The three chief points at issue between the Towns and the other Orders were, firstly, the right of the Town Tribunals to summon before them the nobles and knights in cases specially affecting the towns; secondly, the monopoly claimed by the towns in the brewing trade; thirdly, the right of the towns to send representatives to the Bohemian Assembly. In 1517, indeed, a nominal settlement was effected on all these points by the treaty of St. Wenceslaus. By that treaty the towns surrendered their monopoly of brewing, but were secured the peaceable possession of their other privileges. Such treaties had little effect in a time of discord, and it was not long before a new violation of town rights led to the outbreak of a civil war, in which the citizens gained some victories. Both parties, however, soon began to desire peace, and the king was called in to arbitrate between them.
When Louis arrived in Prague to inquire into the circumstances of the contest, he found that the disturbances of the country had been largely increased by the rise of certain self-seeking politicians, who had made their profit out of the difficulties of the kingdom. Of these the most powerful and unscrupulous was Lev of Roz̆mital, the brother-in-law of King George. He had induced Ladislaus to mortgage to him some of the royal property. By this and other means he had gained a great control over the finances of the kingdom, and he refused to give any account of his use of that power. He was supported in most of his intrigues by a citizen who had recently been ennobled, and who had taken the name of Pas̆ek of Wrat. These two men had gradually gained complete power over the government of Prague; and, on one occasion, a man who had opposed Lev in the Town Council had been dragged out and beaten to death.
Fortunately, however, there were powerful influences in the country which worked in favour of the young king. One of the Rosenbergs of Krumov was a rival and enemy of Lev; and an equally formidable opponent of these schemes was found in Karl, Duke of Münsterberg, and nephew of King George. Louis’s uncle, King Sigismund of Poland readily supported his nephew by advice and encouragement. The respectable citizens of Prague were willing to rally round him; and, with such friends as these, the boy could venture to act vigorously. He deposed Lev from his office, raised a citizen named Hlavsa to the place which Pas̆ek had formerly held on the Council, and made Karl of Münsterberg the chief governor of the kingdom.
This change of government was intended by Louis and his nearest advisers simply as a means of restoring order and honesty in public affairs; but, besides that result, his action produced another effect, of which neither the King nor his uncle Sigismund would have approved. In choosing his new Councillors from the most respectable politicians whom he could find, Louis had unintentionally singled out men who were in sympathy with the movement for religious reform.
That movement had recently entered on an entirely new phase. In the middle of the exciting political struggles in their own country, many of the Utraquists and Bohemian Brothers had heard with the greatest interest that a German monk had come forward to denounce that very practice of the Sale of Indulgences which had first brought Hus into direct collision with the Papacy; and a rapid approximation followed between a section of the Bohemian Reformers and the new German teacher.
Luther’s attitude towards the followers of Hus is made clear enough by his own statements. He had been induced to read the story of Hus’s career before he had entered on his actual contest with Rome. He had even then been impressed by the greatness of the Bohemian Reformer, but he had thrust the book aside as likely to lead him into evil. Something of this old feeling still hung about him in the early part of his struggle. And, when Eck brought against him the charge of favouring the Bohemian heresy, he had been inclined to repel it with indignation. Yet it was that very charge which had induced him to return to the study of Hus; and he soon began to express so earnest an admiration for the Bohemian leader that his enemies spread the rumour that he was himself a Bohemian, who had been educated in Prague on the writings of Wyclif. Nay, they even went so far as to Bohemianise his name—a change in which they doubtless took a malicious pleasure, for the Bohemian word “Lŭtr̆e” means a scoundrel. Several letters of encouragement from scholars and clergymen at Prague were addressed to Luther in the earliest years of his struggle; and he declared that he would himself have come to Bohemia had he not feared that such a visit would have seemed like a flight from his enemies.
But he very soon began to recognise the distinction between his own position and that of Hus. This difference he has referred to in several of his writings; and perhaps the passage in his “Table Talk” is the one which will be best remembered, from the vigorous metaphor by which he illustrates his opinion: “Hus,” he said, “cut down and rooted out some thorns, thickets, and chips from the vineyard of Christ, and chastised the abuses and evil life of the Pope. But I, Dr. Martin Luther, have come into an open, flat, and well-ploughed field, and have attacked and overthrown the doctrine of the Pope.”
If this distinction between the attacks of Hus on the immorality of the Papacy, and his own attack on its doctrines, seemed to Luther to put the earlier Reformer in a less important position than that which he himself occupied, he must have felt this difference still more strongly with regard to the later Utraquistic movement. Very few of the leaders of that movement had ever desired that complete separation from Rome which Luther soon perceived to be an absolute necessity. They had been driven, against their will, to combine the assertion of their national independence with resistance to the authority of the Pope; but, when the deaths of King George and Rokycana had removed at once the main ground of Papal hostility to Bohemia, and the most determined asserters of an independent national Church, the Utraquists began to show an even painful eagerness for a reconciliation with the Papacy. They felt the need of a priesthood which possessed the dignity and legal stability secured by the consecration of Romanist bishops; and they not only sent their clergy to Italy to obtain this privilege, but they even welcomed in priests of other countries, who had been appointed to their offices in the orthodox manner.
Luther, in his desire to win the Bohemians to his side, energetically protested against this practice. He pointed out to them the dangers to morality and order which they were incurring by letting in priests of whom they knew nothing, except that they had been consecrated; men who, in many cases, had left their country from discreditable reasons. Finally, he appealed to them not to sacrifice that Bohemian independence for which they had struggled so long, nor to compromise with the representatives of those who had shed the blood of Hus and Jerom.
Unfortunately, Luther himself fell into the very same error against which he had so energetically warned the Bohemians. During these negotiations he put his chief trust in a man who was totally unworthy of his confidence. This was Gallus Cahera, the son of a butcher of Prague, who had studied in the University and gained a Master’s degree. He had then taken Holy Orders, and been appointed parish priest of Litmerice. From thence he had gone to Wittenberg; and so completely did he gain the confidence of the Reformers that, in 1523, Luther sent him back to Prague with letters to the Utraquistic congregation, urging them to choose him as their leader in the work of reform. He arrived there just when Louis was accomplishing his changes in the administration of Bohemia. In the following year the Utraquists elected Cahera as the Administrator of their Consistory; and he proceeded to draw up a series of Articles for their acceptance, which approached nearer than any of their previous formularies to the Lutheran creed. A proposal, indeed, to condemn the celibacy of the clergy was rejected by the Assembly; but the Articles which were adopted were sufficiently extreme to alarm the old-fashioned Utraquists; and Pas̆ek and his friends began at once to make use of this feeling.