Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/152

 Olgimuntovič, Prince of Kiew, had been brought up according to the teaching of the Greek Church, and though she joined the Roman Church on her marriage it is certain that she used her great influence over the old King in favour of the Bohemians who were Utraquists, as were her own people. She certainly acted entirely under the influence of the Grand Duke Vitold. This enigmatical prince, one of the most interesting figures in early Slavic history, seems to have contemplated the foundation of a Slavic Utraquist Church which would have become the basis of a vast state, of which he would have been the ruler. His intense ambition, which had not as yet been diminished by increasing age, is one of his characteristics on which both Bohemian and Polish contemporary chroniclers lay great stress. Vitold now declared himself ready to accept the Bohemian crown, and charged his nephew, Prince Sigismund Korybutovič, who was also a nephew of King Ladislas, to proceed to Bohemia as his representative. Pursuing the usual tortuous policy of the Lithuanian princes, Vitold wrote to Pope Martin V informing him that he had accepted the Bohemian throne, as he thought it easier to obtain the return of the Bohemians to the fold of the Church by peaceful means than by warfare. The Pope’s answer, couched not unnaturally in somewhat menacing language, severely blamed Vitold, and declared that unconditional surrender on the part of the heretics was the only solution of the Bohemian question which the Church of Rome could accept. This letter, which Vitold only received after a considerable lapse of time, would probably in no case have influenced his decision or that of Prince Sigismund