Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/523

 but that he be delivered over unto the secular power." But before they did that, there yet remained another knack of reproach; for they caused to be made a certain crown of paper, almost a cubit deep, on which were painted three devils of wonderfully ugly shape, and this title set over their heads, 'Heresiarcha.' Which when he saw, he said: "My Lord Jesus Christ, for my sake, did wear a crown of thorns; why should not I then, for his sake, again wear this light crown, be it ever so ignominious? Truly I will do it, and that willingly." When it was set upon his head, the bishop said: "Now we commit thy soul unto the devil." "But I," said John Huss, lifting his eyes up towards the heavens, do commit my spirit into thy hands, O Lord Jesus Christ! unto thee I commend my spirit which thou hast redeemed." These contumelious opprobries thus ended, the bishops, turning themselves towards the emperor, said: " his most sacred synod of Constance leaveth now John Huss, who hath no more any office, or to do in the church of God, unto the civil judgment and power." Then the emperor commanded Louis, duke of Bavaria, who stood before him in his robes, holding the golden apple with the cross in his hand, that he should receive John Huss of the bishops, and deliver him unto them who should do the execution; by whom as he was led to the place of execution, before the church doors he saw his books burning, whereas he smiled and laughed. And all men that passed by he exhorted, not to think that he should die for any error or heresy, but only for the hatred and ill will of his adversaries, who had charged him with most false and unjust crimes. All the whole city in a manner being in armour, followed him.

The place appointed for the execution was before the gate Gottlieben, between the gardens and gates of the suburbs. When John Huss was come thither, kneeling down upon his knees, and lifting his eyes up unto heaven, he prayed, and said certain Psalms, and especially the thirty-first and fiftieth Psalms. And they who stood hard by, heard him oftentimes in his prayer, with a merry and cheerful countenance, repeat this verse: "Into thy hands, O Lord! I commend my spirit," &c.; which thing when the lay-people beheld who stood next unto him, they said: "What he hath done before, we know not; but now we see and hear that he doth speak and pray very devoutly and godly." Others wished that he had a confessor. There was a certain priest by, sitting on horseback, in a green gown, drawn about with red silk, who said: "He ought not to be heard, because he is a heretic:" yet, notwithstanding, while he was in prison, he was both confessed, and also absolved by a certain doctor, a monk, as Huss himself doth witness in a certain epistle which he wrote unto his friends out of prison. Thus Christ reigneth unknown unto the world, even in the midst of his enemies. In the mean time while John Huss prayed, as he bowed his neck backwards to look upward unto heaven, the crown of paper fell off from his head upon the ground. Then one of the soldiers, taking it up again, said: "Let us put it again upon his head, that he may be burned with his masters the devils, whom he hath served."

When, by the commandment of the tormentors, he was risen up