Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/254

 accept Sigismund’s proposals, but only under certain conditions. The diet demanded firstly that this assembly of the whole Christian world should include the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, who all, like the Bohemians, received Communion in the two kinds; secondly, that the council should be held according to the law of God, and not according to rules established by the Pope, and that not only the Pope, but all Christianity should be permitted to express its views freely. Should such a council assemble, the Bohemians were ready to send to it wise, prudent and pious men, both priests and laymen, and to grant them full powers. The Bohemians added several other conditions of minor importance. They declared that those who had acceded to the law of God (i. e. the Utraquist Church) and then treacherously abandoned it, and those who had bound themselves by writing to accept the law of God and then failed to do so, should be excluded from the truce. In view of the vacillating attitude of some of the Bohemian nobles this affected some men of considerable importance in the country. The Bohemians further declared that they were ready to conclude a truce with King Sigismund and his son-in-law, but not with Meissen (Saxony) or Bavaria. Archduke Albert was to promise to preserve the rights and privileges of Moravia, and the King was to entrust the government of that land provisionally to one who belonged to the Bohemian or Slavic nation. The Bohemians finally made stipulations in favour of the Utraquist peasants who lived on estates of the lords “sub una,” and demanded guarantees for the safety of the Utraquist priests who resided in districts occupied by partisans of Sigismund. The Bohemians were naturally elated by their constant victories, and, having been so long isolated from other countries, they were imperfectly informed as to the public opinion in the rest of Europe. They seem to have considered it probable that Sigismund would accept their proposals, and indeed already began to discuss