Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/201

 who shed the venom of his wickedness, heeding not the papal interdict, who falsely invoked in his favour decisions of the church that had never been published, that he might not be hindered by the teaching of the church which did not admit the “snarling of foxes and howling of wolves” which Hus mendaciously declared to be evangelical voices. As was inevitable under the circumstances, the synod soon separated without having arrived at any conclusion. Hus had again left Prague, probably at the time when the sittings of the synod began. He appears again to have been guided by the advice of the king, who well knew that his renewed preaching at the Bethlehem chapel had greatly irritated those who wished to suppress at any price every discussion on the all-important question of the prevalence of simony.

King Venceslas was naturally greatly disappointed at the complete failure of the synod in which he had placed great hopes. He rightly attributed this failure mainly to the attitude of the opponents of Hus, and, always an enemy of the rich and overbearing higher clergy of Bohemia, he now became even more determined in his hostility to these men. He did not, however, even now despair of reconciling the contending parties. By his wish a large number of prominent ecclesiastics in April 1414 met for another conference at the house of Magister Kristan of Prachatice, parish priest of St. Michael, who was at that time also rector of the university. Kristan was a thorough adherent of Hus, and the choice of the meeting-place proves that the king still favoured the party of church-reform. As royal commissioners Archbishop Albik and Zdenek of Laboun, Provost of All Saints, were present. Four masters of theology, Peter and Stanislas of Znoymo, Stephen Palec, and John Elias, represented the theological faculty, in which the opponents of church-reform still had the upper