Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/454

 self of the blame which they had laid against him: and, for the better assurance, the emperor did not only promise him safe conduct, that he might come freely unto Constance, but also that he should return again into Bohemia, without fraud or interruption; he promised also to receive him under his protection, and under safeguard of the whole empire. For the same only cause the emperor sent him afterwards the said safe conducts double written, both in Latin and Almain; the form whereof doth.

Sigismund by the grace of God king of the Romans, of Hungary and Denmark, Croatia, &c. To all princes, as well ecclesiastical as secular, dukes, marquisses and earls, barons, captains, borough-masters, judges and governors, officers of towns, burgages, and villages, and unto all riders of the commonalty; and generally, to all the subjects of our empire, to whom these letters shall come, grace and all goodness.

We charge and command you all, that you have respect unto John Huss, conduct who is departed out of Bohemia, to come unto the general council, which shall be celebrated and holden very shortly at the town of Constance. The which John Huss we have received under our protection, and safeguard of the whole empire, desiring you that you will cheerfully receive him when he shall come towards you, and that you entreat and handle him gently, showing him favour and good will, and show him pleasure in all things, as touching the forwardness, ease, and assurance of his journey, as well by land as by water.

Moreover, we will, that he and all his company, with his carriage and necessaries, shall pass throughout all places, passages, ports, bridges, lands, governances, lordships, liberties, cities, towns, burgages, castles and villages, and all other your dominions, without paying of any manner of imposition or Danemoney, peage, tribute, or any other manner of toll, whatsoever it be. We will also, that you suffer him to pass, rest, tarry, and to sojourn at liberty, without doing unto him any manner of impeachment, or vexation, or trouble; and that if need shall so reqiure, you do provide a faithful company to conduct him withal, for the honour and reverence which you owe unto our imperial majesty. Given at Spires, the eighteenth of October, in the year of our Lord God, 1414.

By this it may appear, that this safe conduct was granted not in the time of the council, by the bishops, but before the council, by the emperor, who was or ought to be the principal ordainer and director of the council under God. Now, whether the bishops did well in breaking and annulling this promise of the emperor, against the emperor's mind, because the discussion thereof belongeth 'ad materiam juris, non facti,' being a matter rather of law than of story, I will defer to reason this case with Master Cope, to such time as may be more convenient to the full tractation thereof.

Notwithstanding, briefly to touch and pass, let us consider part of the reasons of the said Cope, how frivolous and false they be, and easy to be refelled. "What," saith he, "if he preached by the way coming up?" First, that it is false, see hereafter. "What," saith he, "if he stood obstinate in his heresy" "what if he sought to escape away after his coming up?" To this the lords of Bohemia do answer: That this safe conduct was broken, and he imprisoned not only before he attempted to escape, or before he was condemned for a heretic, but also before he was heard of the council what he was. Vide infra.