Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/204

 partisans of church-reform. Among the younger men who listened to Hus’s preaching were many who afterwards as “warriors of God” formed part of the armies which under Zizka beat back the forces of the whole world that was in arms against Bohemia. From this period dates the immense popularity of Hus among the Bohemian people—a popularity that clings to his memory up to the present day. It would, however, be very untrue to history if we pictured Hus as a democratic or socialist agitator—and it is not only his enemies who have sometimes attempted to do this. Hus remained to his death a loyal subject of King Venceslas, and for his pious consort, Queen Sophia, he always retained a respectful admiration. He was always on terms of friendship with many of the Bohemian nobles, as is indeed proved by the fact that he sought refuge in their castles. As he wrote in his famed Bohemian letter of June 10, 1415—a letter to which I shall again refer—he wished “the nobles to rule justly, the burghers to conduct their business honestly, the artisans to work conscientiously, the servants to obey faithfully their master and mistress.” The unspeakably evil life, the avarice, and the simony of the Bohemian clergy strongly excited his indignation, and as a true Bohemian patriot he deeply resented the fact that, in consequence of former faulty regulations of the university, the rich benefices of his country were almost exclusively in the hands of German aliens. Frequent preaching did not, however, entirely absorb the activity of Hus at Kozi Hradek. He kept up a constant correspondence with his many friends at Prague and exhorted them to continue to worship at the Bethlehem chapel as long as it should not have been destroyed by the Germans; for it was frequently rumoured at this time that they had the intention of doing so. Some of Hus’s most important works also were written at the castle of Kozi.

Neither the departure of Hus from Prague nor the exile of Palec and his adherents had re-established tranquillity in the