The feelings of the boy king were evidently somewhat painfully divided. The education which Frederick had given him had produced in him a great zeal for the Catholic cause; but the zeal was modified, and somewhat counteracted, by his deeply rooted conviction that it was to George of Podĕbrad alone that he owed the possibility of becoming King of Bohemia. Both these feelings were made manifest on his arrival in Prague. When Rokycana came out at the head of the clergy to welcome the young king, Ladislaus turned away and would hardly notice the Archbishop, until George induced him to thank Rokycana for his address. But, when the procession reached the Catholic College, the king sprang from his horse and did special reverence to those clergy who had been restored to their livings on the occasion of Sigismund’s coronation. The struggle between Ladislaus and his strong-willed viceroy was of short duration. George was resolved not to yield on the question of Rokycana’s position; and the young king left Prague in great indignation. He did not, indeed, at once abandon his efforts for effecting a reconciliation between the Pope and the Bohemians, at the expense of the popular Archbishop; but, on his second visit to Prague in 1457, he found both George and Rokycana still obstinate in their resistance; and the poor boy’s efforts at the settlement of the difficulties of the Church were cut short by illness and death. On his deathbed he again renewed to George his admission that he owed the crown to his influence; and he entreated him to govern the dependent provinces justly, and to secure that those, who had followed the young King from Austria to Bohemia, should be allowed to return peaceably to their own country.

The death of Ladislaus extinguished the last claim to direct descent from the old Bohemian kings; and the consequence was that a larger number of candidates than usual came forward to claim the Bohemian crown. Charles VII., King of France, based his pretensions to the throne on the ground that, had Ladislaus lived, he would have been married to Charles’s daughter. The Duke of Saxony pleaded that he had actually married the sister of Ladislaus. The Dukes of Austria tried to revive the recollection of the promise of Charles IV.; while the King of Poland appealed to the fact of his former election, which had fallen into abeyance after the birth of Ladislaus. Of these candidates, the King of France and the Duke of Saxony seem to have been by far the most pressing and sanguine in their candidature; and both of them paid court to George; while both of them hoped, by securing a dependency of Bohemia, to get a footing in the kingdom before their actual election. The King of France declared his intention of taking Luxemburg under his special protection, while William of Saxony appealed to the desire of some of the Silesians to choose him as their ruler.

But both these candidates had reckoned their chances without knowing the wishes of the two most important men in Bohemia. George was determined that Silesia should never be separated from the Bohemian crown; and he had equally little wish that any foreigner should again become king of Bohemia. Rokycana, on his part, was not less determined that no one but George should be the King. In addressing the Bohemian Assembly in March, 1459, the Archbishop boldly grounded his appeal for George not only on his Bohemian birth, the purity of his life, and his proved power to defend them against their enemies, but also on his devotion to the Utraquist cause. Openly as this claim was put forward, it does not seem to have alienated the Roman Catholic nobles. George’s conciliatory policy towards the Catholics, and his personal friendship for some of their leaders, readily induced them to acquiesce in an election which would secure a strong national king to Bohemia. Yet from the very first Rokycana succeeded in giving a Utraquist colouring to the decision. While the envoys of Duke William of Saxony were eagerly expecting the election of their master, their meditations were interrupted by a simultaneous burst of ringing from all the churches in Prague; George speedily issued from the Town Council House with the sword of honour borne before him; and he was led across the square to the Teyn Church, where, after a general singing of the Te Deum, Rokycana called on the people to thank God for giving them a king who would stand by their faith.

Thus the election of George of Podĕbrad to the throne of Bohemia marks the accession of the first heretic king in the history of Europe. Doubtless the name of heretic had been freely thrown at Henry IV. by Hildebrand, at Barbarossa by Alexander III., and at Frederick II. and Louis of Bavaria by every Pope who came in contact with them; but every one knew that that name was a mere term of abuse, of no more special significance than “knave” or “ruffian”; and that the real point at issue in those quarrels was the question of the exercise of some form of secular authority. George of Podĕbrad, on the other hand, was deliberately recommended to the Assembly of Bohemia, on account of his championship of a purely ecclesiastical practice, which had been condemned by one Council of the Church, and by one Pope at least; and, although a later Council might have partially and hesitatingly sanctioned the practice, that Council had itself perished in an odour of heresy and resistance to Papal authority.

Yet, strange to say, it was not till about four years after George’s election that the Pope and the leaders of the Church recognised the full significance of the event which had taken place. This delay was due to various causes. In the first place, George, who was evidently conscious of the difficulties of his position, and anxious to maintain his character of national king, had begun his reign by making concessions to the Catholics. Remembering that Rokycana had never been formally recognised as Archbishop by any ecclesiastical authority, he looked about for some more legally appointed bishop, to consecrate him as king. In this matter he was assisted by one whom he had good reason to look to as his friend.

Immediately on the death of Ladislaus, the Hungarians had decided to choose, as their king, Matthias, the son of their great general Huniades. He had been opposed to the rule of Ladislaus, and had even raised insurrection against him. In one of the battles which followed, Matthias had been taken prisoner by George, and brought to Prague. On the announcement, however, of the Hungarian election, George at once set his prisoner free, and sent him back to Hungary as King. George now in turn appealed to Matthias to send him over two bishops to crown him King of Bohemia. Matthias readily consented; and George promised at his coronation to suppress heresy. A more satisfactory concession to Roman Catholic feeling was the new arrangement for the government of the diocese of Prague. The Dean of Prague had claimed to administer the diocese, on account of the heresies of Rokycana. The Archbishop, naturally enough, protested; and George settled the matter by granting the Dean authority over the Catholic priests, while Rokycana was to retain his authority over the Utraquists.

But apart from these concessions to Catholic feeling, the position and policy of the Pope tended more than anything else to delay, for a time, the collision between him and the heretic king. In the very same year in which George was chosen King of Bohemia, Æneas Silvius Piccolomini was elected Pope of Rome under the title of Pius II. He had been a zealous champion of the Council of Basel, and had vainly tried to make peace between it and Eugenius IV. He was therefore not prepared at once to condemn a practice which the Council of Basel had, at least conditionally, sanctioned. Moreover, there was another reason, which operated still more strongly to induce him to make friends with the King of Bohemia. For several years past, the most zealous Catholics of Europe had been turning their attention away from the divisions in their own Church, to watch with terror the advance of the Turks in Europe; and, since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the sense of the relative insignificance of every other question, in comparison with the expulsion of the Mahometan invaders, had been growing in the minds of all true champions of Christendom. If, then, Pius II. could succeed in winning to this cause the strong championship of the new King, he might well wink, for a time, at a few little heresies in doctrine and practice.

But, unfortunately, there were other grounds of opposition to George which were not so easily put aside as mere suspicions of heresy might be. William of Saxony was determined to make good his claim on Silesia; and he was able to appeal to that sentiment of provincial independence which had been growing during the previous century. Neither Z̆iz̆ka nor Procop had ever been able thoroughly to establish the power of the Bohemians over Moravia and Silesia; but the accession of a ruler, who seemed to be acceptable to all parties in Bohemia, was likely to strengthen the central power at the expense of local aspirations. The Silesians and Moravians complained that neither of their Assemblies had been consulted in the election of George; and the towns of Moravia, always jealous of the power of Prague, and containing a strong admixture of German and Catholic elements, were eager to resist the centralising power of the heretic king. Albert of Austria was able to give them little assistance; and one after another the great cities of Moravia were reduced to obedience. Znaym (Znojem) was the first to open its gates to George. Brünn (Brno), more strongly fortified, was at first disposed to resist; but it soon yielded to the threat of a siege; and Olmütz speedily followed its example. In Iglau (Jíhlava) the Catholic reaction had risen to a greater height than in any of the other towns of Moravia; and the leaders of the party had deposed the Town Council and appointed one of their own; but, on being convinced that George intended no persecution of the Catholics, Jíhlava also surrendered to the king.

The resistance in Silesia was of a more determined kind. Broken up as it was into little Dukedoms, containing a strong German element, and often influenced by its near neighbourhood to Saxony, Silesia had probably at no time felt that strong sympathy with the Bohemians which still existed in Moravia, in spite of the apparent triumph of the Catholic reaction. But the strongest opposition in Silesia came, not from the provincial dukes, but from the town of Breslau. The Bishop of Breslau seems to have been a more zealous Catholic than most of his neighbours; while the citizens had continual causes of rivalry with Prague, both on account of trade differences and of exceptional municipal privileges. Breslau, therefore, held out against George, long after the rest of Silesia had practically submitted to him. The Pope, still hoping to secure the help of George against the Turks, tried to persuade the Breslauer to submit to the King, and answered to their complaints of George’s heresy that it was for the Pope, and not for the town of Breslau, to decide that question. At last, in 1460 George succeeded in bringing the Breslauer to terms; but not till he had promised them considerable ecclesiastical and municipal privileges, and had allowed them to defer their homage to him for three years.

Bohemia, however, was not the sole obstacle to the union of Christendom against the Turks. The Emperors of Germany had been growing steadily weaker during the last century; and many princes had wearied of Frederick III.’s government, and were looking about for a strong ruler who might put down the divisions of the Empire, before leading them against the Turks. Under these circumstances many considered that George of Bohemia would be the right man for the place. In Hungary, too, Matthias had found great difficulty in holding his own against the nobles; and there again, though much against his will, George was looked upon as a possible substitute for the unpopular king. In his own country he seemed to be gaining steadily in power. He had restored, to a great extent, the influence of the towns which had been decaying during the Hussite wars, and he gathered round him, not only the most eminent men in Bohemia, but also the most distinguished foreigners from Germany and Italy.

But, in the meantime, Pius II. was becoming alarmed at the power of this king. He had hoped that George would have come to Rome to declare himself a true son of the Church. He found that no progress was being made in the anti-Turkish crusade; and he heard, with alarm, that the Archbishop of Mainz and other German ecclesiastics were preparing to demand the fulfilment of that decree of the Council of Constance, according to which a new Council was to be summoned every ten years. These suspicions of the Pope were much encouraged by one of his advisers, Fantinus de Valle, who tried to convince him that heresy had recently gained new life, and that there was a special revival of the teaching of Wyclif. At last in January, 1462, George consented to send an embassy to Rome, stating the terms on which he would make the necessary submission to the Pope. This submission was to be given, practically, on the recognition by Pius of the Compacts of Basel. The Pope was, in the first place, indignant that George should send representatives instead of coming himself to Rome; and he was perhaps not more favourably disposed to the deputation, that Koranda, the Taborite preacher, was one of the members of it; for Koranda dwelt with considerable enthusiasm on the victories of the Taborites in the Utraquist wars, and maintained that they had acted by the grace of God, and by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

At last on March 31st the Pope, in a large assembly, declared that the Communion in both kinds, having been condemned by the Council of Constance, and at one time by the Council of Basel, must be considered as a disorderly and heretical arrangement; that the Compacts had been only a temporary provision; and he now declared them at an end. The Bohemian ambassadors, accompanied by Fantinus de Valle, returned to Prague to report the news to the Assembly. When they had delivered their report, George declared that the Pope had no right to take away what the Council of Basel had conceded, and what Eugenius had indirectly sanctioned. If any Pope, he said, may undo what his predecessors have done, what security is there for justice? Then, referring to the charge that he had violated his coronation oath in not suppressing heresy, he ordered the oath to be read publicly. Then he proceeded to say that, in declaring he would suppress heretical wickedness, he had never meant that he would suppress Utraquism, since, said he, “it is founded in the Gospel of Christ, according to the institution of the primitive Church, and has been conceded to us as a privilege of our virtue and devotion, by the Council of Basel. And as to swearing to oppose the practice, no indeed! But know for certain that, since we were born in that Communion, since we were nurtured in it, and since, by God’s help, we have been raised to the royal dignity in it, so we promise to guard and defend it, and to live and die for it; and our wife and children, and all who do any thing for the love of us, ought to live and die in the defence of the Compacts; nor do we believe that there is any other way of salvation for our souls than the Communion in both kinds, according to the institution of our Saviour.” Then he turned to the nobles who stood about him, and asked them for their decision on the question.

But it was no longer possible to maintain the former unity in the face of this declaration; and while the Utraquist nobles promised readily to stand by the King, Sternberg declared, on behalf of the Catholics, that, while they were willing to support the King in all that concerned the honour of his kingdom, they had not been consulted about the acceptance of the Compacts, and that George must not look to them to defend them. The next day Fantinus de Valle was admitted to speak on behalf of the Pope. He at once announced the revocation of the Compacts by Pius, and the deposition from the clerical office of all who gave the cup to the laity. Finally he wound up his speech by fiercely threatening George with deposition from his throne, if he did not obey the Pope. George thereupon turned to the lords, who stood round him, and said, “Noble lords, you chose me as your king and protector; and since you have the power of choosing a lord to protect you, you ought to work with him.” He then burst out into a fierce denunciation of the Roman see, declaring that it was a seat of pestilence; and on the following day Fantinus was seized and imprisoned.

The declaration of hostility seemed now sufficiently clear on both sides; but again new considerations delayed the final outburst. The Emperor Frederick had just been engaged in a war with his brother Albert about some claims in the Archduchy of Austria. Albert succeeded in defeating the Emperor, and imprisoning him at Vienna; but George hastened to Vienna, rescued the Emperor, and restored him to the throne. Frederick was full of gratitude; and, while confirming all the liberties of Bohemia, he persuaded the Pope to abstain from excommunicating George. Pius, still bent on the Turkish war, and knowing probably that Frederick would find some sympathy for an anti-Papal policy, consented to a curious compromise. He would not issue a formal Bull of anathema against George; but he sent messengers to the citizens of Breslau, releasing them from the treaty which they had recently made, and encouraging them to rebel. At the same time he tried to stir up discontent among the nobles. Many of these had already become alarmed at the growing power of their king. Although he had strictly recognised the Constitutional rights of the Assembly, yet the expedition to Vienna had given an opportunity for reasserting one of the privileges about which the Bohemian nobles were most sensitive; namely, the power of refusing to follow the King when he made war outside the country. The opposition to this expedition was speedily followed by fiercer attacks; and the lords now accused George of illegal taxation, of interference with the coinage, and of manipulating the land register, so as to reduce to feudal submission those who were legally independent. With regard to most of the nobles, however, there seemed an unwillingness at first to push things to an extremity; but a Moravian named Hynek of Lichtenberg, who had long cherished a personal jealousy against the king, broke out into open insurrection, and set on fire some of the towns in Moravia. Hoping to secure the Pope’s sympathy in this rebellion, Hynek sent to Rome for advice as to the course that he should pursue; but, before Pius could commit himself to a distinct answer to this question, he was taken ill, and died in August, 1464.

George was well pleased to hear that a Venetian Cardinal had been elected Pope. But Paul II., though at first apparently friendly to George, was irritated at some delay in the formal congratulation on his accession which was due to him from the King of Bohemia. Hynek soon succeeded in getting a ready hearing from those Cardinals who were most opposed to George; and, in spite of the protest of the Bishop of Olmütz and of many leading people in Moravia, Paul was induced to command George to withdraw his forces from the siege of Hynek’s castle. George remonstrated with the Pope; but the previous irritation was revived by the rumour that George had refused to send ambassadors for fear of their being ill-treated at Rome. The continued attempts on Hynek’s castle, and the renewal of the siege of Breslau, were treated as acts of contumacy; and at last, on August 6, 1465, Paul issued a Bull deposing George from the throne, and authorising the legate to punish all who should still adhere to him.

In the meantime the growing bitterness of the Catholic nobles had been increased by a personal quarrel between George and Zdenek of Sternberg. Although George had been forced to rely upon this nobleman in his attempts to conciliate the Catholics, he soon found that Zdenek’s character was not deserving of confidence; and he was forced to refuse him a wardship, for which he applied, on the ground that he had abused his trust on a former occasion. This reproach roused Zdenek to still further opposition; and he induced the lords to found a League in defence of the Pope. The immediate object of Paul and the rebel lords was to find a king for Bohemia; and they fixed on Matthias of Hungary, who, though he owed much friendship and help to George, was easily attracted by the hope of a new kingdom. Many of the important towns of Bohemia fell away from the King, and joined the lords against him. The four great towns of Moravia formed a special League for the defence of the Catholic faith. Pilsen and Budweis, always inclined to the Catholic cause, speedily joined this League; and the town of Görlitz, the centre of a special district in Silesia, was hard pressed, on account of its loyalty to the king. George was so eager for peace that he consented to a meeting with the rebels at Prague, at which he defended himself from the various charges brought against him by the nobles; and he produced some of the charters from Carlstein to prove the legality of his actions. Sternberg refused to believe George’s assertion that he had shown them all the charters which concerned their rights; and he demanded that Carlstein and its contents should be handed over to himself and his friends, and that the charters should be submitted to the Emperor for confirmation. George indignantly refused these proposals, which apparently went beyond the wishes of many of the lords; but the Pope frightened the rebels into new opposition, by another Bull which placed Bohemia under an interdict.

George now appealed from the Pope to a new Council, and called on Casimir of Poland to intercede between him and Paul. Casimir willingly undertook this negotiation, to which some victories of George seemed to give a hope of success; but the attempt at compromise completely broke down; and the Poles joined the anti-Utraquist alliance. Rosenberg, who had stood by the King for some time, now went over to Sternberg; and, when George advanced to besiege Olmütz, his own soldiers deserted his banner. George was now compelled to retreat to Prague in April, 1469; and the Legate supposed him to be so completely crushed that he offered him the following terms of peace. He was to return, with all his servants, to the Catholic faith; to give up all Articles which the Church condemned; to restore all ecclesiastical property; to recognise Matthias as his son and successor, and allow him to appoint the Archbishop and the heads of all the churches in Prague; and, finally, to give up to the Legate the arch-heretic Rokycana.

Not many even of George’s enemies could have expected him to accept these terms; and the consequence of their proposal was an exchange of fierce defiances between the two parties, ending in a formal election of Matthias as king of Bohemia, by the rebel nobles. But the heretic King was not so easily to be beaten. On January 1, 1470, he sent a letter to the princes of the German Empire, which reads more like the manifesto of a conqueror than the appeal of a defeated and deposed king. He set forth in bitter language the treatment which he had received from the Pope; and he warned the princes that unless they would support him in this crisis, he would break off all connection between Bohemia and the Empire, and stand alone.

In the meantime his enemies had begun to be divided among themselves. The six towns, of which Görlitz was the centre, had been forced to yield for a time to the Catholic League and had been placed under the rule of Sternberg’s son. They had soon found him so oppressive that they revolted against him and drove him out; and when Zdenek appealed to Matthias, Matthias treated his complaints with contempt. Rosenberg and Gutenstein returned to their allegiance to George; and many of the towns of Silesia and Moravia began to cry out against the government of the League. Seizing this opportunity, George once more invaded Moravia, and gained victory after victory over Matthias.

The King of Hungary tried to redeem his cause by making an inroad into Bohemia; but the cruelties of the Hungarian soldiers led the common people to rise against Matthias’s army; and the Poles seemed once more friendlily disposed to their old allies. The Bohemian lords gradually drifted back to George; and the complaints of the Interdict were so loud in the country that the Cardinals began to consider the advisability of suspending it. But, before the victory of the Bohemians could be secured, the struggle was cut short by the death of King George, preceded, only a few weeks earlier, by the death of his friend and supporter, Archbishop Rokycana.

Yet even here we must note, by anticipation, an important difference between the Bohemian and the English story. It is perfectly possible to give an intelligent and connected account of the English history of the seventeenth century, without making more than a casual reference to the Quaker movement. For, important as the life of George Fox would be in a general sketch of European philanthropy, it can scarcely be said to form a necessary link between any two periods of English history. On the other hand, it is impossible to give a clear impression of the Bohemian history of the sixteenth century without calling considerable attention to the work and influence of the Bohemian Brotherhood.

One reason for this difference is that the movement for peace, and all the ideas that gather round such a movement, were more in harmony with the traditions of Bohemia than with those of England. This statement may sound startling and paradoxical, when it follows so closely on the account of the Utraquist wars. They, more than any other event, have brought Bohemia into prominence in European history; and it was chiefly as fighters that the Bohemians were known to the surrounding nations at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, early traditions, whether legendary or historical, never entirely lose their influence on the character of a nation.

The gentle figure of Libus̆a presiding over a peaceable community is a marked contrast to the figures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; and the essentially combative character of St. George suggests directly opposite ideas of saintship to those represented by St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert. Nor, when the stream of religious tradition divides into the two branches of Catholic and Protestant, does the contrast cease between the English and Bohemian models. The legendary picture of St. John Nepomuc is more gentle and suffering than even the historical facts would justify, and it offers a strange contrast to all the traditions that gather round the name of Becket; while the loving and hesitating character of Jan Hus is almost equally unlike the sternly defiant figure of Wyclif.

There is, however, another reason for the difference exercised on their respective countries by the Bohemian and the English Society. While the stern idealism of the Quakers hindered them from directly influencing the ordinary course of public life, the more accommodating character of the Bohemian Brothers enabled them to affect the general policy of their country by sacrificing something of their perfection as a Christian community. This point of difference will become more clearly evident as the story proceeds; it will now be sufficient to have called attention to the fact that, on both these grounds, the followers of Peter of Chelc̆ic are more closely connected with the course of Bohemian history than the followers of George Fox with the history of England.

Peter of Chelc̆ic, like George Fox, was a shoemaker by trade; but he educated himself carefully, both in the Latin language and in the history of his country. He does not seem ever to have wandered far from the little village of Chelc̆ic, in the Prachin district; though the narrowness of his geographical outlook did not hinder him from plunging tolerably early into the important controversies with which his life was concerned. It was he who in 1419 propounded to the Masters of the Prague University his doubts on the lawfulness of religious wars. He was not satisfied with the answer which he received; and the weakness which he detected in Jakaubek’s arguments doubtless strengthened him in his previous convictions.

He gradually adopted all those doctrines which we specially associate with the name of George Fox. He rejected all rank and property for Christians; declared that the conversion of Constantine was the ruin of the Church; condemned oaths in law courts, and advocated the passive endurance of injuries.

He soon began to attract attention; and when Peter Payne was driven out of Prague, after the restoration of Sigismund, he took refuge at Chelc̆ic with his namesake. Apparently a dislike of the new teaching began, a little later, to show itself amongst the Utraquists; for in 1443 we find that Peter was summoned before an Assembly at Kutna Hora to answer for his doctrines. Nothing seems to have come of this examination, for Peter was soon after allowed to publish his first book; and others speedily followed, in which he attacked the Pope and the clergy.

Just at this time Rokycana was engaged in a controversy with the Franciscan Capistran; and, as he had completely triumphed over the Taborites, he felt ready to sympathise with a new ally against Rome. He even recommended the writings of Peter to many of his hearers in the Teyn Church; and Peter was suffered to found a community which took the name of the Chelc̆ic Brothers. Many of those who were desiring to lead a purer and more self-denying life drew near to the Brotherhood; and the protection and encouragement of Rokycana gave the Society for a time the means of easy development.

But after the coronation of George of Podĕbrad, Rokycana’s feeling towards the Brothers underwent a rapid change. His increase of power made him more determined to assert that power at all hazards. Had the Brothers, indeed, been contented to settle under the priests whom the Archbishop chose for them, Rokycana might still have suffered them to remain unmolested; but he was irritated by their desire to form a separate community of their own, independent of all other ecclesiastical organisations. While this controversy was still in its early stage, Peter died, and his nephew Gregory succeeded to the chief position in the society. The new movement had now begun to include men of all classes, although the nobles were expected to give up their rank if they actually joined the Brotherhood.

But a more trying time was coming. In 1461, Gregory came to Prague and held a meeting of his friends in the New Town. This was the time when Fantinus de Valle was beginning to excite the suspicions of the Pope against the Bohemian heresies; and, urged on doubtless by Rokycana, the King ordered the arrest of the organisers of this meeting on the charge of being engaged in a conspiracy. The attempts to convict them of political intrigue entirely broke down; and they were then denounced as heretics, because of their denial of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Under pressure of torture, some of them recanted, but Gregory remained firm. He reminded Rokycana of his recommendation of the works of Peter of Chelc̆ic, and he complained of the Archbishop’s inconsistency in now denouncing them. Rokycana, however, persisted in the course on which he had entered, and he refused to allow the Brothers any of the sacraments of the Church. The Brothers now fled to the hills of Reichenau, and resolved to form a stronger organisation for carrying on their work.

With the curious inconsistency which naturally attaches to such movements, they showed a great desire to connect themselves, in tradition if not in organisation, with the older churches; and they chose as their chief president a regularly ordained priest, named Michael. They elected a small council to support him in his management of the Brotherhood; and then they chose their priests by lot, and requested them to rebaptise all the Brotherhood. Although, too, they rejected Episcopacy as a separate dignity, they practically entrusted to Michael the special duties of a bishop. They now became known as “Jednota Bratrska,” or the Unity of Brothers; and they speedily began to attract attention from those who were out of sympathy with the existing churches. These were not confined to pure-minded and earnest men like themselves, but included wild sects like the Adamites, whom the Brotherhood were obliged to repel from their body.

In the meantime Rokycana’s fury increased. He stirred up both King and People against the Brotherhood, and persuaded the Assembly to pass a decree ordering the suppression or compulsory conversion of the Brothers. Again Gregory protested, and Rokycana now answered that no new Church could be founded without a special revelation from Heaven. But when the Brothers offered to explain the nature of their revelation, they were answered by imprisonment, torture, and in some cases by burning. They were now compelled to meet in woods, ditches, and clefts of the rock to carry on their religious services; yet they still stood firm, and Gregory and a woman named Katerina succeeded in keeping up methods of communication between them in various parts of Bohemia and Moravia.

The deaths of King George and of Rokycana released them for a time from persecution. The new King showed himself more kindly towards them. This King was Ladislaus, the son of the King of Poland. He had been chosen King of Bohemia, in spite of the resistance of Matthias. He was only sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he seems to have speedily left on people around him the impression of a youth of mild and weak temperament. He released the Brothers who were still in prison, and they renewed their propaganda.

But their troubles were not yet at an end. Joanna, the widow of King George, fiercely demanded their suppression; and when they asked for a free discussion on the points at issue, the Masters of the Prague University informed them that they might come to Prague to state their doctrines, and then submit to be convinced of their errors by the Masters. This was precisely what the Council of Basel had proposed to the Utraquists themselves, a proposal which they had scornfully rejected; and the inconsistent character of the claim made by the Utraquist leaders seems forcibly to have impressed, not only their Catholic enemies, but even some of their supporters.

Therefore, under the pressure of public opinion, the Masters of the Prague University consented, in 1473, to a discussion with the Brothers. Strangely enough, the points which the Masters proposed for discussion did not refer to the distinctive doctrines of Peter of Chelc̆ic, but were rather concerned with the meaning of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and the right means of obtaining salvation. The Brotherhood denied the doctrine of the Real Presence, and maintained that salvation was only to be found in a virtuous life; they were consequently denounced by the Masters of Prague, and very little real discussion took place. The Masters soon after issued a letter, in which they declared that the Brothers were the chief enemies of the Church; and they further complained of them for choosing workmen for the office of priests.

It was during this phase of the controversy that Gregory died. He had combined remarkable courage with an unselfish devotion to the cause of the Brotherhood. He had willingly resigned the first place in favour of the priest Michael; but he had, none the less, stamped his special convictions on the minds of certain members of the Brotherhood; and, for a time, on the constitution of the whole society. He warned the Brothers very strongly against the dangerous influence of learned scholars, declaring that such people were given to subtle intrigues, inconsistent with simplicity of life. At the same time he gave enormous power into the hands of the Bishop of the Church. He was to have the right of changing at will the members of the Council who acted with him; and no Brother was to be allowed to publish any book without the sanction of the Bishop and this Council of his nominees. More general questions of faith and doctrine were to be decided by synods of the Brotherhood.

Though Gregory’s immediate successor in the Brotherhood was a man of like feelings with himself, neither he nor any one else could ultimately maintain so strict an organisation in its original form. It has, indeed, already been hinted that the Bohemian Brotherhood, unlike their English successors, came, after a short time, into friendly contact with the outer world; and they suffered in simplicity, while they gained in influence.

They had now spread over a hundred and eighty square miles of territory; and though they still for a time maintained the exclusion of worldly rank and worldly power from their body, they did not object to accept the protection of friendly nobles, who remained outside their body. Of these the most prominent and sympathetic was Kostka of Postupic, whose father had endeavoured to protect the Brothers against King George, and whose great-grandfather had fought for Z̆iz̆ka. Through his influence many nobles were induced to modify that attitude of hostility which the democratic tendencies of the Brotherhood had naturally produced in them. But this connection could not fail in time to produce a corresponding change in the feelings of the Brothers themselves; and some of them began, before long, to propose a modification of the stern principles which Gregory had enforced. Might not oaths be used on certain occasions? Say, for instance, to free a Brother from unjust charges in a law-court? And might not worldly offices be held, if they were administered in a right spirit? These questions of practice, together with others of pure doctrine, began gradually to excite divisions in the Brotherhood; and, though it was some time before the more moderate creed could gain much ground, it soon found a powerful and eloquent supporter, who knew how to make it acceptable.

About the year 1480, Lukas of Prague, a young and learned theologian, was admitted into the Brotherhood. He had studied the old classics and the Fathers of the Church; and he was strongly in favour of a relaxation of those stern simplicities on which Gregory had insisted. He also desired to give greater prominence to the doctrine of Justification by Faith, as distinguished from that exclusive advocacy of good life which had hitherto been the mark of the Brotherhood. Under the influence of Lukas, it was resolved in 1490 that the heads of the congregations should be allowed to relax the severity of the rules, on certain occasions, in regard both to questions of luxury and to the appeals to the secular power.

Amos of S̆tekna strongly denounced this compromise, and declared that the devil of worldliness had entered as thoroughly into the Brotherhood as he had entered into the Church in the time of Constantine and Sylvester. Mathias of Kunvald, the successor of Gregory in the leadership of the Brotherhood, sympathised with the sterner party; and, by his influence, the relaxing decrees were repealed.

A project was then started for sending expeditions to various parts of the world, in order to find out where the simplicity of faith was still maintained. Nothing, however, seems to have resulted from these visits; and the party of Lukas continued to gain ground. Mathias was unable to hold his own against the pressure of the new Reformers; so at last he resigned his judgeship in despair, and consented to the abolition of the Small Council. Thereupon Amos of S̆tekna and his followers revolted from the Brotherhood, and founded a new sect which was called, after its founder, the Amosites. At the same time the old society became generally known as the Bunzlau Brothers, after the town of Jungbunzlau (Mláda Boleslav) which was now their chief centre.

Two results followed from this separation; first, an intensity of bitterness between the old Society and the seceders, greater than that between the Utraquists and the Brothers; and, secondly, the adoption of new modifications and compromises by those who adhered to the old Society. All compromises have a certain want of logic about them; and compromises between the Church and the World on such questions as war and peace, simplicity and luxury, equality and distinctions of rank, must necessarily produce results which, while painful and pathetic to those who realise the state of mind of their framers, will strike an unsympathising world as grotesque and even ludicrous.

Under the new arrangements, the members of the Brotherhood were allowed to wear dress in proportion to their rank, if they did not become luxurious; but silk and embroidery were still strictly forbidden. The compromise about war was still stranger. If a Brother considered that the war which his king had made was a just one, he should not refuse to take part in it if the lot fell upon him; but he was to try, whenever possible, to find a substitute, or to get some office about the Court which would excuse him from military duty, or to find some service in connection with the army which did not involve fighting; but if he could not find any such means of escape, then let him fight in God’s name; but let him not fight for idle fame, and let him draw the sword with reluctance.

Some of the other modifications of principle seem more in accordance with ordinary conceptions of life. Trade might now be practised, but usury was to be avoided. Beer might be sold, if pure; but it was only to be sold in a public manner to travellers. Oaths, again, might be taken by witnesses if they were convinced of the justice of the cause in which they appeared.

But though such relaxations permitted the extension of membership to those who had hitherto been excluded from the Brotherhood, the bonds of the Society were drawn closer than ever round those members who had entered it. Strict arrangements were made for the visitation of the Brothers by their clergy, and for inquiry into the morals of each family; more rigid limitations than before were placed on the acquirement of property by the clergy themselves, while the appeals to worldly law-courts were more carefully guarded against by the provision of Courts of Appeal within the Brotherhood. Lastly, the exclusive position of the Brotherhood was strengthened by a most startling provision; if a husband or wife joined the Brotherhood without the sympathy of their partner, and were afterwards interfered with by him or her in matters of faith, the brother or sister so hampered might claim a divorce, and make a new marriage. Thus, then, the Brotherhood seemed to be strengthened and consolidated, both by the facilities of admission to those who had been repelled by its sterner rules, and by the stricter organisation which separated the enlarged Society more distinctly from the outer world.

But an additional source of strength was soon to be provided by the renewal of persecution. This persecution was due to three causes. Soon after the changes above mentioned, Lukas and some of the other Brothers had made an expedition to Italy to investigate the condition of the Waldensian Communities. It was the time of the struggle between Alexander VI. and Savonarola, and some of the Bohemian missionaries were actually present in Florence at the burning of the great Dominican. They returned to Bohemia, offended at the laxity of many of the Bohemian Communities, and more embittered than before against a Catholic Church which was ruled by Alexander Borgia. Alexander, on his side, had been roused by his struggle against Florence to a fervid zeal for the suppression of heresy, and his attention had evidently been called to these strange visitors to Italy. So in 1500 he despatched inquisitors to Moravia with orders to burn all heretical books, and especially those of Peter of Chelc̆ic. So effectively was this part of the work performed, that of the book which Peter had specially written against the Pope, only one copy is to be found at this day. The inquisitor, indeed, found it easier to burn books than to convert the Brothers, but his efforts in that direction were soon supported by men of a very different type.

The first of these was Bohuslav Hassenstein of Lobkovic, a learned and cultivated scholar, who had gained some reputation as a poet. He had quarrelled with Pope Alexander, in consequence of the Pope’s refusal to confirm him in the bishopric of Olmütz; and he was at first disposed to look rather to King Ladislaus than to any ecclesiastical authority for the restoration of unity and order in the Church. He seems indeed to have had some genuine zeal for moral reform; for he denounced the luxury and pride of the nobility; the gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery of all classes; and the general decline of art and literature. For all these evils he suggested the one remedy—that Ladislaus should restore religious unity to the Church. But, like every earnest man who came in contact with this unfortunate king, Hassenstein began by admiring his gentleness, and ended by despising his weakness and incapacity. Since the death of Matthias, Ladislaus had been elected King of Hungary; and, if he had been unable to govern Bohemia effectively from Prague, he was still less able to govern it from Presburg. Hassenstein, in despair, turned to his clerical brethren for help; and they resolved to promote religious unity by a friendly compromise with the Utraquists, which was to be a preparation for a joint persecution of the Brotherhood.

But a third enemy of the Brothers proved more efficacious than Borgia or Hassenstein in stirring up the embers of persecution. Amos of S̆tekna had heard with renewed indignation of the later modification of their creed introduced by the Brothers after his secession; and he had particularly resented the compromises with regard to war, and the completer recognition of the civil power. He, therefore, wrote to Ladislaus that the Brothers were now taking up the position of the old Taborites. The suggestion was the one best fitted to alarm such a man. “What!” exclaimed the king, “are they going to imitate Z̆iz̆ka?” (Z̆iz̆kovati), and he at once rushed into action with all the irritable energy of a weak nature.

Orders were now sent out to all those towns and country districts which were directly dependent upon the King, directing them to suppress the meetings of the Brothers, to arrest all their teachers, and to send them to Prague, where they would either be forced to recant, or else be burnt alive; and these measures were to be followed by the expulsion of the rest of the Brotherhood from Bohemia. Many wholesale arrests were made; and one nobleman burnt some of the Brothers whom he found on his estate.

But these summary proceedings of the King roused against him the constitutional feelings both of the nobility and of the representatives of the towns. They disputed his right to act in so arbitrary a manner, even in the districts dependent upon him; and they feared that he would soon exert the same power in the independent towns and on the estates of the nobles.

Apart from these general objections, there were three noblemen, at least, who were disposed to extend their protection to the Brothers; and it was on their estates that the largest number of the Brothers were to be found. Different motives actuated the nobles who took this course. Kostka, who has been already referred to, sympathised personally with the teaching of the Brotherhood; Schellenberg wished to spare them, because his wife was a member of their society; Pernstein was entirely indifferent to all theological disputes, and therefore saw no reason for the persecution. But all the three were united in the determination to assert their feudal rights for the protection of their dependants; and they insisted that, if any Brothers were summoned to Prague from their estates, they should be secured complete protection and a fair hearing.

When, however, the Brothers arrived in Prague, they found that the Committee of the Masters of Arts intended to administer a rebuke, without hearing the defence of the accused parties. Against this injustice the Brothers protested; and at last the nobles and citizens succeeded in persuading the Masters to withdraw, before the accused persons were introduced. When, then, the Brothers appeared to answer the charges against them, they found themselves in the presence only of the nobles and citizens, who informed them that their mere appearance in Prague was all that was required of them, and that they might now go home again. This result was considered to be, in the main, a victory for the Brothers. But some of them were more indignant at the time which had been wasted than pleased at their escape from condemnation; and Lukas and his friends followed up this visit by an energetic war of pamphlets.

A new weapon, it must be remembered, was now at the service of all promoters of new teaching. The invention of printing had quickly spread to Bohemia; and, in 1468, the fourth printing-press ever established in Europe had begun to work at Pilsen. The Brothers quickly saw the advantage of the new discovery; and, in 1500, they established a printing-press at Mláda Boleslav. More than one lady of rank joined the Brotherhood; and at least one Catholic noble found the new creed rapidly spreading among his dependants.

Ladislaus now recognised the mistake which he had made in ignoring the constitutional methods of procedure. He therefore resolved to appeal to the regular Assemblies for support in his war against heresy; and he believed that he would find his best chance in Moravia. The Moravian Assembly, unlike the Bohemian, admitted the clergy to a special representation as a fourth estate; the Bishop of Olmütz had been active in the propaganda against the Brotherhood; and the great power which the Germans and Catholics had obtained in Moravia during the wars, seemed to point to an easy victory in the Moravian Assembly.

But again the King had miscalculated. The victories of the Germans and Catholics had excited against them a bitterness, both national and religious, far more intense than was to be found in other parts of the kingdom. The cruelties of Sigismund, the Germanising zeal of Albert of Austria, and the many injustices of Sternberg and the Catholic League, had consolidated against them a mass of Moravian feeling, which, if unable to secure victories on the battlefield, was eminently calculated to give strength to an opposition in the Assembly. To the Bohemians of the western province the Catholics and Germans were enemies, whom they had met on equal terms and often thoroughly routed; to the Moravians they were victorious tyrants, whose rule was to be thrown off at the first opportunity.

When, then, the Catholics demanded that the Assembly should unite in suppressing the “Picard” heresy, they were startled to find that the Utraquists made common cause with the Brothers in opposing this motion, and that they actually chose as their spokesman a member of the Brotherhood named John of Z̆erotin. This nobleman demanded that the complaints already made by the Utraquists should be attended to before the question of supposed heresy was dealt with. The Bishop of Olmütz taunted Z̆erotin with professing a sympathy with the Utraquists which he did not feel; but the Opposition remained firm; and the Assembly broke up without coming to any decision.

In Bohemia the Catholic party had an easier task. The opposition to Ladislaus’s former proceedings had been mainly based on constitutional grounds; and it now appeared that there was little religious sympathy with the Brotherhood amongst the leaders of public opinion. The power which the Utraquists had gained during the reign of King George had drawn them into sympathy with the leading nobles; and Rokycana had inspired them with a special dislike of the Brotherhood. The Bohemian Assembly, therefore, consented to a decree, which ordered the burning of the books of the Brotherhood, the suppression of their meetings, and the punishment of their teachers. Elated by this victory, the Bishop of Olmütz hurried back to Moravia, intending to summon the Assembly for a second meeting, and to secure the reversal of its former decision; but he was taken ill on his way, and died before the Assembly could meet; nor, from that time till the fall of Bohemian independence in 1620, did any Moravian Assembly consent to the suppression of the Brotherhood.

Nevertheless, the Catholic party found full compensation for their failure in Moravia in a specially fierce enforcement of the law just passed in Bohemia. Indeed, the former patrons of the Brotherhood became so much alarmed, that even Kostka forbade the Brothers to hold any further meetings on his estates. In spite of this opposition, the Brothers still maintained their ground, and even extended their preaching further; and but few of them could be persuaded, even by the most cruel tortures, to submit to the authorities of the Church. In 1511 the Brothers hoped, for a short time, to secure the protection of the greatest scholar of the time, Erasmus of Rotterdam. They had heard of some private letters of his, in which he had defended them against the attacks of their enemies; and they now prepared a Defence in Latin, which they sent to him. He thanked them for their communication, and expressed approval of at least part of their defence; but he declined to publish his opinion, on the ground that it would not help them, and might injure his work. So the persecution went on. Even Peter of Rosenberg found himself unable to protect a Brother, in whom he was interested, from being imprisoned and nearly starved to death. He succeeded, indeed, in getting him released before death had actually occurred, and he then urged him to submit to the Church; but the Brother, though almost too exhausted to speak, steadily refused to submit; and he was set free without further persecution. Lukas, who was now the most prominent member of the Brotherhood, succeeded for a long time in escaping the vigilance of his persecutors; but, in 1515, he was treacherously seized under false pretences, brought to Prague, and subjected to the torture. When nothing could be obtained from him by this means, he was set free, on the understanding that he was to appear before the Utraquist Consistory in April, 1516; but in the month before this appearance was to take place King Ladislaus died, and the persecution again slackened for a time.

In the meantime, the long absence of the King in Hungary, and the growing sense of his weakness of character, had been producing other divisions in Bohemia which gradually turned men’s minds away from the religious controversies. The wars of the fifteenth century, like all wars, had tended to draw the people away from their ordinary occupations, and to make them dependent on their military leaders. As long as the Taborite organisation lasted, its democratic spirit provided at least some check on the oppressions of the military nobles; and the alliance between the peasants and the Order of Knights, to which Z̆iz̆ka had belonged, counteracted any advantages which the nobles might have gained by their military prowess. But the fall of Tabor had destroyed any hopes, which the peasantry and townsmen might have had, of strengthening their position through war.

Under these circumstances the peasantry gradually fell back into the condition from which they had been escaping in the fourteenth century. The right of leaving their masters at their pleasure, of settling in towns, and of becoming priests without the sanction of their landlords, were gradually taken from them; and at last they were deprived even of that right of appeal to the King’s Court by which Charles had protected them against the absolute power of their lords.

But, though the peasantry were thus crushed back into a state of serfdom, the organisation of the towns was too strong to yield at once to the attacks of the nobles. Unfortunately, however, the lords gained about this time a new and important ally in their struggle for supremacy. The knights, or independent country gentlemen, who had been such zealous rivals of the higher Order in the fifteenth century, had lately consented to a reconciliation with their opponents; and these two classes were thus able to combine their forces against the towns.

The new king was little able to give the weaker party any assistance in the struggle. Ladislaus had succeeded in securing to his son Louis the succession to the crown, and he had even had him crowned during his lifetime. But Louis was a boy of ten; he was in the main under Hungarian influences; and he was of course utterly unfitted to control the fierce factions which were struggling in Bohemia.

The three chief points at issue between the Towns and the other Orders were, firstly, the right of the Town Tribunals to summon before them the nobles and knights in cases specially affecting the towns; secondly, the monopoly claimed by the towns in the brewing trade; thirdly, the right of the towns to send representatives to the Bohemian Assembly. In 1517, indeed, a nominal settlement was effected on all these points by the treaty of St. Wenceslaus. By that treaty the towns surrendered their monopoly of brewing, but were secured the peaceable possession of their other privileges. Such treaties had little effect in a time of discord, and it was not long before a new violation of town rights led to the outbreak of a civil war, in which the citizens gained some victories. Both parties, however, soon began to desire peace, and the king was called in to arbitrate between them.

When Louis arrived in Prague to inquire into the circumstances of the contest, he found that the disturbances of the country had been largely increased by the rise of certain self-seeking politicians, who had made their profit out of the difficulties of the kingdom. Of these the most powerful and unscrupulous was Lev of Roz̆mital, the brother-in-law of King George. He had induced Ladislaus to mortgage to him some of the royal property. By this and other means he had gained a great control over the finances of the kingdom, and he refused to give any account of his use of that power. He was supported in most of his intrigues by a citizen who had recently been ennobled, and who had taken the name of Pas̆ek of Wrat. These two men had gradually gained complete power over the government of Prague; and, on one occasion, a man who had opposed Lev in the Town Council had been dragged out and beaten to death.

Fortunately, however, there were powerful influences in the country which worked in favour of the young king. One of the Rosenbergs of Krumov was a rival and enemy of Lev; and an equally formidable opponent of these schemes was found in Karl, Duke of Münsterberg, and nephew of King George. Louis’s uncle, King Sigismund of Poland readily supported his nephew by advice and encouragement. The respectable citizens of Prague were willing to rally round him; and, with such friends as these, the boy could venture to act vigorously. He deposed Lev from his office, raised a citizen named Hlavsa to the place which Pas̆ek had formerly held on the Council, and made Karl of Münsterberg the chief governor of the kingdom.

This change of government was intended by Louis and his nearest advisers simply as a means of restoring order and honesty in public affairs; but, besides that result, his action produced another effect, of which neither the King nor his uncle Sigismund would have approved. In choosing his new Councillors from the most respectable politicians whom he could find, Louis had unintentionally singled out men who were in sympathy with the movement for religious reform.

That movement had recently entered on an entirely new phase. In the middle of the exciting political struggles in their own country, many of the Utraquists and Bohemian Brothers had heard with the greatest interest that a German monk had come forward to denounce that very practice of the Sale of Indulgences which had first brought Hus into direct collision with the Papacy; and a rapid approximation followed between a section of the Bohemian Reformers and the new German teacher.

Luther’s attitude towards the followers of Hus is made clear enough by his own statements. He had been induced to read the story of Hus’s career before he had entered on his actual contest with Rome. He had even then been impressed by the greatness of the Bohemian Reformer, but he had thrust the book aside as likely to lead him into evil. Something of this old feeling still hung about him in the early part of his struggle. And, when Eck brought against him the charge of favouring the Bohemian heresy, he had been inclined to repel it with indignation. Yet it was that very charge which had induced him to return to the study of Hus; and he soon began to express so earnest an admiration for the Bohemian leader that his enemies spread the rumour that he was himself a Bohemian, who had been educated in Prague on the writings of Wyclif. Nay, they even went so far as to Bohemianise his name—a change in which they doubtless took a malicious pleasure, for the Bohemian word “Lŭtr̆e” means a scoundrel. Several letters of encouragement from scholars and clergymen at Prague were addressed to Luther in the earliest years of his struggle; and he declared that he would himself have come to Bohemia had he not feared that such a visit would have seemed like a flight from his enemies.

But he very soon began to recognise the distinction between his own position and that of Hus. This difference he has referred to in several of his writings; and perhaps the passage in his “Table Talk” is the one which will be best remembered, from the vigorous metaphor by which he illustrates his opinion: “Hus,” he said, “cut down and rooted out some thorns, thickets, and chips from the vineyard of Christ, and chastised the abuses and evil life of the Pope. But I, Dr. Martin Luther, have come into an open, flat, and well-ploughed field, and have attacked and overthrown the doctrine of the Pope.”

If this distinction between the attacks of Hus on the immorality of the Papacy, and his own attack on its doctrines, seemed to Luther to put the earlier Reformer in a less important position than that which he himself occupied, he must have felt this difference still more strongly with regard to the later Utraquistic movement. Very few of the leaders of that movement had ever desired that complete separation from Rome which Luther soon perceived to be an absolute necessity. They had been driven, against their will, to combine the assertion of their national independence with resistance to the authority of the Pope; but, when the deaths of King George and Rokycana had removed at once the main ground of Papal hostility to Bohemia, and the most determined asserters of an independent national Church, the Utraquists began to show an even painful eagerness for a reconciliation with the Papacy. They felt the need of a priesthood which possessed the dignity and legal stability secured by the consecration of Romanist bishops; and they not only sent their clergy to Italy to obtain this privilege, but they even welcomed in priests of other countries, who had been appointed to their offices in the orthodox manner.

Luther, in his desire to win the Bohemians to his side, energetically protested against this practice. He pointed out to them the dangers to morality and order which they were incurring by letting in priests of whom they knew nothing, except that they had been consecrated; men who, in many cases, had left their country from discreditable reasons. Finally, he appealed to them not to sacrifice that Bohemian independence for which they had struggled so long, nor to compromise with the representatives of those who had shed the blood of Hus and Jerom.

Unfortunately, Luther himself fell into the very same error against which he had so energetically warned the Bohemians. During these negotiations he put his chief trust in a man who was totally unworthy of his confidence. This was Gallus Cahera, the son of a butcher of Prague, who had studied in the University and gained a Master’s degree. He had then taken Holy Orders, and been appointed parish priest of Litmerice. From thence he had gone to Wittenberg; and so completely did he gain the confidence of the Reformers that, in 1523, Luther sent him back to Prague with letters to the Utraquistic congregation, urging them to choose him as their leader in the work of reform. He arrived there just when Louis was accomplishing his changes in the administration of Bohemia. In the following year the Utraquists elected Cahera as the Administrator of their Consistory; and he proceeded to draw up a series of Articles for their acceptance, which approached nearer than any of their previous formularies to the Lutheran creed. A proposal, indeed, to condemn the celibacy of the clergy was rejected by the Assembly; but the Articles which were adopted were sufficiently extreme to alarm the old-fashioned Utraquists; and Pas̆ek and his friends began at once to make use of this feeling.

It must be remembered that Utraquism had always been most powerful when it had been connected with efforts for Bohemian independence; and, unfortunately, the national feeling of Bohemia was generally closely connected with a hatred of all German influence. Pas̆ek had been able to appeal to this prejudice, in resisting the appointment of Karl of Münsterberg, who was not a Bohemian by birth; and, though the hatred of the tyranny of Lev and Pas̆ek had been strong enough for the moment to destroy the effect of this appeal, yet the dread of a German heresy was easily awakened in the citizens of Prague. Louis had already called on the Moravian Assembly to condemn the new doctrines; and that body, which had defended the national movement of the Bohemian Brotherhood, readily denounced the teaching of the monk of Wittenberg.

Pas̆ek soon succeeded in gaining help from an unexpected quarter. Cahera was a weak and unprincipled man, and his opponents were easily able to work upon his vanity. They proposed to him the splendid task of reconciling the Utraquists to the Pope; and Cahera was so dazzled by the prospect of the fame and dignity which such an undertaking promised him, that he quickly drifted away from his former friends and helped forward Pas̆ek’s intrigues. In vain did Luther remonstrate with Cahera on this desertion of his principles. The reaction steadily went on. Pas̆ek was re-elected to the Council; Louis, forgetful of his former distrust, encouraged the town in its new course; Karl of Münsterberg came over to the Catholic side; and the Assembly of Bohemia once more appealed to the Pope to ratify the Compacts of Basel.

But Pas̆ek was not yet satisfied. He and Lev of Roz̆mital were determined to recover the power which they had lost; and they found that the discovery and denunciation of heretics were the easiest means of obtaining this end. They therefore seized the opportunity of Cahera’s change of policy to pass laws to strengthen the position of the Administrator of the Consistory. At the same time some Lutheran sympathisers were expelled from Prague, and a regular organisation was formed in the Small Division to crush opposition. The Reformers soon began to complain of the armed men who were allowed to parade the streets. But these complaints were quoted by Pas̆ek’s friends as evidence of an heretical plot. Suspicion was stirred up against those reforming clergy who still remained in Prague, and at last a tradesman named Zika appeared before the Council to denounce all those leading councillors who were opposed to Pas̆ek. Hlavsa and his friends were seized and thrown into prison, and Pas̆ek endeavoured to obtain evidence against his leading opponents by putting their followers to the torture. Lev of Roz̆mital was restored to all his former power, and a system of terror was gradually established, under which the Brothers and all Lutheran sympathisers were subjected to various kinds of persecution. Karl of Münsterberg tried at first to check the progress of this tyranny; but the intriguers had succeeded for a time in winning to their side the king and the Hungarian bishops, and by their influence the opposition of the governor was silenced.

A general atmosphere of suspicion now began to dominate the city and its neighbourhood. Private avarice and vindictiveness found their opportunity under the plea of orthodoxy. Men stopping to speak to each other in the streets were accused of heretical conspiracies, and the enforcement of a more rigorous form of confession put a powerful weapon into the hands of the persecutors. Many workmen were deprived of their means of livelihood by the espionage to which they were subjected, and citizens coming to Prague to claim their debts were thrown into prison on a charge of heresy.

Such a tyranny necessarily overshot its mark. Many of the nobles were indignant at the power which Roz̆mital had gained, and he soon received a startling proof of their hostility. Remembering the bait by which they had drawn Cahera to their side, Pas̆ek and Roz̆mital despatched an embassy to the king, who was then at Presburg, to persuade him to second them in an appeal to the Pope to ratify the Compacts of Basel. The Rosenbergs seized this opportunity for a blow at the new rulers of Prague. They despatched a counter embassy to the king, in which they denied Roz̆mital’s right to speak in the name of the nobles of Bohemia.