Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

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.