Hradec, Archbishop Rokycan and his two suffragan bishops. John Velvar then read out the compacts[1] and presented a document in which the Bohemians declared that they accepted the compacts and wished henceforth to live in peace with the whole Christian world. A similar document was then read out by one of the delegates of the Council. Immediately after this reconciliation Bishop Philibert of Coutance intoned the Te Deum, in which all present, Bohemians, delegates of the Council and members of the imperial court, enthusiastically joined. The whole city of Jihlava and the surrounding country rejoiced that the long religious war was at last ended. It remained to settle the differences between Sigismund and his subjects. It was hoped that these matters would be settled speedily, as religious questions had been the principal cause of the war. Though dissensions concerning the ever-recurring question of the admission of Utraquists to the religious services of the Roman Church still caused some delay, the Emperor on July 20 granted the estates of Bohemia a so-called “letter of majesty.” In this document he conferred on his Bohemian subjects considerable rights and privileges, besides those already promised at Stuhlweissenburg. He undertook to maintain all the privileges granted to the Bohemians by the compacts, to have only chaplains belonging to the Utraquist Church, to force no one to rebuild the churches and monasteries that had been destroyed during the war, to preserve and guard the privileges of the university of Prague and to restore to it the lands of which it had been deprived. The King further declared that he had forgotten all that had been done against him during the recent troubles, promised to maintain all the ancient rights and privileges of Bohemia, and, according to the ancient custom; to employ no foreign officials in the lands of the Bohemian crown. He also promised to return to the
- ↑ The wording of the compacts, as finally accepted, differed so slightly from the former one, that it is sufficient to refer here to their contents as given on p. 311.
