Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/180

 In consequence of the general desire for peace, several German princes, as well as the University of Paris, earnestly petitioned Pope Martin V to comply with the universal wish, and assemble a General Council of the Church. The Pope was strongly opposed to this, as he still held the view that force of arms was the only means of ending the Hussite troubles. Martin was at that time negotiating with King Vladislav of Poland for the purpose of inducing him to attack the Bohemian heretics. These negotiations were unsuccessful. King Vladislav, over whom his nephew, Prince Korybut—an old friend of Bohemia—had at that moment great influence, assumed a less hostile attitude against the Hussites than he had shown for some time.

Though still hoping to organize another crusade, Pope Martin now gave a reluctant consent to the assembling of the Council. It was decided that it should meet at Basel on March 3, 1431, and the Pope directed Cardinal Julius Cesarini to preside over it as his representative. Cardinal Cesarini was at the same time appointed papal legate for Germany, and instructed above all things to urge the German princes to make one more effort to subdue Bohemia by force of arms. The cardinal therefore first proceeded to Nuremberg, where Sigismund, in the spring of the year 1431, had assembled a Diet of the Empire. The Diet almost unanimously decreed a general armament of all Germany against the heretics. Cardinal Cesarini sent a message to Basel, where the members of the Council were already beginning to arrive, informing them that their deliberations were to be deferred till after the end of the crusade, in which he himself intended to take part.

The Bohemians, as usual, united in view of the common peril, though we read of another serious dispute between the priests of Tabor and those of Prague about this time (April 1431). A general meeting of the Bohemian leaders took place at Kutna Hora, in which twelve regents were chosen for the provisional government of the land. The regents included members of all the various utraquist parties, the utraquist nobles not excepted. The assembly soon transferred the seat of its deliberations to Prague. Ambassadors of the Emperor Sigismund appeared before it, though Sigismund had undoubtedly already decided again to appeal to the fortune of war. It was here agreed between the regents and the envoys of Sigismund that the Bohemians