Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/372

 arguments that had already done duty on many previous occasions. They are, therefore, excessively wearisome, and it is here sufficient to note the principal occurrences. At Pressburg, however, Sigismund declared that he could only act in unison with the Council, and he requested the Bohemians to meet him again at Brno, where he had begged the Council also to send its representatives. It must be admitted that during these lengthy deliberations, which continued from 1431 to 1436, the attitude of the Council was franker and more honourable than that of Sigismund. The Council had, though reluctantly, consented to permit Communion in the two kinds in the Utraquist parts of Bohemia and Moravia, and it had openly declared that it could make no further concessions. Sigismund, on the other hand, was above all things intent on rapidly obtaining possession of Bohemia, and did not hesitate to make promises which he had no intention to fulfil. At this moment (about the end of the year 1434) Sigismund was again secretly negotiating with the Táborites. It is certain that he received envoys representing that community and told them that he had always been well-disposed to their party; he then spoke much of the avarice and malice of the priests, which, as he said, he had himself observed at the Council of Constance, at his coronation in Rome, and recently at Basel. The Táborites appear to have distrusted the King’s overtures.

The only positive result of the visit of the Bohemians to Pressburg was the decision that Sigismund should proceed to Brno in Moravia, and that he should there again meet the envoys of Bohemia, who would now recognise him as their sovereign. The Bohemians would there also confer with the representatives of the Council. Before the Bohemians could