Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/249

 and if they interrogate me, I hope rather to choose death than deny any truth that is known to me from Scripture or otherwise.’”

Mladenovic then describes how the city magistrates had ordered Hus’s dwelling-place to be surrounded by armed men, and writes: “When the magister descended the steps, his hostess (the widow Fida) met him, and he took leave of her, saying: ‘God’s blessing on thee,’ and she wept answering him. The bishops, while he descended the steps, said to him: ‘Now wilt thou no longer officiate, or say mass.’ Then he mounted a poor horse and with the envoys (of the council) and his companion, Lord John of Chlum, rode to the palace of the pope and the cardinals.” Mladenovic then tells us that the cardinals informed Hus that many complaints against him had been sent to them from Bohemia. Hus replied that he had come freely to the council, and that if he were convicted of error he would gladly accept instruction.

Before Hus was imprisoned, an event took place which, proving as it does how unscrupulously and energetically the agents of the Bishop of Litomysl strove to deprive him of his liberty, has an importance that is not superficially obvious. It is, however, a fact that, when Palacky was—about the year 1840—publishing the first edition of his monumental history of Bohemia, the ecclesiastical censure office of the Austrian government ordered Palacky to omit all mention of the monk Didacus. Here again it will be well to quote Mladenovic, who was with Hus and Duba during the occurrence. He writes: “They then sent a minorite friar named Didacus, a professor of Holy Writ, who was to sound the master, who was then already in the custody of armed men. He approached him and said: ‘Reverend master, I, who am but a simple, ignorant monk, have heard that you assert much that deviates (from the doctrine of the Roman Church), and