Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/252

 contemplate such a surrender. The Hussite envoys had received from the estates of Bohemia instructions according to which they were under no condition to accept a general armistice, but were to consent to a truce with Sigismund and his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, on condition that both these princes should surrender to the Utraquist party all the castles in Bohemia and Moravia which were still held by them. It seems probable that these propositions had been brought to the notice of Sigismund at the beginning of the negotiations at Pressburg, and that they had then already been rejected by him; the answer of the Hussites to Sigismund’s new proposal, therefore, entirely ignored the question of the proposed armistice. It was, however, on the whole more conciliatory than their first message had been. The belief in the authority of councils was then at its apogee, and even the Utraquists were not uninfluenced by it. It appeared to them a very different thing to obtain a hearing before the whole Christian Church than to receive an admonition from a number of priests chosen by their enemies. They therefore declared that they were ready to appear before a council of the universal Church, but that they would continue to uphold their views till a general Church reformation had been carried out. Seeing that the reply of the Hussites was evasive rather than negative, Sigismund now thought that he could obtain an armistice. This, indeed, appears to have been his principal reason for entering into these negotiations.

On April 8 the Hussites made a somewhat unexpected move. They informed the King that if he would consent to accept their creed they would gladly receive him as their sovereign—rather than any one else. Should he, however, decline their proposal they could only repeat what they had