Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/127

 ness to send an envoy to Pisa on condition that such an envoy should be considered as a representative not only of the King of Bohemia but also of the King of the Romans. A few years, previously some of the German electors had deposed Venceslas and elected in his stead as king Rupert, Count Palatine. It was the invasion of Bohemia by German troops acting in the cause of Rupert that was the occasion of the famed eloquent sermon of Hus, which has already been mentioned. Venceslas had never recognised his deposition, and the demand which he addressed to the cardinals therefore appears justified. It appears to have been accepted, but after considerable delay, for it was only a year later that the king's new representative, Master John “Kardinal,” of Reinstein, started for Italy. While Stanislas and Stephen appear to have had only a semi-private mission, Magister Reinstein acted as the king’s official representative. Reinstein was a firm adherent of the party of church-reform and a warm personal friend of Hus up to the end of his life. Venceslas’s choice of an envoy is therefore significative.

The attempt of the cardinals assembled at Pisa to induce the principal European powers to accept the system of neutrality, that is to say, to renounce the obedience of both Gregory and Benedict, proved on the whole successful. France, where the University of Paris used its great influence in favour of a measure which would, as was believed, terminate the schism, declared in favour of neutrality. In Germany also John of Nassau, the powerful Archbishop of Maintz, used his vast influence in favour of neutrality, though Rupert of the Palatinate, Venceslas's rival as King of the Romans, a firm supporter of Pope Gregory, strongly opposed it. Bohemia would, according to the wishes of Venceslas, also have immediately adhered to the system of neutrality. The fact alone that Rupert of the Palatinate whom Gregory had recognised as King of the Romans opposed that system,