Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/470

 stocks, and derided of all men, yea, even of the slaves and base people. Wherefore they took counsel and concluded together to present their request in writing unto the whole council, or at least unto the four nations of Almain, Italy, France and England: this request was presented the fourteenth day of May, a. d. 1415; the tenor here ensueth.

Most reverend fathers and lords! the nobles and lords of Bohemia and Poland here present, by these their present writings do show and declare unto your fatherly reverences, how that the most noble king and lord, the lord Sigismund, king of Romans, always Augustus, king of Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, &c., hearing of the great dissension that was in the kingdom of Bohemia, as heir, king, and lord successor, willing to foresee and provide for his own honour, sent these noblemen. Master Wenceslate de Duba, and John de Clum here present, that they would bring and assure Master John Huss, under the king's name and safe conduct; so that he would come to the sacred general council of Constance, under the safe conduct of the said king, and the protection of the sacred empire, openly given and granted unto the said Master John Huss, that he might purge himself and the kingdom of Bohemia from the slander that was raised upon them, and there to make an open declaration of his faith to every man that would lay any thing to his charge: which the said nobles, with the beforenamed Master John Huss, have performed and done, according to the king's commandment.

When the said Master John Huss was freely of his own accord come unto Constance, under the said safe-conduct, he was grievously imprisoned before he was heard, and at this present is tormented both with fetters, and also with hunger and thirst. Albeit that in times past, at the council holden at Pisa, in the year of our Lord 1410, the heretics who were condemned, were suffered to remain there at liberty, and to depart home freely; notwithstanding this, Master John Huss, neither being convicted nor condemned, no not so much as once heard, is taken and imprisoned, when neither king nor any prince elector, nor any ambassador of any university, was yet come or present. And albeit the lord the king, together with the nobles and lords here present, most instantly required and desired, that as touching his safe-conduct they would foresee and have respect unto his honour, and that the said Master John Huss might be openly heard, forasmuch as he would render and show a reason of his faith; and if he were found or convicted obstinately to affirm or maintain any thing against the truth or holy Scripture, that then he ought to correct and amend the same, according to the instruction and determination of the council; yet could he never obtain this. But the said Master John Huss, notwithstanding all this, is most grievously oppressed with fetters and irons, and so weakened with thin and slender diet, that it is to be feared, lest that, his power and strength being hereby consumed and wasted, he should be put in danger of his wit or reason.

And although the lords of Bohemia here present are greatly slandered, because they, seeing the said Master John Huss so to be tormented and troubled, contrary to the king's safe-conduct, have not by their letters put the king in mind of his said safe-conduct, that the said lord and king should not any more suffer any such matters, forasmuch as they tend to the contempt and disregard of the kingdom of Bohemia, which from the first original and beginning, since it received the catholic faith, never departed or went away from the obedience of the holy church of Rome; yet, notwithstanding, they have suffered and borne all these things patiently hitherto, lest by any means, occasion of trouble or vexation of this sacred council might arise or spring thereof.

Wherefore, most reverend fathers and lords! the nobles and lords, before named, do wholly and most earnestly desire and require your reverences here present, that both for the honour of the safe-conduct of our said lord the king, and also for the preservation and increase of the worthy fame and renown, both