a day (the prelates said); it will be easier, for this one,’ alluding to Hus, ‘is the master, and this Jerome is his disciple.’ Then again the king (said): ‘Assuredly, I was still young when this sect arose and began in Bohemia; and behold how greatly it has grown and multiplied since!’[1] After these words they all joyfully left the refectory.”
No conjectures, however sagacious, concerning Sigismund’s intentions with regard to Hus can show them more clearly than Sigismund’s own words do here. As Dr. Flajshans very truly writes: “These few words, spoken in an unguarded moment, cost Sigismund the Bohemian crown.”
After the ending of the third day of Hus’s trial, it was obvious to all that his condemnation and execution would take place in a few days. No one was so thoroughly aware of this as Hus himself, and his parting letters to his friends, which will be mentioned presently, are among the most precious of those that have been preserved.
If some delay yet occurred before his execution, it was because some still hoped that it might be possible to induce Hus to recant. His French enemies indeed, such as Gerson and D’Ailly, probably preferred that the Bohemian church-reformer should be publicly burnt at the stake, but Sigismund, who kept his own intentions on the Bohemian throne in view, hesitated. Strong remonstrances, couched in ever more energetic language—of which I have here only been able to mention a few—continued to reach him from Bohemia and Moravia. Though he may still have thought that the death or disappearance of Hus would break the strength of the Hussite movement, he necessarily perceived that the public martyrdom of the hero of the nation might very possibly cause a revolutionary outbreak. It was, on the other hand, certain that, should Hus recant in any form, he would entirely lose his prestige with the Bohemian people. If after such a
- ↑ These words refer to the movement in favour of church-reform that arose in Bohemia. Some writers incorrectly see in them an allusion to Wycliffe and the Lollard troubles in England.
