friendly understanding in view of a future pacification.[1] The draft of the letter of safe conduct which the elector intended to give the Bohemian envoys proves that he was ready to permit a discussion on the four articles of Prague.[2] There is no doubt that the Elector of Brandenburg’s attitude was to a certain extent favourable to the Bohemians. It had been hitherto thought necessary to start from the standpoint that heretics should submit unconditionally. An astute statesman such as was Frederick, however, well knew that such a submission was out of the question. He was, therefore, already prepared to accept the articles of Prague as the basis of the future negotiations. Frederick accompanied the Bohemian armies to the frontier of their country and acquired great popularity among the soldiers. He was at that time on very bad terms with the Emperor Sigismund. The first Elector of the house of Hohenzollern and the real founder of the greatness of Prussia, he seems almost to have foreseen the long antagonism of the Hohenzollerns and the Habsburgs, who were to succeed Sigismund—an antagonism that only ended on the battlefield of Sadova.
On February 21 the victorious Hussite armies re-entered Prague, where they were, of course, received with the greatest enthusiasm. A contemporary chronicler writes:[3] “The Bohemians had never before carried out so brilliant a campaign
- ↑ “Wir haben auch unter einander [the Elector and the Hussites] Rede gehabt von eines gütlichen unverbundenen Tages wegen gegen Nürnberg zu kommen auf St. Georgs Tag [April 23], dazu man aus den sechs [Church] Provinzen dieser Lande doctores und gelehrte Leute bringen soll, nicht von dem Glauben zu disputiren, sondern unverbindlich und gütlich mit davon zu reden . . . möchte aber dass nicht sein dass man gedächte nach Rathe etlich andere Wege zu erdenken und fürzunehmen, damit solche Sachen zu ganzem Ende kämen.” (Letter of Frederick to the other Electors. Bezold, König Sigismund und die Reichskriege gegen die Hussiten, Vol. III. pp. 169–171). I have somewhat modernised the difficult German of the original.
- ↑ . . . Treugamus et assecuramus . . . ut possitis libere et secure ad nos versus Nurbergensem civitatem venire et in eadem demorari, ibique in concilio articulos quatuor, per quorum claritate instatis oretenus aut in scriptis offere aut propallare, scripturis sacris beatorumque doctorum verbis et sentenciis eos declarare, astruere et persuadere” (Bězold, as above, Vol. III. pp 171–174).
- ↑ “Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum,” Vol. III p. 79.
