great nobles of the papal party, caused the utraquists to unite for self-defence. The utraquist nobles and knights formed a confederacy for mutual aid, of which the high burgrave, John Tovačovsky, Lord of Cimburg, became the leader. The arbitrary conduct of the magistrates of Prague soon caused troubles in that town. The people, incensed by the rumoured intention of the magistrates to imprison or execute the leaders of the utraquist party, stormed the three town halls and murdered several of the magistrates. Great disorder prevailed in the town, and a large number of Germans and Jews were massacred. The king was naturally greatly incensed, but he was unable to cope with a party to which the great majority of the people of Bohemia belonged; he was even unable to punish the persons guilty of these murders. In 1485 one of the many temporary compromises between the Roman and utraquist parties was concluded at Kutna Hora, and peace, or rather a truce, was thus obtained. Both parties undertook to respect the religious views of their opponents, by abstaining from all insults to their creed. The compacts were again confirmed, and it was decided that each creed should retain the use of the churches which it had possessed at the beginning of the reign of Vladislav II ; a certain amount of religious liberty was also granted to the peasants whose faith differed from that of the lords on whose estates they lived.
A few years afterwards (in 1493) another attempt was made to reconcile the utraquists with the Roman Church, of which Alexander VI (Borgia) was then the head. An Italian noble, Nicholas Cola de Castro, who frequently journeyed to Prague, assumed spontaneously the office of mediator. He assured the citizens of Prague of the Pope's good-will, and obtained a letter from the magistrates of the town, in which in respectful language, but in a very indefinite manner, they asked the Pope for his favour. The Pope also answered in vague words. He expressed the hope "that the pious and sincere Catholic King Vladislav would lead them on the true path of faith and humility." The Pope said that he would "gladly receive every one whose thoughts were true and upright, and that he would be a father to all such." The Pope appears to have been entirely misled by Cola de Castro, for on appointing Bishop Urso Orsini papal legate for Bohemia, he informed him that the
