Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/245

 praise of poverty and the laudation of the simplicity of the primitive church were permitted. Though a very rich man—he had even attempted to outbid Albik when the latter obtained the archbishopric of Prague—John the iron did not think his own ample means sufficient to crush the detested Hus. He therefore applied to the higher ecclesiastical dignitaries of Bohemia and Moravia, to the parish priests of Prague, who had a great personal interest in the matter, and to several nobles who were opposed to church-reform, asking them for financial aid. By means of this subscription a very large sum of money was raised; the services of many informers were secured; Hus was surrounded by spies as soon as he arrived at Constance. Among the early arrivals at Constance also was Venceslas Tiem, Dean of Passau, whose trade in indulgences in Prague had caused the outbreak of the crisis. No doubt also with a desire for revenge several members of the new university of Leipzig attended the council, wishing to denounce Hus, through whose influence, as they believed, they had been unjustly driven from Prague. Michael de causis, as mentioned, had arrived at Constance before Hus. Stephen Palec, who was to take so prominent a part in the proceedings against Hus, now also arrived there. Mladenovic writes: “Stephen Palec arrived at Constance. He had travelled from Bohemia with Magister Stanislas of Znoymo, but the latter had been struck down by apoplexy at Jindrichuv Hradec (Neuhaus) and had died. Here (at Constance) Palec immediately associated with Michael de causis, the ‘instigator,’ and an enemy of Hus. They wrote down some articles against Magister Hus which, they said, they had derived from the treatise De Ecclesia. Stephen, with the said Michael, ran hither and thither among the principal cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and other prelates, and we saw him do