But, if the spirit of the living Hus could scarcely be said to rest upon those who called themselves by his name, undoubtedly the death of Hus was recognised, on both sides, as the essential cause of the wars which followed. Men might wrangle about this or that doctrine or practice; but the murder of a Bohemian, in a place to which he had been sent under the special protection of the King and the nobles, was a point which could never be forgiven or forgotten against Sigismund or the Council of Constance; especially when this murder was connected with an attempt to brand as heretics the whole Bohemian nation. This feeling breathes through the fiery letter of the nobles of Bohemia, which was sent to the Council on the 2nd of September, 1415. They accused the Councillors of having condemned Hus on false evidence; and they declared him to be a good Catholic. They give the lie to all to dare to assert that there is heresy in Bohemia or Moravia, except only to the Emperor Sigismund, who, they hope, is innocent in the matter; and they declare that they will defend the law of Christ and His preachers, even to the shedding of blood.
While the nobles threw down their gauntlet to the Council in this formal manner, the main body of the people showed their feeling by fierce riots against the monks. Churches and monasteries were burnt; many monks were driven from Prague, and some priests were killed in the riots. The Archbishop of Prague determined to stand by his Order; and he too fixed on the Communion in both kinds as the dividing line between the two parties. Finding that he could neither prohibit this practice nor obtain compensation for the injuries done to the clergy, he laid Prague under an Interdict.
This Interdict became a new source of division. The Utraquists utterly disregarded it, and exposed themselves to the charge of rebellion against the Church. The Catholics, on the other hand, scrupulously recognised the archbishop’s decree, and therefore felt bound to celebrate their services only in the Vys̆ehrad, which was outside the prohibited area. The Catholic visits to that fortress were compared by the Utraquists to the more celebrated pilgrimages to Mecca; and hence the name of Mahometan was added to the other terms of abuse, which were being so freely scattered by the rival theologians.
The attitude of Wenceslaus was wavering and uncertain. He had, indeed, been disposed to accept the Council’s condemnation of the granting of the Cup to the laity; but he had used his best influence to save Hus, and he had resented his execution, as another proof of that faithlessness of Sigismund, of which he had already had such painful experience. He refused, however, to join the League which the nobles had formed to defend the liberties of Bohemia, partly, perhaps, because they connected it with a defence of the practice just condemned by the Council; and he even consented to support an Opposition League formed by the Catholic nobles in defence of the Church.
Sigismund, on his part, began to entertain hopes that he might contrive to sow division between these rival parties; and, feeling that his share in the death of Hus was the point which prevented his success in these intrigues, he wrote to the Bohemian nobles assuring them that he deeply regretted that death, that he had done his best to prevent it, and that, if Hus had only consented to come under the Emperor’s protection to Constance, instead of starting alone from Prague, all would have been well; but he added that he could not have saved Hus at the last, without breaking up the Council altogether. Whether these falsehoods deceived any one may be doubted. At any rate they did not accomplish Sigismund’s immediate purpose; for, when the Bishop of Litomys̆l arrived, with authority from the Council to suppress heresy in Bohemia, he received no encouragement either from king or from nobles, and, when he attempted violence, he was driven out by force.
Indeed, whatever terms the nobles of Bohemia might have thought right to make with Sigismund, as the heir to the Bohemian throne, they could not, with any credit to themselves, come to terms at this time with the Council of Constance. In the same letter in which the nobles had condemned the burning of Hus, they had also complained of the imprisonment of Jerom; and with Jerom it was clear that the Council were determined to proceed to extremities. Worn with starvation and chains, the unfortunate prisoner at last yielded to his persecutors; and, while his countrymen were protesting against his imprisonment, he had consented to recant his errors, and to acknowledge the justice of the death of Hus. The Italian cardinals now desired to set him free; but the German and Bohemian members of the Council, backed by the Chancellor of the University of Paris, insisted that this recantation was not to be trusted, and that Jerom should be further examined as to his doctrines. Michael de Causis and Stephen Pálec̆ fastened with relentless eagerness on their second victim, and, by so doing, they saved his honour and reputation, and gave him an opportunity of showing his better side.
In May, 1416, he was granted a new hearing before the Council; and, after having been for some time pestered with questions, he was at last allowed to speak for himself. His long oration, filled with classical allusions, greatly impressed the Italian scholar, Poggio Bracciolini, who was present on this occasion. But it will scarcely strike modern readers as so edifying as the simpler utterances of Hus. The conclusion, however, was more worthy of the occasion. It contained a manly and straightforward eulogy on Hus, an expression of his deep regret at the weakness which had led him to recant, and a declaration of his adherence to the teaching both of Hus and of Wyclif. Then, on May 14, 1416, he was led out to be burnt, and went singing to the stake.
If this execution had not been sufficient to prevent a reconciliation between the Bohemians and the Council of Constance, another event of the same period would certainly have deepened the division between them. The Bishop of Olmütz died about this time, and Wenceslaus nominated a new bishop in his stead. The Council, however, intervened; and they not only rejected Wenceslaus’s nominee, but they demanded that he should accept instead that Bishop of Litomys̆l whom he had just driven out of the country as a disturber of the peace, and who was so deeply hated for his prominent share in the condemnation of Hus. Wenceslaus of course refused, and thereby widened the gulf between himself and the orthodox Catholics.
Unfortunately, however, the effect of this consolidation of national feeling was speedily weakened by the divisions which had begun to show themselves in the Utraquist party. Teachers were coming to the front who demanded far more sweeping reforms than those which Jakaubek of Kladrau and the other friends of Hus were at all disposed to approve; and they wished to enforce these reforms by the extremest violence. As these reforms were aimed, not only at abuses in the Church, but also at the influence of the wealthy men in the State, the Reformers soon roused against them the fears and anger of the well-to-do citizens of Prague. Nor were these alarms likely to be modified when it became evident that two men, at least, of important position and remarkable ability, were disposed to place themselves at the head of the reforming movement.
The leader who first attracted the attention of the crowd and the fears of the King was Nicholaus of Hus, the Guardian of the Fortress of Hus, and the proprietor of the village of Husinec. He had been a favourite with the King, and was reputed, even by his enemies, to be a man of great ability and insight. He now gathered together such great crowds of people for prayer and preaching that Wenceslaus began to suspect him of aiming at the throne. But the more pacific abilities of Nicholaus were soon to be thrown into the shade by his fiercer and more brilliant ally, John Z̆iz̆ka of Troc̆nov.