cunningly-devised means, to be sure, for putting an end to all strife, to allow only one party to speak, and enjoin absolute silence on the other. Such an edict was now to be procured from the king.* The king granted but a part of the demand. He actually issued an edict, forbidding the preaching of those doctrines on penalty of banishment from the land; at the same time, however, he caused the faculty to be told, that they had better employ themselves in refuting those doctrines, than in trying to effect the suppression of them by an edict of prohibition. But an edict of prohibition against the preaching of this or that individual, was a thing he would never consent to. As the faculty could not fail to see the reproach implied in this language of the king, they sought to justify what they had done, affirming, that for them to refute those doctrines was impossible, as long as Huss refused to lay before them in a written form, as they had requested him to do, what he had to object against the two bulls.† When Huss was now summoned to appear with his opponents before the king's privy council, in Zebrak, he first appealed to the words of Christ before the high priest, (John xviii. 20,) and applying them to his case, remarked: "I have spoken openly, and taught in the schools, and in the temple in Bethlehem, where masters, bachelors, students, and multitudes of the common people congregate, and nothing have I spoken in secret, by which I could be seeking to draw men away from the truth." At the same time he declared that he was ready to comply with the demand of those doctors, provided that, as he bound himself to suffer at the stake, in case he could be convicted of holding any erroneous doctrine, the eight * Huss remarks concerning this design of the faculty: "Behold a design of these doctors similar to that of those priests and Pharisees; and both cases resulted in the same way. For neither did the former nor the latter secure the peace which they sought, but were in more trouble than before. And, rightly; for the Truth did not come to bring peace upon the earth but a sword: and never ought we to be frightened away from the truth by fear of reproach from the world or from the doctors." Resp. ad Scr. Stanislai, Opp. I. fol. 266, 2. † Quod non stat per magistros theologiæ, quod nihil scribitur et non est scriptum contra dicta M. Joannis Hus de bullis papæ, quia sæpius requisitus, dictorum suorum non dedit copiam, nec hucusque dare voluit magistris supradictis.- So the words run in a manuscript copy cited by Palacky, III. 1, p. 281. doctors would also on their part collectively bind themselves to suffer in the same way on the same condition. They requested time for deliberation and withdrew; then they came forward and said, that one of them would bind himself by this pledge for all. To this, however, Huss would not consent, but declared, as they were all combined together against him, and he stood opposed to them without associates, this would not be fair.* Finding that the two parties would never be able to agree in settling the preliminary arrangements, the privy council dissolved the meeting, having first admonished both that they should try to make up the matter between themselvest—an admonition which, in their present state of exasperated feeling, would pass unheeded, and which was intended, perhaps, simply to intimate that the council would have nothing more to do with the business. The consequences which had followed in the train of the dispute about indulgences, could easily be taken advantage of to represent Huss, in Rome, as a dangerous man, hostile to the papacy. His enemies at home found a worthy instrument to play their first cards at the Roman court, in Michael of Deutschbrod, formerly a parish priest, commonly known as Michael de Causis, parochial priest to St. Adalbert's church in the new city in Prague. This man, more interested about reforms in mining than reforms in the church, had left his charge and entered the service of the king to carry out a project for the improvement of mining by some new method of exploring veins of gold. The king, induced by certain representations he had laid before him, gave him a sum of money to be expended on this object. But failing to accomplish what he had promised about improvements in mining, he absconded with a part of the money, getting still more from the enemies of Huss, to assist them in carrying out their designs against the latter by bribery-an all-powerful agent with the creatures of that monster pope John, though hardly needed to secure the ruin of a man who had shown himself so hostile as Huss had done to the Roman papacy. Before the pope was yet informed of all that had transpired *Refut. Scripti Octo Doct., Opp. I. fol. 292, 2. † Concordetis pulchre invicem. Ibid. in Prague, he had taken the case of Huss out of the hands of cardinal Brancas, to whom it had last been committed, and given it over to another cardinal, Peter de St. Angelo, charging him to employ the severest measures against the recusant. Upon this, the procurators of Huss appealed to a future general council, and were immediately placed under arrest. The friend of Huss, Master Jesenic, made his es cape and got back to Prague. The cardinal now pro nounced sentence of excommunication on Huss in the most terrible formulas. If he persisted twenty days in his disobedience to the pope, the ban was to be proclaimed against him in all the churches, on Sundays and festival days, with the ringing of all the bells and the extinguishing of all the tapers, and the same punishment should be extended to all who kept company with him. The interdict should be laid on every place that harboured him. By a second ordinance of the pope, the people of Prague were called upon to seize the person of Huss, and deliver him up to the archbishop of Prague, or to the bishop of Leitomysl, or to condemn and burn him according to the laws. Bethlehem Chapel was to be destroyed from its foundation, that the heretics might no longer nestle there.* King Wenceslaus offered no resistance to the proclamation of these papal ordinances; at the same time he did nothing to promote their execution. The party opposed to Huss would have been eager, therefore, to carry the whole into effect, had they been powerful enough to do so. With the concurrence of the senators in the old city of Prague, the majority of whom were still Germans and therefore opponents of Huss, many citizens, who were also Germans, assembled at the consecration festival of the church of Prague, Oct. 2, under Bernhard Chotek, a Bohemian, as their leader, for the purpose of dispersing the congregation in Bethlehem Chapel and getting possession of the person of Huss. But the firm resolution with which they were met by the congregation who gathered around Huss, induced them to abandon their plan. They returned back to the senate-house, where it was resolved at least to carry into execution the pope's command to destroy Bethlehem * See the Chron. Univ. Prag., cited from the manuscript in Palacky, III. 1. p. 286. Chapel. But when this resolution came to be known, such violent commotions arose, that it was found necessary to abandon this project also. The party of Huss did not allow itself to be intimidated by the pope's bull of excommunication. His procurator, Master Jesenic, to whom the pope's bull was extended, published on the 18th of December of this year, at the university of Prague, an argument which is still preserved, in which he undertook to demonstrate the invalidity of everything that had been done in the process against Huss. Huss himself could not, consistently with his own principles as they have been explained, attribute any significance to an unjust excommunication. He caused to be engraved on the walls of Bethlehem Chapel a few words, showing the invalidity of such an excommunication, to which he several times refers; and finally, when no other earthly remedy was left him, he appealed from the venality of the court of Rome to the one incorruptible, just, and infallible judge, Jesus Christ. Already, in his tract against Stephen Paletz, he expresses himself on this subject in the following language. After describing what pains he had taken to obtain justice at the Roman chancery, he says: "But the Roman court, which cares not for the sheep without the wool, would never cease asking for money, therefore have I finally appealed from it to the most just Judge and High Priest over all." This appeal he published to his congregation from the pulpit of Bethlehem Chapel. It is characteristic of the times that this act should also be objected to him as a contemptuous trifling with the jurisdiction of the church, as an insolent act of disobedience to the pope, and an overleaping of the regular order of ecclesiastical tribunals. The abbot of Dola says, in his invective against Huss: "Tell me, then, who accepted your appeal? From whom did you obtain a release from the jurisdiction of the subordinate authorities? You would not say from the laity, and your daughters the Beguins." The parish priests of Prague, however, paid no regard to all this, but only Opp. I. fol. 256, 1. + Dic ergo quæso, quis detulit tuæ appellationi? a quo petiisti dimissorias literas sive apostolos? Nonne a laïcis et filiabus tuis Beginis? Dial. Volat. Pez, IV. 2, p. 492. obeyed the pope; a course, too, which perfectly fell in with their own passions and interests. From all the pulpits they published the ban against Huss; they strictly observed the interdict; no sacraments were administered; no ecclesiastical burial was permitted. Such a state of things would, as ever, provoke the most violent disturbances among the people. The king himself, therefore, was urgent with Huss that, to preserve peace, he should leave Prague for a time. Archbishop Albic did not feel able to sustain the conflicts at Prague; nor did such kind of activity suit his love of repose. At the close of the year 1412 he laid down his office, and Conrad of Vechta, bishop of Olmutz, a Westphalian, a zealous advocate of the hierarchy, and more inclined to severe measures in support of it than his predecessor, obtained, first under the name of ministrator, the administration of the archbishopric of Prague, till finally, after long-protracted negotiations with the Roman court, he became, in July, 1413, archbishop in the full sense. By the removal of Huss from Prague, quiet was by no means restored in Bohemia. His principles still continued to operate among his important party at Prague. There was a sharp opposition between the two parties, the Hussites and the church party. King Wenzel thought it wrong to allow the matter, which continually grew more serious, and involved in its train important political consequences, to go on thus any longer. The college of the ancient nobles of the land had already assembled before the Christmas of 1412, for the purpose of advising about the restoration of peace and the rescue of the good name of the Bohemian people in foreign lands. The assembling of a national synod for this purpose, before which the leaders of the two parties should appear, was resolved upon. At first the little city Bohmisch-Brod, which belonged to the archbishop of Prague, was selected for the place of meeting, since it was thought that the appearance of Huss in this small city, notwithstanding the ban under which he lay and the interdict on his place of residence, would create little or no disturbance. Here the proposals of the two parties were to be investigated. On the one side were the Prague theological faculty of the eight doctors, at |