Basel had already begun its deliberations. But, from an early stage in the preparations for the Council, a very different conception had been put forward of the purposes for which it might be used. The Utraquists had from the first maintained that they had not had a fair hearing before the Council of Constance; and their early victories had roused a hope that some less partial tribunal might give them that opportunity of discussion of which they had been defrauded. In the dispute after the battle of the Z̆iz̆ka Hill, they had had a taste of those delights of argument for which they hungered; and the later victories of Z̆iz̆ka had induced Ulric of Rosenberg to demand, and Sigismund to promise, that even the Taborites should have their share in such a discussion.

In 1427 even Frederick of Brandenburg and Cardinal Beaufort had actually prepared the way for a meeting which was to afford opportunities for doctrinal discussion; and, though Pope Martin was able at that time to prohibit the proposed conference, the Utraquists did not lose sight of the prospect then held out to them. But, though this conception of the more pacific purpose to which a Council might be turned, naturally induced the Utraquists to listen with some interest and hope to the arrangements for the meeting at Basel, that hope was strongly mixed with fear and suspicion. To them, at least, the memories of Constance brought nothing but bitterness and loathing; and the evident hostility of those who were calling for the Council, led them to doubt whether their experiences of Basel would be likely to be any more satisfactory than the unforgotten wrongs of Constance. But, above all other causes of discontent, was their ever-deepening distrust of the promises of Sigismund; and at no time had that distrust been more fully justified.

New promises for a fair hearing were despatched by him almost simultaneously with preparations for a new war; and concessions of the most hopeful kind were continually explained away. Even the great overthrow of the last crusade did not bring to an end the fierce desire of Sigismund to re-establish his power by force of arms; and the Duke of Bavaria and the Count Palatine of the Rhine were eager to second his efforts in a cause which most men now recognised as hopeless.

But the growing desire for peace was now increased by a terrible fear. The rulers of Europe remembered that desire to throw off the power of their predecessors, which had shown itself among the peasantry of Europe after the failure of the crusades in the thirteenth century; and which had been renewed after the overthrow of the French nobles by the English invaders of the fourteenth. This same feeling was now again apparent; and this time the hopes which accompanied it were evidently based on more reasonable grounds. That the Saracen generals should defeat the armies of Louis IX., or that the English nobles should overthrow the French at Crecy and Poictiers, might be convincing arguments of the weakness of the defeated parties; but they did not necessarily prove that those who yielded to such opponents, would succumb to the attacks of an untrained peasantry. Now, however, for twelve years past, the peasantry of Bohemia, armed mainly with their thrashing flails, had repeatedly put to flight the greatest armies of Europe, and overawed their own nobility. Surely such an example might give to the peasants of Germany and France some hope that a time was coming in which they too might be the equals of their oppressors! In the South of France the French peasantry rose in large numbers, demanding that the nobles should, for the future, be content to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, and declaring that two priests were all that were required for the spiritual needs of the country. In Dauphiné collections were made on behalf of the Bohemians; while in the Rhine district three thousand peasants near Bonn and Speier declared their determination to overthrow the power of the clergy and nobles. Under these circumstances, there was a general cry that, if the Council did not come to terms with the Hussites, the peasant insurrection would spread throughout Europe.

Nor, on the other hand, were there wanting strong reasons why the Bohemians, on their side, should be eager for a peaceable settlement. On them had fallen the main misery of the war; and it is a curious fact that, in spite of their brilliant successes on the battlefield, much of their country was still in the hands of the enemy. Not only was the greater part of Moravia held down by Albert of Austria, but, in Bohemia itself, the strong fortress of Carlstein, and the important towns of Budweis (Budejóvice), Pilsen (Plz̆en), and Eger (Cheb), still held out against the Utraquists. Moreover, the discontent with the power which Procop had gained by his victories, was working among the more moderate section of the Utraquists in favour of a settlement in which learned men should have more power than soldiers.

Under these circumstances, an understanding was at last brought about; and, in January, 1433, the representatives of the Bohemians arrived in Basel. There seem to have been some five, or possibly six, Utraquists who had been chosen to represent their party; but the burden of the discussion, at any rate, fell upon four people, who were each entrusted with the defence of one of the Articles of Prague. The most important of these champions, and the one who was to gain most credit by the discussion, was, beyond all question, John Rokycana. He had been steadily advancing in reputation, both as a learned disputant and as a moderate and judicious leader. The teacher from whom he had derived his strongest convictions was Jakaubek of Kladrau; and he had, as it were, inherited from him a special devotion to the practice of Communion in both kinds. Rokycana, like Hus, had had great struggles with poverty in acquiring his early education; and, though his doctrines naturally connected him with the Calixtine section of the Utraquists, his obscure origin, combined with his strong will and individuality of character, often brought him out of sympathy with the aristocratic patrons of the movement.

[Illustration: JOHN ROKYCANA.]

His first public action had been an attempt to make terms between the citizens of Prague and Z̆iz̆ka, in the last year of Z̆iz̆ka’s struggle with the nobles, and he induced the latter to abandon an attack upon the city. His next prominent appearance had been of a less pacific kind; for it was connected with his vehement opposition to the attempt of Prince Korybut to make terms with Sigismund. Though, however, on that occasion, Rokycana had been the chief promoter of the arrest of Korybut, Pr̆zibram, and other champions of compromise; yet he had steadily exerted himself to prevent bloodshed in the collision between the two parties; and he had afterwards encouraged arrangements for the bringing back of the Calixtine priests who had been expelled during the struggles. Since the death of Jakaubek, Rokycana seems to have divided the leadership of the Utraquist clergy of Prague with the Englishman, Peter Payne.

Payne, as has been already pointed out, belonged, in doctrine, to the extremer section of the Utraquists; but by his moderate policy he had often been drawn into sympathy with the Calixtines. Since the death of Z̆iz̆ka, he seems to have been frequently identified with that party of Orphans who claimed to represent, more exactly than the other Taborites, the policy of their leader. This choice of colleagues contributed still further to distinguish Payne from the main body of those who agreed with his doctrines; and lastly, the peculiarity of his position was increased by that reputation for learning which was always an object of suspicion to the peasant soldiers of Tabor.

The other two Utraquist delegates at the Council of Basel were entirely representative of the Taborite party. One was Nicholaus of Pilgram (Pelhr̆imov), the “Bishop,” as he was called, of the Taborites; and the other was Procop the Great, the successor of Z̆iz̆ka on the battlefield. Procop, though less cruel than Z̆iz̆ka, had a more exclusive faith in physical force; and he was less interested in questions of statesmanship, or details of doctrine; but, as the most successful general in the religious wars, he could not be passed over in the election of representatives.

On January 4, 1433, the Bohemian delegates entered Basel, accompanied by a troop of three hundred horsemen. A great crowd came out to meet them; and the windows were full of people of all ages and both sexes, who gazed with astonishment on the strange dresses of their visitors; while those who were determined to assist their eyes by their imagination, discovered that these terrible heretics had repulsive faces and cruel eyes. To most of the spectators the chief object of interest was the famous general, Procop; and all strained their eyes to get a glimpse of the man whose very name had become so great a terror to the armies of the Empire.

Foremost among those who hastened to welcome the strangers was Cardinal Julian Cesarini; and it must be owned that few men ever had a more difficult part to play, or played it with more consummate tact and success. It required some courage to claim the position of impartial arbitrator, where one of the parties to the cause was a body of men against whom he had recently proclaimed a destructive crusade; nor could it be altogether gratifying to him to face in discussion men who had won their right to a hearing by putting him to an ignominious flight. Added to these considerations, was the further difficulty that, while he heartily desired the success of the Council, he took part in its proceedings as the representative of a Pope who had denounced it, and who wished to dissolve it. But the Cardinal was unusually well supplied with that graceful tact and ready wit which so distinguishes his countrymen. He resigned the formal presidency of the Council in deference to the Pope’s opposition; yet he not only remained in the city, but even managed by timely interventions to gain as much control over the proceedings of the Council as if he were still its official chief. With regard to the Bohemian delegates, he evidently set before himself, from the first, two objects, both of which he, in some measure, accomplished. He was determined that the Council should pass off peaceably, and that the Bohemians should have no cause to complain that they had failed to obtain a fair hearing; but he was equally resolved that, if concessions should be made to the heretics, those concessions should be, indirectly, a means of weakening the Utraquist cause. With the keen eye of a diplomatist, he at once noted the points of division between his opponents, and the best means of making use of them. Friendly as was his bearing towards all the representatives of the Bohemians, the one whom he singled out for peculiar attention and flattery was Procop; and the determination which he showed to bring him and his friends to the front betrays a purpose which it is not difficult to understand.

On January 10, 1433, the Council gathered in the Dominican cloister at Basel, to receive their new guests. To most of the orthodox Councillors it must have seemed a most humiliating moment when those, whom they had hoped to exterminate as heretics, were admitted to argue on equal terms, in defence of the orthodoxy of their doctrines. But Cesarini was equal to the occasion; he welcomed the Bohemians as at last returning to the bosom of their mother Church; and, while promising them a fair hearing, managed to emphasise the principle that the authority of Councils and of Fathers of the Church must be accepted as guides in the settlement of points of faith.

Rokycana answered by admitting that the Councils and Fathers would have their due weight with his friends; but he maintained, at the same time, that the Council of Constance had condemned their doctrines without a hearing. On their part, they were prepared to confirm all their doctrines by reference to the Gospels and the other sacred writings; they came to prove their innocence in the presence of the whole Church; and they asked that they should have a fair hearing before laymen as well as clergymen. The Utraquists were then asked what points they wished to discuss in which they differed from the practice of the Romish Church. They answered by enumerating the Four Prague Articles.

Cesarini now saw his opportunity, and he at once asked the Utraquist representatives if there were not other doctrines which had been specially put forth by them; for instance, he had heard it said that they believed the Mendicant Orders to have been founded by the devil. Procop immediately sprang up, and exclaimed that that was perfectly true; for, since these Orders were not founded by Moses, the Patriarchs, or the Prophets, nor yet by Christ, they must have been founded by the devil. This extraordinary argument was naturally received with laughter in the Council; but Cesarini insisted on treating it as serious, and met it by an elaborate refutation.

On the 16th of January, Rokycana opened his speech in defence of the granting of the Cup to the laity. While grounding his argument largely on the custom of the primitive Church, he yet fortified it by reference to decisions of Councils; and he asked whether any Council, before that of Constance, had ever condemned the practice as heretical.

His speech produced a deep impression, even on his opponents; but the effect was somewhat weakened when, a few days later, Nicholaus, the Bishop of Pilgram (Pelhr̆imov), opened the discussion on the second Prague Article, namely, the punishment by the Church of offences against morality. He quickly passed into attacks on the priesthood for the neglect of their duties, and became so fierce that he caused a disturbance in the Assembly; so that Rokycana afterwards rebuked his colleague for his intemperate language.

A less prominent delegate, Oldr̆ich of Znojem, was entrusted with the defence of the doctrine of the free preaching of the Word; and the Fourth Article, on the civil dominion of the clergy, was treated by Peter Payne. Payne had always impressed his opponents with the subtlety of his arguments; but he must somewhat have embarrassed his colleagues by a defence of the doctrines of Wyclif; and, particularly by that claim of the English Reformer that the temporal lords might, in some circumstances, take away the property of the clergy. It was, however, among his own countrymen that Payne’s appearance excited the most irritation; and several of them sprang up to attack him, not only as a condemned heretic, but as a traitor to King Henry VI. The hubbub at last became so great that he was forced to end his argument by handing in a written paper. Then followed the champions of orthodoxy; and very bitter was the feeling provoked by the attacks of John of Ragusa upon the Bohemian nation, as a whole. Cesarini exerted himself to restore order; but he again insisted that the Bohemians should express their opinions, not only on the Four Articles of Prague, but on the Twenty-four Articles of the Taborites, which involved a modified denial of Transubstantiation, and the rejection of many doctrines and rites accepted by the main body of the Utraquists.

The division of opinion, called out by this demand of the Cardinal, tended to weaken the order and decorum of the proceedings, and yet further increased the disturbance; and the orthodox critics of the debates began to demand how it was that the Council had failed as yet to convert the heretics, and to suggest that it would be better to resort to the former method of the sword. The delegates themselves gradually grew tired of the discussion, and desired to return to Bohemia. Even those Councillors who were most anxious for the success of the Council felt that the bitterness, which had arisen, prevented the hope of any useful conclusion in Basel; so, by way of compromise, it was at last decided that Rokycana and his colleagues should return to Prague; but that delegates from the Council should be sent to continue the conference in that city. Thus ended the first stage of the discussion; and, while Rokycana returned to influence affairs in the capital, Procop hastened back to renew the often-attempted siege of Pilsen.

It now became clear that the divisions, which had been so carefully fostered between the Calixtines and the Taborites, were ready to break out into a dangerous flame. On the one hand, Meinhard of Neuhaus, one of the few nobles who had remained partially faithful to the Utraquist cause, called together a meeting of his supporters, and urged them to shake off the yoke of Procop, and to choose a captain from the ranks of the poorer nobility, who should carry on the government with the help of a Council. On the other hand, Lupus, a priest of the Taborites, stirred up the inhabitants of the New Town against Rokycana and his friends, and exhorted them to refuse submission to the newly-elected Captain. Nor did the arrival of the ambassadors from Basel tend to lessen this bitterness; for though they held out hopes of concessions to the Calixtines, they fanned the flame of division between them and the Taborites; and, about the time of their return to Basel, friendly messengers came to Pilsen to urge the Catholics to stand firm, as their victory was approaching.

Indeed, so successfully had the work of division been done, that the ambassadors had found the means of discrediting Rokycana himself with many of the Calixtines, and of bringing to the front the old party of Pr̆zibram, which had been out of favour ever since the time of Prince Korybut. The wedge which they used to make this split was sufficiently ingenious. They proposed that the Communion in both kinds should be allowed to those who wished it; but that the Communion in one kind should be left, in those churches where it was preferred. To modern thinkers, no doubt, such a compromise would seem the ideal settlement; but to those who had been struggling, for so many years, against the invaders who were trying to crush out these practices, it seemed as if such a concession would only sow the seeds of fresh bitterness. Such a compromise, said Rokycana, Wenceslaus IV. had attempted; and the attempt had ended in a bitter fight, in which one party had expelled the other. There was much force in Rokycana’s arguments; but it was easy to represent him as an opponent of reasonable liberty, and (a charge which was more telling at that moment) as a hinderer of peaceable union.

But, in the meantime, the siege of Pilsen was making such progress that the Catholics and moderate Utraquists began to fear that the victory, which seemed almost within their grasp, might be taken from them after all; and Sigismund wrote to Ulric of Rosenberg that the Taborites were actually preparing to send a special embassy of their own to Basel; and that, unless the Calixtines would go to Pilsen, to hinder the progress of Procop, the Council of Basel would after all be compelled to make concessions to the extreme party. While things were in this state, Procop suddenly received news in his camp that the bitterness between the two parties in Prague had at last led to a final outbreak. The Taborites of the New Town had resolved to resist the authority of the newly elected Captain, and had fortified their division of Prague against him; whereupon Meinhard of Neuhaus had suddenly stormed the New Town and put the Taborites to the sword. Thereupon Procop at once resolved to abandon the siege of Pilsen, and to call on all the Taborites to follow him to Prague. Meinhard rallied his forces for the defence; and the two armies met on the 30th of May, 1434, near the town of Lipaný.

The Taborites followed the plan, so often adopted by Z̆iz̆ka, of fortifying their camp by an arrangement of their baggage waggons. From behind these they threw shells into the camp of the enemy, which so irritated the soldiers that they called on the nobles to lead them to the attack. The nobles, however, were resolved to accomplish their purposes by stratagem. The inferior troops were placed in the front, with orders to give way at the first attack. The Taborites fell into that trap; and, seeing the enemy, as they supposed, flying before them, they left their entrenchments and pursued them. The picked troops of the nobles then rushed forward, seized on the deserted waggons, and attacked the Taborites in the rear. The supposed fugitives, at the same time, turned upon their pursuers; the Taborite army, surrounded on all sides, was cut to pieces; and Procop and the other leaders died, fighting to the last.

The immediate results of the battle of Lipaný were of two kinds. One of the chief objects of Meinhard of Neuhaus and his friends had been to pave the way for negotiations with Sigismund, and this object they at once obtained; but the conduct of the negotiations was not altogether left to those who had been the chief promoters of division. The death of Procop and of his immediate followers had given an opportunity to the more moderate party of the Orphans to come to the front; and, as C̆apek, the leading general of the Orphans, was now the most prominent military leader among the advanced section of the Utraquists, the change naturally led to a removal of many of the differences which had so weakened the common cause. C̆apek carried on the policy of Z̆iz̆ka in the matter of maintaining an alliance with those of the Calixtines who were sincerely zealous for their country and their faith.

The man who most embodied that cause, in the eyes of the general body of Bohemian patriots, was undoubtedly Rokycana; and thus he found that his position had been greatly strengthened, for the time, by the apparent victory of his opponents. While, therefore, the leaders of the Assembly were able to organise a deputation to Sigismund, of which Meinhard of Neuhaus was the chief leader, the terms which the deputation offered were considerably coloured by the feeling of Rokycana and his friends; for, on the one hand, they decided to insist on many doctrines and rites which were condemned by the Taborites; and on the other hand, they demanded a strict enforcement of the Four Articles. They even proposed that no one should be received into the city who did not communicate in both kinds; that the king should admit no one into his Councils who did not observe the same rule; and that, if any community was oppressed by the Emperor or his officials on account of Utraquism, they should have the right of meeting force by force. It was impossible to suppose that Sigismund would accept terms of this kind, in so crude a form; but his growing eagerness to recover his crown made him extremely willing to enter into the discussion.

He would, indeed, have been glad to base his claim on grounds independent of the religious controversy; and he even ventured to appeal to the Bohemians to accept him out of respect to his father’s memory, and to remember that his grandmother was a Bohemian princess, descended from the old ploughman king, Pr̆emysl. At the same time he remonstrated so sharply with the delegates of Basel on the slowness of their proceedings, and the quibbling of their arguments, that they began to fear that he would drift away into complete opposition to the Council. They, therefore, urged on both parties the acceptance of an understanding which had been already put into shape in Basel. This compromise involved the acceptance of the Four Articles, under certain conditions; the most important of which were that the Communion in both kinds should only be allowed to those who admitted the complete presence of Christ in the Sacrament; and that, with regard to the punishment of public sins, the clergy should only be permitted to deal with the offences of their own Order.

But Rokycana complained that these and other modifications required further explanation; and, on the other hand, the Basel delegates were alarmed at a proposal put forward by their opponents that no Bohemian should be summoned before any foreign tribunal, whether secular or spiritual.

All difficulties, however, gave way before Sigismund’s inexhaustible power of lying; for, when the delegates found that his promises and concessions had no real meaning, they began to calculate that, if he were restored, he must rely mainly on the Catholics and the Pr̆zibram party, and therefore would find his interest in breaking his word to the Utraquists, and maintaining it towards the Catholics. But, perhaps, neither Sigismund nor the delegates of Basel were quite prepared for the result of one concession which the King was induced to make. The Archbishop and two suffragan bishops were, according to the proposals of the Assembly, to be elected by representatives of all classes. A Council of Sixteen was chosen for this purpose; and they secretly fixed upon Rokycana as Archbishop of Prague. As soon as this election became known, the Emperor and the representatives of Basel were deeply offended at their choice; but Sigismund, as usual, succeeded in evading a direct reply; and, in their zeal for union, the Bohemians consented, for a moment, to overlook this evasion. So on the 14th of August, 1436, Sigismund was once again formally accepted as king by the representatives of all classes, the three towns of Königgrätz (Sadova), Mies (Kladrau), and Kolin alone refusing to admit his claim.

It soon became evident that the King’s acceptance of the Compacts of Basel, and of all the limitations of his power, had been nominal. He speedily dismissed from office the most zealous Calixtines, and encouraged the growth of Catholic ritual. With regard to Rokycana, the King again found a means of evading any direct action. Philibert, Bishop of Coutances, had come to Prague as one of the representatives of the Council of Basel; and, in consideration of his rank and position, he was allowed to perform the duties which should have been entrusted to the Archbishop of Prague. At the same time the King made a formal appeal to the Council of Basel to confirm Rokycana’s election; but he advised them secretly to find excuses for delay in answering this appeal.

Rokycana was not the man to conciliate a prince like Sigismund. He observed with alarm the disreputable courtiers who had gathered round the King; and he soon began to denounce the gambling, profligacy, and drunkenness which were beginning to reappear in the city. It will be remembered that Rokycana had, from the first, prophesied an evil result from the compromise with the Council of Basel; and he now experienced the truth of his own prediction. Mutual recriminations were exchanged between Philibert and himself; each charging the other with violating the Compacts, and enforcing their special form of ritual in a manner contrary to the agreement.

The Praguer soon showed their indignation at the treatment which their elected Archbishop had received; and they indignantly demanded that their nomination should be accepted. Sigismund, however, was now being drawn by his supporters into a complete Catholic reaction. Monasteries and friaries were restored; and ecclesiastical property, which had passed into other hands, was re-demanded. This was a violation, in spirit at least, of the understanding on which Sigismund had been allowed to return. Rokycana’s denunciations grew fiercer than before; and Sigismund answered them by threats which induced the preacher to believe that his life was in danger; so he at last sought safety in flight.

If Sigismund had behaved treacherously and violently towards the leaders of the Calixtines, he was equally faithless in his dealings with the Taborites. The determined opposition which they had offered to him on his first return to the kingdom, had compelled him to make concessions in order to secure their allegiance; and he had promised that they should be allowed the use of their own ritual, for six years, without any disturbance; and that they should also be permitted to choose six Councillors for the government of their town. Doubtless the King had at once looked forward to an opportunity for breaking these promises; but, when they first returned to Prague, it seemed possible to weaken the Taborites by the milder process of stirring up division between them. Soon after the battle of Lipaný, Rokycana had submitted to Peter Payne the question whether Wyclif and Hus had ever held the Taborite doctrines on the seven sacraments and the invocation of saints, and other subjects of dispute. Payne delayed his answers to these questions; and Sigismund found the matter still unsettled on his arrival. He, therefore, peremptorily demanded that the required opinion should at once be given. Payne, thereupon, candidly replied that he could not discover any evidence of the acceptance of these Taborite doctrines by Wyclif or Hus; but that, nevertheless, he (Peter Payne) was prepared to support those doctrines. The answer was a dangerous one; for, while it emphasised the difference between Payne and the Calixtines, it provoked a fierce denunciation from the Taborite Bishop of Pilgram (Pelhr̆imov), who was indignant that his party should be deprived of the protection of two such honoured names. But, though Sigismund might have found it more natural to accomplish the fall of his enemies by sowing division among them, Bishop Philibert, and his colleagues from Basel, required more peremptory measures. So Sigismund once more broke his promises, and threatened to trample out the Taborites with fire and sword.

These repeated acts of duplicity naturally alienated from him many of those who had at first been disposed to support him; and when a man named John Rohac set up a fortress on Mount Sion and denounced the King and his policy, the Assembly of Bohemia actually refused to vote funds for suppressing the insurgents; and they told the King that he might march against Rohac at his own cost. Rohac, indeed, was suppressed after a short struggle; but his example was imitated by many nobles and citizens; and Sigismund at last left Prague in disgust and disappointment and retired into Moravia. He seems to have had some intention of again betaking himself to Basel, partly to hinder the growing quarrel between the Pope and the Council, partly, no doubt, to secure the help of both against his rebellious subjects. But, on his way through Moravia, he was taken ill, and on the 9th of December, 1437, he died at Znojem.

The power which he had gained by his re-conquest of Bohemia, and the fierce hatred which he had excited by his whole career, were alike manifested by the events which immediately followed his death. The champions of Sigismund at once proposed that his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, should be chosen king. This, they said, had been Sigismund’s dying wish; and they backed Albert’s claim, not only by reference to his marriage with Sigismund’s daughter, but by the old promise of Charles IV., that the House of Austria should succeed the House of Luxemburg on the throne of Bohemia. But, on the other hand, the House of Hapsburg had always been looked upon as enemies by all the most patriotic Bohemians, and there were at least three reasons why Albert himself should be specially unpopular in the country. He had tried to use the power which Sigismund had entrusted to him, to drag away Moravia from its connection with Bohemia. He had desired to Germanise all the cities that fell into his hands; and he had taken an active

## part in the war against the Utraquists. Although, therefore, the

champions of Albert succeeded in obtaining a majority in his favour in the Bohemian Assembly, Rokycana and his followers were able to rally round them some of the most active spirits of the nobles and many of the knights and citizens, and to secure the election, at Tabor, of Ladislaus, King of Poland.

Ladislaus was chosen on the ground that, if they could not get a Bohemian prince, the Bohemians should at least secure a king from a nation allied to them in language and race. This King accepted the crown on behalf of his younger brother, Casimir; and a war followed which might have been somewhat uncertain in its results, but that Albert, who had also been chosen King of Hungary, was compelled to hasten to that country to resist the invasion of the Turks. There, too, he found opposition, on the ground of his strong German feeling; many of the Hungarian nobles were disposed to revolt from him; and, worn out with anxiety and illness, he retired to Vienna, and died there, less than two years after his election.

[Illustration: ZNAYM (ZNOJEM), SCENE OF SIGISMUND’S DEATH.]

His death at once produced a change in the feeling of Bohemian parties. His widow, Elizabeth, might have been unfortunate in her marriage with a German, and not much more fortunate in being the daughter of Sigismund; but she was, none the less, the granddaughter of Charles IV., and, through the mother of Charles, the most direct descendant of the old Bohemian line. The sentiment which naturally gathers round a widowed queen seems always to have exercised an important influence in Bohemian history, and all parties agreed to suspend their strife until the expected heir should be born. But no sooner was it known that the queen had been delivered of a son than the question at once arose of who was to be his guardian. The new Emperor, Frederick III., at last consented to accept this office; and, both as Emperor and head of the House of Austria, he was considered the rightful protector of the young Ladislaus.

But it was evident that neither party desired that Bohemia should be at the mercy of the Emperor of Germany, and it was therefore necessary to choose two Councillors to govern the kingdom during Ladislaus’ minority. Ulric of Rosenberg, who had now become the leader of the Catholic party, decided to hold aloof, for a time, from politics; and, consequently, Meinhard of Neuhaus, who had represented the ultra-moderate party of the Utraquists, was chosen as the best protector of the Catholic interests in the Council, while a nobleman named Ptac̆ek represented the party of Rokycana.

The disorder which naturally arose in a country divided by factions, and without a recognised king, was further increased by the revival of those theological disputes, which had fallen, for a time, into the background. The Taborites, whom their enemies had, no doubt, supposed to have been crushed at the battle of Lipaný, had proved themselves a still vigorous force in the struggle against Albert; and Ptac̆ek became extremely jealous of their power, and desired to suppress them. A quarrel between one of the leading Taborites and some of the Silesians led to a Silesian invasion of Bohemia, and gave Ptac̆ek an excuse for demanding the suppression of the Taborite League. Rokycana for the moment intervened to make peace among the parties, and attempted to secure a free discussion of points of difference. At first the Taborites were unwilling to come to these discussions, declaring that they were afraid of Ptac̆ek’s tyranny, and appealing to Sigismund’s former promise that they should not be compelled to change their ritual; but at last, after actual violence had been resorted to, and the Taborite town of Vodnian had been taken by storm, both

## parties consented to a meeting at Kutna Hora for a final discussion of

the points at issue. Two presidents were chosen for the conference, Wenceslaus of Drachov, as representing the Calixtines, and Peter Payne, as the champion of the Taborites.

Payne had recently called out an unexpected burst of enthusiasm among his Bohemian friends. Returning, apparently, from a visit to Basel, he had been seized at Nürnberg by a nobleman named Burian von Gutenstein, and held as a prisoner. Burian offered to surrender him to Henry VI. of England; but Henry feared that he might be intercepted and rescued at Basel. That Council was now openly at war with Eugenius IV.; and, while the Pope was summoning an opposition Council at Ferrara, the Baseler, on their side, had declared Eugenius deposed, and had set up an anti-pope of their own. Many of those who had most earnestly wished for the meeting of the Council were now withdrawing their support from it; and Henry VI., who had been one of the first to urge its convocation, now denounced and feared it. He, therefore, advised Burian to send his prisoner direct to the Pope at Ferrara or Florence. This Burian was willing enough to do; but Eugenius was occupied with his contest with the Council of Basel, and with his attempt to help the Greeks against the Turks; and he found it difficult to deal properly with his proposed prisoner. Under these circumstances the Taborite towns cut the knot by offering to raise a large ransom for Payne. This was accepted by Eugenius, and Payne was restored to the Taborites amid great enthusiasm.

Thus, in spite of his foreign origin and of the offence which he had given by his recent decision, Payne was readily accepted by the Taborites as their spokesman at this, their final appearance as controversialists. Nay, so ready were they to abandon, in his favour, some of their strongest feelings, that they actually rebuked Pr̆zibram for disputing with Payne in the Bohemian language, since the Englishman was unable to understand it. The questions in dispute seem mainly to have turned upon the nature of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament; and the controversy grew so hot that Koranda, the Taborite priest, made the same challenge to Pr̆zibram which Hus had formerly made to the Masters who wished to condemn Wyclif; namely, that, if convicted, he would be willing to be burnt as a heretic, provided that his opponents would consent to the same punishment in case of conviction. Finally, the discussion was referred to the next Assembly of the Estates of Bohemia, an Assembly which, under Ptac̆ek’s influence, readily decided in favour of the Calixtines, as against the Taborites.

Ulric of Rosenberg, who had previously held aloof from the discussions of the Assembly, now saw his opportunity in the division of his enemies; and he hoped to use the Calixtines as allies in crushing out their more formidable opponents. But, while this scheme was still in a state of preparation, Ptac̆ek died, and the discussion of the Utraquists was temporarily brought to an end by the rise of a new leader.

This leader was a young man of twenty-four named George of Podĕbrad. His father had been a friend and protector of Z̆iz̆ka; and his family had been more steadily identified with the Utraquist cause than most of the nobles of Bohemia. He was the godson of Z̆iz̆ka, had distinguished himself in the war between Ladislaus and Albert, and had since been made the captain of the Bunzlau (Boleslav) Circle, a specially Protestant district. He seems to have had a singular gift of inspiring confidence, and a diplomatic power of seizing opportunities. Although he defended the claims of Rokycana to the archbishopric, the Taborites were at first as zealous as the Calixtines in welcoming him as a leader; and he adroitly contrived to bring to the front once more that proposal for the recognition of the Compacts of Basel, which appeared to be a bond between the different sections of the Utraquists. Nor was it to the Utraquists alone that he at first appealed for support; for his demand that the Emperor should surrender Ladislaus to the Bohemians attracted the sympathies of the more patriotic Catholics. By his help negotiations were opened with Emperor and Pope; and the death of Eugenius IV. seemed to open a new chance for the concession by the Papacy of some of the Utraquist demands. But, though Pope Nicholaus might be willing, for a time, to use friendly words, the Emperor Frederick was more uncompromising, and he absolutely refused to restore the young king to the Bohemians.

George of Podĕbrad now decided to make himself more completely master of the situation; and a quarrel which had recently broken out between the Bohemians and Duke William of Saxony gave him an excuse for raising a large force of soldiers. His work was soon simplified by the action of his opponents. Cardinal Carvajal, coming to Prague to negotiate about the demands of the Bohemians, expressed a desire to see a copy of the actual Compacts of Basel; and, on getting it into his hands, he tried to carry it away from the city. Several of the Utraquist leaders followed him, and forced him to surrender the document; but this attempt finally destroyed any hope which the Utraquists might have cherished of a compromise with the Catholics. The sincere Utraquists at once drew together; while Meinhard of Neuhaus openly took the Catholic side. The excitement in Prague became intense, and George of Podĕbrad seized the moment to march to the city. After a short pretence of negotiation, he suddenly attacked the town on the 3rd of September, 1448, and captured it by assault. Rokycana was welcomed back in triumph, and Meinhard of Neuhaus was thrown into prison, where he soon after died.

Although George had acted as the champion of the Utraquists in their struggle against Albert and Neuhaus, his first object in seizing the power into his hands was to restore order in the country. For that purpose, he wished to conciliate the Catholics, as much as the Utraquists; and he brought into office Zdenek of Sternberg, one of the fiercest of the Catholic party. He even succeeded in gradually drawing the Rosenbergs to his side; though, at the same time, he always treated Rokycana as his chief adviser, and was urgent for his recognition as archbishop. This policy was extremely resented by the Taborites, and they were ready to combine, even with the discontented Catholics, against him.

When, then, in 1452, George was at last chosen Administrator of the kingdom, he found opposition to his authority, not only in the extreme Roman Catholic centres of Budweis (Budejóvice) and Pilsen (Plz̆en), but also in Tabor, and other Taborite towns. George, however, had now risen to the position of a national leader, accepted by all those who preferred the order and unity of Bohemia to the triumph of any

## particular party. Rokycana, on his side, had gained an influence among

the Utraquists, as a whole, which made the resistance of any section of them far less formidable than it had been in former days. Moreover, the chief interest of the country was, for the moment, centred rather in the recovery of their king than in the decision of any theological doctrine; and, in their desire to rescue Ladislaus from Frederick, the Bohemians received the sympathy of the Hungarians, and even of the Austrians.

This discontent with Frederick led to actual preparations for war on the part of the three nations aggrieved by his action; and George, in his capacity of Governor of Bohemia, had an excuse for raising forces without at once declaring the purpose for which they were to be used. When, however, his preparations were complete, in August, 1452, he suddenly marched against Tabor. At first the Taborite priests were disposed to rouse the citizens to their usual attitude of determined resistance; but, as soon as George appeared before the town, the old unconquerable spirit vanished; the citizens were seized with a panic, and consented to recognise George as Governor. Still, it might have seemed as if this recognition was to be merely a part of a compromise, according to which the rights and liberties of the Taborites were still to be recognised; but when, in pursuance of this belief, they sent their Bishop Nicholaus and their favourite priest, Koranda, to Prague, to discuss their points of difference with the Calixtines, Nicholaus and Koranda were suddenly seized and imprisoned, until they would consent to yield to Rokycana’s authority. Even this did not kindle the old spirit of the Taborites; and, in December, 1452, the Calixtine priests entered Tabor, and celebrated Mass with those rites and ornaments which the Taborites had fought so hard to suppress.

The fall of Tabor marks a great crisis in the Utraquist movement; and though there is another phase of that movement which has yet to be recorded, the distinctive character, that had given it such life and force, must evidently have been doomed to destruction before such an event could have occurred. Important as was the element contributed to the Utraquist cause by the learned scholars of the University of Prague, they could never have produced so vivid an effect on Europe had they not been backed by the fiery enthusiasm, the high ideals, and the ferociously combative spirit of the flail-bearing peasants of Tabor. It was the flails of the Taborites which made the Moravian nobles flinch from the battle of Vys̆ehrad; it was they who had scared every army which came against them, from the time of the first battle of the Z̆iz̆ka Hill to the day when Cardinal Cesarini fled in panic from the country which he had been so certain of conquering. The zeal of the Taborites for purity and simplicity of life had supplied an impulse which no theological doctrine could of itself contribute; while their intolerance of priestly forms, and their belief in the superiority of the Congregation of the Faithful to the decrees of any learned society, had given that democratic colouring to the movement which has made their traditions such a lasting force in Bohemia, even to the present day. At the same time their turbulent savagery and fierce intolerance made it necessary that, at some time or other, they should be absorbed in a broader and more orderly organisation. The Independents had now found their Cromwell; and to him they were obliged to sacrifice much of the liberties for which they had originally fought.