Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/57



armistice concluded in Prague on November 13, 1419, proved, as was perhaps inevitable, to be of short duration. It became every day more evident that King Sigismund, who, in spite of his somewhat scandalous private life, was a firm adherent of the Church of Rome, had no intention of making any concessions whatever to those whom he considered as heretics; this ill will extended even to matters such as Communion in the two kinds, which the Roman Church has itself on some occasions sanctioned. Noman was, indeed, less likely to favour a system of compromise than Sigismund, who was devoid of all learning and consumed by puerile vanity, and who possessed neither statesmanship nor military talent nor even personal courage. Sigismund, on hearing of the disturbances in Prague, and of the armistice which was afterwards concluded, determined to abandon the war against Turkey in which he had been engaged and to proceed to his new dominions. He arrived on December 15, 1419, at Brno (in German, Brünn), the capital of Moravia, one of the lands of the Bohemian crown. He was met here by the Dowager Queen Sophia—whose brief and stormy term of government now ended—by the principal nobles of Bohemia, and by the representatives of many towns in the country. The King maintained his evasive attitude with regard to all religious questions, but the nobles and some of the town representatives, in whom the dynastic feeling was very strong, did homage to their hereditary sovereign. Somewhat later than the other deputations, the representatives of the towns of Prague arrived at Brno. To the great displeasure of the King and his courtiers they entered the city pre-