Eibenschütz (Ivančice) in Moravia became his habitual residence. Like all the bishops of the brethren, he, however, spent much of his time in travel, visiting the scattered communities. He soon became one of the foremost members of the Unity, and in consequence of his enlightened and conciliatory nature was often employed as a negotiator. In 1555 and on several subsequent occasions he visited Vienna, where Archduke Maximilian, afterwards the Emperor Maximilian II., who had by the Estates already been recognised as heir to the Bohemian throne, then resided. The mediator between Blahoslav and the Archduke was the Lutheran preacher Pfauser,[1] who for a time had great influence over Maximilian. The ability of Blahoslav on several occasions protected the Unity from the dangers to which, as a community not recognised by Bohemian law, it always was exposed. When Augusta returned from prison, differences of opinion between the two bishops arose, of which we have no exact account. It is, however, certain that Blahoslav disapproved of Augusta's sympathy with the German Protestants, particularly Luther and Melanchthon. Blahoslav's intense devotion to his own language no doubt rendered him hostile to everything that tended to increase German influence in Bohemia. Augusta, to win over to his side some of the oldest among the brethren, in whom Chalčicky's hatred for the "band of masters of colleges" was yet not quite extinct, expressed in his sermons great contempt for learning and culture. In answer Blahoslav wrote his Filipika proti Misomusum (the enemies of the Muses), which I shall presently notice. Blahoslav, whose health had long been failing, died at Krumau in 1571, a year before Bishop Augusta.
- ↑ See my Bohemia, an Historical Sketch, p. 270.
