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TBEATY VIOLATED BY CHEISTIANS 163 agree to a truce without the consent of the pope, and that Murad had not executed his part of the treaty. Ladislaus hesitated to break his oath, but Cardinal Julian urged that his league with the Christian princes of the West was better worth respecting than his oath to the miscreant. According to more than one author, he maintained the pro- position that no faith need be kept with infidels. 1 Finally, the cardinal called down upon his own head all punishment due to the sin, if sin there were, in violating the oath. But in the name of the pope, the vicar of God on earth, he formally released the king from the obligations to which he had sworn. 2 The action of Ladislaus was in reality not merely wicked and immoral, but ill-advised and hasty. Even in the short interval between the conclusion of peace and the declaration of war, the French, Italian, and German volunteers had gone home. John was not ready to aid him. Phrantzes had been sent to Ladislaus, to the cardinal, and even to the sultan, to temporise and to prevent an out- break of war before a coalition could be formed. Hunyadi very reluctantly gave his consent to the violation of the truce, and then only on condition that the declaration of war should be postponed until September 1. George of Serbia not only refused to violate the engagement into which he had solemnly entered with Murad but refused to permit Scanderbeg to join Ladislaus. The whole business was ill-considered and ill-managed, and the fault lies mainly with the cardinal. 1 Lonicerus, p. 18, speaking of the cardinal, does not go so far. He says, ' qui Pontifici licere juramenta praesertim hostibus Christiani nominis praestata rescindere contendebat.' Thnrocz (quoted by Von Hammer, p. 307, vol. ii.) and Cambini, p. 13, make similar statements. 2 Liber Jurium, xxii. 57, xxvi. 24, 26 Chalc. vi. Aeneas Silvius states that Eugenius, when he was informed of the treaty, wrote to Cardinal Julian that it was null as having been signed without the papal sanction ; that he ordered Ladislaus to disregard it, and that he gave him absolution for so doing. At the same time, he directed the cardinal to do his best to renew the war, in order that the great preparations he had taken in hand might not be fruitless. The statement may be true, but it is difficult to believe that the report of the signa- ture could have reached Eome and that his answer could have arrived to the cardinal before war was declared. m 2