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The Story of Bohemia.

of great and many-sided gifts, of exhaustless energy and enterprise, of keen intuition, so that he seldom made a mistake, when compelled to decide a question on the spur of the moment; he was a man of agreeable manners, just and upright in his dealings, but somewhat contaminated by heresy.”

With a man of so much energy of character at the head of public affairs, a great change for the better soon manifested itself. A General Diet was called at Prague, but the Poděbrad League would not attend, and held a Diet of their own at Nimburg. However, they sent a letter to the Diet at Prague, stating their grievances. The pressing needs of the country were the keeping of the Compactata, the confirmation of Rokycan as archbishop, and the ordination of Utraquist priests. Since the death of Filibert, no such priests were ordained, the Bishops of Lytomysl and Olmutz refusing to perform this office in direct violation of the provisions of the Compactata. Whenever a Diet was held in Prague, the delegates acted in a very insincere manner; they agreed to everything, but when it came to carrying out their decisions, they made excuses, invented new and unheard-of objections, and thus thwarted the wishes of the greater part of the nation.

In reply to this, the Diet of Prague sent a conciliatory defense of themselves. In regard to Rokycan, they said it was his own fault that he was not confirmed as archbishop; that had he obeyed Sigmund and gone to Basil, he would have been archbishop long ago.

Rokycan truly had been urged to go to Basil; but he refused, knowing both the emperor and the fathers