Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/187

 Pope Martin approved of all the measures that the Council had passed against Bohemia. He sent orders to the Archbishop of Prague that the exiled priests be recalled and reinstated in their churches, and that the old order be immediately restored. King Václav was to bind himself with a solemn oath to keep the rules and regulations of the one true Roman Church, without any, deviation whatever; should he refuse, he was to be compelled to obey by a crusade against him of all the princes of Christendom.

Thus the Bohemian nation found itself in a predicament wherein it had not been since its adoption of Christianity. The people were divided into two parties, both claiming to seek the good of the nation, but in ways that tended to the destruction of what was most sacred to each other. A large majority of the clergy and laity had adopted new views that could not be laid aside without doing violence both to conscience and character. Freely had the Bohemian nation assumed the yoke of Rome, and the question now arose whether they could as freely lay it aside when its retention seemed inconsistent with their spiritual welfare. It seemed to the people that the Pope had arrogated many powers that the Church did not originally possess; among these was the right of capital punishment, especially in the case of heretics.

Pope Martin and his party, on the other hand, claimed that the papal power was above all nations and kings, and that any one refusing it obedience was to be compelled to submit by the rest of Christendom.

King Václav found himself in a most critical situation. Either he must submit to the Pope, thus violating his own convictions and going against his own na-