Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/224

 212 THE LATER MIDDLE AGES But the long period of humiliation had done its work in sowing the seeds of an implacable hostility to the spiritual as well as to the temporal authority of the popes. In England the disciples of Wycliffe, known as the Lollards, were sternly John Huss, suppressed, though Lollardy survived beneath 1415. the surface. But Wycliffe's doctrines had been taken up in Bohemia by the doctors, John Huss and Jerome of Prague. Huss was summoned before the Council of Constance to answer for his heresy, and was burnt at the stake, in spite of the fact that he had come under a safe conduct from Sigismund himself. His fate was shared by Jerome of Prague. The Council, though wisely determined to restore order in the Church, had no idea of admitting any reformation of doctrine. The new doctrine, however, had taken root, and Bohemia was soon in a flame of revolt. The Hussites found a brilliant 4. Central leader first in John Zisca, and after his death in Europe. Procop. Sigismund's efforts to crush them, even when extended into a crusade under papal sanction, were of no avail, and a devastating war was prolonged over many years. The Hussite The Hussites could not be stamped out as the Wars. Albigenses had been; and in the long-run they were able to obtain terms for themselves, under which they were allowed liberty on most of the points for which they had fought. When Sigismund died he left no son; his daughter was married to Albert of Austria, of the house of Hapsburg. Now Sigismund himself had been King of Hungary when he was chosen German king, and his brother Wenzel, formerly German Bohemia king, was King °^ Bohemia. Wenzel died before and Sigismund, leaving no heirs. The Bohemian Hungary. Crown was elective, but like most elective mon- archies it usually, though not invariably, passed to the natural heir when the king died. Thus Bohemia would naturally pass to Sigismund. Before his death he succeeded in procuring the recognition of his son-in-law as his successor both in Bohemia and in Hungary. The election to the German kingdom also fell upon Albert, who thus held in his own hands all the