bishop. cans too well, and it is said that the pictures against the violent measures of the Archcreated so much scandal that the Englishmen were compelled to quit Prague. Whatever the truth of these traditions, it is certain that Wickliffe's writings were extensively circulated at Prague at this time, as we shall presently see from the crusade of the Archbishop of Prague against them. Cochleus tells us that many of the "manuscripts were beautifully written and splendidly embossed and bound-bullis aureis tegumentisque preciosis ornata." This not only shows the justice of Krasinski's remark, that they had been in the possession of wealthy and therefore influential persons, but it also shows how great value was put upon jewels which were enshrined in such costly caskets. Several of the Reformer's writings Huss himself translated into his native tongue, and took measures to circulate them widely in Bohemia and Moravia. By such proceedings, and especially by his bold invectives against the enormous corruptions of the Church, Huss had formed a considerable party throughout Bohemia intensely desirous of Reform, and disposed to accept him as their leader; not a little influenced, doubtless, by the fact that he had been the champion of their national rights in the great university quarrel, a circumstance which, though it might operate against him out of Bohemia, vastly strengthened his influence within it. And now things were ripe for a conflict between Huss and the Church. In 1410 the Archbishop of Prague obtained a bull from the Pope (Alexander V.), authorizing him to extirpate heresy in Bohemia, and as a means to that end, to burn the writings of Wickliffe wherever they could be found, and to prohibit preaching except in certain specified buildings, from which "chapels" were excluded; and therefore, (which was doubtless the real object,) the chapel of Bethlehem, where Huss preached. After much opposition to the bull, it was at last proclaimed. On March 9th, 1410, Huss was cited before the Archbishop's Court on the charge of heresy. When he, and others similarly charged with possessing portions of the writings of Wickliffe, asked the Archbishop what part of the Reformer's writings were heretical? they were told that "all the writings of that arch-heretic were heretical," and the Archbishop burnt them accordingly wherever he could lay hands on them. At the same time he forbade all preaching in chapels, and thus gagged Huss. The University of Prague protested, but for the present protested in vain, The ferment spread throughout Bohemia, and the country was divided into two great parties, which in many places threatened, and indeed broke, the public peace. This led to a series of struggles between King Wenceslaus and the refractory Archbishop, into which we have not space to enter, but which are amongst not the least memorable or instructive of the contests between the temporal and the spiritual powers during the middle ages. We can only notice them so far as they severally bear on the fate of Huss. The King, indolent and addicted to pleasure, is said to have cared very little about the dispute, if the disputants would but have left him alone; but if it went on to civil war, he felt that he could not be left alone. Huss also was a favourite with his queen, and to a certain extent with himself. He ordered the Archbishop to indemnify the folks whose books he had so summarily burnt. The prelate refused; and his estates were sequestrated. - Soon after, a papal embassy arrived at Prague to announce the election of the infamous John XXIII., afterwards deposed by the Council of Constance. The King thought it was a good opportunity to endeavour to obtain the repeal of the bull" of John's predecessor, and to secure the restitution of the privileges of the chapel of Bethlehem. But the astute Archbishop sent back, with the embassy, emissaries of his own, who defeated the King's object. They procured the Pope's sanction of the Archbishop's proceedings, and a citation for Huss to appear at Rome to plead to the charges of heresy against him. The King declared that Huss could not go "without peril of his life," which no doubt the Pope and Archbishop knew as well as he, or even better; and refused to let him go. The Pope replied that the appearance of Huss was indispensable, and that the judges to try his cause were already appointed. In short, the banquet was all prepared, and the Pope seemed to say, "Come, for all things are now ready." Thus backed by the papal authority, the Archbishop reiterated the excommunication of Huss, and claimed that his estates should be restored; the King would not comply with the last, and many of the clergy refused to read out the first. Higher and higher soared hawk and falcon, in the hope to gain a vantage point for striking. The Archbishop, nothing daunted, laid the terrors of interdict on Prague. The King retorted with equally vigorous measures; banished many of the clergy who had been conspicuously busy in the execution of the not to repeat that the very name and fate Archbishop's orders; seized (worse than of Huss probably proved a shield. Huss has all!) the treasures of the Chapter of been sometimes blamed for his rashness in Prague, and made the Estates of the Realm going to Constance. But, as L'Enfant has pass a law by which it was forbidden to shown in his History of the Council, he had carry certain causes before the ecclesiasti- little choice in the matter. When he recal courts. These measures of retaliation fused to go to Rome, he appealed to a gentouched what was more precious than doc-eral Council, and pledged himself to appear trine, and finished for the present the con- before it and abide by it; he went not only test between the temporal and spiritual with the consent of the King of Bohemia, powers; and the victory thus lay with the but by his command; and, though like Luthformer. The Archbishop agreed to sub-er on the way to Worms, he was not withmit the controversy to a court of arbitration, which, on 3rd of July, 1411, decided that the Archbishop was "to submit to the King, to revoke his interdict, to cancel the proceedings he had commenced against heresy, and to send to Rome a declaration that in Bohemia there was no heresy." On the other hand, if the Archbishop complied, the King was to restore his estates, and was to bind himself to punish all heresies, -an easy task, since it seems the Archbishop was to declare at the same time that in Bohemia there were none! And so ended this notable passage of arms between the King and his refractory priest. As the most illustrious of the successors of John Huss, (who really achieved in the cause of Reformation, what Huss only attempted, and far more,) miraculously escaped martyrdom, so it is not a little remarkable that Huss's most illustrious predecessor, Wickliffe, also escaped it. Both he and Luther died in their beds, contrary to all human probability. And so perhaps might Huss, could he have remained in Bohemia, amidst the tens of thousands who loved, and were ever ready to rally round him. He refused, like Luther and Wickliffe, to obey the citation to appear at Rome; no doubt feeling with them that it was not "good for the health" of a Reformer to go there. All seemed to feel as by instinct that, go where they might, to London, or Constance, or Worms, they had better not repair to Rome. Perhaps they felt like the fox in the fable, who declined the invitation to the lion's den, inasmuch as he had observed that the only footsteps in its vicinity were towards it, and none from it: nulla vestigia retrorsum. If (as already said) Huss could have escaped the invitation to Constanceif he had not severed himself from the thousands of zealous and faithful friends among his compatriots, he might have remained as safe in their protection, as Luther under that of the Elector of Saxony. Luther indeed ran great risks in going to Worms, but still it was within the "fatherland," and he was surrounded by "troops of friends," - out forebodings and misgivings, he yet seemed to be amply fortified by the imperial safe-conduct with which he was furnished. Perhaps we may also say, with Waddington, that he felt not only an "intense conviction of the truth of his doctrines," but confidence also "in the integrity of the Council." He certainly seems to have hoped that he might be able to disabuse it of its impressions against him, and to reply satisfactorily to the charge of heresy. But though hoping the best, he was prepared for the worst, as is seen in that almost prophetic letter of farewell to his friends, written just before his departure for Constance, in which he touchingly says, "Perhaps you will never see me at Prague any more." It was on the 11th of October, 1414, that Huss commenced his journey to Constance: all through Bohemia, as was to be expected, his progress was a series of ovations. Nor was he unfavorably received even in Germany itself. At Nuremburg especially, the most flattering attentions were paid him, and he was conducted into the town by a vast concourse of people. He arrived at Constance, November 2nd, 1414. He was still without his safe-conduct; but it came the next day, and was delivered by one of the three Bohemian nobles to whose care King Wenceslaus had committed him. It was couched in the most absolute and unequivocal terms.* No sooner had he arrived in Constance than those intrigues and machinations began which had his destruction for their object, and which were too fatally successful. His enemies, many of them from the party opposed to him in Bohemia, inflamed the minds of the people, spread It may be seen at large in L'Enfant, vol. i. p. 61. One sentence will suffice: "Whom we have taken into our protection and safe-guard, and into that of the empire, desiring you, when he comes among you, to receive him well and entertain him kindly, furnishing him with all necessaries for his despatch and security, whether either from him or his, at coming in or going out, he goes by land or water, without taking anything for any sort of duties whatsoever; and to let him freely and securely pass, sojourn, stop, and repass, for the honour aud respect of His Imperial Majesty."" abroad all sorts of accusations (most of them | wholly false), and brought such pressure to bear on the Cardinals-only too willing doubtless to be pressed — that they "promised he should never be set at liberty." His friend, John de Chlum, was summoned to surrender Huss. That noble Bohemian, indignant at this flagrant attempt to elude or infringe the safe-conduct, appealed to the Pope. The Pope was very polite; declared he had nothing to say against Huss, but that he could not control the Cardinals. De Chlum showed the safe-conduct to all the German princes, and to the magistrates of Constance, but without effect. John Huss was put under arrest, and after being confined for a week in the house of one of the Canons of Constance, was consigned on the 6th of December to a dungeon under ground in the Dominican convent. On the news of his imprisonment, the Emperor, still capable of shame at being compelled to palter with his word, and at the insolence of the lieges who thus set his commands at naught, ordered his instant release. The Council paid no more attention to it than to the expostulations of John de Chlum. On his arrival at Constance, finding his orders had not been obeyed, he threatened to leave the Council to itself, and actually set forth. Some of the Cardinals rode after him, overtook him, and to his own eternal shame so successfully plied him with their diabolical casuistry, the chief articles of which were "That a General Council could deal with a heretic at its pleasure," and that "No man was bound to keep faith with heretics,"that they persuaded him, January 1st, 1415, to seal his infamy by giving his consent that the Council should take its course unimpeded by him. Forty-four articles of accusation, all charging Huss with teaching doctrines contrary to those of the Church, were presented. The greater part of these he clearly showed were false; others, misrepresentations or exaggerations of his real opinions; and that the rest were not heresies at all, inasmuch as they had never been condemned by Pope or General Council, and were in harmony both with Scripture and reason. But there was one heresy of heresies of which Huss was guilty, which would have made orthodoxy itself heterodox. He did not acknowledge the Pope and the Cardinals, even with the Council to boot, to constitute the Church; and like Luther in the next century, appealed to the Scripture as the ultimate and supreme authority in matters of faith. He accordingly refused throughout the entire struggle to abandon any opinion unless he was confronted by arguments drawn from Holy Writ. There is no doubt that while he held many opinions and practices opposed to the current superstitions, his chief offence was the unsparing and bitter invectives which he had fulminated from the pulpit of Bethlehem and elsewhere, against the corruptions of the Church and the vices of the clergy. While they talked of heresy, this was in truth his great heresy. Unconditional submission to the decisions of the Council was demanded of Huss, whether he believed them true or not. A curious, and almost incredible, instance of the implicit faith sometimes demanded of the individual conscience in those days is given in one of the letters of Huss, wherein he mentions one of the many visits made to him in prison, with the view of entrapping, cajoling, or terrifying him into submission. It was no less than a "certain doctor" who tried his rhetoric on this occasion. "He told me that, whatever I did, I ought to submit to the Council; and subjoined if the Council were to say that you have only one eye, while in fact you have two, you ought to confess with the Council that so the matter is.' To whom I said, Even if the whole world should tell me so, as long as I have my senses, I could not say this without doing violence to my conscience. And after some more talk, he gave up the point, and acknowledged that he had not given a very good illustration.” On his arrest, he had demanded "the privilege of a public advocate," — the more necessary, as his bodily infirmities, cruelly aggravated by his imprisonment, made him very unequal to the task imposed upon him. This most reasonable demand was refused. A strong disposition was also evinced to deprive him altogether of a public trial, but this was found to be more than even the iniquity of the Council could compass. Huss was brought before the Council three times; namely, on the 5th, 7th, and 8th of June, 1415, and each time was treated with the grossest injustice and cruelty. On the first occasion, the MS. of his treatise on the "Church" was presented to him, and he was asked whether the opinions contained in it were his? Huss avowed them, and his readiness to defend them; but also his readiness to retract everything which should be proved contrary to Scripture. Here he distinctly anticipates the Lutheran dilemma propounded at Worms. This was met by the no doubt sincere outcry, that the question was not what the Scriptures said, but whether he would retract doctrines which the Church, as represented by the specifically those on which (as already said) Council, declared to be erroneous. Huss, his "heresies" really depended, namely, began to make a confession of his faith. His the opinions he had so often expressed at confession was not wanted, he was told; Prague, touching the Pope and Cardinals, but simply that he should answer to the and the invectives in which he had indulged questions put to him, of which that one against the vices of the clergy. He could question just mentioned, was the principal, not deny these charges, and if these could and admitted of but one answer. He again make him guilty, he could not deny his attempted to enter upon an explanation guilt. He might indeed have been willing and defence of his opinions, but was met to apologise for occasional needless intemwith rude shouts of derision; and the tu- perance of language, but he could not say mult became so great that Huss was com- that his allegations were false. The one pelled to say (and it was the only thing like alternative was once more put before him, rebuke which all his wrongs extorted from of unconditional submission to the Council, him), that "he had expected more courtesy or to be condemned as a heretic. He in and moderation from such an assembly.". vain implored once more that he might Nevertheless, he defended himself with so enter into a full exposition of his opinions. much address that he demolished the first He was told that he must retract and abjure charge against him. But fighting thus single- the doctrines contained in the forty-four handed (for, as already said, he had been articles, and swear to believe and teach the denied an advocate), and in so mortal a contrary. Huss then gave the noble anstruggle, it is no wonder that his strength swer" that he could not abjure those docfailed; he was conducted, exhausted and trines which he had never affirmed, and as fainting, to his prison. One day of respite to others which he did believe, he would was granted to him, when he was again to not deny the truth against his conscience, be brought into the arena like the early until their falsehood was clearly proved to martyrs, to face "the lions," or as St. Paul him." Here again he was pleading as Lumight have said, "to fight with wild beasts ther pleaded, that nothing can justify a at Ephesus." man's saying anything against his conscience. In vain he was admonished; in vain all sorts of menaces and blandishment were exhausted upon him in turn. He was inflexible; his truly adamantine temper would neither bend nor break. He was taken back to his prison, and as he left the Council, told them, "God must judge between him and them." On the 7th he was accused of holding opinions contrary to the docrine of transubstantiation, that old and approved test of orthodoxy, and trap for catching heretics; that grim Moloch of superstition, which brought more of the Reformers to the stake than all their other heterodoxies put together. Huss easily refuted this charge, as in fact he never dreamt of questioning this doctrine, any more than did Luther when At this last appearance before the Counhe began to preach against indulgences. cil, finding himself brow-beaten and bullied Other charges were brought forward, of on all hands, and utterly hopeless of obtainwhich Huss demanded the proof. Instead ing a hearing, in reply to the charges made of giving it, the Council pressed him with against him, Huss at last contented himself the only alternative, absolute submission to with reiterating what he had on a previous its decrees. On this day, the Emperor occasion urged, a solemn appeal to Christ Sigismund consummated his own shame, by against the Council." This of course moved declaring that though he had given Huss a only the scorn and derision of this Christian safe-conduct, yet being now informed by assembly; on which he renewed and justithe Fathers of the Council that such a doc-fied it. "Behold," he said, "O Christ, how ument given to a heretic was, ipso facto, null and void, he would no longer charge himself with his safety. Well might Huss say with David and with Strafford, "Put not your trust in princes." From that moment he saw his fate; but with that same beautiful patience for which he was distinguished, he began to express his thanks to the Emperor for the protection that had hitherto been granted him. thy Council condems what Thou hast prescribed and practised. Yes," he continued, turning to the Council, "I have maintained, and still maintain, that there can be no surer appeal than to Jesus Christ; for He can be neither corrupted by bribes, nor deceived by false witnesses, nor cozened by any artifice." He remained yet a month in his dungeon, and during that time various formulæ of The last and final hearing, was on June abjuration were proposed to him. Several the 8th. The charges were now more | Cardinals visited him, and plied him with 66 shaved, or rather to unshave him, - not a little puzzled these sacerdotal barbers. One proposed this, and another that. Huss quietly said to the Emperor, Strange, that though they are all equally cruel, they cannot agree even in their cruelty." At last they decided, (it is said, but it is to be hoped falsely,) to cut with scissors a portion of the scalp. They had now, as they deemed, deprived him of all ecclesiastic symbols of honour and privilege, and nothing remained but to hand him over to the secular arm; but their childish malice suddenly recollected that one thing was still omitted. A large paper cap, painted with grotesque figures of devils, and inscribed with the word "HERESIARCHA," placed on his head. When Huss saw it he said, "Our Lord wore a crown of thorns for my sake, why should I not wear this light, though ignominious cap for His?" The bishops in putting it on said, "We deliver thy body to the flames, and thy soul to the devil." Huss, lifting his eyes, replied, was promises and threats by turns. It was still in vain, and on the 1st of July Huss sent to the Council his final resolution, that he neither could nor would abjure any of his opinions until his errors were demonstrated from the Scriptures. His execution was fixed for the 6th of July. But before that hour arrived one other trial, prolonged and ignominious almost beyond example, awaited him. Every ingredient that could add bitterness to that cup was infused into it. This was the public ceremony of his formal degradation. It is not possible to read the account of that scene without wondering at the majestic patience of the man, or without horror and indignation against the perpetrators of the iniquity, and at the system which made such things possible. The only thing that at all mitigates the feeling is contempt for many of the childish forms of spiteful mummery in which their malice embodied itself. He was commanded to assume the priestly vestments; he obeyed. He then ascended a lofty scaffold, prepared for the occasion, and made that remarkable" Into thy hands, O Jesus Christ, I comand noble confession to the people: "The Bishops bid me confess that I am in error. If I could comply, with but the loss of the honour of a mortal man, they might perhaps have persuaded me to yield to them. But I stand here, face to face with Almighty God, and I cannot do this without dishonour to Him or without the stings of my own conscience. . . . How could I lift my eyes to Heaven, how face those whom I have taught, if I were thus to act? Am I to cast into doubt so many souls by my example? He was interrupted, and commanded to descend from the scaffold. The several priestly vestments were then successively taken from him by as many bishops, each of whom, as he took his part of the holy finery, (too holy for John Huss to wear,) addressed the poor victim by some too characteristic speech of orthodox irony or malice. The one who took the chalice from him out-heroded the rest: "O thou accursed Judas," said he, "because thou hast abandoned the council of peace, and conspired with the Jews, we take from thee this cup of salvation." Huss undauntedly replied, "But I trust in God the Father of all, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose name's sake I am suffering all this, that He will not take from me the cup of His salvation. On the contrary I have a firm persuasion that I shall drink it to-day in His kingdom." At length came the obliteration of the tonsure, and how to manage this, that is, (as one may say,) to shave a man already mend my soul which thou hast redeemed." After this, he was led to the place of execution, just beyond the gate of Gottlieben, where carcases were usually flayed, and where much carrion had been recently strewn about, in order to add to the ignominy of the punishment. On his way, Huss had seen his more immortal part, — his books, already burning. It only moved a smile, perhaps, at the childishness, perhaps at the futility, of the malice of his enemies. On arriving at the pile, his countenance we are told lighted up with animation. With a loud and clear voice he recited the 31st, and 81st Psalms, and prayed for some time. After one more vain attempt to extract a retractation from him, the fire was lighted. The fuel had only been piled up to his knees, and when burnt down, the upper part of his body was found unconsumed, and hanging on the stake by the chain; the flames were again kindled, and the heart of the refractory heretic having been torn from his body, and beaten and broken with clubs, was separately burnt. But happily, of this supplementary martyrdom, Huss knew nothing. He seems to have been suffocated, rather than burnt, shortly after the fire was kindled, and just after he had uttered with a loud voice his last words, "Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me!" The ashes were carefully collected and cast into the Rhine, whence, (as Fuller said of those of Wickliffe, cast into the Avon,) they have been carried into the "main |
