Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/316

 denied by some historians with as much warmth as if the blush were as discreditable to Sigismund as his falsehood.

Then the representatives of the nations read aloud the record of the trial and the sentence of the Council. When Hus attempted to reply and point out certain omitted limitations in his theses, D’Ailli ordered him to be silenced. ‘You shall answer all together later.’ ‘How can I possibly answer all together,’ retorted Hus, ‘since I cannot keep them all together in my mind.’ ‘Be silent,’ said Zabarella, ‘we have heard you quite enough.’ ‘I beseech you for God's sake hear me,’ cried Hus, with clasped hands, ‘lest the bystanders believe that I ever held such errors; afterwards do with me as you list.’ We need not wonder at his indignation when we remember that one of the articles read out against him was that he had said that he was the fourth member in the Trinity. When the reading of the tissue of falsehood was completed and the sentence pronounced, Hus knelt once more in prayer: ‘Lord Jesus, pardon all my enemies for Thy great mercy’s sake, I beseech Thee, for Thou knowest that they have falsely accused me. Pardon them for Thy great mercy’s sake.’ But the bishops who stood near frowned and laughed.

After this he was clad by seven bishops in the full vestments of a celebrant. Once more the bishops urged him to recant. But Hus turned to the people and cried out: ‘These bishops here urge me to recant. I fear to do this lest I be a liar in the sight of God, and offend against my conscience and God’s truth.’ So he stepped down from the table, and the bishops began the ceremony of degradation; one by one his vestments were stripped off him. A dispute arose over his tonsure; should it be cut with scissors or a razor? ‘See,’ said Hus, turning to Sigismund, ‘these bishops cannot even agree in their blasphemy.’ A paper crown a yard high, with three demons painted on it ‘clawing his soul with their nails,’ and the words “Heresiarch,” was then fastened on his head. ‘The crown which my Redeemer wore,’ said Hus, ‘was heavier and more painful than this.’ ‘We commit thy soul to the devil,’ sang the priests, as they handed him over to the secular arm. ‘But he, with clasped hands and upturned eyes: I commit it to the most gracious Lord Jesus.’ By a strange oversight the Council forgot to add the crowning farce of these inquisition courts, the solemn adjuration to the secular arm to shed no blood. ‘Go, take him,’ said Sigismund, turning to Lewis, Count Palatine, the sword-bearer of the empire, who stood at Sigis-