Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/371

 agreement must be considered as an important concession to the advanced party. The stipulation, obviously originating from Payne himself, that he should base his decision on the writings of Wycliffe was necessarily displeasing to the Hussite High Church. Hus himself had refused to be rendered responsible for all the statements of Wycliffe, and the moderate Utraquists always resented the name of “Wycliffites,” which the lords “sub una” applied to them. Rokycan now suffered the fate of most peacemakers. He had at Regensburg been accused of showing too great subserviency, not only to Sigismund, but also to the representatives of the Council; he was now denounced as having shown too much favour to the extreme Táborites. It is certain that at that moment the citizens of some of the towns who still sided with the Táborites were seriously meditating a renewal of hostilities. Rokycan and the theologians of the university rightly thought that all Utraquists should appear as a united body during the final discussions on the constitution of the Bohemian Church. Peter Payne did not immediately exercise his office of arbitrator. His decision was only made public two years later, after the termination of the Hussite wars and Sigismund’s entry into Prague. As Palacký suggests, he probably wished thus to obtain for the Táborites at least a short period of respite and toleration.

The envoys of the Bohemian diet to King Sigismund arrived at Pressburg in November. The King at that moment laid great stress on the cession of certain Hungarian towns on the Moravian frontier which, contrary to their usual practice, the Bohemians had continued to occupy since their invasions of Hungary. This matter was settled amicably, but the negotiations for the purpose of a general pacification appear to have made little progress. These negotiations, which turned mainly on the fashion in which the compacts were to be interpreted, and now also on the establishment of a national Church in Bohemia, were carried on by means of the repetition of