Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/46

 I ought not by the ornamented composition of painted words to deprive my narrative of its kernel, while the sound of my words caressed the ears of my audience; rather did I think that I should truthfully record the pith of the matter, the order of the events of which I had knowledge, both by eyesight and by the testimony of one who knew of these events telling no untruths and admitting even the simplicity of plain words.’

As both the friends and the enemies of Hus foresaw, the death of the great Bohemian was the signal of a general uprising in Bohemia. Though I should be straying from my subject if I entered more closely into this matter, I should yet point out that even in accordance with the rough and cruel laws of those days, the execution of Hus was a judicial murder. In Bohemia it was felt as an insult to the whole nation, and the Hussite wars were inevitable.

Though the record of Hus is, I think, pretty well known in England, great ignorance I believe prevails with regard to the Hussite wars. It is one of the many merits of the great historian Palacký, who here, as elsewhere, has been the pioneer of modern historical research in Bohemia, that he has drawn attention to the great importance of the Hussite wars. Had not the genius of generals, such as Žižka and Prokop the Great, enabled the Bohemians to beat back the forces of all Europe in arms against the country, the establishment in Bohemia of a national Church which amid various vicissitudes lasted for nearly two centuries, would have been impossible. Hus himself, indeed, would have figured in history only as an isolated enthusiast like Savonarola.