Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/339

 two kinds, at first opposed this proposal, but afterwards, declaring this to be “a matter of minor importance,” accepted it. The knights and nobles who took part in the deliberations of the diet had now become somewhat impatient of the slowness of the negotiations. Through their influence the Bohemian delegates consented to accept the compacts in the form in which they had been presented to the Council of Basel, on condition that they should not be interpreted in a sense disadvantageous to the Bohemians. The representatives of the Council agreed to this, and members of both parties gave their hands to one another to confirm the agreement. This ceremony can by no means be considered as a formal treaty, as it was not performed in the presence of the diet, nor with its consent. It indeed only requires mention because the adherents of Sigismund afterwards, when the Bohemians made demands on behalf of the national Church, declared that they had already agreed to a final settlement. The difficult situation caused by the renewal of the siege of Plzeň would, indeed, at that moment have rendered an agreement impossible, and it is obvious that neither party was prepared to bind itself till it was acquainted with the result of the now inevitable new civil war.

It was one of the principal demands of the Utraquists that Communion in the two kinds should be obligatory in the whole kingdom of Bohemia; they stated that if two different rites of Communion were admitted in the country this would lead to constant friction and strife. It was an obvious answer to this demand that the important city of Plzeň and many neighbouring castles were in the hands of the Roman party, and that it was impossible for the representatives of the Council to advise their co-religionists to abandon rites to which they had continued faithful during the whole war. The delegates of the Council were, on the other hand, anxious to save the city of Plzeň, which the Utraquists had begun to besiege immedi-