Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/196

 frequently to this question, and we find allusions to it in several of his works. It is certain that Hus at the beginning of his exile spent some time at the castle, or “tower” as it is called in Bohemian, of Kozi Hradek, the property of John the elder, Lord of Usti, one of the firmest upholders of the cause of church-reform.

Shortly after the departure of Hus from Prague, King Venceslas resumed his well-meant attempts to re-establish religious concord in Bohemia. His task was not an easy one. The opponents of church-reform, considering the departure of Hus from Prague as a signal victory, became more exigent and more intransigent in consequence of that event. They continued to maintain that Hus had been expelled from Prague—a totally untrue statement that was repeated by the mendacious Michael de causis at Constance. The Estates of Bohemia met at Prague in December. Hus from his place of exile addressed a petition to the assembly, in which he complained of the persecution which he had suffered on the part of the parish priests of Prague and begged that the freedom of preaching should be maintained in the city. Hus's words did not fail to make a considerable impression on the members of this assembly, composed mainly of Bohemian nobles, many of whom shared their sovereign's objection to the extreme power and wealth of the clergy. It is but just to add that some of these men supported the cause of church-reform from higher motives and afterwards offered up their lives for it on the battlefields of the Hussite wars. The Estates advised the king to call together a synod of the Bohemian clergy which was to mediate between the contending parties. Venceslas gladly assented. He was, during all these protracted negotiations, guided by the wish to settle as far as possible within the country the differences that had broken out among the Bohemian clergy. It was endeavoured to exclude as far as possible the intervention of Pope John XXIII. The latter on February 2, 1413, at a meeting of the Roman clergy at the