Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/203

 clergyman, Marcold, declared that the Sacraments, when dispensed by an unworthy priest, were invalid. Marcold quoted many passages from Scripture and finally maintained that it was better for the Church to have no priests than unworthy ones. The disputation thus ended, both parties continuing to hold their former views.

The great historian Palacký has noted with his usual penetration that if the continuous internal strife in Bohemia—which sometimes took the form of actual civil war, sometimes that of lengthy and animated theological disputations—did not prove more disastrous to the country than was actually the case, this was the result of the reluctance of the German princes to act jointly against Bohemia. King Sigismund had invited the German princes and free imperial cities to a diet which was to have met at Vienna on September 29, 1424, but was afterwards postponed to November 25. The German princes, however, complained of the remoteness of Vienna and declared that the journey was a dangerous one. It appears that the fear of the Hussites, which afterwards became so great, here already manifested itself. Sigismund expressed great indignation at the attitude of the German princes, and even accused them of secret sympathy with the heretics. He thus brought against them the same accusation which they had levelled at him during the siege of Prague. It was only after the great defeat of the Germans at Ústi (Aussig) that they seriously began to plan a new crusade against Bohemia. One of the consequences of the failure of the attempts to organise a new crusade was the recall of Cardinal Branda by the papal see. Though he had been very active, he was thought not to